by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“It’s weird to have to sit around and talk about your art,” says Murray Lightburn, who recently wrote “I HATE interviews” on the Dears’ Web site journal. “I mean, Michelangelo never had to be interviewed. It kind of takes away from the whole purpose of the work. But sometimes you make something and you have some ’splainin’ to do.”

From a lyricist who’s worn his heart on his sleeve the way Lightburn has on previous Dears albums, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story and No Cities Left, only so much explanation was necessary. But he and George Donoso III, Valérie Jodoin-Keaton, Patrick Krief, Martin Pelland and Natalia Yanchak have taken a different tack with their third LP, stripping away some of the sonic excess, buffing and broadening their melodies (ready your lighters, people) and casting their once strictly introspective gaze on the outside world. The Mirror caught up with Lightburn to discuss the band’s blunt comment on racism (and its equally blunt rebuff from Pitchfork) and how the birth of his and Yanchak’s daughter Neptune influenced the album.

Mirror: “Whites Only Party” is one of my favourite songs on the record—it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. But as for the subject matter, was it based on a specific incident, or an accumulation of observations and experiences?

Murray Lightburn: It’s kind of an accumulation, but only one thing really sparked it—I’d rather not say exactly what it was, it’s a bit on the personal side. The thing about that song and the way I write is that it comes from an intensely personal place, but it’s meant to be interpreted any which way. You don’t have to be a black guy to relate to “Whites Only Party.” There’s always a situation that leaves you feeling a little excluded, where you’re banging on the door trying to get into something, and for whatever reason, your face or your shoes or your hair, you’re not allowed in.

M: Anything to do with the music industry?

ML: It’s a little bit about that. The music industry’s been a large part of my life experience and the stuff that I’ve had to sift through. It’s just one of those weird things where I get racialized a lot, if that’s even a word.

M: How did you react to Pitchfork’s comment that the Dears aren’t qualified to comment on race or poverty?

ML: I was just shocked. Clearly that person is either out to sabotage us or they really don’t know anything about the band at all. One of the many many many many many misconceptions that people have about the Dears is that we’ve had it easy, so they need to take us down, which is something that Pitchfork does.

Earth to Neptune

M: Did having a child inspire the increase of social and political commentary on the record, or affect your writing in other ways?

ML: Not really, besides references to the future in “Ticket to Immortality.” A lot of the album was conceived on tour, and when Natalia got pregnant, that sort of factored into things a little bit—how the world will affect [Neptune], how she will affect the world, and what I can do to sort of make it a positive experience. But I think our travels around the world made the biggest impact, especially gauging the levels of fearfulness and fearlessness in different places. Fear plays such a huge role in our lives now, and a lot of our outlook involves facing those fears head-on and dismantling them. That’s what the whole “gang of losers” thing is—there’s a lot of uncomfortable questions that people don’t wanna ask, but this album isn’t pretending to have answers to those questions, it’s more of an open-ended thought.

M: What’s the band’s biggest fear?

ML: I’m not really afraid of anything anymore. I can’t speak for the rest of the band but I don’t think that they are either. We’ve been through so much and analyzed everything to fucking shit, and you just can’t sing “we’re all okay” every night and not believe it, because we are all okay, we really are. I mean, shit happens, but there’s really nothing to be afraid of.

M: What about fear itself?

ML: Well, you know, that’s why I stopped smoking pot.

With Harvee at the Spectrum on Thursday, Dec. 14, 9 p.m., $20

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