TOPS on Alberta, Self-Producing, and Living on Your Own Terms

This is a free post from Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter. Paid subscribers get one or two email-only Baker's Dozens every week featuring music I've been listening to and some critical observations around it.

TOPS emerged right around the time in the early 2010s when blogs still reigned supreme, and they built up a cultish following with a sound that always felt slightly more complex than how it seemed on first brush. If you want to talk about playing the long game, TOPS arguably did it; on August 22, they come back to do it again with their first record in five years, Bury the Key, and it very strongly makes the case that they were a band who was ahead of their time at first and continue to be a few steps ahead of their peers. I talked to Jane Penny and David Carriere back in June about the breadth of their career and their overall aesthetic approach and I found the convo fascinating and clarifying—check it out:

One thing that was interesting in the bio materials for this record was the description of this album as "the evil TOPS." Tell me more about that.
Jane: Yeah, no more Mr. Nice TOPS. [Laughs] There's some darker themes that we're exploring with the music and songwriting. We self-produce and self-record most of our music, so there just started to be little things. Marta does this detuned thing at the end of "Paper House," and even though "Annihilation" is a really upbeat song in some ways, there's a sinister quality to it which is a reflection of what was happening for me personally at the time. Also, there is a certain energy in the world right now—a dystopic warping—and we got interested in capturing that. Obviously, "Falling on My Sword" is a departure for us; David was really into hardcore music as a teen, and we wanted to bring some influences into the mix that we haven't before.

We've existed long enough as a band to actually have gone through the entire cycle of having a sound that had an impact, and then seeing that sound be digested—and maybe imitated, to a certain extent. Even that cycle has completed, and the worst thing you can do as a band that's existed for a while is try to imitate yourself. So it necessitated us looking elsewhere.

Hearing you use the word "sinister" is funny, because compared to who people would assume are your contemporaries, I think there's always been something a little sinister going on with your music—this feeling that you know something was taking place behind the veil, so to speak. Talk to me about the evolution of TOPS as you two see it.
Jane: I feel like melancholia has always been an undercurrent of our music, for sure. It's hard and very overwhelming to think back to the very early songs of ours.
You actually posted one of our tracks in 2012, so I know you were aware—but those were some of the very first songs that I personally had ever written in my life.

For me, there's always been an emotional need to write songs. Ultimately, that's what people are connecting with—our ability to tap into something emotional. I feel like a lot of people are able to interpret our songs as their own. We've never been preoccupied with making bangers or being successful. I always felt like the coolest thing that I could possibly do would be to do whatever it is that I actually want to do—the best representation of my feelings. Maybe I've been an anxious and sad person at times that I've worked through in my life.

One aspect of this record is that David and I are both from Edmonton, Alberta and have known each other since we were 12 years old. That was a long time ago, and a lot of the things that you deal with in life often can echo back into your earliest experiences. A lot of this record is connecting current-day situations and emotions that I was experiencing with the undercurrent of my childhood.

As an artist, I feel like a completely different person than when TOPS started. I never really anticipated that we'd keep doing this for so long, and it's funny how different parts of yourself can feel like a stranger, while other parts that go even further back never leave you. "Chlorine" is very much a song that links earlier adolescent experiences with certain patterns that I struggle to break now. That's why there's the mountains on the cover—it's a little wink to our background.

I feel like Alberta is a pretty fraught place, in certain ways. Growing up there was a bit challenging at times, but also really beautiful. I love it and I hate it.

Tell me more about Alberta. My wife and I actually recently visited a friend in Banff there, but I know Banff is far from representative of Alberta as a whole.
Jane: I don't want to shit-talk Alberta, that's for sure. But I think it's a pretty conservative society in a lot of ways. At the same time, in Edmonton in the '90s and early 2000s, when I was growing up, there was a lot of alternative culture. Growing up in a more conservative place gave me a really deep understanding of what how important it is to have alternative culture. It allowed me to really believe in a certain ethos of what I'm doing. I had to leave Edmonton to pursue that, because geographically it's super isolated.

I experienced a lot of misogyny. You can be sexually assaulted just walking to the street. I definitely felt under attack as a young woman there, especially having queer friends. There's a quite regular experience of violence, whether it's your gay friends getting beat up or your straight friends getting beat up. There's a lot of drinking culture. There's also things that I've taken from it—a Protestant work ethic, a straightforwardness. It's every man celebrating the everyman. Nobody's too good, there isn't any elitism. So there's definitely positives.

But I also think I understand the rise of conservatism in America because of Alberta. I don't support it, but I have an understanding of where those people are coming from and how those mentalities are birthed. It's weird. It's kind of like having a toxic partner that's bad for you in your life. But I do love it, and I have a lot of nostalgia. I'm still like an Oilers fan. You have to reconcile these different things.

Your guys' music has always sounded a little different to me than other bands in the landscape. Let's talk about the production aspect of what you do.
David: Making lots of demos and working really hard to make keyboard sounds is a really big part of it. A lot of music sounds the same. People just turn on their gear and go, "Sound one, let's go." Or they use producers who push things to a great-sounding but maybe homogenous sound. On this record, I got Jane to produce all of the guitar sounds this time so I didn't have to do it.

Jane: We're all keyboard nerds, and we've been collecting our own gear and setting up on our studio since 2012. Aat this point, we've cultivated certain things that we like to do.

One thing that I'm always surprised by is when I meet a musician that's like, "I'm a songwriter, so I write my songs and then I go and I get somebody to record them." I always had this inferiority complex, especially about being a singer, because I was never a trained singer and I was always pretty shy about my singing. The idea that just my own musical ability was enough, that I just needed to capture that—that was never my attitude. I can create a certain world with different textures and analog keyboards, and I can record David's guitar and Riley's drumming, which is pretty unique and specific to him—it has an aura to it, almost. It's so sensitive. So we have that bed, and then we layer on all these different things. I always felt like I was overcoming my lack of trained talent with my taste and decision-making.

Production-wise, we're a recordings-first band, which is pretty unique. A lot of times, the song doesn't necessarily even exist or have its own identity until it's been recorded—whereas other people might think a recording is just somebody singing a song. I never saw it that way for us. Another distinction is that a lot of bedroom producers don't need more than a computer—but because we're a band and have amassed a lot of different gear, we're really trying to stretch ourselves.

One thing that was fun about this record is that we were recording it next to a guitar repair guy. He kept feeding David different guitars, So he used maybe 15 or 20 guitars over the whole course of it—12-strings, acoustic, electric. We approached every song as a completely new experiment, because that experimentation is what gives me the most joy.

I feel like things came around a bit where you guys ended up being fairly influential on indie music in general. I'm curious to hear if that's something that you guys have observed on your end—and if so, if it's caused you to make any decisions towards avoiding being aesthetically boxed-in.
David: I don't really listen to that much new music, but I've definitely had people that are like, "This is huge, it's out now, it sounds just like you." When I hear it, I'm like, "I don't even know who this is."

Jane: I've had friends send me some commercial instrumental background thing and they'll be like, "It sounds like TOPS—I thought this was you guys." As soon as something like that is achievable—when other people are easily finding their way to do it—it's always easier to do something when something exists in the air.

David: And you can even do it better then.

Jane: But it does give you the impulse to try to escape. It's a bit like running away from a moving target. On the other hand, I feel like I have other journeys, musically, that are just so personal—things I want to do to expand my voice, or different eras of synths that I'm getting into. I like to think that we've escaped being boxed in just by not really working within the context of what's going on and not being too ambitious about it. Other bands have been more successful than us and they're maybe doing something similar.

David: They all sound the same.

Jane: It often sounds a little bit homogenous—but it's hard to be tactical about something when you're inventing it as you go. If you're able to be strategic in that way, in which you can communicate something in a way that really goes off, so to speak, then perhaps it's not the most interesting thing that's ever happened.

I do think that it's generally true that, often, the first people to do something aren't the most successful at it. But it's funny, because we're forced to do all this social media all the time, and when you post a lot of social media as a band, all the algorithm ever feeds you is other aspiring bands. It feels like you're in this echo chamber where you're like, "Are the only people that follow us other people that want to be in a popular band?"

I saw a younger band who were like, "The last thing we want to be is underrated," and that was a really funny statement to me, because that's something that's been put on us over the years. Certain fans will celebrate us for that, and other people will deride us for that. Now we've been forced by the landscape, and how difficult it is, that so many people interpret the meaning of what they're creating to how relevant it is to the culture, which feels a little broken to me.

I'm not sure that I'm completely ascribed to the '90s ethos of, "It's really uncool to to have any ambition," but I also find that we've maybe tipped the scales a little too far to the other side. I try to kind of think of it as, "How can I do this in a way that's fun and easy?" But it is funny how we're so overly perceived nowadays. I feel like a lot of artists literally think of their work and what it is as inextricably tied to how it's perceived—which, to me, immediately waters it down.

The bio for this new record mentioned lyrically addressing intimacy both inside and outside the band. Elaborate on that a little bit.
Jane: I mean, I think it's a little difficult to talk about it in too much detail. David and I, especially, are not necessarily that in tune with our emotions. We definitely fall into the category of songwriters that write songs as a form of accessing that kind of stuff. But there was a certain quality to life and touring in the past few years—a kind of instability, chaos, and heightened sensation that happens when you're touring and on the road—and that informed these songs. There are certain things that I had an insatiable hunger for that wasn't, apparently, in my best interest. Chasing poison is something that is kind of thematic.

There's a certain thing that I feel like I'm exploring quite a bit on the record that I would call "loser-itis," which I suffer from often—where you just feel like a loser, which probably a lot of people in our cohort struggle with because we just haven't necessarily been given a lot of opportunities or sought them out. It's interesting to arrive at a point in your life when you've spent your entire life kind of rejecting different markers of success and growth—actively not trying to get validation from the music industry—and you realize what it is that you've created for yourself. When the youthful glow starts to fade, you're left with just knowing that you're in a certain place in your life.

But I think there's a certain grind about it. Luckily, I feel like a lot of negative experiences in my life do lead me back to being creative, which is the most positive thing that I have in my life in a lot of ways. So there's this chasing of things that aren't necessarily good for you.

Tell me about working within the community of Montreal artists in general. I spoke with Patrick Holland for the newsletter last year, who has worked with you guys in the past as well.
Jane: My favorite thing about it is that, since the very beginning up until now, it's still really diverse in terms of all the people involved and the genres of music. There's been a real resurgence of electronic and dance music, but also a lot of punk and country bands. For being quite a small city, it allows for a lot of these things to mix and coexist in a way that I really like.

At some point, maybe I suffered from a little bit of claustrophobia in that environment—the scene-ness of it all—but right now I find it to be extremely inspiring, because I've graduated to more of a fly-on-the-wall role within it. There's these shows under this bridge that happen all summer long where people set up a generator, and sometimes it's really intense—like, a mosh pit with people lighting shit on fire and going nuts. Other times, it's more on the wholesome side of different artists doing their thing.

Because the city is a bit of a college town, there's always this young vibrancy to it—especially in the past few years, it's been allowed to flourish. At some point, the kids really took over the streets, especially in the summer, and it's a really fun energy to be around. I do find that people are generally really positive and supportive of each other. Specifically in Canada, I think the screws just aren't as tight on peoples' reality, and what it takes to exist is just a little bit softer maybe. We went into this studio to talk to a director and her partner about making a video, and afterwards she told me that he'd said, "That band was so nice," and she was like, "They're Canadian," and he was like, "Oh, well, that makes sense."

My experience of America, having toured and visited here a lot and even lived here at times—I'm always just kind of in awe that people manage to survive here at all. It just feels like it can be such a struggle, and the amount of labor that you're forced to do just to pay your bills is...We're sort of lucky, in that sense. I think that's why there's so much talk of nepo babies and stuff—it's as much about the inaccessibility of having a creative life as it is how fucking hard it is to live.

Something I've been thinking a lot about, especially with the requirements of social media, is that people really don't want musicians to have any time spent on actual music-making. You really have to enforce that boundary as a person and be like, "I'm a musician—I'm supposed to make music every day." That's something that I've always really appreciated about David: He wakes up every day and goes to his studio, and he's just on that grind. That's what you do, and it makes you feel like who you are, which is a musician—and that's just what it is.

David: It's the clubhouse.

Jane: It's the clubhouse, yeah. I mean, it's a fun thing to do too. The act of making music is, to me, one of the most awe-inspiring things to even exist. The extent to which it's such a huge part of everybody's lives globally...a lot of the reason that the landscape of it has changed and evolved so much is that it just exists in the air. The idea of monetizing it in general is kind of ridiculous, and that's why it's shapeshifted so much. We're always trying to grab onto some way that it can be a commodity, but it really isn't. Actually making music in space and time is one of the more anti-online things you can possibly do, which is why I find it kind of funny that we're all sort of forced to to do [social media] to exist.

I do feel like there's a growing amount of tension regarding that, for what it's worth. Aa lot of people are starting to get really sick of it and pushing back. From a lot of artists I've talked to, being online and playing the IG Reels/TikTok promotional game—the juice is so rarely worth the squeeze, especially when the success you find these days can can feel kind of random, like pulling a slot machine lever.
I think it is random, yeah. I know that they just randomly will boost anybody's posts so people have the idea that they can be successful. There's nothing to do
with what the post is—they're just creating the carrot. It's definitely something I'm still trying to figure out.

One thing I've been thinking about a lot is how to connect more directly with our audience. I mean, there's this big tour we're going on. But also, at the end of the day, the one thing that's really nice about being in a band with a bunch of other people that are really good friends and a bunch of goofs is that there's this other side of the TOPS coin. On the one hand, maybe we write these super-emotional songs that are coming from a really raw place—but then there's this dynamic of this group of people that are just having fun and playing music together. That makes it easier for me, and it's what I try to tap into: The fun aspect of things.

It's also interesting to be in a band nowadays, because we're kind of used to a culture of persona. But on the other hand, a huge aspect of music to me is that it only exists in the context of more than one person. Music is meant to be played for people to come together.

Talk to me about the financial aspect of being an artist, and what has to be done extra-musically in that regard. What is the money game like for you guys?
David: Everything you make will only start to make money, if it's worth it, a year and a half later.

Jane: Or 10 years later. [Laughs]

David: You always have to be making stuff, so you shouldn't waste your money and you should learn how to produce your own music.

Jane: In the past couple of years, we've realized some of the limitations of self-releasing and trying to do things so DIY, and we've started to cut the pie a little bit in a way of bringing in people that can help us out, and we've definitely seen the benefits of that. On the other hand, we never give anybody money to do something for us in the creative realm. You'll never find us writing a check for a producer, because we'd rather figure out how to do it ourselves. And once you know how to do something yourself, nobody can take your skills away from you.

A big part of being a full-time musician is about personal choices. I live in a really small, humble, 200-square-foot bachelor apartment. I don't own a car, I don't eat out, I don't get Uber Eats, I don't buy things online, I don't use Amazon. I went on my first vacation a couple months ago when I went to Vegas—that was the first time I like bought a, paid for a hotel room. I'd rather be really cheap and poor and still be a full-time musician—that's just my choice, and that's where I'm at with it.

But that's just a certain mentality I have. Obviously, our bandmates that live in L.A. are doing all sorts of other gigs to make ends meet. Not everybody wants to design their entire life and identity around not having to do other work. Maybe I'm a bit of la slacker. Maybe that's just my thing. I'm not trying to be righteous about it or anything. I don't know if people really understand that we are not wealthy. I think they see the listener numbers and think that, but we're not exactly wealthy individuals. If you're okay with that and you can reckon with that, then you're good to go, you know?