Inhaling Frequencies Open | Hey Rosetta! gulps up the oxygen on their award-winning Into Your Lungs disc.
DETAILS
HEY ROSETTA!
Avenue Theatre (9030-118 Ave) Wed, July 8 (8pm). Tickets: $17, available through Ticketmaster, Blackbyrd, Megatunes.
“First of all, I love music and I listen to music a lot, but I really hate music with bad words,” says Hey Rosetta!’s Tim Baker, a hint of exasperation in his voice. “It really doesn’t make any sense that you would go through all this time to make this music — and just the idea of standing on the stage yelling things at people.... I think they should make it worthwhile things.”
There are, as a result, very few bands whose words are more worthy of rock ’n’ roll amplification than Hey Rosetta!’s. Even the title of their award-sweeping first full-length album — a release that now has three ECMAs, two Indies and various other accolades to its name — Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood) is lush and poetic, yet simple.
As the main songwriter for the St. John’s-based six-piece indie-orchestra, Baker sets his lyrics afloat with the help of his bandmates. They’ll rise on swells of violin and cello lines, only to crash into cymbals and descend into the ringing of a dirty electric guitar. The sentiment is unmistakable with such lavish accompaniment, but sometimes audiences can get the message itself muddled. “I’m a little worried that I’m not a very good communicator — that everything’s not very obvious,” he sighs.
I can almost hear his brow furrow when I ask him to clarify a few things on the record. He’s not mad or frustrated with me, just a little doubtful of himself. “I get these things all the time. People are like, ‘What the hell was that song about?’”
Even their manager was concerned about folks misinterpreting the album’s artwork — a hand-drawn storybook-esque cover that features an island burning and a ship escaping the flames. “I had originally called the album Waving a New Goodbye,” Baker says, “and that’s actually what all the artwork was designed around. Then our manager was like, ‘Dude, it really looks like it’s Newfoundland burning, and [you’re] saying goodbye to Newfoundland and leaving it behind to die.’” They never had any intention of setting their hometown ablaze, so they quickly switched the title out.
And from artwork to lyrical choices, Baker will patiently launch into an explanation of every grand theme, every visceral line, every idea that captures your heart but eludes your mind. “The actual incident was not very serious, actually,” says Baker when I ask him what event triggered the track “Holy Shit (What a Relief).” “I was at a friend of mine’s house and he had a little party. I was drinking quite a bit and I fell asleep on the couch, which is super-lame. It’s one of the only times I’ve ever done it, actually passed out in the middle of a party. Anyway, so I woke up and there was six or seven people left, sittin’ around at four in the morning and I was like, ‘What the fuck, I can’t believe I did this!’ So I got up and kinda stumbled out of there. I was like, ‘I gotta get outta here. This is terrible.’
“He has this long, like, 10 or 15 steps at his front door,” he continues. “It was really wet and I slipped on the top step and just tumbled down the whole staircase. I quite badly bruised my back and knocked the wind out of myself completely. So I’m lying on the bottom — it was a really intense fall, it’s a super-steep staircase — and I thought maybe I had actually killed myself, like broken my neck, you know? I’m just lying on my back,, looking up at the sky thinking, ‘Hey, maybe I just died ... This is actually not that bad.’ Everybody is always fearing dying but I was like, ‘If I’m actually dead, I guess I’ll be going to heaven, that’s gotta be alright, by the stories. It’s kinda nice that the moment is actually here and I don’t have to worry about it anymore.’”
Now it’s my turn to furrow my brow. I thought the song eloquently captured relief from fear and anxiety — that it captured release, just not that kind of release. I mutter something about the meaning, the words Baker dug out to yell from the stage every night, being even deeper than I could conceive.
“They often are, actually,” Baker murmurs back.
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