Fixing His Social Scene

For almost a decade, Kevin Drew has been the lynchpin holding together Broken Social Scene, a family-size collective whose members have forged other Canadian sensations like Metric, Stars, Apostle of Hustle, Jason Collett and Feist (whose infectious “1234” is currently featured in an iPod Nano advertisement). It wasn’t until recently that the indie wunderkind had the opportunity to step out under his own name.

“I veered a little more personal with Spirit If...,” Drew says of his first solo release, as he relaxes at New York’s SoHo Grand Hotel after an all-nighter. “I always found Social Scene to be very much ‘us and them’ and I was doing a lot of ‘you and I’ on this record.”

Released by Arts & Crafts, a label Drew helped found for Broken Social Scene’s various projects, Spirit If… is a family affair, featuring contributions from most of BSS’s core members, including current girlfriend Leslie Feist and co-principle Brendan Canning. But while Broken Social Scene is known for its gang-size attack, Spirit If… finds Drew scaling back.

“Instead of doing what I think many band leaders do—making a record their own—we wanted to make sure we kept Social Scene this big collective. I wanted people to hear what my sound is and what Brendan’s sound is.”

Drew sees the project as the first in a series of Broken Social Scene Presents releases, focusing on projects that veer slightly left of the group’s sound, including soundtracks. He also needed a break. “As people do well on their own, they start to leave and I’m not mad about it anymore. Social Scene will happen again, but we were getting into the ‘I need more, mo’ money, mo’ problems’ world. We had to walk away because repetition is hard on the spirit. I was exhausted and not making sane calls anymore. I was so tired and confused about it all.”

In his spare time, Drew began working on Spirit If… with Do Make Say Think’s Ohad Benchetrit and Charles Spearin, who “just pressed record to see what happened.

“It got a little crazy and we had a lot of pressure, but this record helped me come back to my center. I still have a lot of anxiety, but I know how to be judged. I have gone through it… this moment does not define me.”

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