AUSTRA
Whenever a touring musician rolls into a new town, there are certain must-Google spots: the closest Guitar Center, the cleanest laundromat, the cheapest auto body shop. Or, in the case of Toronto electro-goth contingent Austra, the nearest Whole Foods.
For a band that maps out their travel itinerary based on organic grocery pit stops, it seems bizarre to meet ringleader Katie Stelmanis in a Toronto bar that hawks prehistoric pickled eggs and platters of sandwich meat. But Stelmanis, with her dyed blonde hair and metallic necklaces piled one upon another, is perfectly at home with such contradictions.
Onstage, the bold 26-year-old, with her octave-shattering voice, is the centerpiece of the show. “I’ve been performing since I was 10 or 11 in lots of different ways, like recitals or full-on operas, so the stage has always felt very comfortable to me,” she says, leaning back on one of the retro vinyl chairs that decorate the tiny watering hole dubbed “The Commie” (its actual name is the Communist’s Daughter, after the Neutral Milk Hotel song). Offstage, though, Stelmanis shields herself from both record and ticket sales, still lacking confidence in the hype that has propelled the trio into the pages of Vanity Fair and earned their latest album, Feel It Break, a coveted spot on Domino Records’ UK roster.
“It’s just too much pressure, it’s too stressful,” says Stelmanis of tracking the economics behind her career. “I just like to have my dates and go to the next city.”
Nursing a cider, the singer-keyboardist chats about her anything-goes thrift-store-fashion style and weighs in on the new Chrissie Hynde-inspired hairdo the Fiery Furnaces’ Eleanor Friedberger is sporting as of late. It’s downtime that Stelmanis seems to need — just a few moments to step outside of the media juggernaut that now factors into her day.
Though the whirlwind pace can take its toll — yes, even when you’re performing in exotic locales like Prague and Istanbul, as Austra will this fall — Stelmanis doesn’t allow herself much time to dwell on sleep deprivation. There will be time for exhaustion later. First, there’s this business of touring, then tapping into the inspiration for the next record, for which fans are already clamouring.
“Before I was touring a lot, I was trying to sort out where we wanted to go with the next one,” says Stelmanis. “Now I’m getting excited to get back into the studio; I’m starting to get ideas again.” Though recording is on her mind, she adds, “I like taking the break, ‘cause [touring is] a totally different mode.”
While a true-blue follow up to Feel It Break’s noirtinged numbers is a ways off, Austra may still pump out the odd one-off track in the meantime, as they did with “Alone, Together” for Stereogum’s recent Strokes cover comp, STROKED: A Tribute to Is This It. “I like vocal acrobatic covers, songs that are made for singers; I just go for it,” says Stelmanis upon mention of the project. “I’ve done Roy Orbison’s ‘Crying’ and I’ve done ‘Natural Women’ and the ‘Woodstock’ cover.”
Moments later she’s bent over the jukebox at the back of the bar perusing records by Jonathan Richman, Caribou and Queen. It’s the 1979 anthem “Heartbreaker” that catches her eye. As Pat Benatar’s ferocious voice booms through The Commie’s speakers, it’s oh so tempting to ask Stelmanis what she’d do with the classic hit if given the chance to Austra-fy it.
-Published in The Block — 2011 Winter Issue
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