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Tell us about your latest album American Love. It's something we're all very proud of. It's really the first record that the six of us have played on together and so it really represents a starting gun for this newly reformed version of Fast Romantics, in a way, it feels like the first thing we've ever done. How did its creation came about? Well, it started when we recorded the track 'Julia' after reforming. We didn't want to do a whole record at the time, and we got connected with these amazing producers Gus Van Go and Werner F, so we decided to record that tune and one other ('Kids Without a Country') with them. They turned out so great that we decided to release 'Julia' really early while we went forward with making the rest of the record with them. But since we were all pretty new to each other, we opted to tour around North America for a couple years and make the record slowly, which was really important, the songs took a long time to evolve, and I think it has resulted in an album that really represents us as a group. We know that politics and love played a big part in American Love, was this done intentionally? Not intentional in the beginning, no. Originally I just wanted to write an album of simple love songs, I was falling in love myself at the time. The first batch were pretty pure in that way. But as we started touring the songs around, especially in the USA, it became really hard to ignore what was going on. We'd meet people after shows and suddenly be thrust into political conversations. I mean, even if you weren't in the states, the election was all anyone was talking about. So over time, the songs got rewritten and rewritten again, and slowly I found myself shaping them from simple love songs into something more like 'love stories'. What is your writing process like? I think the process is simple to describe: a song isn't done until every single second of it feels true. That sounds simple but it can be agonizing at times. And part of the process is always showing the song to Kirty and the rest of the band fairly early on, I like to get them to poke holes in it and challenge the song before we even get in the room to try to arrange it live. It can be a tough period and there's always a lot of self-doubt involved, but it's also really quite rewarding, because when a song is actually complete, you can feel it, and until you have that feeling, you know it isn't complete. So is there a certain message you would like to get across in your music? Honestly, I think it's hopeful music. The world might seem really fucked up right now, but most of these songs tell stories of love winning out despite the madness in the world. We've always had a very celebratory sound, and while sometimes it gets dark, every single song on the record works to shine a light on those dark things and offer up some hope that the darkness will pass. What songs would you say have changed your life? That's a heavy question. When I was super young for about a period of a year my dad almost exclusively played Travelling Wilburys Vol. 1 in the car, and I think 'Handle With Care' might be my first memory of a badass pop song. But I have one for every era of my life and I'm sure everyone else in the band would have different ones. Bowie's 'Changes' and Radiohead's 'Karma Police'. Leonard Cohen's 'Famous Blue Raincoat'. Springsteen's 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' and pretty much all of Arcade Fire's Funeral. Beck's 'Paper Tiger' and really all of 'Sea Change' blew my mind when it came out. We also know that you are going on tour with Said The Whale on your next Canadian tour. How did that collab come about? It was actually one of those strange rare things in Canadian music where our bands had never crossed paths before, I'd only met one of them casually once. It was just a lucky thing where the timing worked and our teams put us together. But we've played seven shows together so far and I feel like I've known them for far longer, they're all such beautiful human beings and their set is an absolute joy to watch. I can't wait to keep going with them, they're all already becoming such good pals and the shows have really been brilliant, end to end. What's been Fast Romantics proudest moment so far? I think when we first got to listen back to this record after all of the travelling around and studio sessions that seemed like they'd never end, we were all beaming pretty hard. That's a feeling of satisfaction that's hard to beat. Fast Romantics has achieved so much already, what are the next goals? We're all really proud of these tunes and the only goal now is to find new ways to share the songs with as many souls around the world as we can. 2017 / ISSUE 99 INDIE 43 Breathing life and imitating 21st century love, the Fast Romantics are back with their latest album American Love. The Toronto indie-rocker 6 piece are known for their hankering stories of modern cinematic love stories, with an added touch of political realism. Political anxiety at the time of the album's recording scratched and scraped its way into several records, as lead singer Matthew Angus described the atmosphere at the time as inescapable. "THE WORLD MIGHT SEEM REALLY FUCKED UP RIGHT NOW, BUT MOST OF OUR SONGS TELL STORIES OF LOVE WINNING OUT DESPITE THE MADNESS IN THE WORLD." follow @FastRomantics Rachel Woolfenden | Guestlist INTERVIEW: FAST ROMANTICS