{"id":4890,"date":"2012-11-14T08:07:06","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T16:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=4890"},"modified":"2012-11-14T09:10:25","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T17:10:25","slug":"diamond-rings-back-and-larger-than-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/11\/14\/diamond-rings-back-and-larger-than-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Diamond Rings back and larger than life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask most Canadian indie rock darlings who they\u2019d like to collaborate with if they could pick anyone and the stock answer is usually someone from The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, or that dude from the Black Keys. (I could just barf all over their hipster clothes.) But ask John O\u2019Regan, better known as Diamond Rings, that same question and his answer is rather refreshing, really.<\/p>\n

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Imagine for a minute you have to write this photo caption (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cKylie Minogue,\u201d says O\u2019Regan, without a moment\u2019s hesitation. \u201cShe\u2019s got amazing style and a great body of work. I really take inspiration from those artists who have managed to sustain lasting careers without compromising their own aesthetic integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

On his second album, Free Dimensional,<\/em> the Toronto songwriter delves even further into his electro-pop \u201980s inspiration, sounding like a cross between David Bowie and Midge Ure (Ultravox). It\u2019s high praise for a former punk kid who still writes songs in his cozy bedroom, although this time his recording studio time included the guiding hands of hotshot producer Damian Taylor (Bj\u0161rk, Austra, The Prodigy).<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a real pro and has amazing ears,\u201d says O\u2019Regan. \u201cHe really pushed me to step outside of my comfort zone and take risks. He\u2019s also got an incredibly warm, calming personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is an album that could catapult Diamond Rings into a spotlight to accentuate his impeccable fashion sense and daring sense of humour. And while some might try to take the piss out of him for being too flamboyant, like other great musicians before him he understands the importance of image in pop music.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic and fashion are inextricably linked. People listen with their eyes as much as their ears. Fashion just gives me another avenue to further my creative vision,\u201d he says, adding, \u201cI don\u2019t really think of myself as having a sense of humour. Lyrically, I like to play around and reference other artists and songs within my own work. Stuff like that is funny to me, but I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s funny to anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Diamond Rings character that O\u2019Regan created after tooling around in the Toronto-area post-punk scene was meant to be a springboard for the kind of music he was aching to create. Free Dimensional <\/em>is the batch of songs that could elevate him to Kylie Minogue-like status. Heck, with appearances on both Letterman and Leno in recent weeks, perhaps that high-profile collab with the Aussie songstress isn\u2019t so far off\u0143just the next accomplishment for O\u2019Regan\u2019s alter-ego persona.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiamond Rings is not a persona,\u201d he\u2019s quick to point out, \u201cbut rather an amplified version of my own self. It\u2019s about celebrating my own idiosyncrasies and living out the internal contradictions that make me unique.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask most Canadian indie rock darlings who they\u2019d like to collaborate with if they could pick anyone and the stock answer is usually someone from The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, or that dude from the Black Keys. (I could just barf all over their hipster clothes.) But ask John O\u2019Regan, better known as Diamond […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-issue","category-november-14-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4890"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4949,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4890\/revisions\/4949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}