Last year, Toronto's Fake Palms released their shimmery dream pop punk self-titled debut record. It was loud when it needed to be and soft when you wanted it. The group has become an exciting fixture of the new Toronto rock scene and we're patiently awaiting a follow-up full-length. In the meantime, they have regrouped, adding WISH's bassist Kyle Connolly to the line-up. They are also presenting us with a new five song EP called Heavy Paranoia that is out Sept. 30 via Buzz Records and it is enough to please our palates.Heavy Paranoia is fully contrarian and Mike le Riche, the band's vocalist and guitarist, is the first to admit that. "This is this poppiest thing I've ever done in terms of songwriting," le Riche tells me over the phone. "We went into it thinking like 'oh, let's do an 80s thing.' We were listening to a lot of 80s punk records like Gang of Four, Television, and The Kids where they didn't have any budget but go into the studio and hit record, play as fast as they could, and that was the record. But this turned out really poppy." But le Riche has also been dealing with the death of his brother, which he says comes out lyrically on the EP. Contrasting the darkness of themes with the pop sheen on this EP is, at first glance, emotionally confusing but it's perfectly fitting. It's a swerve that le Riche was happy to see happen. "I've been interested in bands like Of Montreal where they can make an amazing dance record but the lyrics and the songs subjects are incredibly depressing things like going through drug addictions, divorces or stuff like that. I like the fact that weirdly this is what came out of it."The band that is known for being fuzzy to the point of almost incomprehensible has shifted sonically, allowing for more clarity to come through. The material doesn't necessarily need to be wholly soaked in heaviness or noise as a metaphor to make an impact. Heavy Paranoia confronts both the small and large-scale darkness and devastations that happen in life; the personal pains coupled with living in a world content on distracting itself away from every other trauma or bubbling disaster on the horizon.Read our interview with le Riche about Heavy Paranoia and stream it below:
Yeah, like maybe I'm finally understanding what's going on or—I don't know. Again, maybe I'm just eternally a pessimist.I think of the Death card in tarot quite a bit, as well The Moon card: both are often taken to be frightening but they can be representative of transition and finding light in the darkness. Do you see light in the darkness of our world?
It's hard to see that right now, for me at least. I think, and that's kind of in the greater scheme of the world at large, but I do think, personally, when you deal with someone's passing, especially someone close to you, I think that good things can come of that. I always find it interesting whenever you read about artists I like—musicians or visual artists— and I've noticed a lot of the time they have issues. Like, growing up with one parent because a parent died when they were very young or a sibling or someone close to them. There's this weird energy that pushes someone who has experienced that to do something: create art or get into some kind of field of pushing themselves a bit more. Maybe they feel the closeness to death that you have to do something before you yourself go or have to say something. I do see that, weirdly, as a good thing. A lot of my favourite records are pushed forward by something like that. I'm not saying everyone should obviously experience a death close to them, that would be a pretty morose thing to say. I do think good can come of it.Was the clarity of sound on this EP meant to be a direct opposite, and also an indicator, of us living in a fairly chaotic and unclear time?
It is and it isn't. I think of myself as a reactionary dude. Sorry, a reactionary person—saying dude is kind of funny. In kind of everything I do, to my detriment, I'll do something and I'll hate how it happens and do the complete opposite, even if I should have just slightly changed something in the smallest bit. I'll do the opposite. Sheer hardheadedness. On the first record, I still really like our first record, but we wanted to try something different. It's a product of what we were listening to. And the funny thing was like we were on tour, selling records, and people would send us these messages like "I think my record's broken." Like, they'd seen us but hadn't heard our recorded music before so they'd buy the record from the show and take it home. Then they would say "all this distortion and noise" and we had to reply back like "no no, that's just how the record sounds. That's what we wanted it to do."We wanted to try something different. We're working on another record now and it's going to be totally different sonically as well. It won't be as clean as the EP. The EP it was like, here are five of the poppiest songs I think we've ever written and we're going to do them kind of clean and interesting thing and see where that goes. That's not necessarily the direction where the band is taking. I always like how bands can kind of make crazy left turns. We'll see what happens."Holiday" sounded to me like an extremely trippy, acid-soaked Beach Boys song. Or perhaps any other 60s pop track. What were your musical influences while you were working on these songs?
Again, we're products of our environment. I was raised on Beach Boys and Beatles and stuff like that, and Motown, those early doo-wop girl groups—The Chantels. "Maybe" by The Chantels is one of my absolute favourite songs. I soundcheck with that song every night. It's just a melting pot. In terms of the actual writing, you kinda throw shit at a wall and see what sticks and edit afterwards. That's kinda what comes out. We wanted to make this clean punk record but there are outside forces that we can't quite get rid of.Sarah MacDonald is a staff writer at Noisey Canada. Follow her on Twitter.
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Noisey: Thematically, you've said the EP is about death—in both the literal sense of your brother's passing, as well as "in the world at large." That's a lot to pack into an EP and, of course, unpack while listening. How do you see the world at large going through this death process?Mike Le Riche:For me, forever the pessimist, I see all this crazy shit happening anytime I look on the news but no one seems to be talking about it. We're all obsessed with clickbait journalism and memes on the internet and there's so much bad shit that's happening that we all turn a blind eye to. I just don't know what to do and the world doesn't know what to do so we all freeze up and we kind of shrug. We go, "we can't help, we can't do anything." That's kind of a thing I think about and always struggle with because, weirdly, I find myself in the same boat and don't know what to do to help anything and you feel this helplessness and then you're just stuck. I feel the world has been caught in that mode for a little too long. Or maybe it's been like that forever and I'm realizing it as an adult.A kind of conscious awakening?
Yeah, like maybe I'm finally understanding what's going on or—I don't know. Again, maybe I'm just eternally a pessimist.I think of the Death card in tarot quite a bit, as well The Moon card: both are often taken to be frightening but they can be representative of transition and finding light in the darkness. Do you see light in the darkness of our world?
It's hard to see that right now, for me at least. I think, and that's kind of in the greater scheme of the world at large, but I do think, personally, when you deal with someone's passing, especially someone close to you, I think that good things can come of that. I always find it interesting whenever you read about artists I like—musicians or visual artists— and I've noticed a lot of the time they have issues. Like, growing up with one parent because a parent died when they were very young or a sibling or someone close to them. There's this weird energy that pushes someone who has experienced that to do something: create art or get into some kind of field of pushing themselves a bit more. Maybe they feel the closeness to death that you have to do something before you yourself go or have to say something. I do see that, weirdly, as a good thing. A lot of my favourite records are pushed forward by something like that. I'm not saying everyone should obviously experience a death close to them, that would be a pretty morose thing to say. I do think good can come of it.
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It is and it isn't. I think of myself as a reactionary dude. Sorry, a reactionary person—saying dude is kind of funny. In kind of everything I do, to my detriment, I'll do something and I'll hate how it happens and do the complete opposite, even if I should have just slightly changed something in the smallest bit. I'll do the opposite. Sheer hardheadedness. On the first record, I still really like our first record, but we wanted to try something different. It's a product of what we were listening to. And the funny thing was like we were on tour, selling records, and people would send us these messages like "I think my record's broken." Like, they'd seen us but hadn't heard our recorded music before so they'd buy the record from the show and take it home. Then they would say "all this distortion and noise" and we had to reply back like "no no, that's just how the record sounds. That's what we wanted it to do."We wanted to try something different. We're working on another record now and it's going to be totally different sonically as well. It won't be as clean as the EP. The EP it was like, here are five of the poppiest songs I think we've ever written and we're going to do them kind of clean and interesting thing and see where that goes. That's not necessarily the direction where the band is taking. I always like how bands can kind of make crazy left turns. We'll see what happens."Holiday" sounded to me like an extremely trippy, acid-soaked Beach Boys song. Or perhaps any other 60s pop track. What were your musical influences while you were working on these songs?
Again, we're products of our environment. I was raised on Beach Boys and Beatles and stuff like that, and Motown, those early doo-wop girl groups—The Chantels. "Maybe" by The Chantels is one of my absolute favourite songs. I soundcheck with that song every night. It's just a melting pot. In terms of the actual writing, you kinda throw shit at a wall and see what sticks and edit afterwards. That's kinda what comes out. We wanted to make this clean punk record but there are outside forces that we can't quite get rid of.Sarah MacDonald is a staff writer at Noisey Canada. Follow her on Twitter.