Broken Social Scene on Bravo!

Broken Social Scene has been called a tribe, a cult, a network, a collective and a family.
Once in a while, someone forgets himself and calls it a band. And that, in all its incarnations, is what BSS is: a complex, unpredictable, flexible, organic, remarkably durable rock band.
And with an album, a world tour and a movie this summer, it doesn’t look as if this collective/tribe/cult/ band has run its course just yet.  Part of this Broken summer is a rare TV appearance – on Bravo! “At the Concert Hall” Tuesday, Aug. 3, performing cuts from the new CD “Forgiveness Rock Record.”
“We were just starting with this new record, and we’d never played any of the songs live,” says singer Kevin Drew, who co-founded the group with bassist Brendan Canning in 1999. They perform with the rest of the current BSS lineup: Sam Goldberg, Lisa Lobsinger, Justin Peroff, Charles Spearin and Andrew Whiteman.
“It was a little strange, but they were really lovely. And it made for a really nice night of music. We’ve been together for 10 years, and we’re getting older and you kind of like to do things you said, ‘I don’t think we’ll ever do that,’ or ‘We’re not supposed to do that,’
or ‘We don’t fit into that.’ ”
“Forgiveness Rock Record” blends energetic, quite joyful music with lyrics that are thoughtful, sometimes melancholy and often angry. “I think that’s what forgiveness is,” Drew says. “It’s both those emotions.  There is a joyous aspect to it, and there is a melancholy aspect to it. We’re trying to find what forgiveness is really about, and it’s a freeing emotion for the individual and for the person you’re forgiving.  So there were a lot of dark elements, with such happy, happy chords going on behind them.” In keeping with the band’s determination to avoid being typical, its first film, “This Movie Is Broken,” is anything but a typical rock movie.  Directed by Bruce McDonald (“Roadkill,” “Hard Core Logo”) and co written by McDonald, Don McKellar and Drew, it’s a love story set in the hours leading up to and during a BSS concert in the summer of 2009, while Toronto is enduring a garbage strike.
McDonald has described it as something of a tribute to the city, with the ultimate Toronto band at its heart. True to the band’s ethos, it came together without ego, Drew says, as a community effort -  with nearly two dozen BSS alumni onstage, including Leslie Feist, Jason Collett, Emily Haines of Metric and Amy Millan of Stars.
“As a band,” Drew says, “the great thing about it was that there were lots of shots where we thought, ‘Oh, this person’s maybe going to say no to that, or say, “Change that,” or “I’m a little out of tune here.” ’ “But everyone, to their credit, realized it was something that, if they went and changed something, something else would get lost.  “I was grateful that the band signed off on it as this little love letter to Toronto, and it wasn’t just about Broken Social Scene. It’s about the audience. It’s about the city. It’s about the garbage strike. It’s about the condos that never stop getting built. It’s about the band. It’s about this couple. It’s about friends.”
A lot of the cult of BSS is built on friends, on the mythology of community that has grown around the band, largely due to its social conscience, its central place in the Toronto music scene and its penchant for mutating to accommodate anywhere from seven to 22 members on a stage at a given time. Asked what the formula is for distilling the various egos, tastes and styles into music, Drew answers: “Fair. I studied a lot when I was growing up about the band ego,” he says.  “And I saw a lot of bands go down the tubes around me because of the lead singer guy who claims it’s all about everyone — but really it’s about him. I never wanted to be part of that.  I enjoy the idea of writing music with amazing musicians. And I lucked out hanging with these guys. And we’ve just kept it fair, and it’s really worked. Even when things have gotten bigger for other artists involved, or things haven’t gotten as big for other people, we will all just try to help each other.”
In 2003, Pitchfork.com described the members of Broken Social Scene as “completely devoid of any kind of ironic detachment or rockstar attitude.” It’s something Drew says the band works to maintain. “I think, after a while there are things that get repetitively pushed into your space that make you a little bit of a diva. But we’re not really part of that scene, so we don’t really see it.  What we see are the struggles and the same people just trying to make this a living. That’s what this is. It’s a job, and it’s not an easy one. So, you have to be grateful every day  – because so many people would love to have your job.”