Louise Burns performs at the Commodore Ballroom on Friday, June 17, 5 p.m. as part of Levitation Vancouver. Tickets at Levitation-Vancouver.com.
It’s a Sunday afternoon in spring, and Louise Burns is curled up on the couch of her East Van home with a scented candle burning and a mug of tea cradled in her hands. She’s nursing a hangover after having played shows the past two nights, and she has a John Coltrane record on the turntable.
“Whenever I feel like I’m sick of music, I just put on jazz,” she explains. “Every time I hear a (rock) song, I analyze it to death. ‘Hmm, I wonder how many vocal takes that person did?’ or, ‘Who produced this? Why did they use that guitar tone?’ Sometimes you just want to relax, and that’s why jazz is good for a hangover.”
Burns’ tendency to overanalyze rock music is understandable, given her extensive background in the genre. Now 30, she got her start at the tender age of 11, when she started playing bass for the pop-friendly project Lillix. The band signed with Madonna’s Warner subsidiary Maverick Records and was poised for stardom, but the group was a commercial disappointment and the label folded.
“Our first record was a million dollars to make,” Burns remembers. “That was how much it cost to just make the album. That’s the old industry.”
These days, Burns’ career has taken on a very different shape. She’s signed to the local indie imprint Light Organ Records, and in 2011 released the debut solo album Mellow Drama. That collection channeled the ‘50s and ‘60s through the lens of dreamy folk-pop, while the follow-up, 2013’s The Midnight Mass, ventured into synth-draped ‘80s haziness. She’s also a member of the Arts & Crafts outfit Gold & Youth; in her spare time, she acts as a bassist, keyboardist and backup singer for hire.
A few weeks prior to this interview, Burns wrapped up work on a new solo LP with co-producers Colin Stewart (The New Pornographers, Black Mountain, Dan Mangan), and Damian Taylor (The Killers, Björk). Although the record likely won’t be out until next year, she’s already released a seven-inch for lead single “Pharaoh,” a swooning serenade that’s laden with watery guitars and heavy-lidded vocal harmonies. Unlike past efforts, it’s not indebted to a single time period.
“I like to live in that ground where nobody can quite define it,” Burns muses. “I don’t want to make an ’80s record – I have no interest in doing that. I don’t want to make a ’90s record or a ’60s folk record.
It’s 2016. I think both of my first two records were a little bit too close to one of those eras. This one, I’m trying to do it and not even think. Make it about the song and that’s it.”
Another single, “Storms,” is due out this month. With its surge of jangling guitars and hard-charging drums, the song is a tribute to a fan who reached out to Burns during a moment of personal crisis.
“They were going though something really traumatic, and they reached out to me and told me that my record helped them get through something,” she recounts.
For Burns, this interaction reaffirmed her decision to remain in the music business after almost two decades.
“It gave me this wake-up call about how I approach music,” she says. “I was like, ‘I feel like I’m not respecting what I do enough.’ Because I’m very jaded and I often bury a lot of my feelings toward the music industry in the form of being jokey or self-deprecating. But really, it’s what I live for.”
– Alex Hudson writes for our sister paper the Westender.
