Dan Boeckner has put out many records under many different names. His first to bear his own, simply called Boeckner, comes out March 15 on Sub Pop — the label that discovered him in 2001 when his band Atlas Strategic played their debut gig opening for Modest Mouse in Victoria, B.C.
Boeckner brings his new project to the Horseshoe on June 7.
Boeckner has led two synth-based rock bands, Handsome Furs and Operators, and made a one-off (underrated!) record with Spoon’s Britt Daniel as Divine Fits. These days he’s an auxiliary member of Arcade Fire: a band he first joined as a temporary member in 2004, just as his main project, Wolf Parade, took off.
Wolf Parade was a band of B.C. expats in Montreal that Boeckner co-founded with keyboardist Spencer Krug and drummer Arlen Thompson; Hadji Bakara and Dante DeCaro were later members (the reunited band is now stripped to just the original trio). The first time I saw them was at La Sala Rossa opening for Arcade Fire, who had just begun recording the album that would become Funeral.
One of the songs Wolf Parade played that night was called “This Heart’s On Fire.” Almost twenty years later I would adapt that title for a book about that time in Canadian music. (And after it came out I got to see this.) You should buy it. It’s awesome.
Boeckner was one of the first people I interviewed for the project, in December 2019. With plans to interview about 100 people, I wasn’t sure where to start, so I took a train to Montreal and scheduled time with whomever I could, just to give myself some focus.
Over the course of researching Hearts on Fire, I had many incredible conversations: I always knew Boeckner would be one of the best. And he was.
In the first of a two-part conversation, he talks about growing up in a desolate small town on Vancouver Island, the Victoria hardcore scene, being saved by Carolyn Mark, being strung out in Vancouver, his mother’s death, Modest Mouse, dumpster-diving and being in a Voivod video, the improbable beginnings of Wolf Parade, why exactly apologies had to be made to the Queen Mary, and much more.
Also: an early low-budget Wolf Parade video that I’m pretty sure features one of my favourite comedians/musicians/filmmakers as a very young man.
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