Sometimes Sam Roberts wonders whether or not he’s tamed his music. The Montreal-based singer/songwriter and six-time Juno-award winner recently released his latest album, Collider,and then set upon the task of taming the album.
“You have to break the record – like a horse – and then you can let it run wild,” says Roberts. “Cause, otherwise, if it’s the opposite way, you’d never get it back.”
According to Roberts, once you’ve been scared off a record it can be difficult to get back on. After initial performances of a song don’t go well, a band can develop a kind of phobia or superstition and then avoid the song for possibly years.
“It’s happened to us on just about every record,” he says. “You work on these records, you spend a couple of months in the studio, but then the reality is you spend the next year and a half on the road, and that’s where you really start getting to know each other in terms of you and the songs.”
It’s a complex relationship between musician and music. Roberts feels like the first few shows of any tour can be something of a crapshoot.
“You have no idea how it’s going to go over,” he says. “Not just how it’s going to go over with people, but what will it do to you? Are you going to be in control of the music, or is it going to take you for a ride?”
After taming the song, Roberts says it’s time to rein it in and see how it works with the show. Once that process is complete, he lets the song go free. The band released Collider in May, and only now does Roberts feel like the band has begun to relax and loosen up on the reins.
Taming music hasn’t left Roberts without scars – he’s lost several teeth during performances over the band’s 11-year career. Okay, just one tooth, several times. A tooth he lost, initially, playing hockey; after that tooth was fixed it became prone to shattering easily.
“Sometimes that mic hits you pretty hard,” he laughs. “It shouldn’t, because you’re not supposed to smash your face into it, but for some reason I keep doing it.”
Sam Roberts Band
7pm, Saturday October 22
Royal Theatre
$29.50-$39.50
samrobertsband.com