Holy F--- Take Their Time With New Album, 'Latin'

Posted on May 6th 2010 12:30PM by Lonny Knapp
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Holy F--- is one of Canada's fiercest live acts, but with a perpetually packed tour schedule, allotting time to capture their analogue electronic rock on record is a challenge.

The band's last album, 2007's 'LP,' was pieced together from hasty sessions captured on tour stops in cities such as Amsterdam, London and New York, but this time out the band was determined to take their time.

"It made more sense that we would go into the studio, take our time, hang out as friends and be creative," co-founder Brian Borcherdt tells Spinner. "It wasn't quite the 'Fleetwood Mac billion dollar studio adventure,' but it was closer to that than we've come before."

Holy F---'s upcoming release 'Latin,' was recorded between tours in a converted barn in rural Ontario. The band began tracking back in 2008 and had an album in the can over a year ago, but decided to extend sessions to capture new songs and revised versions of tunes such as 'P.I.G.S.,' the-four-and-a-half minute juggernaut that serves as the album's finale.

"We did a version we thought was pretty good, but when we went out on tour it sounded better," Borcherdt explains. "We were like, 'f--- it, let's do it again.' It's the first time we ever re-tracked a song, and it defines the greater effort we put in."

Holy F--- were at one time more a musical collective than a band, with leaders Borcherdt and Graham Walsh calling on members of Wintersleep, Blue Rodeo and King Cobb Steelie to fill in on bass and drums on the road and in the studio. Scheduling conflicts were inevitable and eventually the collective model became unmanageable.

"It was getting scary. We'd have a show on the weekend and a few days earlier we still wouldn't know who was going to be our drummer," Borcherdt says.

On 'Latin,' Holy F--- is pared down to the essentials -- Borcherdt and Walsh evoke strange sounds from a collection of garage-sale synthesizers, while drummer Matt Schulz and bassist Matt McQuaid lock in the rhythm. The album showcases the intensity of their lean-and-mean touring lineup, but evolving from a collective into a band meant each member was asked to boost their contribution.

"We are four guys that are bludgeoning out these songs that don't have lyrics or a lot of melody," Borcherdt explains. "Our challenge was to make the album interesting and exciting, and we had to stretch ourselves in ways we didn't have to when we were a collective effort."

The band's debut was nominated for a Juno Award and the Polaris Music Prize, and with the release of 'Latin,' Holy F--- is keen to capitalize on the increasing exposure.

"I don't feel we compromised or sacrificed anything, but we wanted the record to be better," Borcherdt says. "We figured that if we have a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, we better put more thought into what we say."