The Stills' Greg Paquet and Dave Hamelin at SXSW March 18 2006
Photo: MTV News

AUSTIN, Texas — In the middle of a humid Friday afternoon, the Stills — featured performers at Spin's South by Southwest party — sing about chilling out, as in enduring "Dr. Zhivago"-like conditions.

"We'll wait them out until the tundra freezes," goes one such lyric. It's dreamy and epic, but a far cry from their not-so-cold debut, 2003's Logic Will Break Your Heart — which is kind of the point.

"The new album is pretty wintery," co-frontman Dave Hamelin said. "The songs are about winter and all in major keys. What are we trying to achieve here? Happiness in the cold? It's not going to happen."

Without Feathers, the band's sophomore effort due May 9, is the Stills' proof that they are a product of their environment — in their case, Montreal.

"Minus 40 Celsius degrees affects you," co-frontman Tim Fletcher said. "The sun goes down at 4:30 [p.m.]."

"3:30," keyboardist Liam O'Neil corrected.

"It's almost Siberian, it's no joke," bassist Oliver Crowe said. "It's like Moscow. It's worse than Moscow."

"You know how the English are always like, 'It's so rainy, that's why we're so miserable'?" Hamelin said, taking on a fake Brit accent. "Come to Montreal! You're somebody who thinks you've been through bad weather, and you have no clue. Shut up."

Complaints aside, the Stills started writing Without Feathers in November, so it was one long, dark winter during the entire making of the album. Hamelin even wrote one song, "In the Beginning," while he was in a hotel lobby in Reykjavík, Iceland.

But the Stills found comfort from the cold in the new direction songs such as "Halo the Harpoon" and "Oh Shoplifter" were taking, as Hamelin and crew exchanged the noir pop of Logic for something a little bigger (see " 'Control Freaks' The Stills Try Not To Spoil Their Own Songs").

"It doesn't seem that drastic to us," Hamelin said, "but when people haven't seen us in a year and a half, it's a change. But the great bands we love all changed, and it was an important part of them being great. So we have songs driven by a Hammond B3 organ instead of a guitar. It's good."

To help fans get acquainted with the new sound, the Stills are easing them in with the band's first single, "Destroyer," which they picked because it's the "more fast and crazy" song of the album. "It's wacky and there's lots of horns on it and it's all about murder and stuff, so it's going to be on the top of the charts for sure," Hamelin said. "We're just trying to compete with hip-hop and violent things."

"You know the song 'Toxic' by Britney Spears?" Fletcher asked. "You need to have a good energy for your first single. It's got to be dancey."

Maybe Spears isn't the best business role model for a rock band, but the Stills also have wacky and dancey examples from Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys to make their point. "Most people want something crazy, with the crazy hype," Hamelin said. "So we have a kooky single. It's faster, the tempo's up. 'The Stills with the crazy new single, they're such crazy kids.' "

Still, Hamelin's holding out for releasing what he considers to be a better song, "She's Walking Out," as a single — he says he doesn't want it to be Without Feathers' first or even second single, because the song is "too slow." Plus, it's another song about winter. But even though those songs permeate Without Feathers, the Stills don't want fans to think the record will give them frostbite.

"I don't think it sounds cold. I think it sounds more like a remedy, like Nyquil," Corbeil said. "It's Nyquillian. Some sort of solace. It's hopeful music in the end."

The Stills' tour dates, according to the band's publicist:

• 4/2 - Cambridge, MA @ T.T. the Bear's Place
• 4/3 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Church
• 4/4 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
• 4/5 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
• 4/8 - Baltimore. MD @ Sonar
• 4/9 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
• 4/10 - Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrews Hall
• 4/11 - Columbus, OH @ The Basement
• 4/13 - Chicago, IL @ Double Door
• 4/14 - Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity
• 4/15 - Omaha, NE @ Sokol Auditorium
• 4/17 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Club Sound
• 4/19 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah
• 4/20 - West Hollywood, CA @ Troubadour
• 4/21 - San Francisco, CA @ Popscene
• 4/24 - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
• 4/25 - Seattle, WA @ Crocodile

• Highlights From South By Southwest 2006

• The Stills

The Stills
Photo: Vice

When Montreal quartet the Stills emerged back in early 2003, they were touted as the newest hipsters on the scene. They were mistaken for then-chic Brooklynites, and the media hype surrounding them often focused more on their sartorial sharpness and winning good looks than on their music.

The band protested these shallow depictions. How were blazers with tattered jeans and beaten-up shoes as fashionable as the tailor-made suits worn by the members of Interpol (a group they were often compared to)?

Perhaps anticipating more of the same, the band, now a quintet, has defied expectations, taking a dramatic left turn with its sophomore album, Without Feathers, due May 9.

Gone is the '80s-inflected romantic noir pop (think Echo & the Bunnymen and the Psychedelic Furs) of their debut, Logic Will Break Your Heart. In its place is a warmer sound with nods to the Beatles and Bob Dylan and shades of classic rock and alt-country.

The first move of their reinvention was ditching their guitar-effects pedals.

"The piano and the B-3 organ, those are our new effects," said former drummer turned singer/guitarist Dave Hamelin. "There's some reverb, but it's not a super-altered album. We didn't want to mess around. We [didn't] need to spoil the songs with tons of sh-- on top."

Named after a Woody Allen book, Without Feathers also became a larger metaphor for change. The Stills looked to the constantly evolving careers of the Beatles, Dylan, the Clash and Radiohead for inspiration and validation, but they still had their fears. "Everybody had trepidation," Hamelin said of their developing sound. "But were we going to put out another album that [follows trends], or were we going to challenge ourselves? We wanted to keep ourselves interested."

It didn't help that the band felt its sound had oversaturated the market. "I thought after the Rapture there'd be no more dancey, punky new-wave bands," he explained. "I thought we [were] late on the train. And then everybody [jumped on that sound]. It's almost embarrassing. So we didn't even want to operate there — we didn't want to be part of that context anymore."

But bucking the trends is risky business for a young, newly established act, and the band is already anticipating a backlash. Even though he wrote many songs on Logic, with his new move to co-frontman next to Tim Fletcher, Hamelin already expects the blame for the musical sea change to fall squarely on his shoulders.

"I would be an easy target — me and [new keyboardist] Liam [O'Neil]. 'They ruined the Stills. Where's "Still in Love"? I wanna dance!' " he laughed.

Changing their sound wasn't just reactionary, though. After a few frustrating months of touring, the band parted ways with guitarist Greg Paquet, and Hamelin decided he no longer wanted to stay behind the kit. The Stills then made touring multi-instrumentalist O'Neil a permanent member of the group and enlisted new drummer Julien Blais (the band is rounded out by bassist Olivier Corbeil). Their newfound proficiencies helped them explore new musical avenues.

Feathers was originally scheduled for fall 2005, but a competitive fourth-quarter market bumped it into 2006. Initially the guys were incredibly annoyed, but the delay became a blessing in disguise, enabling them to keep tweaking, writing and adding the occasional horn or two. It also gave them time to rope in some guest players, including Metric's Emily Hanes (vocals on "It Takes Time"), Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew (backing vocals on "She's Walkin' Out") and Apostle of Hustle guitarist Julian Brown.

The Stills are currently planning a video for the album's first single, "Destroyer" — the song is a thinly veiled carp on those who initially didn't believe in their new direction. "It's about being disenfranchised by the powers that be, but more personally," he said. "It's about a loss of control and being really angry at that loss of control. But then again, [we're] control freaks."

Track list for the Stills' Without Feathers, according to the band's publicist:

• "In the Beginning"
• "The Mountain"
• "She's Walkin' Out"
• "Helicopters"
• "In the End"
• "Oh Shoplifter"
• "Outro"
• "Halo the Harpoons"
• "It Takes Time"
• "Destroyer"
• "Baby Blues"
• "The House We Live In"

The Stills tour dates, according to the band's publicist:

• 3/7 - Guelph, ON @ Vinyl
• 3/9 - St. Catharines, ON @ L3 Nightclub
• 3/10 - Peterborough, ON @ Trasheteria
• 3/11 - Collingwood, ON @ Blue Mountain
• 3/17 - Austin, TX @ Stubbs BBQ
• 3/18 - Austin, TX @ La Zona Rosa
• 4/2 - Boston, MA @ TT the Bear
• 4/3 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Church
• 4/4 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
• 4/5 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
• 4/8 - Baltimore. MD @ Sonar
• 4/9 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
• 4/10 - Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrews Hall
• 4/11 - Columbus, OH @ The Basement
• 4/13 - Chicago, IL @ Double Door
• 4/14 - Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity
• 4/15 - Omaha, NE @ Sokol Auditorium
• 4/17 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Club Sound
• 4/19 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah
• 4/20 - Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
• 4/21 - San Francisco, CA @ Popscene
• 4/24 - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
• 4/25 - Seattle, WA @ Crocodile
• 4/26 - Vancouver, BC @ Richard's on Richards
• 4/28 - Calgary, AB @ Broken City
• 4/29 - Edmonton, AB @ Power Plant at the University of Alberta
• 4/30 - Saskatoon, SK @ USSU
• 5/1 - Regina, SK @ Distrikt
• 5/2 - Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Center
• 5/9 - Kingston, ON @ Elixir
• 5/11 - Toronto, ON @ Phoenix
• 5/13 - Montreal, QC @ Spectrum
• 5/17 - Hamilton, ON @ Underground
• 5/18 - London, ON @ Call the Office

• The Stills

Britney Spears (file)
Photo: Jive

The Britney Spears Foundation Room at the Onyx Hotel (the real Onyx Hotel in Boston) is now open to the public. It was designed by the singer's mother to resemble her daughter's bedroom back home in Kentwood, Louisiana. Two 14-year-old girls from the Boston area won a radio contest and were the first to stay in the room on Tuesday. The room goes for $259 a night with 10 percent of the proceeds donated to the singer's charity. ...

Futures, Jimmy Eat World's follow-up to 2001's breakthrough Bleed American, is due October 19. The band will debut some of the material August 27 at San Diego's Street Scene festival and September 3 at Milwaukee's Summerfest. ... John Mayer is going to raise the roof — literally. The singer/songwriter is teaming up with Habitat for Humanity to build a house on Sunday in San Antonio, Texas, and four fans will get the chance to join him as well as see a concert of his that evening. The home is being built for Angelia Brown, a working mother and cook at a hospital in San Antonio. The contest will run on various radio stations in the Southwest. ...

The soundtrack to the Josh Hartnett film "Wicker Park" will have a decidedly indie bent. Due August 24, the disc will feature tracks by Death Cab for Cutie, the Shins, the Stills, Broken Social Scene, Snow Patrol and Mogwai. The soundtrack will also feature previously unreleased songs highlighted by the Postal Service's cover of Phil Collins' "Against All Odds" and a Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde) and Danny Lohner (Nine Inch Nails) rendition of Coldplay's "The Scientist." ... Artists in search of potentially unpaid royalties now have more flexibility to audit record companies thanks to a law California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Friday. The law allows artists to conduct annual audits of record companies doing business in California. ...

The Foo Fighters plan to release a double-CD set to follow up 2002's One by One. Frontman Dave Grohl hopes to write one disc of lightweight material and the other of stomping, crashing heavy rock. The band is currently building a studio in Los Angeles to record the album. Their last few discs were created in a studio in Grohl's basement in Virginia. ... PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Damon Albarn from Blur have written songs for Marianne Faithfull's new album, Before the Poison, due September 27. The disc is the follow-up to 2002's Kissin' Time, which featured collaborations with Beck, Billy Corgan and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp. ...

Saturday's Axis of Justice benefit in Hollywood ended with the "house band" — Serj Tankian and Maynard James Keenan on vocals, Pete Yorn on guitar and vocals, Tom Morello on guitar, Flea on bass and Brad Wilk on drums — covering U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name." Each of the musicians played solo earlier in the show, which also featured Jurassic 5. ... Having been described as conceptual, ethereal and emotional, A Perfect Circle may soon add "political" to that list. According to statements made by frontman Keenan at the Axis of Justice concert, he's planning on a civic-minded release for November, the same month an APC remix album is due. Although that album is still coming together, it's expected to include a remix of "The Hollow," a tune off the band's 2000 debut, by former bassist Paz Lenchantin, who is also contributing violin and piano parts to the band's next album. ...

The X-ecutioners and Biz Markie will perform at a Rock the Vote-sponsored kickoff party at the Democratic National Convention in Boston next week. Jon Stewart, Natalie Portman and the Clintons will attend the July 25 show, which will be followed on later nights by Black Eyed Peas (July 27) and Maroon 5 (July 29) concerts. ... Godsmack frontman Sully Erna has pulled out of his deal with the co-owners of Dorsia, the New York nightclub he went in on in 2003. Erna plans to sue his former business partners for improper management, sources close to the band said. ...

The death of Doors singer Jim Morrison, of an apparent overdose in 1971, has been as shrouded in mystery as the demise of Elvis Presley. A new book titled "Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend" by Stephen Davis, author of the classic Led Zeppelin biography "Hammer of the Gods," raises the possibility that Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson may have had a part in the singer's death. ... Forget about your regular Friday night poker game, the first Vegas Rock Star Poker Tournament and Sweepstakes is giving fans a chance to put on their best poker face and throw down against rockers Dave Navarro, Tommy Lee and Johnny Rzeznik. The weekend tournament kicks off August 26 at the Palms Casino Resort. Contest entries and more information is available at vegasrockstarpoker.com. ...

7.16.04

Courtney Love's Los Angeles sentencing for the misdemeanor drug charge of being under the influence of a controlled substance has been pushed back from Friday (July 16) to August 6. The charge stems from an October 8 incident outside the home of her ex-boyfriend/manager. Love is currently being treated in an undisclosed facility. ...

Metallica will make every show from their recent European tour, except Paris, available for download the first week of August on www.livemetallica.com. Like all the other downloads on the site, the shows will be available as FLAC files for $12.95 per show and MP3 files for $9.95. The band originally planned to post the shows in mid-July, but that didn't leave enough time to remix the recordings. ... Incubus have added new shows to their current tour with Sparta, which now runs through November 12 in Richmond, Virginia. Incubus are supporting A Crow Left of the Murder, which came out February 3. ...

Hoobastank are giving fans another reason to get excited. The band, in conjunction with Winterfresh, is offering one lucky fan the opportunity to win a pair of tickets to see the group live in Orlando, Florida, and meet the band after the show. For more information on the contest, which runs through July 25, check out the band's Web site. ... Linkin Park will release a package containing a DVD, comic book and T-shirt on July 27. The disc will contain the animated music video for "Breaking the Habit" and behind-the-scenes footage, and the comic and T-shirt will be illustrated in an anime style reminiscent of the animation in the video. ...

A Perfect Circle bassist Jeordie White will guest on guitar with the garagey metal band Burning Brides on several dates of their North American tour, which runs through August 31 in Atlanta. ... The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion have shortened their name to Blues Explosion, and they're readying a new disc, Damage!, for release on September 28. The album was produced by a variety of talent including DJ Shadow, David Holmes, Dan the Automator, Steve Jordan and Alan Moulder. Public Enemy's Chuck D guests on the record. ...

Want a piece of Flea, Vince Neil, James Hetfield, New Found Glory or Richie Sambora? Those artists as well as professional skateboarders Tony Hawk and Paul Rodriguez and assorted actors and snowboarders have lent jackets and/or guitar straps to watchmakers Nixon to use for the upcoming LTD Collection. Proceeds from the one-of-a-kind watches will go entirely to the Musicians' Assistance Program, which helps musicians recover from drug and alcohol addiction. The collection will hit 10 stores worldwide in late summer, including Fred Segal in Los Angeles and Barneys in New York. ...

A three-disc collection of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music called The Platinum Collection will be released on August 24. The package will feature 45 songs including "Love is the Drug," "Dance Away" and "Avalon." The collection will include songs from Ferry's last two solo albums As Time Goes By and Frantic. ... Los Angeles indie rockers Earlimart have set a September 28 release date for their album, Treble & Tremble. Granddaddy's Jim Fairchild produced the record along with frontman Aaron Espinoza. ...

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• The Stills

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• The Stills