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Bossie, the anxious pop star

BOSSIE with TRIPLE GANGERS and THE WALLS ARE BLONDE at Smiling Buddha (961 College), Thursday (September 10), doors 8 pm. $5.


To reach the upper echelons of mainstream superstardom, a pop star must possess several innate qualities: an ability to sing, an ear for massive hooks and an ability to rock an array of multi-coloured wigs. 

Occasionally, successful pop stars also need to have their shit together.

When Toronto-based singer/songwriter, music video director and occasional Hollerado member Anne Douris decided to concentrate on making the “poppiest music possible,” the result was Bossie, a persona that inhabits that late-20s in-between phase Britney Spears captured so poignantly in the song I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman.

“Bossie is not exactly me,” Douris tells NOW over the phone. “It’s a character that embodies this idea of what pop is, and awkwardly pretends that she’s supposed to be it.”

The idea for Bossie began last year as the other three members of her scrappy guitar-pop group Stella Ella Olla began touring with their other bands. Wishing she had a project she could call her own, she recorded a song called Meteor and uploaded it to Bandcamp under the name Token.

London-based DIY Magazine posted the song and it made the rounds. Labels started showing interest and, feeling she was on to something, Douris rebranded as Bossie, hunkered down in her Junction studio and re-recorded the single along with a debut album that she is now mixing and hoping to release late in the year or early next.

Sonically, she wants Bossie to have a vintage-but-polished feel.

“I wanted to try my hand at making the poppiest pop that I could,” she says. “I’m generally drawn to anything that sounds like it could be in a video game or an old DOS computer game. A lot of the synths came from that.”

Asked which pop acts she most admires, she cites the defunct, discofied New York indie pop group LCD Soundsystem.

“They worked with these lo-fi, MIDI synths that sounded so rich, and the lyrical content was just so honest. It gave people the benefit of the doubt,” she says, adding that she found something comforting in frontman James Murphy’s unlikely pop hero image. “I’m not a trained singer by any means, so I’m glad people like that exist in the world.”

The single-take music video for Meteor is a send-up of pop video conventions, with Douris enduring clouds of exploding glitter, prodding makeup brushes and overly excited backup dancers. Friends and collaborators from Tokyo Police Club, July Talk and Hollerado all make cameos.

“The idea came from realizing I had to be front and centre in this video and being uncomfortable with that. I have to get used to being in the centre of the frame as this animated pop artist,” she says. “[The video is] a bit satirical and it’s meant to be a critical look at how we present pop music and the people at the core of an act.

“When you look at a huge female pop artist like Katy Perry or Taylor Swift, they are essentially characters who are spun as real people,” she continues. “I have nothing but admiration for them. I think they’re incredibly strong, hardworking artists but I’m never going to be one those personalities because I’m much too uncomfortable.”

Second single There Will Be Time more earnestly unpacks her anxieties around the creeping pressures to grow up, settle into adulthood and become the best version of herself. At 26, her 30s are in sight and she feels a need to assure herself that “there will be time to get it right.”

“Should I be a grownup yet? Should I know what I’m doing?” she says with a nervous laugh. “It’s OK to not know and be uncomfortable in your own skin sometimes and take time to figure it out.”

Douris makes her live debut as Bossie at Smiling Buddha on Thursday (September 10), backed by a three-piece band and an array of projections and videos she’s created especially for the event. A corporate editor by day, she also directs, produces and edits music videos and short films and works as a graphic designer. With Bossie, she’s able to combine the various skill sets accrued through her multi-hypenate freelance lifestyle. 

“I work in a lot of different fields so I always get worried that I’m dividing my energy up and becoming mediocre at everything I do,” she says. “I’m trying to comfort myself and say it’s OK, I have time to figure this out. And now I have a way to connect with other people about that same anxiety.”

kevinr@nowtoronto.com | @kevinritchie

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