Periphery To Perform In India

It also seems like this album was a lot more collaborative, compared to the last one”¦

Absolutely. This is kind of my project ”“ I started it, I found members over the years and the first album kinda came together from being just my songs. But this time around, we all got together, we all contributed, we have a better lineup now and that’s better with writing as well, so everybody was contributing. And I think this album really sounds like Periphery: the band, rather than Periphery: the project.

Speaking of it growing out of a solo project, how did Bulb first happen?

Bulb is sort of this accidental thing, I decided I wanted to put out some music and I had this band when I lived inTorontocalled Bulb. I made a page for it on this site called SoundClick where I used to post up songs. I used to keep posting songs even after the band broke up, since they were all the songs I wrote anyway. And eventually people just assumed that that was my name, for whatever reason, and instead of explaining the whole story eventually I was just like, “It’s fine; that’s my nickname.” And essentially it’s just an outlet for whatever ideas I have. There’s no specific approach to how I sound or anything that I do. Anything I do would get posted up there and the stuff and the demos that were appropriate to Periphery would eventually become Periphery songs, you know. It was kind of this depository, this back catalogue to pick songs from or to rework songs or whatever. There’s not really much of a purpose than to just be out there for people to go and enjoy.

 

But at what point did you decide to split up your body of work into Bulb and Periphery?

Bulb was an accident, it was just a place to put music but I wanted to have a band and I decided that Periphery was going to be that band and then, whatever ideas I wanted to take from Bulb would become Periphery. So, in a sense, Periphery is all the good Bulb stuff [laughs].

What I eventually realized was that Periphery ”“ when I was putting together the band ”“ helped me find people who were on the same wavelength, who understood what I was going for and had their own take on it. Everyone entered the band as a fan and entered understanding as one to pursue that direction, rather than there being an argument about it.

 

But you put together a band when it wasn’t exactly the best time to be in one. What’s it like being in a band today?

Well, it depends on what your goals are, what you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to make money, it’s probably not the best time. But if you’re trying to get out there and create something new and reach out to big audiences around the world yeah, it’s probably the best time, because you have this unprecedented accessibility in the world right now. For example, you’re calling me fromIndiawhere, as I understand it, we’d probably do very well. We’ve never even been there before; we’ve never had any contact withIndia; that’s crazy. Twenty years ago that would never have happened. You’d have to go there and let people know about you, somehow. But now you can be an international band without even leaving your living room and I think that is really amazing and that, for the purely creative and artistic side of music, it’s a great time but the other side of that coin is that because of the state of the industry, it’s extremely hard to make a living doing this. Extremely hard.