Neil Haverty's newest project is full of excitement, intrigue, lust, and maybe even a choir. The players include but are not limited to: Neil (guitar/vocals), Craig Dunsmuir (bass/vocals), John Kremer (keyboards/percussion), Colin Fisher (guitar/tenor sax), and Dean Wales (drums). A quick search for the name Neil Haverty on Google yields an impressive 289 entries, proving that he has already made his mark in Toronto's music scene. Sarah Kolasky sat down for a chat with Neil, and they agreed that no one can be happy all the time.

Do you ever get sick of being in the music scene? Actually it's funny you'd ask me that. Now is the first time that I ever have... but I love the city. I moved from Hamilton, which just has no scene whatsoever. Maybe it does now, but it's happened since I left. When I first got here, and I found Wavelength... you know, in Hamilton there was nobody interested in the kind of music I was interested in, and I got here and I saw bands like Burn Rome in a Dream '“ Holding Pattern at the time '“ and Rockets Red Glare, and those people that are doing complicated, interesting music. And I was like, 'œWhoa, I'm not the only one.'? And then, you know, now I've found people to actually play it with me. But as far as the scene goes and stuff, right now I just don't have time for it. I've had to tell my friends that I'm just going to go away for a couple weeks, you're not going to hear from me, I'm not going to go out to shows. a) I can't afford it, '˜cause I don't have a job; b) I just don't have time to do it. And if I'm going to do all these projects, you can't be as involved in it... Right now, I want to go away, I want to find a little shack in the woods, and live there for about a month, and finish everything I've started.

Would you call your music political, at all? I was told that I had no political conscience for years and years. And, you know, recently I've started reading some stuff, the Naomi Kleins and the David Suzukis, and stuff like that. So it's getting political simply because I write about what I learn about... I consciously made an effort because, originally with the solo stuff, it was all about girls, and all about this relationship shit '“ emo stuff, right? And I'm consciously trying to get away from that a little bit '˜cuz, you know, how many whiny love songs have you heard? So, yes, there's a little bit of politics in there, but not much. I don't want to present myself as a political being if I can't back it up when I'm in conversation with someone.

So, what kind of stuff are you interested in learning about? It's really weird for me, because I'm at this point in my age where '“ like, from 14 onwards, music was all I gave a shit about, nothing else. Honestly, I had no aspirations to do anything when I was in high school. I knew I was going to do music, music, music. Now it's getting to the point where having a job in music is really hard. [laughs] So, I have to start thinking about what I'm interested in, and I don't know what I'm interested in. And that's the thing '“ I want to do music. I want music to be around me all the time. And that's why, even if I'm not getting paid very much at Outside Music, I'm going to take that job before I take a high-paying desk job at some accounting firm. But, I don't know. Reality's sinking in at this point. Environmental studies is interesting to me, but I don't know if I can live the life, you know? I eat meat, I smoke cigarettes '“ there are all these things where I'd have to cut them out, and I love them too much to bother.

What are your non-music related hobbies? Truth is, I don't really have non-music related hobbies. I feel like I should but nothing interests me like music does. I spend all of my time working with music in some capacity. Honestly, I wish I could think of something else but for every seemingly unrelated thing that crosses my mind, music always finds a way to work itself in. I guess I'm a little obsessed.