Q&A With Oscar Winning Indie Pop Star Owen Pallett Ahead of his April 23 Gig

He’s been up on stage on his own, drawing a bow across his violin’s strings, and yet creating more bombast than an entire orchestra. That’s because classically trained Canadian indie pop star Owen Pallett has made his name using innovative techniques like loops and synths to put on wholly unique shows. During his last tour, in support of the album In Conflict, he recruited a band to change that dynamic, and now he’s reinventing himself again, readying a whole new performance style for song from his forthcoming album, much of which he will unveil for the first time at his April 23 Yugong Yishan show. Below he tells us more about the new music that he’ll perform in Beijing, dispels some cliches about singing about mental health, and reveals just how eager he is to try “real” Chinese food.

Shortly after your Yugong Yishan show in March you have a very different but equally exciting engagement lined up at the LA Philharmonic – the popular Icelandic band Sigur Ros will be performing some of your compositions.
Yes, it’ll a full orchestra. I’ve written for every player that the Phil has to offer. It’s wild, I did some research and looked at performances Sigur Ros has done with orchestras. So I decided to go crazy, really over the top and maximalist. I’m working on orchestrating my own album now, with an orchestra too, and I’m trying to make it very austere and monolithic. So as a treat to myself I’ll have the orchestra blasting away, there’ll be no holding back the bombast.

One of the songs that I did is the star elsewhere, which is like da di da di, off the getispergun (laughs), it’s so huge already and I tried to make it like the biggest thing, I wanted it to sound like the sun was exploding.

Can you tell us more about how big a fan you are of theirs. Were they a big influence?
Sure, of course. I mean, it’s hard for me to talk about influences, because the way non-musicians talk about those things doesn’t actually cut to the bone, ya know? the stuff that influences me when I make music is stuff that you wouldn’t expect. It’s a lot of stuff, form a listeners’ perceptive, is removed. And music that mines the same territory inspires me in a negative way, not as in me being critical, but as in “Oh that’s cool, I better try something different.”

But Sigur Ros, they had just broken through just as the same time when I became interested in making music. About 2001. I remember feeling moved to try something very different from them. It’s hard to deserve, because it sounds like I’m being critical but I’m not. But anyway, they’ve always occupied a big part of our listening sphere. More than that they’re real good friends of mine, and it’s good to be working with them after spending years of going to each other’s shows and getting wasted (laughs).

You mentioned working on your own album, can you tell us more about it?
The Beijing show will actually be one of the first times that I have played this new material in a solo concert. I’ll be going onstage myself, playing these songs. I’m almost debuting a new live show. I’ll do some warmup shows in Canada, quite ones, because it’ll be new for me.

In 2009 I started doing high density loops, to just exercise myself to the point of prog rock to display virtuosity. On my last album I had a band and it felt like magma, very intense and technical. And now, with this new record, it’s very very different. It’s much more concerned with the mood of what’s being communicated, and trying to get to the heart of what the songs are about, and part of that means it’s a much starker, more brutal record. So it’ll be a very different show than before, which were more ecstatic. This will be more like a church show.

What made the album more dark and brutal? Is it because 2016 was a dark year politically? I see you posting about the US election frequently on social media.
No it’s actually something very different. A lot of people talked about how 2016 was a terrible year, but on a personal level it was good year for me. Or at least it was much better than 2015, which was a year marked with a lot of disasters in my personal life. Most of the new songs on the record stem from that. I’ll just condense it to say it was a period of really intense mental illness caused by some betrayals in my friend group, and made me call into question the trust I have for people in general. So it reflects my personal experience. It’s also a return to the fictional universe, In Conflict was more autobiographical, but ironically I felt that writing songs closer to my experience they felt more fictional, because the song never felt like they were telling the whole truth, or told the truth at a certain time and then my perceptions changed. That’s why I called it In Conflict, because I was so confused about what was happening to my life. But going back to a fictional universe, it’s all true because all fiction is true. Switching back and forth I’ve found there’s more autobiograpchial meat in fictional songwriting, so this new album will continue the narrative that I had on [2010’s] Heartland. I’ll be following [protagonist] Lewis’ adventures.

I appreciate you being honest and touching on mental illness. I’ve appreciated that cander in older interviews and songs, like on the In Conflict Song “The Secret Seven,” where you leave your phone number in your lyrics for distressed fans to give you a call. Is it fulfilling to offer solace to your fans in that way?
No, it’s not really. It’s difficult to really talk about, in the context of an interview for which I’m trying to sell tickets, for people to come see my amazing show (laughs). But I had very mixed feelings about being public about my struggles with mental illness, and how it’s reflected in my work. At times it feels like I may be capitalizing on my pain, and touring it into cultural product. At times if feels as if I might be trying to capitalize on my audience’s pain and suffering. It’s something I’m struggling with and worrying about. I hope the overall effect is collective strengthening, and at times I’ve wondering if I’ve been successful. I think it’s a beautifully composed song, but in retrospect I’m beginning to question my motives for writing it, and I’m beginning to realize that putting my number at the end of the lyrics, in 2012 I was going through a very difficult year, so I began to wonder if I put my number there because I wanted to help people in need, or if I wanted people to reach out and see if I was okay. So I’m just making sure … I’m trying to be ethical. Does that make sense?

Yes, I think so ...
Buy tickets everyone, come to my show! (Laughs)

Yes of course, speaking of your show, much of your audience at Yugong Yishan will be seeing you – and your style of performing – for the first time. Can you tell us more about why that is exciting?
I’m really looking forward to it. I have toured Asia before, but only Singapore and Japan. I’m just excited to come to a new place and experience it. And of course the easiest window into a country is through their food. It’s an interesting experience when you’re a white Canadian growing up in the countryside, your first exposure to Chinese food is shitty, chicken balls, and whatever. I’m a full grown man now, but I feel like I have so much to learn about Chinese food. Actually my priority for touring is how excited I am about the food. Which is why I’ll never tour Russia (laughs).

Owen Pallett will perform at Yugong Yishan on April 23 at 8.30pm. Ticket are available for RMB 120 presale here, RMB 150 at the door.

Images: Brian Vu, Myles Pettengill, Split Works