In Conversation: St. Arnaud
In Conversation: St. Arnaud
Krystle McGrath
I had a very enjoyable video call with Ian St Arnaud (of St. Arnaud) this past weekend about his upcoming album, Love And The Front Lawn, which will be available April 29th. We talked tours, band experiences, and inspirations, and never once was it a dull moment. This album is fun and goofy, while being filled to the very brim with genuine emotion and thoughtfulness, and I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to hear Ian’s take on all things St Arnaud and Love And The Front Lawn. Be sure to give it a listen! And for all of my local Calgary buds, St Arnaud will be at Broken City on May 12th and I would 1000% recommend checking them out. Absolutely fantastic people and music, so certainly good times to be had.
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Krystle McGrath: How did you get into music? Did you have any inspirations growing up?
Ian St Arnaud: Well really how did I start? I grew up playing piano, taking piano lessons. The incentive was always that I could take guitar lessons if I did a few years of piano. And I really sucked at guitar and I was pretty good at piano. So I did that for a long time and then didn’t do anything outside of that until high school band class. And that shouldn’t matter, except, I liked playing piano but I could only read the music. I could read the music and like put it to my hands and it wouldn’t really go in my brain.
KM: Interesting.
ISA: And then I made some friends in high school and we were all kind of in the same place. Like we could all read music, we were all ok musicians, but we never just played a song. So we just figured it out. We just played some little folky, cover songs. Whatever. We started singing harmonies together, and it went from there. And then that project continued and ended suddenly, and now here I am in this project. So that’s how it started, just uh didn’t know what I was doing until we were about 16/17, we just tried it.
KM: That’s pretty sweet that you know how to read music though. Because I know a lot of people don’t know how.
ISA: Such a disconnect though. Like if I’m playing to play a song with St Arnaud or whatever, I have to ask my bass player, “What key are we in?”, “What is the chord progression here?”. It’s like I’ve totally divided those knowledges.
KM: Right.
ISA: And man, when I put those together. Watch out.
KM: [Laughs] We’ll have to keep waiting for that. Is that what you’re saying?
ISA: Yeah, yeah it’s not soon.
KM: That’s fair. Well you’re doing great so you know. So, what is your writing process? Do you typically write the lyrics first or the music?
ISA: Um, can be either. I am trying to make more of a system where I start with lyrics. I like to start with the idea and the intention, which I think comes usually more from the lyrics, and then put it to music. But then other times, you’ll just pick up something and go, “Oh – this is a cool little thing. What can I say?”. And songs that tend to start with the more just like, “this feels good”, they tend to do better, in terms of people’s gut reactions. Because they can feel that. Again, if you can put the powers together, that’d be good. But there’s no rhyme or reason, I like to keep a notebook with ideas and voice recordings.
KM: Yeah, yeah that’s huge. So, is it more your individual thing or a collective band duty?
ISA: Well, somewhat murky waters there. Um, I’d say it’s my project and that comes from where the project started from. Which was, you know, kind of after a former project, kinda just me. Just me left there. And I’m not really somebody who can just hop in with a band I don’t think. Like, “Hey need a guitar player tonight? Great I can come do that”. I haven’t developed that skill. I’m really jealous of people who can do that, session players and all that stuff. So, it’s my project but I really truly believe it wouldn’t happen without the people I have around me. And you know like, okay if somebody is sick and we really need a new drummer or bass player or something for today, we can figure it out. But the rapport comes from having the same people there. That’s so much fun. So, I wouldn’t want it a different way. But the project is my writing.
KM: So, you’ve been around a bit! Do you have a hot tip for touring?
ISA: Hot tip for touring? Um, know why you’re doing it. Are you doing it because you think you’ll make money? You won’t. Or, are you doing it because it’ll be fun? It will be. Or, are you doing it because it’ll be kind of an investment for the future, on the fun and the money side. Which I hope is what you think it is. I hope you go, “Man, this is going to cost a lot of time and money, and be a lot of work, but it’ll show people were doing the work, and we’ll go there and we’ll make 5 friends and we’ll come back and maybe those 5 friends will bring 5 friends”. And that’s great. But you’re not gonna, unless somebody scoops you up in their crazy marketing booking business, um, yeah. Don’t expect to live on it. Because you won’t. That’s my tip – Know why you’re doing it.
KM: That’s a good one! I haven’t heard it put quite that way so it’s a good answer. You’re doing great! I really enjoyed the music video you released for “Catching Flies”. What inspired it? Who made it? Tell me about it.
ISA: Okay, inspired it was, everybody’s got their COVID album right now but, I sat at home for a long time. From March of 2020, when we were starting to get offers for tours, we were starting to get that kind of like “We’re getting picked up by somebody else and the work is getting taken off our hands”. That was starting to happen, and that’s the part that feels like, “Oh I invested in going on tour and now people see you’re doing the work and they’ll help you”. That was starting, and then I sat at home. We were in New York when COVID hit and everything got cancelled. I sat at home for probably 8, 10 months. I picked up a crappy job delivering groceries, hated it, and my brother is an animator on YouTube, he’s a two dimensional animator, and he said, “Why don’t you try this out? You have time, maybe you’ll be good at it”. So I did it all by myself. I just started building it and felt it out as I went, um I was hunting on Barbie websites and dollhouse websites, and just scouring the internet for dollhouse wallpaper or what kind of plasticine I needed or whatever. And yeah, the idea was that it’s kind of analogous to me sitting at home and just filling the void, filling the time. That’s it in a nutshell. My brother told me to start it, I did it all myself, took a long time, and it was people sitting at home.
KM: Well, it turned out incredibly well.
ISA: Thanks! I hope to do better on the next one. I hope we can get there.
KM: Well I mean you kind of answered the next questions in that but how did you find, or did you find the isolation of COVID affected your creativity?
ISA: Totally. Yeah, if you don’t have experiences to draw on and if you’re not somebody who can just pound out songs, which is another skill I’m really envious of, you know people who can just write to write, that’s how I think people make a living doing this. The people who can just do that, like 9-5, this is my job. I want to be like that but I follow what I’m interested in, and when there’s nothing going on, you have nothing to say, “Oh, I’ve grown and I can reflect and share this”. And then even with all the time in the world, you pick away at it but I think lots of people just fell into a little depression slump, right? Me too. And you just go, “What’s the point of doing anything?”. It’s so motivating to know that you get to go play a fun show. It’s so motivating to know you get to go see your bandmates down in Calgary, or whatever, and you’re like, “Why? Why do that?”. But, you find the light at the end and then, and then it’s really fast and you have deadlines again and then you work. But it sucked.
KM: Do you have a favourite song off the new, album?
ISA: Yeah, I probably like “Loving” the most. I don’t know if it’ll be anybody else’s favourite. I know myself, I like it, and my producer really likes it, Graham, and I trust that guy, and I think it’s the best show of the growth in the storytelling part of it, shows the humour, and then it’s also the syrupy-sweet thing that I think this project is unavoidably so. I like that one. That’s my favourite.
KM: Nice, it’s a great song. I like it a lot. I don’t think I have a favourite because there’s so many good ones but it’s interesting that that’s your favourite one, because I know I’ve heard that from a couple people.
ISA: Yeah, I think that ones the one. There’s some I don’t love as much and I won’t tell you them because I don’t want people to look and think, “Oh that’s a bad one”. I want them to just see what they think, but yeah. You have favourites and unfavourites, and they change over time, usually depending on how they go live.
KM: Yeah! Well “Loving” is really good live too.
ISA: Yeah, its pulling together. It takes some time.
KM: All good things do.
ISA: Yeah.
KM: Is there an overarching theme or inspiration for “Love And The Front Lawn”?
ISA: Sure! Um, I want to say this in a way that sounds nice. I was more adventurous by circumstance over the past handful of years, and then COVID forced everybody’s hand, whether they were or they weren’t, to be home. And again, I really don’t want to hammer that this is a “COVID album”, it’s not about that. It’s just about, [laughs] it’s about having to change your lifestyle very drastically. In my case, it was one of, “I don’t care if I have $100 in my bank account, I’m going to go live in Toronto, I’m going to go to Montreal, I’m going to go to Vancouver, I’m going to do this, I’m going to meet people on the way” to its suddenly very domestic and all the taking care of yourself and taking care of your surroundings that I didn’t have to do before, I have to do now. I have to sit and think about it. And I found a great relationship I’m really, really happy in and I thought, “That’s something I’ve never really gotten to talk about before in a song, so let’s get into that”.
KM: That’s really exciting! Some silver linings in there.
ISA: Yeah, that’s what it’s about! You know, I want it to be a positive feeling and yeah, optimism.
KM: So did you know from the beginning you wanted to name it that?
ISA: No, no. “Loving” is probably almost the last song I wrote, and the line, “love and the front lawn” is in that song and then I just decided, “You know what? That’s probably it”. It’s a weird thing to try to nail down, it’s like, make a painting, name it! Like I don’t know.
KM: Yeah, it’s really hard. There’s so many elements, how do you put one sticker on it?
ISA: Yeah, but whatever, you just go with it and that’s what people get to know and – the whole thing is just made up. Right? It’s all made up. You send it out and say it has a name, you send it out and say you made it, and people either like it or they don’t.
KM: [laughs] Well so far so good I think.
ISA: I hope so, yeah. I – If we can go and travel a little bit and if people want to come hear us live, that is absolutely the only goal, the only dream here.
KM: Well you deserve that dream to come true.
ISA: [laughs] I hope so!
KM: So speaking of making things, who did the album art because it’s great and is the frog your favourite animal? I need to know.
ISA: I don’t remember where the frog thing came from, I really don’t. The artist is, she’s really great. Her name is Melissa Lodu, she’s @u_g_l_y_o_u_t_h on Instagram and whatever, and I think this is just her side hustle, like, I think she has a day job and whatever but she’s so, so talented. I met her um, out in Toronto when I was there a few years ago, we actually went on a Tinder date, which I just think is a funny tidbit [laughs], I didn’t really mention that to anybody, but it was really fun and I was just like, “Oh this is a really cool person”. We just went out once, we actually just went for a beer or whatever, and I just thought she was really cool, I kept up to date with what her art was like and I just thought, “This is so bright. It’s so bright, she has great characters”, and I think the way she turned herself into these comics she made, into like this little devil-cat version of herself, I just thought, “I want to be a little character”. So I think a frog was just an easy, goofy sort of guy you could put that into. So then we just expanded on that, the colours were nice.
KM: Very nice, yes. So the frog is you?
ISA: I guess. I don’t really want to be like, “Oh, it’s my whole world”, but you know what? Yeah. You’re allowed to do that. It’s the most engaging art, not claiming that title, that I live in that world, but the most engaging art in my opinion is the stuff that takes general thoughts and feelings but makes it very specific and puts it through somebody’s own perspective. Because that’s how you relate to it. Right? You go, “Oh I put myself in that one spot and then I’m seeing it from their perspective”. So that’s what you have to try to do.
KM: So what do you want people to feel when they listen to this album?
ISA: I want them to go, “This is a sunny day”. I want them to go, “Yeah, this is a nice little sunny day, this doesn’t sound like a lot of things, this guy has a weird voice”. I want them to just kind of dial in. I don’t want it to sound like every, like a lot of stuff you hear, and I just want them to go, “You know what, I feel like I kind of know this, this person or this thing, and if I met them we’d be friends”. That’s what I want them to think. I want them to just think, “This is my friend talking to me”.
KM: I like that. I like that a lot. Well, I have to ask, “Loving”, which we talked about, is such a great single. Did the lyrics, “I love the squirrels in my backyard not the thief who took my lawn chair and a shit beside my car” actually happen?
ISA: Definitely. Definitely happened. Yeah, I live right out back behind this kind of strip mall thing…so my backyard is an alley, and whatever, people all the time back there. And somebody like, took a cardboard box, took a poop right beside my car door, and then covered it, just pulled a cardboard box on top of it. And so I went out to get in and I kicked the cardboard box, and I was like, “Oh my god, why would they do that right here? And then they thought they fixed it by covering it? Like, what’s the point?”.
KM: That’s a fun story, I wasn’t actually sure if that, if it was just inspired or was an actual story that happened.
ISA: Yeah, no, just a grubby backyard. But I love it! Getting that line out of it, I’m happy with that.
KM: I only have one more question but it’s kind of a more general thing, I guess it’s kind of a two part question but what is your favourite thing about being in a band?
ISA: You get to do stuff that people often will go, “Man, I wish I could do that!” and you get to do that. You work hard, you put all of your money and time into it, you know, you sacrifice other things. I don’t know if I’ll ever buy a home or whatever, that’s, I don’t know if anybody will ever buy a home anymore, that’s a mess, but um I have friends doing that and I look at their lives and go, “Man, I wish I could do that”, and I hope, I think, sometimes they look at my life and go, “Man, I wish I could do that too”. And I’m like, “Yeah, I’ve always wanted to do this and I get to actually do it!”. I get to go travel for work and people want to come say hi because they like a line in your song or whatever, that’s the best part. You get to do some experiences you would never get to otherwise.
KM: Yeah! Part two I guess, it doesn’t have to be your top one, obviously that’s a big ask, but what is one favourite memory you have from, that you have gotten to experience from being in this band, in this project?
ISA: Uh, that’s a hard one to pick because there’s lots. And that’s amazing and it’s really nice that there’s been lots. I would have to go with, we got to go to Europe for the first time with this project in September and October, like 6 months ago, and we played a show in Berlin at this cool, grimy little bar. Everybody was so nice, you could smoke cigarettes inside. Our guitarist was so excited that he could smoke while he played a guitar solo and he put the cigarette in his guitar strings. And! I had this kid, he was 14 or 15 years old, come up to me wearing a Super Mario hat, and he approached me after the show and was like, “Hey I couldn’t believe you were playing here, I’ve been listening to your first album for like 2 years and I love this so much. I’m so excited to be here”. And I cannot, it blew my mind. That one, we got to be at this really crazy place, and two, like this random person was just like, “Hey I know this, I came all the way here to see it”.
KM: Wow. That’s a huge experience!
ISA: It was really cool. That was really fun. Yeah some funny stories out of that trip, but we want to do it again! Fingers crossed we can go again soon. We’re working on going back this fall, we’ll see what pans out. We’re not big enough that anybody is really working on our careers a year out or anything, so the work is on me and if people will respond to my emails. So, if you’re reading this, we want to do this! Help us come play a show.
KM: Is there anything else you want to say about the new album that we didn’t cover?
ISA: We are touring Western Canada, Alberta and BC in May, we would love to see you there! Thanks for interviewing me and thank you to anybody who likes what we do.
