by LORRAINE CARPENTER

Toronto’s Jesse Keeler and Sebastian Grainger have gained a lot of ground since training with their old band of audio terrorists Femme Fatale, a rite of passage that allowed them to flex their pummel muscle while writing real songs for the band that’s made them big, Death From Above 1979. In the wake of last year’s hot and heavy debut album, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, the duo has descended on audiences and media worldwide, but their passion is for making (not breaking) their music, and other people’s music. Masterkraft is their studio, where they’ve remixed the likes of the Futureheads and the Gossip, where Keeler is producing controller.controller’s LP, where their own sophomore disc will likely evolve over the summer, and where Moby plans to drop by in the fall. As a former stockbroker and the son of a Steppenwolf guitarist, Keeler is schooled in both rock and business, as he told the Mirror last week.

Mirror: Did your dad turn you on to playing rock music or inspire you to rebel against it?

Jesse Keeler: He taught me that the music business is crooked and shitty and full of parasites and if you wanted to do well in it, it wasn’t by playing music, it was by doing something else. I took that to heart, educated myself, did other things, and now I have my own business that’s related to my band, which is great. The band is something I can do and it’s enjoyable and we’ve managed to make it work for us rather than against us. I don’t want to end up years later looking back and being frustrated that I didn’t make any money.

M: Is that the situation he found himself in?

JK: It’s the situation most musicians find themselves in, especially musicians from the ’60s and ’70s. I mean, how many of them are on a list of rich people today? Most of them are probably teaching music somewhere. It’s a business that chews up and spits out musicians while the businesspeople perpetuate their importance and existence for decades.

M: You were recently quoted as saying, “Rock music has started to get exciting again.”

JK: Really? I don’t think that was me, ’cause I’m still not excited about rock music. If I’m recording or producing somebody, which has become the main focus in my life, rock is one of the most boring things to do. Everything else is much more interesting for me, but it’s just a matter of preference. I’m sure other people get all kinds of things out of rock music that I don’t.

M: What about other bands like you?

JK: No. I like what I do because I’m doing it, but I’m not doing it for anyone else’s enjoyment, I’m just doing it for my own. What I get out of my band and what you or someone else gets out of my band are two very different things. I don’t know if I would listen to my own records.

With controller.controller and Uncut
at El Salon on Sunday, May 8, 9 p.m., $15

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