by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“I think a rock show should be a lot like going to Sunday mass,” says Stars bassist Evan Cranley. The reverse is often true in evangelical America, where Christian rock bands share stadium stages with preachers. But in other parts of the U.S., across Canada and especially in Quebec, church (and synagogue) attendance has declined dramatically, nary a guitar solo to be found. “None of us come from religious families at all,” he admits, speaking for bandmates Torquil Campbell, Amy Millan, Chris Seligman, Pat McGee and touring guitarist and violinist Stephen Ramsey and Geneviève Walker, respectively. “We are the generation whose parents left the church.”

The subject of religion arose over a recent testimonial on The Other Journal, a progressive, American, Christian Web site. Author Joel Hartse calls Stars, “My favorite drug-using, sex-having, love-promoting, totally non-Christian Christian band ever,” and goes on to read the divine into everything from the band’s name to their music to their lyrics about love, calling their warm and fuzzy pop songs “small miracles” and their “soft revolution” (a musical/political movement involving the meek inheriting the Earth) “something we Christians might do well to be a part of.”

“I never really thought about it that way,” says Cranley, for whom Campbell and Millan’s lyrics never evoked “a beautiful woman or a beautiful man. Those lyrics could describe what God looks like, God as love. It’s quite beautiful actually.”

But religious rituals aren’t on the band’s busy itinerary, except perhaps for wine-drinking.

Ahead of their Toronto/Montreal homecoming shows and subsequent holiday, Stars are wrapping up the European leg of their longest world tour to date, which included jaunts supporting Death Cab for Cutie and Bloc Party.

“Bloc Party made me feel old, but it was really great to expose ourselves to a young audience,” he says. As for Death Cab, whose footsteps to The O.C.’s soundtrack Stars have recently followed in, “I felt more of a connection with them because their career’s a lot like ours. We’ve been around about six, seven, eight years, we’ve put out the same number of records, we’re of the same age group and we have a similar fanbase.”

Cranley says that Stars have been “riding the wave of good press” for their third and most successful LP, Set Yourself on Fire, attributing some of the attention to the Montreal-scene phenomenon, which is only just peaking overseas.

“It’s still new over here,” he says, on the line from Birmingham, England. “People wanna know what’s happening, but they also wanna know about Canada. I guess we’re such a young country with such a young culture that people don’t really know about it. I feel like a bit of an ambassador.”

The fact that, Cranley says, “People think we’re a mini Arcade Fire,” was funny at first and slightly frustrating now, but he’s thankful for the spotlight on this city, and for the band’s imminent return.

“Everyone’s exhausted—today, a bunch of gear went missing and Torq is in the hospital with a bad cut on his hand—so we’re excited about having a break, but also about holing up again, reinventing ourselves and coming out with something totally new.” n

With Jason Collett at la Tulipe on Monday, Dec. 19, 9 p.m., $16

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