Andre Ethier Is A Pervert

ANDRE ETHIER’S PERVERSE CLASSIC

Andre Ethier is perhaps best known as the frontman of Toronto’s garage rock ass-shakers, The Deadly Snakes, and as the gritty singer-songwriter who presented us last year with his highly acclaimed solo debut, Andre Ethier With Christopher Sandes Featuring Pickles and Price. He’s less known as a pervert.

“There’s a certain perversity to this recording,” he says from the studio in Toronto where his second non-Snakes record is currently being committed to tape. “It’s a lot cleaner, and warmer, and there are a lot more instruments, and for some reason the record is almost perverse in its directness. It’s about love and drugs. Totally classic themes, but I think that it’s a much more personal record than I’ve ever made, and it feels almost giddily perverse in how comfortable the songs still are. I see myself reflected in the record, and I don’t know if I like it, but I do think it’s funny.”

Ethier’s first solo outing arrived steeped in comparisons to classic albums by Dylan and the Band. Classic themes, major chords, and a whirlwind one-day live-off-the-floor recording session lent it all the grit of Music From Big Pink or Highway 61. This time out, Ethier is taking a little more time with the record, but he’s not eschewing the methods that made those albums, (and his), the classics that they are.

“Those are nice comparisons, and it’s flattering that I’ve received them, but I think that by cutting all live, in a day, it’s sort of the way a lot of artists used to work. We didn’t get hung up trying to achieve the perfect or definitive version of a song. Not being too precious with the songs, that almost nonchalant attitude towards them, allowed them to take on a little more personality. You can kill the energy of a song by giving it too much importance. We knew going in that it was a gamble, but trusted that knowing we only had one day to do it would become another element, that it would make it an interesting record regardless. We’re taking more time with this one, but a lot of it has still been cut with live vocals, which I prefer. Then you don’t go back and pick it apart, it just is what it is. I’d rather not think about it. If I dwell on things, then I lose confidence, and if I lose confidence, then it affects the performance.”

Ethier’s last record followed hot on the heels of the Deadly Snakes’ Ode To Joy, which got them a video in high rotation on Much and raised many eyebrows to the Toronto collective’s energetic rockings. His solo record then quickly solidified his reputation as an eclectic artist on the up-and-up. Now, with a new Snakes’ record coming soon, and his next album cooking up nicely, there might be pressure to expand on previous successes. There might, but there ain’t.

“In reality, there was no hit single and whether or not critics liked my last solo record, it still didn’t translate into the kind of sales where a record label would really get interested. I don’t feel any responsibility to make a successful record. This record is being worked on a little bit more, but that’s more to allow Christopher, (Sandes, collaborator), to work out his ideas a little more. If anything, I think it’s a more alienating record.”

Ethier has a lot on his plate, with two successful musical ventures on his hands, and two records waiting to see the light of day, but currently his goals are modest. So modest in fact that he mostly just wants to see his wife.

“I want to get these records done, but mostly my personal goal is to figure out how to tour in a way that allows me to have a lot of time at home with my wife. To feel like a normal person, not someone who’s just bounced around like a ping-pong ball from city to city. I want to appreciate what I have. So yeah, that’s my goal, to avoid touring at all costs, (laughs).”

Check out Andre Ethier at the Starlight in Waterloo on September 24th. He’ll be joined by the Woolly Leaves and Chad Ross. Doors at 8pm

(originally published September, 2005. Echo Weekly. Kitchener.)