What happens when you strike lighting right away? Any lesser band could have crumbled under the weight of 2013’s “Archie, Marry Me,†the beloved early single from the Toronto band Alvvays. Not only does it sum up the last decade of dreamy pop songs, but it is a pinnacle of the internet-filtered, nostalgic fusion of ’80s synths and ’90s guitars that continues to dominate indie music today. If John Hughes were still alive, his soundtracks would include Alvvays.
But the band has already proved their staying power. Their 2014 self-titled debut and its 2017 follow-up Antisocialites were critically praised and shortlisted for Canada’s Polaris Music Prize. This year’s Blue Rev, out October 7 through Polyvinyl, might be their best yet. It’s easily their biggest. It’s the IMAX blowup of their cinematic sound with help from producer Shawn Everett, who adds a prestigious sheen he also gave to recent records by the Killers, the War on Drugs, and Adele. If there ever was a level-up record, Blue Rev is it.
Molly Rankin is Alvvays’s vocalist and guitarist who splits most of the songwriting with fellow guitarist Alec O’Hanley, himself an alum of the great Canadian indie power-pop group Two Hours Traffic. When Rankin and I spoke over the phone, Alvvays had just played its first show in a long time, a one-off gig in Chicago where they debuted much of Blue Rev live with their new band members, drummer Sheridan Riley and bassist Abbey Blackwell. “I’m hoping to come in on the right bass note the next time,†Rankin says with a laugh, an upbeat talker who’s sunnier and more self-deprecating than her singing might imply. “We will have a ton of rehearsal time where we can just forget about everything onstage and enjoy ourselves. We haven’t gotten to that point yet.â€
Blue Rev feels like a huge leap, especially in terms of noise and energy. A lot also has happened since the last record, with new bandmates and losing your demos and gear to theft and flooding.
It was a few years ago, so I’ve coped with it. But at the time, it was horrifying.
I bet. There’s that, and now you’re working with Shawn Everett, who adds much of his personal touch to his work. I say that as a compliment, but there’s a lot of change in your camp. Was the plan all along to grow into this massive sound, or did all these forced circumstances steer this ship?
I don’t think we’ve ever had that type of conversation. Like, What do we want to do next? The idea is just to continue to do what we do while maintaining our signature, which is balancing beauty with some raw roughness that still feels kind of like a souvenir.
I’m probably the hundredth music critic to bring up My Bloody Valentine when talking about “Pharmacist.â€
[Laughs.] I think we’ve gravitated toward more things like that. We’re really into Lilys and MBV and Lush. We’ve always been really into loud guitars. Striking that balance where I’m still the narrative and the vocal, and there’s a melodic lift that has this friction. I think I’m also very bossy. [Laughs.] I’ll go to bat for my ideas and my melodies.
Where’s your threshold? At what point do you go, “Okay, everyone else is wrong.â€
I never actually bring everyone else into what Alec and I do in the beginning because we’re both quite fiery people in a creative space. We get most of that stuff out of the way before we start experimenting with drum fills. I choose the hills I want to die on. There are moments on the record that I knew couldn’t change. It just had to be exactly the way that it had been sitting in my brain for years. But Shawn is also super-experimental and is not afraid to spend a whole day going down a potentially fruitless path if there’s a nugget that can be gleaned from it.
What from the new record was in your brain for years?
The guitar solo at the end of “Pharmacist†had been in my head for probably months, maybe a year, before I learned it on guitar and then showed Al.
What have Sheridan and Abbey brought to Alvvays that the band couldn’t do before?
I think they take us outside of some of our normal instincts. We did start as a drum-machine band. Alec and I both tend to like fairly steady, static drums in the kind of vein of Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine, to a certain degree.
I read the liner notes and was happy to see that Joseph Shabason was on this record.
There was some stuff on “Tile by Tile†that I think he helped give some richness. Some stuff in “Lottery Noises.†He’s done a lot of work on a lot of big records and has his own thing, too. He is such a talented, kind person.
I admittedly did go back to the record thinking, “Did I miss the epic sax solo on an Alvvays record?â€
[Laughs.] No!
Back to the demos that were lost. What were you okay with losing, and what did you try to recreate?
If a melody is strong enough, it’s not going to leave me. A lot of that stuff stayed with me, but I will never really know what was on there. How I record is just looping things and making mistakes, and sometimes it’s a happy accident. All of those were essentially lost, and probably 100 hours of me just howling at the moon.
I also didn’t realize you put out a solo record under your own name years before Alvvays.
Yeah, my famous EP found on Zunior.com.
I bring it up because when you write songs, are you always writing for Alvvays or sometimes for a second solo release?
If I don’t use something, it’s because it’s not good enough for our band. I would never just stash songs in a bag for my endeavors later on. Why spread your gems that thin? I guess I’m not prolific enough to have different categories. I’m all in!
Was there ever criticism of the band you thought was fair?
I’ve been careful about reading stuff about our band — positive or negative — just because those things can float around in your head for an unpredictable amount of time and have effects that you don’t even realize. When we first started, I once read someone saying that our band was for people with limp dicks. So I was like, Okay! People were pretty comfortable saying that back in the day, but I don’t know if you’d say that now.
I know “After the Earthquake†was inspired by Haruki Murakami’s short-story collection after the quake. From what I understand, all those stories take place in 1995 between the Kobe earthquake and the Tokyo gas attacks. The stories follow characters who aren’t physically affected by these tragedies but still experience these events unfold from a distance. Other than COVID — which feels like the obvious answer — is the song responding to anything specific from a distance?
I mean, COVID is not over. I think it was fairly traumatic for everyone. But there was something in “After the Earthquake†that I wanted to parallel with that book: There are all these wild events taking place, but the character is very much consumed in their own drama and where they are in life. All of this stuff is just happening in the background, adding to this chaos, but it’s not the main narrative.
There’s a detached melancholy to it.
Naturally, I can be kind of a detached, melancholic person, so that might just translate into the song. But I found it interesting to play with the idea of having some natural disasters, a violent car accident, or a chaotic ER experience — and what’s on this person’s mind is the stage of their relationship.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but did I also catch a Murder, She Wrote reference in the song?
Oh, yeah! Murder, She Wrote was supposed to be playing in the waiting room at the hospital. That was where I went with that.
Why that show?
It was just a show that was in my life, whether I wanted it to be or not. It was always on at my grandmother’s or our house.
Also, in “Belinda Says,†which namechecks “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,†am I hearing the same key change that’s also happening in that same Belinda Carlisle song?
See, now you’ve gone too deep. [Laughs.] You’ve out-quizzed me on my own album, and I don’t appreciate it.
Did you grow up on her music?
We watched the Go-Go’s doc. Have you watched that?
Not yet.
It’s so good. Alec came up with the idea of throwing her into the song, and I thought it was such a great line. We were obsessed with how they partied and just how bad they were in an energetic way and going against the grain of what you would expect for a group like that.
I would not be shocked if we get a TikTok revival of “Heaven Is a Place on Earth†soon.
I would be happy for her.
How do you negotiate social media? When you don’t like it but still have to promote your band and sell tickets.
I try not to think about it too much because then you’re thinking about social media. If you think about it that much, you might as well just be on it. I try to lean into the visual aspect of it. I make something that looks beautiful, and then put it out, like a poster or a moving graphic that ties into a song. But other than that, I think the boundary is kind of necessary and feels right, at least for us. We don’t go out that much. We’re not part of a scene, or I’ve never been someone who makes connections or gets people’s numbers, or I’m not into making fast friends. Social media just seems like an accelerated version of that. No slight to anyone who thrives in that realm, either. It’s just not the place for me. I also have a slightly addictive personality, so I think I would spend an unfeasible amount of time on there if I was just sharing things, as they say.
If you were starting Alvvays in 2022 and didn’t already have a built-in fan base and critical praise, would you then feel more of that pressure to engage a lot in social media?
It’s so weird. I don’t know what it is about us, but no one has ever told us what to do. We never get made to do anything. I have to think it would be the same now if we started a band. We would still probably be in the shadows half of the time that we aren’t onstage or doing interviews. But no one has ever given us grief about not being on there or not making a record every two years. I’m waiting for someone to do that.
When I go on Spotify and see any “Hot New Indie†playlist, I hear a bunch of bands trying to rewrite “Archie, Marry Me.â€
Well, I pity them because it takes a lot of work to sound this scrappy.
Are you haunted at all by the success of “Archie, Marry Me� If you feel that the song still defines your band.
No, I don’t think that would be healthy to be resentful toward that song. Even just playing it in practice and onstage feels right. I still honestly enjoy playing it. It would be so miserable if that’s the way I felt about it. I think that we’ve also touched on elements of that song and moved into different directions with that, so I just feel like as long as I feel like I’m moving forward and evolving, it doesn’t bother me. I’m not chasing that song. And that song has done a lot for us. We’re thankful.
I found a very early interview you did where you said that the first song you ever learned to play on guitar was “Don’t Look Back in Anger.â€
That’s true.
Relistening to Alvvays, I now hear a lot of soaring Noel and Liam melodies in your songs.
I mean, we could talk about this for 45 minutes. My introduction to rock music was finding Oasis. It opened up a whole new world for me. I was obsessed with Oasis. Every album I was into. I mean, up to a certain point. [Laughs.] But I couldn’t believe how good the songs were.
Was Be Here Now the final straw?
No, that was not the final straw. I was perfectly fine with Be Here Now. Because I had bought it. You had to like it. That was a thing back then. It’s like you buy this album and are stuck with it, so you will find redeeming qualities.
This interview has been edited and condensed.