“I found the whole interview thing really surprising, because I learned so much about myself. Having to talk about yourself and your music for so long is a really interesting process, and wasn’t really something I’d ever had to consider before.”
Canadian future pop duo, Purity Ring, release their second album, Another Eternity,this Friday February 27. ADAM NORRIS reports.
For a man ticking off his 50th interview in the space of a few short weeks, Corin Roddick still manages to sound like an enthusiastic guy.
Given the international attention that Canadian duo Purity Ring are now receiving – and it’s swelling gig by gig – it’s no wonder he’s still excited. With sophomore album, Another Eternity, primed for release, and high-profile support coming from the likes of Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, one suspects we have caught Roddick on the eve of something big. It’s quite a leap for a band that is very much piecing together its artistic ethos as things go.
“It’s always very weird,” Roddick says, happily bemused. “When we’re making the music we aren’t really thinking about it in an outward way. We’re just trying to come up with music that we’re excited about at the time, and we’re not really analysing it at all. It’s not until we have these interviews later on that we start to talk about it and understand what we’ve actually been making. I remember from our first album I found the whole interview thing really surprising, because I learned so much about myself. Having to talk about yourself and your music for so long is a really interesting process, and wasn’t really something I’d ever had to consider before.”
It is a sentiment shared by many of the industry’s success stories; play because you have that burning need to get it out, not because you hope to cater to a faceless crowd. The aspiration to strike a chord with listeners through music alone, rather than court fickle tastemakers in the pursuit of popularity, is key, and when a UK retailer adopted Purity Ring’s song, Fireshrine, for an advertising campaign, the band found just such a connection.
“It was an amazing opportunity. We noticed after that advertisement a lot of new fans hit us up on social media, saying, ‘Hey, we heard your song on a clothing ad’. And that’s great! Strangely, it’s a kind of natural way for people to get it. And also to reach the people who aren’t checking music blogs every day. Those are the fans we wanted; those people who aren’t just hanging out for new music all the time, totally worried about missing the newest thing. Just people who enjoy music for what it is, not as a way of achieving any kind of status or anything.”
Complementing Purity Ring’s music is a rather remarkable live addition; an arboreal instrument-cum-sculpture that acts as both Roddick’s drum set and a lighting rig. It is a striking image, seeming almost like another band member, and as their gigs unfurl it is an addition we will likely see expand.
“We wanted to create something really unique and organic, so we built that from scratch to have something that worked only with us. We’re actually working right now on getting together the live show for the next run of gigs, and we want to see how we can grow and expand into other atmospheres, find ways to occupy bigger spaces. One of our ultimate goals is to transform any space that we’re in into whatever stage, make it our unique place. Venues are pretty standard, so if you show up with nothing to add it’s going to look like any other show that happens there. But we like being able to bring our own environment with us, to have this world we create in a kind of theatrical way. When people come to see the show, they can really associate that experience with us and have it be something that stands out.”
