Holy f***! Is that a melody?

The new album treads a more tuneful path, Holy Fuck's Brian Borchadt tells SINEAD GLEESON

Holy Fuck’s latest album, Latin, is very different to the work that made the band’s name

It does differ, but if you follow the trajectory from Latin back to our first album, you can hear that our albums could have gone in many different directions. LP started to go in a melodic direction, even though it hung on to some of the more frenetic stuff. The new record goes further into the realm of melody, but it doesn't mean we'll go further down that road. I'd like us to regress a little next time around and explore some of the other directions we could have gone in. You know, the bizarre, rhymatic, strange directions. The new record didn't set out to sound that way on purpose. Our goal was to just make an album that was dynamic, and we felt the albums lacked a bit of melody in the past.

Are you more comfortable on stage than in the studio?

Definitely. We’re really a live band in a lot of ways. That’s where we’re best observed because, it’s very much about the energy. When we go in to the studio, we still record as if it’s live – we do it in one room. It’s the best way for us to do it in terms of trying to capture that same energy we have on stage. It’s harder, of course, because it’s a more controlled environment and you don’t have an audience. Most of the material on Latin was born out of a live show, like songs like Red Lights and Latin America. It’s been a matter of trying to recreate them. They were very droney, Kraut-like and propulsive.

There’s a very impromptu structural style to the music. Does it just sound that way or is it more rehearsed?

In the beginning, we weren’t even about one take, we were about trying to create something spontaneously from scratch. It was very unapologetic, and for that reason a lot of people didn’t like our earlier recordings, because they weren’t very user-friendly. They didn’t satisfy the Pitchfork generation that ultimately want to hear some take on pop music. We don’t really want to get into a post-production world where you’re nipping, tucking and improving things.

In the past decade, there’s been an explosion in instrumental music, in that it has crossed over into the mainstream

One of the things that has changed is the format. The medium through which we absorb our music is very different, from online to iPods. In the past, people were looking for music that had to encapsulate everything – you needed the lyric that would affect you, the music – but it’s not like that any more. For me personally, in the course of a day I’ll listen to the stuff I always keep coming back to, so I might jump from Japanese music to country to a band like Can. It’s always been about listening to something because it sounded cool. I don’t think anyone ever listened to a Sonic Youth song for the lyrics. I don’t think lyrics are all we should focus on.

A couple of years ago, there was a lot of talk about Canada as this musical epicentre. Is that still the case?

The music scene here in Toronto is the healthiest it’s ever been. There are such a huge variety of bands out there touring. When people first started hearing about Canadian bands and labels a few years back, it was partly because the scene had been so starved before that, and then we had all these great bands who flourished.

You’re probably best known for the anthemic track Lovely Allen. How do you feel about the song and how do people react when you play it live?

Good question. Because lately we’ve been noticing a shift in the response to it. Less so at festivals, but definitely more in clubs and smaller venues. People seem to have these reaction spikes throughout our shows, and when we start playing Lovely Allen people don’t go as crazy as they once did. At first it was disconcerting. We were like “are we not playing it as well as we used to?”, or “are people sick of this song?” but then we started to think of it as a good thing, because we’re trying to build a dynamic set list with lots of great songs on it.

Holy Fuck play Whelan’s, Dublin, on November 19