by LORRAINE CARPENTER

"I love Montreal," says Spencer Krug. "There's something very relaxed about the city that seems to be contagious. Most of the people I know sort of go to school and sort of work, and everyone's interested in the arts in one way or another because they all have that bit of spare time they can put into it."

Add cheap rents, cheap education, a few homegrown musicians and a whole lot from B.C., Ontario and the States, stir, and voilà - the Montreal scene. With a populace as small and incestuous as its sound is eclectic and ambitious, Quebec's crop of renowned bands is led by Arcade Fire, as written up in last winter's little flurry of hype. Krug's band Wolf Parade weren't far behind, despite the fact that they had no records out at the time.

A deal with Sub Pop and strong ties to Arcade Fire, with whom they played their first show, and Modest Mouse, more recent tour partners, were enough to merit American media coverage, and now, with a second eponymous EP and an LP due at the end of September, Wolf Parade have music that backs up the buzz.

Whether the album will ease them into the good old North American indie circuit or propel them above the radar, in the footsteps of Arcade Fire, remains to be seen. But with cross-continental tours and substantial TV, magazine and movie soundtrack offers looming, Krug seems unsure about which way he wants the wind to blow.

"Sub Pop is a pretty big machine with a lot of clout, and it scares us," he says. "What we want to do and what's gonna happen, I don't know if they're the same thing."

The Boss, the Brock

A founding member of Frog Eyes, Krug was the first of the Wolf Parade pack to relocate to Montreal from Victoria, B.C. - the latest is ex-Hot Hot Heat guitarist Dante Decaro, who'll join the band on their next tour. Following the death of his mother and the dissolution of his band Atlas Strategic, Dan Boeckner fled the West to pursue a career in telemarketing. Luckily, a misunderstood overheard conversation between Krug and Boeckner, in which they floated the idea of forming a band, got back to Grenadine Records' Alex Megelas, who promptly offered Krug a gig. Before breaking the news to Boeckner, and without telling Megalas they hadn't written or rehearsed a note, he said yes.

"I knew that Dan could play guitar and sing, so I sorta knew that he would say yes," says Krug. "But that was totally the impetus [for starting the band] 'cause we might have never done anything, knowing me and Dan."

Casting laziness aside, the duo spent three weeks cranking out seven songs and rehearsing with drummer Arlen Thompson. "We didn't know we were gonna be a band until after the show. We were just gonna see how it went, and it went fine, so we kept practicing and kept writing songs."

Hadji Bakara, who had moved to Montreal to attend McGill (where he's currently working toward a master's), soon joined the band on "electronic manipulations," adding depth and texture to Wolf Parade's songs, half of which are written by Krug, the other half by Boeckner.

"The only reason Dan's songs don't sound just like Bruce Springsteen - which isn't a bad thing - is probably because of things I'm doing or changes I'm making," says Krug, stressing that the band invariably moulds and manipulates the skeletal structures he and Boeckner bring in. "But the only reason my stuff doesn't come off like totally inaccessible, pretentious synth prog is that Dan helps normalize it, so it creates a good balance."

Also assisting Wolf Parade's balancing act is Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock, who had a hand in the band's Sub Pop deal and produced their forthcoming album, Apologies to the Queen Mary.

"He really helped steer us," says Krug. "When you get into a studio with that much money and good equipment, you might end up with a sound you don't necessarily want. If we had been in that situation [alone], I don't know what the fuck we would have come up with."

Despite Brock's help, Krug feels that some of that studio slickness rubbed off on the record. "Not to shit-talk Isaac, 'cause he did a really good job, but we'll do the next album ourselves, not just to get back to that slightly dirtier sound, but to loosen up the procedure. When there's a money budget as well as a time budget, things become kind of clinical, and the sound becomes clinical."

Canine conundrum

In interviews over the past year, Boeckner has likened Wolf Parade to a retarded dog with four heads and a dog that keeps peeing on the rug, a metaphor Krug echoes by comparing their behaviour at last year's All Tomorrow's Parties festival in California to that of an untrained puppy. The inspiration for their album title was a drunken escapade on the boat where many of the fest's more "seasoned" musicians were accommodated.

"The only band I saw skipping about the halls in the wee hours of the morning was my own, and our friends Frog Eyes," who weren't with the festival, Krug says, but happened to be passing through California.

"We didn't do anything wrong, we just had a party on the boat," which, Krug admits, "we didn't treat with the respect we should have." That said, the band didn't do any substantial damage to the Queen Mary herself.

"We're not bad people," he says, "we're just not smart people. There were some fire extinguishers, there was a séance, there was some table-drumming, but it was all in fun. I'm not telling you anything more about that 'cause I'm gonna wish I hadn't."

Despite all of Wolf Parade's shenanigans, which also include showing up penniless at Sub Pop in Seattle to mooch money for the ride home, the label has been a permissive and patient master to their young pups, at work as well as play.

"They're forgiving with us. We're a bit slow 'cause we're not super-keen to get huge, not as much as they are. If we start selling records and if people start paying attention, they get really excited. We get excited too, but not in the same way. We're really apprehensive, so we try to walk with a bit of caution, but I think that trying to control it is, one, totally futile, and two, kinda pretentious."

Krug points out that Wolf Parade aren't "too punk" to be a working band, but that the pace of their career so far has been hard to keep up with, "emotionally and mentally."

"Suddenly it's no problem to fly us across the continent and back in a day, whereas two years ago we were just struggling for a loft show, and one is not necessarily better than the other. In many ways, it was fine to be in a band that barely made enough to survive."

Wherever the Sub Pop trajectory takes them, the label and the fans will benefit in the end because, more than anything the rock 'n' roll lifestyle has to offer, Wolf Parade loves to work, in the studio and on stage.

"I really love both of them. Playing live is almost like sports - it's a rush, you do the best you can and you can't change it when you fuck up. Being in a studio is more like making a painting - you have time to screw around and it's way more intellectual, whereas playing live is pretty much just muscle memory and having fun. What's really great live is the rapport with the audience. You set up a relationship there and when the relationship clicks, when the audience is having fun and you're having fun, that's totally neat."

With Shoot the Moon, the Sugarpuss Burlesque and DJ Birthdayboy at Main Hall on Friday, Aug. 5, 9 p.m., $10 ($3 after 12:30 a.m.). Wolf Parade side projects Sunset Rubdown and Dante DeCaro join Think About Life and the Trancelvania DJs at Zoobizarre on Monday, Aug. 8, 9 p.m., $5

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