Purveyors of: Art-Rock, Prog-Pop
File Next To: Orange Juice, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Station to Station-era Bowie
Playing: All Toronto's Parties a.k.a. WL 582, Nov. 22 at the Garrison

One of the original Pleasence Records bands, Gay has carved out a unique niche in Toronto's scene. In a city whose music is often influenced by mopey shoegaze, nihilistic grunge and cold post-punk, Gay unabashedly look like they enjoy themselves on stage. Composed of four troubadours, their early sound was a rough garage-jangle that has since boldly flirted with disco, glam and prog-rock. They’ve collaborated with like-minded, forward thinking Toronto pop artists such as Sexy Merlin, Young Guv and, most recently, Slim Twig, all the while maintaining a strong singer/songwriter mandate swayed by the good-natured traditions of Randy Newman.

Their latest offering, Dance Mix 95, introduced songs with prominent orchestral elements and an altogether more ambitious feeling of exploration. “Less Than Learning,” a rare dark and self-deprecating moment, smooches the sunny anthems “Pete Rose Hair” and “It’s Summer,” while wrapping arms around the delicately crafted ballads “Military Man” and “Borscht Belt Baby,” and then teabagging quirky rockers like “Doug Martin & the Boutonnieres Discover the Internet.”

Pleasence’s own James Lindsay shot the shit with singer/guitarist Paul Erlichman about the band.

Typically, how does a Gay song get written?
For Tom [Avis], Cam [Michael Murray] and I's songs, we record a demo of a decent degree of quality and send it out to the band. We then get to fleshing it out at some point in the next few months. The arrangement generally changes a little (less MIDI clarinets), but the lyrics and general feel stay the same. Neil [Rankin] comes to us with his songs more roughly sketched, generally just the lyrics, some loose chords, and a feel he has in his head. We kind of know what works and doesn't work within the Gay context now, so the whole process of creating songs feels much easier now than it ever did in our early days.

With four songwriters in the band, does ego get involved when choosing singles, track order, what songs get a video, etc.?
No, we're surprisingly good about that. We all seem to be on the same wavelength [oh hi! – ed.] about what works and what doesn't. Generally if your song doesn't work, you are the first to know. Also, our playing and singing styles are pretty idiosyncratic, so on any given recording there's going to be a piece of all of us in it. 

A lot of bands can seem kind of dour when performing; you guys look like you have a lot of fun. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, do you write your own jokes? 
Neil writes all our jokes. When we screw them up we hear about it later. If you look up "emotional violence" in a picture dictionary, you'll find a picture of Neil in there (I'm sure of it). 

What are some of your favourite acts in Toronto right now?
Oh gee, there are so many talented people out there. Our friend Sexy Merlin always does something different and fun every time I see him. I've got serious guitar envy of Thomas Gill. 

Who smells the best?
The other guys might tell you different but I think (I hope!) it's fairly obvious that I smell the best. Come closer, James.