Norman Wong |
Alvvays.
“Celtic music is a big part of the culture in Cape Breton,” says Rankin via phone from her Toronto home. Alvvays performs on Thursday, April 18, at the Agora Theatre. “Kerri [MacLellan], who plays keyboards in Alvvays, was my neighbor. We played a lot of Celtic fiddle together during our childhood.”
But Rankin simultaneously listened to pop-rock hits on the radio and had an older brother who loaned her his Neil Young and Bob Dylan albums. Then, hearing the indie rock of the late '80s and early '90s would lead her in an entirely different musical direction and wind up influencing Alvvays.
“I probably got into Sonic Youth when I was 19,” she says. “In my twenties, I got into Teenage Fanclub and the Replacements. I’m still finding out about bands that were huge and cornerstones of genres I didn’t know existed. We didn’t have any cool record stores. If you wanted a CD, you had drive to Walmart. I met [Alvvays guitarist] Alec [O’Hanley] in my early twenties. He had a local record store in his city and showed me so many different bands. It was fun to learn and listen and shape what I eventually wanted to try to emulate in my band.”
Alvvays formed in 2011 in Prince Edward Island where Rankin had moved for a couple of years to work and write music.
“There was an exciting group of local bands there at the time,” she says. “At some point, because we hated the winters, we moved to Toronto and made our first record.”
The move to Toronto, a town with a very active and competitive independent music scene, wasn’t without its hurdles.
“We didn’t know anyone, and no one wanted to book us on any shows,” says Rankin of the initial experience after moving. “We had to fight our way into the scene here. I don’t mean that in the wrong way. It’s hard when you’re first starting. It was a struggle. I felt like we were outsiders at that time. I think I had three jobs as we were mastering our first few albums. No Canadian label wanted to release our music. We thought we could only find a label in the U.S., which is what happened.”
The band persevered, however, and received its due. Released in 2014 on Polyvinyl, the group's debut album was shortlisted for the 2015 Polaris Music Prize and created a buzz in both Canada and the U.S. The sophomore effort, Antisocialites, followed as did extensive touring.
When it came time to start on the third album, 2022’s Blue Rev, Rankin retreated to the Toronto Islands to focus on songwriting.
“I started writing songs at this little place that artists can rent,” she says. “I would take the ferry there and bring my minimalist PA and make noise for a week by myself and cook up ideas. We then went into the studio, but the pandemic happened, and we had to fly home. That put everything on hold for a year-and-a-half. I’m grateful for having more time. The more recent additions to the album ended up being the things I liked the most.”
A song like “After the Earthquake” bristles and recalls Sleater-Kinney and Throwing Muses, groups that mix pop sensibilities with punk impulses.
“That track is a combination of so many different storylines,” she says. “I was reading Haruki Murakami’s collection of short stories called After the Quake. It’s a bunch of different people going through different situations. The stories have a link, which is this huge earthquake. I was inspired by the fragmented nature of that song, which was chaotic in nature. I was trying to channel those stories and that band the dBs.”
The new songs should work well live since many possess dynamic guitar riffs as slanted and enchanted as anything Pavement released in the early '90s.
“We take the show very seriously and try to make the songs sound like the recordings do,” says Rankin. “We have a lot of fun with ‘After the Earthquake,’ and we have a lot of fast tunes on the album, actually.”
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