Square is a modern avant-rock band based in Vancouver that epitomizes the ethos of the Canadian middle-aged experience. Multicultural, overeducated, and ironically trying to justify art-making in our current (dis)information age, Square asks a unique musical question: what happens when you know all the rules, and where all the roads in life lead, and somehow still get lost? Square began in 2017, after three well-established composers in the Canadian contemporary music scene, James Maxwell, Edward Top, and Alfredo Santa Ana, imagined a new creative output for their work. Together with Vancouver's indie-music scene legend Nathan Dillon, the songs they have created are powerful, complex, and uniquely wrought out, resulting not as an experiment of their combined musical lives but as a staunch statement of musical mastery.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Kamil) Hey Square, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
Ed) Yeah, thanks for having us! My folks got me into the Beatles and classical music, my uncles into Meatloaf and Queen, and my cousins into metal. We started Square five years ago. James, Alfredo and myself have known each other as composers in Vancouver’s classical music scene. Nate and James go way back to the indie-rock scene of the nineties in bands such as Rotorcloud, Ottobon, and Another White Male. I bumped into James at an avant-garde music concert, and he wanted to get behind the drumkit in a band again after all those years. When Alfredo got wind of our plans over coffee, he grabbed his Gretsch from his apartment and joined us right away. After several bass players, Alfredo and I were super stoked to hear that James reconnected with Nate, who is one of the most exciting performers in the scene.
Nate) Van Halen and Motley Crue.
Alfredo) Older brother's mix tapes, going to a Reggae concert when I was growing up in Mexico City, and having the chance to listen to live music in general.
James) Early Santana and Rush albums.
How do you balance your time in the studio with other commitments such as a part-time job, family, admin?
Ed) We just make sure to bring other commitments into the Square-realm! I teach music at university, and bring Square songs to class for the students to study. Saves me time researching other topics (only joking)! They come to the gigs too.
Nate) We only do Square about three hours a week, so it’s a pretty light load.
James) Like Nate said, it’s a pretty low time commitment, so it’s not a problem. I’ve also just realized that the time I give to drumming benefits everything else I do, so it all ads up to a net positive.
Alfredo) Music is already my part-time AND full-time job, and so like everyone here has mentioned, regular practice makes it part of my 'work' load so it's both balanced and influential to everything else.
Your latest release is 'The World Is Square'. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if there were any unusual things happening during the process?
Alfredo) I think Ed had all these bits of interesting guitar riffs that were kind of exercises or warmups, and I learned them all to see if we could put it together as a song. After that we all kind of jumped in and created the arrangement that was recorded.
James) We recorded a bunch of bed tracks for several tracks over a couple of days, then the rest came together pretty slowly, jumping between different studios.
Nate) Covid upended the release. But it is sort of we had a loose idea to put it out and see what happened, try to get it out and play. And then it was a year of watch and see. So now we get the chance to get the music out there.
Where did you get the inspiration for this EP?
Ed) Haha! James, who always has the best one-liner ideas, came up with the title at a party. We thought it’d be fun to take the flat-earth ideology to an even more ridiculous level, and claim the earth is square! I penned down the lyrics (including a ‘rhyme’, a tongue-in-cheek sermon based on the apocalypse), squealed out a violin glissando, showed Alfredo a lick I’m using as a dissonant guitar warm-up exercise, and the four of us went with it.
Alfredo) Well... it's the absurdity of it all, and feeling the urge to make sense of the world by whatever means you have, we're condemned and blessed to do so! Making music and thinking the earth is flat is, in my opinion, part of that same impulse to understand our condition.
Nate) I wanted the rhythm section parts to be as live feeling as possible on the first releases. And to allow Ed and Alfredo to play with sound design and instrumentation. I think the balance for where we were at is pretty representational.
James) The songs on the EP are a mix of the very first “crop” of Square songs we ever wrote together, along with some more recent material that came together as the band’s sound started to become more refined. So it covers a pretty good patch of what we’ve done creatively. We have a new “crop” in the works… looking forward to getting that recorded, too!
How long did you work on 'The World Is Square'? Was it an easy process for you?
Ed) Actually, the title song came together quicker than many other complex songs we’ve created. It took more time in the studio to polish the recording adding violin, trombone, and vocal effects.
Nate) Ya for me there was a tough learning curve being the one unschooled musician. But since we operate like a gang\age band, by that I mean we fundamentally write “at volume” in the rehearsal space with minimal scoring or prerecording, it kind of balanced out for me once I got my sea legs, and chops back up.
James) As I mentioned, these songs cover a pretty wide period of the bands creative output, so they are quite varied, in a way… And as Nate mentioned, although we pretty much always start with a core idea, or set of ideas, that someone either brings in or jams out in the room, the actual “writing” process is very collaborative. That’s the fun part. And of course the studio process brings in all sorts of other possibilities, which help really build the sound world… It’s kinda slow, but also a very fluid process.
How do you know when a work is finished?
Nate) I never see anything as finished it’s just where it got to that day!
Alfredo) Creatively that's always going to be hard, and yet I've never heard a piece of music and thought it needed 'finishing'. So in a way, I guess, being finished is listening carefully and letting the track tell you it's done...?
James) Yeah, I think of it a bit like Nate, in that it’s not really “done”, it’s just at a state that makes sense for the context we’re working in at the time. I could easily imagine working and reworking these songs, but at the same time I think we’ve come up with some really great things together, and we’ve got them “on tape” (so to speak), so that kind of ends a part of the process. And then we’re onto new material, new ideas, so we just move on.
Ed) Even after recording the songs, we’re actually still adding changes to them when playing live, so, as everyone else pointed out already, nothing ever seems really finished.
Can you write what was your best performance in your career? How do you remember it?
Ed) Playing at The Roxy in downtown Vancouver last week. At least I remember that one.
Alfredo) Lol! Roxy last week for sure.
James) Oh, that’s a tough one. I remember getting into a jam at an after hours booze can in the mid-90s that was pretty amazing. I was playing in the Drum and Bass group Ottobon at the time. It was after the late, great Ray Garraway (RIP) had left the band, so we were down to one drummer… Ha!… but it was a super fun jam and I remember it being kinda magical. Not sure how long we played for, but it wasn’t short. :) With Square, it’s an up-and-up kinda thing, so yeah, our last gig at the Roxy. That’s the first gig “back” for me, where I felt (mostly) loose and comfortable; not second guessing myself and freaking out all the time. I was off the stage for a looooong time before Square… Hahaha...
How do you find yourself in the music business? When you started out in music, did you know it would be like this?
Ed) Lost, hah! When we started out (pre-Square), the music business was different, so I guess it’s the music business that hasn’t figured out Square yet!
James) The “music business” is a bit of a joke. I mean, it’s this absurd, extractive thing where the few suck the life out of the many—the “long tail” of Spotify, and all that... But there’s a lot of really great, really interesting music getting made somehow, so I’m excited to be a part of it. Other than that, for me it’s mostly about composition, which is generally in an interdisciplinary context, working with contemporary dance, theatre, film, and media. I love those collaborations.
Alfredo) Never gotten it, but it definitely exists…
Nate) I leave the music business alone. I put out my first indie cassette in 1990. Last week a girl at our show told me we should put out The World is Square on cassette. There is something to that retrograde that I really appreciate.
Who is your favourite musician?
Ed) Tim Smith (Cardiacs), Captain Beefheart, Charles Ives, Arnold Schoenberg.
Nate) My Apple Music says, Tom Waits, Neurosis, Van Halen
Alfredo) Laurie Anderson. But I can't deny the strange alchemy that Cobain, Martin Gore and Robert Smith have in my perception of what a good musician is, ooh, Gustavo Santaolalla and Glenn Gould too!
James) Right now, probably Morgan Simpson (Black Midi)—that guy’s just insane. But I’ll also always love listening to Stewart Copeland… I still don’t know anyone who can sound so unique and identifiable just playing straight time. Nobody.
What are your plans for the future?
Ed) Keep being creative and true to what we decide to do for ourselves, and kind of hoping others will dig our music too.
Nate) Getting Square in front of audiences!
Alfredo) Ditto what everyone said...and...buy another guitar?
James) +1 on what Nate said, but also recording some new material. And I want us to somehow get a permanent rehearsal space and some gear to start live-streaming rehearsals and writing sessions. I think that would be fun for people to watch, and would kinda connect our audience to what we’re doing… get them involved in the process a bit more…