Breathing Fresh Air

The lonesome vocal that welcomes you to Needle, the opening track from Born Ruffians' latest record Birthmarks, hints at it. You would never guess it, but as soon as you work it out it makes complete sense. The Canadian band's hit single, along with the majority of Birthmarks, was written and developed in a lonely farmhouse in rural Ontario. And even though that writing process wrapped up back in 2011, leadman Luke Lalonde, reflects fondly on the experience down a grizzled phone line on a cold Toronto afternoon.

“It was really beautiful,” he begins. “I didn't have an apartment when we first went out there, so I was there alone for some time before the rest of the band arrived. The grass was green, the flowers were starting to grow, the trees were growing leaves and it was just really, really pretty.

“There were no houses around for miles and even though there were a few nights when I was there alone that were a little scary, overall it was really peaceful. It was nice to be in a place where there was complete quiet and complete darkness at night, and we had the luxury of being able to play music until three in the morning if we wanted to. It was a calming environment.”

The prospect of an indie band shacking up in a farmhouse miles from the rest of civilisation would surely drive even the hardiest real estate agent to drink. “Our manager's husband grew up in that house, and his dad still lives there,” Lalonde explains of the band's pretty sweet hook-up. “He's an actor; he acts in a lot of plays so he'll go for months at a time to a different city to work on a play. We were pretty lucky in that there were a couple of months that he was gone and he didn't give a shit. He was like, 'Yeah, come on in'.”

The time that the band took in the farmhouse to hone the songs for Birthmarks has clearly paid dividends. “It was a good change,” he explains. “We were tired of being in the city and having to book rehearsal spaces and go in and force ourselves to write a song between, say, 11am and 3pm on a Wednesday.

“It was great to be able to just live together and play music when we felt like it. We had fun, and better songs came out of that compared to when we're just sitting down and working through something within a strict time. It was also great to spend time with my friends, too. Really, we're all best friends; most of our time is spent together on the road, which is lots of fun but when we get home we tend to just hang out on our own. [The farmhouse sessions] enabled us to get to know each other in a different environment.”

This fun, relaxed nature of the writing and rehearsal process can be seen in Birthmarks and since the album was released back in April, the band have been on the road, translating the camaraderie of that lonesome farmhouse to the stage. “The shows have been great,” Lalonde enthuses. “We hadn't really been overseas in a while so we weren't sure who was going to come out, but it was better than ever.

“It's actually been really amazing playing the new songs live. Sometimes the strongest [crowd] reactions are for new songs, and I notice every night that, for instance, people are singing along to Needle, and they're really getting into Rage Flows. We know that our old songs will go over well and that we'll get a certain reaction, but it's great to have fans screaming over the new stuff. It doesn't always work though; sometimes it can be a struggle trying to fit in a new song that doesn't work with the old material.

“I wish we could play them all but, because of the tone of some certain new songs, they're hard to fit in. For example, Too Soaked To Break is a song that we always play, even though sometimes it's a struggle to get the crowd on board. Maybe they're enjoying it quietly, but sometimes it's difficult to keep the energy up.”

So when is too late to chop up the setlist? “It can happen spontaneously. I'm usually the one who'll make the call if I see a song coming up that I know just isn't going to feel right. Maybe if it's a bit more of a drunken crowd, or if it's late at night and they're having a good time and are really loud, then I might glaze over and skip some of the slower songs. I sometimes worry about our sound guy, but he's always good with it.”