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Music

Metz

METZ and PROTOMARTYR as part of CANADIAN MUSIC WEEK at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor West), Friday and Saturday (May 1, 9 pm May 2, 8 pm). $16. cmw.net.


METZ have been rethinking how they do things. When we meet to discuss the Toronto punk-noise trio’s brand new second album, II, they’re at an east-end recording studio tracking some even more brand new tunes. 

Their new mission: record as you write rather than stockpiling ideas. Also: give live-off-the-floor a go.

“Recording II drove us to want to do it this way,” says singer/guitarist Alex Edkins. “We’ve always done things track by track, and it drove us nuts. Plus the studio time was so sporadic. A day here and there.”

“It was hard to keep the same headspace as the day before,” adds bassist Chris Slorach, “to make sure you’re focused and moving forward at all times.”

None of which is to say that they’re displeased with their sophomore effort – 10 unruly yet deceptively in-control tunes that are anything but a meek follow-up to the gut-punch of their 2012 Sub Pop debut. Appropriate adjectives: ferocious, bone-rattling, bludgeoning, potent, vital.

They tried writing it immediately after their heavy tour schedule for the first album ended. Too soon. 

“We didn’t even take a full month off after we got home,” drummer Hayden Menzies chimes in. “We knew it was the right step, but we were beating our heads against the walls. We hadn’t given ourselves enough time to let ideas come out. We had to back off and look at it a different way.”

“You’re looking at your instrument and thinking, ‘My hands are so used to doing this one thing every single night,'” says Slorach. “You almost forget that you can move outside of that. We experiment onstage all the time, but it’s not the same as sitting down with other people to write songs. It was definitely like, ‘Shit. I don’t know how to do this right now.'”

And so they tried a new way. Instead of holing up inside their Geary Avenue rehearsal studio, primary songwriter Edkins tried writing at home “where there was an actual window,” he laughs.

“Yeah, that was our process of writing the record,” says Slorach. “Hating Geary, hating ourselves for three weeks, taking a break and then learning that it’s really not all that bad.”

Things got even cheerier during the mixing stage, done in the basement of Graham Walsh’s house – he engineered the METZ-produced album along with Alexandre Bonenfant – where they got to watch the Muppets with Walsh’s young daughter during breaks. 

“All three of us can really get tunnel vision,” says Edkins. “You put all this excess pressure on yourself for really no reason.”

Is that pressure related to having signed with Sub Pop so early in their career and the surprising success that has followed, especially after years of paying dues in under-the-radar Ottawa and Toronto bands? 

“It seems internal,” says Slorach. “The last thing we were thinking about was ‘Are people going to like this?’ It was more like ‘Can we live with this? Are we happy with this?’ The fact that this is our full-time job now makes us work even harder. That’s why we’re doing this interview in a recording studio four days before going on tour.”

All three members joke easily with and listen respectfully to each other, but Edkins is quick to blame Menzies’s loud drumming for the fact that they’re so bloody deafening live. 

“I’m going to put [the volume thing] to rest right now,” Edkins says. “It’s out of necessity! His cymbals! Anyone can be loud. It’s not a source of pride. It’s not cool in our minds. We’re a band with an incredibly loud drummer.”

Menzies bows his head. “Sowwy.”

Later, I jokingly ask if they’ll sue him one day for hearing loss.

Edkins and Slorach run with it. “You just zoomed five years down the road,” says Edkins.

“Alex will be deaf in his left ear, I’ll be deaf in my right, Hayden will be dealing with two lawsuits,” Slorach says, smiling. “That’s the future. That’s about as much as we have planned.” 

carlag@nowtoronto.com | @carlagillis

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