Public

I'm not sure if I had heard of Public before learning about the show last Thursday. It's a band name that sounded generic to me and so it's possible I had just forgotten the name. But now that I've seen them live, the name has changed meaning... less like the noun, as in ordinary people, and more like the adjective, as in something that is available to all people.
Every now and then I end up at a show where the number of people in the audience doesn't seem to match the caliber of the performance on the stage, and experience tells me it goes both ways. In the case of Public, the audience size at the Rivoli just seemed a little too small for the skill-level of the music that they played. But even if the numbers were less than I thought they deserved, the people who were there moved up to the stage without provocation, which is always a good sign.
Although there were at least three stand-out songs, maybe more, the flow of the set seemed a little awkward. Having never heard their music before, I was surprised how strongly the first song grabbed at me, something usually reserved for later in the set, and what ended up being their most powerful number was pulled out somewhere just past the half-way mark. I was sort of expecting a build-up and big finish that never seemed to arrive. But set lists can be a difficult thing to craft, and so aside from the order of the songs, the individual songs themselves were surprisingly good.
Chris Stopa (vocals) has a formidable presence on stage, and managed to quickly put himself into the music, making his performance strong from the start. In combination with the hook-filled melodies of Chas Wilson (guitar) and the rest of the band, everyone in the back room of the Rivoli enjoyed an excellent show of brit-pop tinged Canadian indie-rock. Have a listen to their catchy tune Walk Away, available for listening on MySpace (and try to imagine it sounding clearer, bigger, and better).
- Pete Nema

Beating the crowd and heading to the front of the line: an interview with PUBLIC including review of NXNE Saturday at The Rivoli, 06/15/08

The great minds at FAZER.CA plowed through a seemingly endless list of bands confirmed to play at Toronto's NXNE. There are a ton of great bands before you get to the letter P, let me tell ya' but when I got there I found myself hungrily circling one band's name: Public. Looking back on the notes along the side of my press list I even noted, "I must see this band." In contradiction to their unassuming and plain moniker, Public's take on Brit rock is striking and radio ready, reminiscent of Pablo Honey/Bends era Radiohead. Slick rock lines armed with pop sensibilities and unnaturally developed musical instincts create a sound that is easy to hold onto. Despite having nearly two albums worth of material, Public decided to spend the time needed to get five tunes for their … And In The End, Release EP just right (a lesson quite a few bands could learn). Over a year worth of work has paid off and the band has managed to hit the scene with a recognizable and remarkably developed sound. A few days before NXNE I had the chance to sit down with soft spoken singer/writer Chris Stopa over a pint; he gave me an hour and half of his time before heading off to rehearsal.

The adventurous type might try to search Public on the net… good luck, you may as well search "cat" or "porn" while you're at it and search through another billion hits. I accosted Chris for the band's very, errr, public name. He parried with an interesting story about another institutionally named band from his days spent building and caring for rehearsal studios in Williamsburg just across from Manhattan. "Yeah, you probably couldn't get a more general, widely used name than Public. I just remember a time when not every one had heard of Interpol and I was filling vending machines and walking around the rehearsal spaces and these guys kept dragging equipment in and out. I just remember Paul Banks and his white leather shoes, actually. One day we got into a discussion about the vending machine, he had lost eight bucks in the vending machine. My thought was how can you lose eight bucks when the fuckin' chocolate bars are only eighty cents? So, much to my frustration I said, 'look, I'm not going to give you eight bucks of mine, I don't make any money as it is but talk to Rado [owner of the rehearsal spaces], Rado will give you the eight bucks. It's no big deal.' Then the next day I remember opening this large magazine because it had like 50 bands to watch or something and there was Interpol, and I thought, 'there's the guy!'"

For all the time that Chris spent in New York it is quite possibly the time that he spent in London remains most influential on the band's current sound, and that's not something they shy away from either. "It's not off-putting. I know that music. I lived in England for a couple years and did music, and one of the reasons I went to England was because I liked British music. I like Suede and Tears For Fears." The rest of Chris' band mates pool together a number of influences from elsewhere including The Pixies and Nirvana. This collection of influences has proved a great building block for the band's own sound and writing process. Speaking about … And In The End, Release, Chris revealed a bit about writing and rehearsing. "There are songs that I write the lyrics to first and there are songs where I just have a particular feeling or something that's frustrating that I want to express. In that moment of time it's more about trying to express that feeling fooling around on the guitar until there's a set of similar chords that evokes a certain emotion to whatever that is, and then there's writing words to those songs that come along with whatever that melody is. There are lots of other songs where we've just been in the room and Chas will play a riff or Eric will play a set of chords and I kind of just sit back and do a form of speaking in tongues with no particular words and just play with phrasing, and melody, and rhythm without really forming any words. You have to be careful because it sometimes becomes difficult to find words that fit that same rhythm."

It wasn't just within the writing aspect that Chris showed a great deal of respect for his band mates but also personally. Hundreds of thousands of bands form every year and break up by the end of it and one of the greatest challenges for many bands is just sticking it out. Finding the right people to play and write with is critical. "It's really difficult to find four other people on the same page and interested in pursuing the same ideas, and who are looking and willing to make sacrifices toward the same end. At various times I wonder if it's some miracle that bands ever stay together. It's like getting married to four people. The fact that we're still together and it feels good, we still have great chemistry is amazing to me, so that' - FAZER.CA