Apt613 met with John Mullane, vocalist and guitarist for Canadian indie band In-Flight Safety on his home turf in Nova Scotia. Winner of five East Coast Music Awards and a Juno Award nominee, In-Flight Safety returns to Ottawa this Saturday night at Zaphod’s. Segments from the full interview will broadcast on Apt 613’s Radio Show, Tuesday, September 15th, on CHUO 89.1FM. The following Q&A has been edited for length.
Dressed in black boots, black jeans and a black t-shirt, John Mullane carries a musical instrument in each hand as we climb up the stairs to his rehearsal studio in Nova Scotia. Located south of Halifax, the multi-room space perches on top of a pizza shop while the temperature outside climbs above 30 degrees Celsius on this early September afternoon.
Not shy from the heat, Mullane replaces the instruments in his hands with a small hot coffee (and cream), nodding with enthusiasm when I ask the first tough question:
“Is it okay if we turn off the air conditioning for a bit [so that the media microphone won’t pick up all of the racket in the background]?”
As the fan whizzes to a halt and the interview ensues, it’s worth noting that the plainness of Mullane’s clothes offers a stark contrast — not only to the blue décor of the cozy room we’ve tuck ourselves into — but also to the way he speaks candidly about his experience over the past 11 years in Canadian music industry. Among the highlights (so far) for this East Coast band is an e-mail they received from David Bowie and collaboration with a variety of Canadian artists. More so, Mullane reveals that his musical career is characterized by a balancing act borne of necessity — all while staying true to a distinctly Canadian and maritime identity.
In Flight Safety, photo from the band’s Facebook page
Apt613: Back in 2004, you recorded a track called “Vacation Land” and I understand that it generated an e-mail from none other than David Bowie. Can you explain a little bit about how that e-mail was passed to you and what it said?
John Mullane: The long and short of it is we were a brand new band in Sackville, New Brunswick, which for many people who don’t know Mount Allison (University), it’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s in a town of, I think, about 2,000 people so maybe the university student body is almost as big as the town around it.
We had booked a show in Moncton in a small room called the Paramount Lounge and next door, Emm Gryner was playing a tour. After her set, she wandered into where we were playing and was really enthralled with what we were doing musically…and there was something that we were doing at the time that really resonated with her. And so she bought up all the CDs that we had…and just sent them out to people.
[Emm Gryner] was the main reason that we became a band with a quote unquote career.
She was sending these records out and one of them went to David Bowie and we had no idea. And so then I got an e-mail forwarded to me from her when I was still at my desk in Sackville, working on something, and then I got the e-mail it said something about how he had received the album from In- and ‘it was a nice album, thank you for sending it.’
Well, if David Bowie can like this stuff, or that it can get to David Bowie and he likes it, surely anything is possible. Cause that was really the feeling in our band at the time. Anything is possible.
From that moment, everyone gathered around the computer. I took them out of classes, the guys that were still in classes. And we all looked at that e-mail and were just shocked. We were lucky to have that a-ha moments because not a lot of bands get those. You always think if you climb up over the mountain and look over the other side there will be some secret that you’re having success. But you never know. And there’s always more mountains to climb once you get over that mountain. But that was just, early on, a very inspiring thing to kinda let us know twe were onto something.”
What was the most recent mountain that you climbed?
Finishing our last record. There was quite a lot of time between We Are an Empire [2009] and Conversationalist [2014]. And we took some time off, to be fair. We had toured on We Are an Empire until 2011 and we just hit a brick wall. So I think the biggest mountain, in a weird way, was digging out of a hole because we were so exhausted from promoting I[2006] and We Are an Empire for so many years.
It was kinda like go-go-go until 2011. Off and on, of course, because we weren’t on tour for the entire time. But you’re gone for a month, home for three, gone for two, home for one. So it just took a toll on us. And I think around that time the biggest mountain to climb was ‘how are we gonna do this’, Conversations, as a record, that wasn’t even a record yet.
So, we thought we were a lot closer to having a record finished in 2011 and then I realized by the end of the year that we really didn’t have anything. So that was the most recent mountain climbing that we’ve done.”
If there was something that you could know now that you didn’t know then – what would that be?
I think the biggest thing that I’m shocked at is the idea of making it into a full-time career is insane.
But early on, we didn’t know. We just thought, well, we want to make a living doing this. That was kinda the thing that maybe someone should have said: ‘you know, it’s gonna be next to impossible and there are only so many bands in Canada that can make a full-time living’.
So I think for us, that would have been something that we would have liked to have known. But we are very happy with the successes we’ve had. But we also had to figure out ways to be crafty in this industry. Constantly being creative and finding ways to make a living and then keeping the band busy out on the roads. So it’s been a balancing act of sorts that I didn’t know is so insane.
I want to give [Apt613 audiences] a bit of an understanding of your creative process. How do you do it?
Creative process is, I think I read something recently, where the muse visits you when you’re being creative. There is some truth to that. You just have to chop wood. You just have to start making marks and things will come to you. So I don’t believe in just waiting for creative time. But every now and then, I get these little deliveries. A little zing from somewhere.
In Flight Safety, from the band’s Facebook page
How has the music scene changed from when you first got into it – to this point in time?
This is a really tricky question to answer because it’s hard to know the causality.
Of course there is some evidence to show that the music industry has changed completely since 2003 and [20]04 with digital downloads. And even digital downloads phasing out into streaming. It’s completely changed the landscape.
And also the saturation. I think music fans out there who are listening generally feel saturated. They feel overwhelmed with music and the ‘hey, check out our band’ kinda thing seems to have really hit a fever pitch in the last three to four years.
Even now you just see voter fatigue and people just don’t even want to vote for bands anymore. Just enough is enough.
You’re seeing kinda the maximum carrying capacity of new bands and new songs and ‘hey, check out our social media.’
So I think that wasn’t something we had to deal with. We were blessed with the fact that we just had to make good music and tour. And things started happening for us. But now, I see young bands constantly feel the need to be on social media and create content.
But I think the end user is kinda overwhelmed with mediocre content. Cause you can’t literally make great content every day cause that’s not how art works.
Canadian music is not as front and centre as it was. It was more important to CBC Radio 3 when we started. It was more important to CBC when we started.
Now you’re seeing a lot of those shows cut. CBC 3 is now down to a skeleton crew. And CBC 3 was largely responsible for the promotion of many of the bands that I came up with. So things are very different. And as such, I think it’s harder today to start a band than ever. We were lucky when we started. It seemed to be a little more doable.
I just can’t imagine a young band today, starting, and then putting in two or three years of writing and recording and then trying to go out and make money. I can’t imagine that being very feasible.
So, I do a lot of chatting to younger bands and mentoring younger bands and I always encourage them to just have another job.
You definitely need to have some way of making money that’s complimentary to your music and that’s not in opposition to it.
Listen to the interview:
In-Flight Safety performs in Ottawa at Zaphod Beeblebrox on Saturday, September 12th. The show starts at 8:30pm. Advance tickets can be purchased for $10.
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