WINNIPEG — The best part of making the Polaris Music Prize short list is that Whitehorse will be able to continue to make music, says singer Luke Doucet.
“It’s a pretty good indicator that we’ll probably get to be musicians for another year or two after, which is all I’ve ultimately ever wanted,” the Winnipeg-born musician said Tuesday, a day after it was announced that the band’s 2012 album The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss was short-listed.
“We get to think about making another record, we get to think about writing some songs and doing this again. That, to me, is the greatest thing that will come from something like this.”
Doucet and his wife, fellow singer-songwriter Melissa McClelland, formed Whitehorse in 2011, the year they released their eponymous first album.
Doucet and McClelland spoke to Global News from Grand Forks, N.D., where the duo played Tuesday between last weekend’s stint at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and next weekend’s Vancouver Folk Festival.
The pair met through their music — Doucet laughed when he said they met while he was producing her album and they kept their relationship strictly professional “for weeks” — and now they no more want to divorce their musical lives than each other. (They married in 2006.)
“We’ve known each other for 10 years and it has been musical and creative right from the very first day,” Doucet said.
“I don’t necessarily want to hear my music without Melissa’s contribution, and that became obvious to me a couple of years back, that I wasn’t happy on stage when she wasn’t there, just musically.”
McClelland agreed. “It definitely feels like the right thing.”
While they hope their career will be helped by the Polaris nod, Doucet downplayed the musical significance of awards.
“Polaris talks about it (the winner) as being the best record. … One has to take these things with a pretty huge grain of salt,” he said. “I prefer to think in terms of these are people’s favourite pieces of art.”
Not that he isn’t appreciative.
“I really find it flattering,” he said. “It’s hard work and we care about it and we hope that other people will care about it, but so does everybody else who makes records.”
McClelland pointed out such lists are an opportunity to discover new music.
“I’m actually excited to take this opportunity to, you know, put my headphones on and listen to all these records,” she said. “I’m excited to delve into them and discover some new music.”
But people don’t have to consult critics’ lists to discover great new Canadian music, Doucet said.
“I think that, you know, the calibre of music that people believe they’re hearing when a certain group is highlighted or spotlighted by something like the Polaris Prize or the Juno Awards, that calibre of music can be found in your hometown on any given weekend.”
Doucet believes that’s particularly true about Winnipeg.
“I’ve always thought there was something special happening in Winnipeg,” he said, although he admitted he’s biased because it’s his hometown.
“The concentration of musicians that come out of Winnipeg is really high, and I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s because Winnipeg’s winters are harsh and therefore, you know, you find yourself hitting the basement and honing your craft moreso than you might if you lived in Kitsilano, or if you lived on Queen Street in Toronto, where there are so many distractions.”
But it’s more than that, Doucet said.
“I always thought that perspective on just about everything seemed a little different in Winnipeg,” he added. “I come back to Winnipeg and realize, ‘Oh yeah, this is a different place. The air is different here. People see the world through a different lens.'”
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