by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“Andrew [Johnston] and I have always talked about the U.K. as being potentially a more accepting or more appropriate environment for our music,” says Eric Passmore. “We had this sort of ’60s orchestral pop vision for the album, and we certainly love a lot of British bands from that time.”

Despite this statement, and common comparisons of his music to U.K. artists past and present

–namely Belle & Sebastian, Nick Drake, the Divine Comedy and Scott Walker–Passmore lists relatively obscure American bands of the’60s as more integral influences. Along with the Left Banke’s baroque orchestration and the Association’s ensemble singing, the piano-pop panache and moving harmonics of ’70s-era Brits Joe Jackson and Fleetwood Mac, respectively, also inspired the sophisticated sound of the Gentlemen’s Club, co-founded by Passmore and Johnston.

The duo initially satisfied their musical itch in their native Ottawa with a quirky indie band called the No Shirts. At the time, their drummer Angus McLachlin (who later played on and co-arranged the Gentlemen’s Club album) was teased by his bandmates for studying music composition.

“We were just coming up with riffs, so we would be like, ‘You don’t need all that to play rock ’n’ roll,’” says Johnston. “But then we slowly got more interested in arranging and vocal harmonies and I started getting into film scores and I eventually went to music school, and Eric started studying too. I think that’s really what our album came out of, this place where all three of us were studying and just trying to apply what we were learning towards Eric’s songs.”

Between 2000 and 2002, Passmore and Johnston moved to Montreal to study at Concordia and record The Servant, the album Passmore had spent two years composing.

More so than any band, Passmore’s state of mind (and body) proved to be his strongest influence. His life was derailed at the end of the ’90s by a one-two punch of a painful break-up and a debilitating back problem, rendering the musician unable to play.

“I didn’t have any sort of definable disease–it was a nervous system dysfunction,” he explains. “It was chronic pain to the point where I had to quit school, work and [the No Shirts] and spend about two or three years at home.”

However depressing the situation, it fuelled a beautiful record, its orchestral arrangements never too ornate, its nostalgic laments never too weary. The project may have begun as a creative distraction, but The Servant (and, by extension, the band) became a reality when Passmore recovered and relocated. Along with players McLachlin, Adam Dipenta, Phillip Shaw Bova and 15 additional musicians and singers, Passmore and Johnston recorded in Concordia’s Oscar Peterson Concert Hall, as well as their own home studio, Red Room, where they’ve also recorded tracks for local bands such as Expo 67.

Though The Servant was launched as recently as October, the Gentlemen’s Club have already recorded its follow-up, The Golden Age, which promises to highlight the band’s uptempo-pop and country-music skills, as hinted at on their debut. But we’ll have to wait for their sophomore effort, to be released only when The Servant and its masters have had time to grow on Montreal, which they most certainly will.