With Strada and Rake • Starlite Room • Fri, July 8 (8pm)
“Little indie band that could” poised to release their first label-backed full-length CD.
Maybe we music journalists are just lazy, but when we talk about bands, we tend to focus on one, usually very small, part of their overall persona. If someone were to write a story about the Flaming Lips, for instance, they’d almost surely point out their penchant for atmospherics and off-kilter lyrics; Death From Above 1979 can’t do an interview without someone pointing out how strange it is that they don’t use a guitar. And so it was for Vancouver acoustic-poppers Stabilo, who spent the early part of the decade trading on their name as the little indie band that could.
It’s a reputation that stemmed largely from the success of “Everybody,” a self-produced single that became one of the most-requested rock songs on Vancouver radio back when they were still known as Stabilo Boss. That success was a major reason why the foursome was nominated for the 2003 Canadian Radio Music Award for Best New Rock Group, the only band on the list that wasn’t backed by a major label.
Predictably, the labels came a-knockin’ soon after, and in 2004, Stabilo signed to EMI, who released a seven-song EP, Cupid?, a collection of new songs and tracks culled from Stabilo’s three previous indie releases. The album garnered some pretty big attention for the band, making a showing on rock charts across the country. Now, Stabilo is getting ready to head back into the studio for their first label-backed full-length in August, thus marking the official end of their “indie band” guise. Lead singer/acoustic guitarist Jesse Dryfhout, though, isn’t too worried about losing their indie aura; in fact, he says, Stabilo has adjusted to life on a label, though it did take some getting used to.
“There’s a lot of pros and a lot of cons,” explains Dryfhout over the phone from Ontario, where the group recently finished a mini-tour. “One of the positive the things is definitely that we have so much more opportunity to record what we want to record, record who we want to record with and things like that. The attention that you get definitely helps everything out, but at the same time, you’re not on your own schedule anymore, so you can’t always do exactly what you want. But you still have more opportunity to do more things, so it balances.”
The lack of control Dryfhout alludes to is a major reason why their followup to Cupid? hasn’t appeared until now, a delay the band isn’t exactly thrilled about. But, Dryfhout explains, there are benefits to being pushed back too—namely the chance to work with the producer responsible for, among other things, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville.
“It’s been quite a while since we put an album out,” Dryfhout says, “and things were sort of held off for various reasons that wouldn’t necessarily happen if we were still an independent band, but that’s not always a bad thing. We’ll be going down to L.A. to record, which we couldn’t have before, and we’re working with Brad Wood, which we’re really looking forward to.... I don’t think we’re nervous—I think we’re all ready, and I actually think this will probably be a much better album. The last EP was sort of just a bunch of stuff thrown together, and we’re proud of it, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily exactly what we wanted to go out. Not that we dislike it, of course, but it’s just not a full album. And this one will be.” V