We had the pleasure of interviewing Joel Gibb, singer, songwriter, guitarist and frontman of the Canadian band The Hidden Cameras – Gibb’s “creative baby”. Born in Canada and living in Berlin, Gibb is also a director and visual artist, and has just finished a three-month North American tour with The Hidden Cameras, who are known for their energetic music and surprising live performances.
- The Hidden Cameras (photo by Norman Wong)
In 2009, The Hidden Cameras released their fourth album, Origin:Orphan. They were the first Canadian band signed by U.K. label Rough Trade, and their records have been released in Canada by Arts & Crafts and also by Joel Gibb’s own label, Evil Evil.
Their songs were featured on films such as Marco Kreuzpaintner’s Sommersturm (2004), Amnon Buchbinder’s Whole New Thing (2006), G.B. Jones’ Lollipop Generation (2008), as well as John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (2006).
Clich here to watch The Hidden Cameras’ latest video, In the NA, directed by Joel Gibb.
Made-Up Disease: You directed The Hidden Cameras’ latest video, In the NA. Was it your first experience as a director?
Joel Gibb: That wasn’t my first experience as a director. I did a video in 2004 for the song I Believe in the Good of Life*, and I also did two Super-8 films for the first record… I’m waiting to get those two online. It’s been way too long. I’m really annoyed.
* from The Hidden Cameras’ 2004 album Mississauga Goddam.
MUD: Where did your project’s name, The Hidden Cameras, come from? It makes us think of Panopticon, Big Brother is watching you…
J. G.: That’s a good association. I originally thought of it when I was thinking of the Panopticon – an architectural device… A design that makes guards see the prisoners at any moment, and the prisoners cannot see if someone is watching them. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. To me, The Hidden Cameras is a modern, pervasive, and much more expansive idea of that. In a way, we are all prisoners to that concept. Half the time, we don’t know if we’re being watched. I think our behavior has changed culturally because of the new world convention.
MUD: Are you living in Berlin part-time?
J.G.: Yes, I’m flying in six hours, actually. I’ve been in North America for three months with this record, but I’m really happy to be going back to Berlin. My boyfriend lives there; it’ll be a nice time, a quiet Christmas, because everything has just been too crazy.
MUD: We can imagine! Do you mostly stay in Berlin?
J. G.: Each year, for an artist, I think it’s different. I mean, last year, I spent eleven months in Berlin, which I thought was great. I was mixing the record, and working on artwork… You call it a research and development year. Artists have different years. So this year was a much different year, a very “on” year. So I am coming back [to Canada], actually, on January 24th. I’m singing backup for Feist at the Olympics.
MUD: Wow! That’s amazing.
J. G.: She’s great.
MUD: How do you work with The Hidden Cameras in terms of rehearsing, since you’re mostly in Berlin? Are the other musicians in Canada?
J. G.: Some of them are. Our violin player is in London, and we have other people that play with us in Europe – and if we ever come to South America, we would love to play with people from there too.
MUD: You do write all the lyrics and all the songs yourself, right?
J. G.: Yeah, I write songs by myself. I often record the songs with certain people… It’s not recorded with a huge group. It’s more of a small group, and other people come in afterwards for overdubs, like strings and horns.
MUD: How was life before The Hidden Cameras?
J. G.: I was in university. Each year in university became more difficult, because I was writing and playing more music by myself, on a four-track in my basement… So, when I was supposed to be writing essays, I was writing songs.
By the end of university, I was just really sick of it and really wanted to do music. As soon as I was able to do that, I just started asking people to play music with me and that is where I took it, with The Hidden Cameras. It was my first time ever being on stage. I had never performed with anyone before The Hidden Cameras. I had never been in somebody else’s band, you know?
MUD: Was that long before the release of the album Ecce Homo (2001)?
J. G.: Ecce Homo was the result of my four-track recordings that I had been making before I asked people to play with me. In a way, Ecce Homo is pre-Hidden Cameras material, before it was just four-track stuff.
MUD: And that was released independently, by your label Evil Evil.
J. G.: We got signed with Rough Trade for that record and I have a deal for the world, excluding Canada, so that I can have my own thing in Canada.
MUD: You are also a visual artist, and some of your pieces have been exhibited in several countries. What kind of work are you going to focus on after your music tour? Are you working on visual pieces?
J. G.: Next year, we are doing a European tour [from] March 7th to April 15th, and then, hopefully, at least a month off. We’re probably gonna come back to Canada and do gigs here. I know there’s festival gigs in Europe, so we’re quite busy with Canada and Europe, but I’d love to play Brazil!
MUD: How do you find time to dedicate to fine arts?
J. G.: I need my own space to start making art. I can’t just get a day off and make art. I need months off so I can build my studio, you know? And make a big mess. I need time to think and make a mess.
MUD: Do you have a studio in Berlin?
J. G.: I have an apartment that has a big room, so the room can be a nice living room or a studio. You just gotta spend the day moving stuff around, getting it ready.
MUD: In all kinds of artistic expression, things can get a little bit serious… And when artists take themselves too seriously, the whole purpose of what they are doing may dissipate. With The Hidden Cameras, you always maintain a funny, playful attitude. There is a lot of humor attached to it. Do you think it is important to keep a playful side, or is that just the way you are?
J. G.: I think that’s the sort of key to creativity, being playful. The only way I can write a song is if I’m not trying to be serious. I don’t write songs thinking that I’m a songwriter. I write songs just being playful with words and melodies. I’m not the kind of person that wakes up in the morning and makes some coffee and then goes to the piano for a couple of hours to write songs.
Songs write themselves when you’re not thinking, basically; when you’re not trying, when you’re not intellectualizing the world… It’s just an emotional thing, you know? Just getting in touch with your emotions and being very playful with melody and language and stuff.
- Origin:Orphan (2009)
MUD: Some critics have said that with Origin: Orphan (2009) you have moved to a more diverse, gloomy direction. We wonder if you agree with that.
J. G.: Sure.
MUD: Did you feel that people expected you to create a certain kind of work, and you just said the “F” word and realized you should do whatever you felt like?
J. G.: Yes, there’s a lot of “F” words coming out [laughs]. Other records that I’m working on are even more diverse and even more different from what people think The Hidden Cameras should be like. I think people’s ideas about the band will evolve, just like the music.
I can’t ever make something for somebody else, I just have to make something for me. What I want to do. That’s the whole point of being an artist.
MUD: Where does your inspiration come from?
J. G.: Usually, nothing. Just… Life. I don’t know. Experience. As I said, when I don’t think. When I stop thinking.
MUD: Back to the playful attitude and the humor, your song Ban Marriage was very much talked about. Did conservative people ever contact you saying they were shocked or something like that?
J. G.: No. Conservative people would never care to write me.
MUD: That’s good for you!
J. G.: Yeah.
MUD: We wouldn’t wanna hear from them.
J. G.: And also, homophobia doesn’t come out too explicitly, you know? It’s very subtle. You know what I mean? No one in this day and age is gonna come flat out and say something. It’s hidden. It’s subtle. It’s just a feeling you get from someone.
MUD: Did you label The Hidden Cameras “gay church folk music?”
J. G.: Yes.
MUD: What about the word “church”?
J. G.: It refers to the lyrics of the first record. There’s a lot of religious references.
MUD: And you have also played in churches, haven’t you?
J. G.: Yes, we’ve played in like, seven churches in Toronto. We’ve played three churches in London, we’ve played a church in Berlin and then Darmstadt.
MUD: Not many people get to do that. When you played in churches, did you have go-go dancers on stage?
J. G.: The whole point of playing in a church was to have go-go dancers.
MUD: We hear you don’t have the go-go dancers anymore at your shows…
J. G.: It’s not a question of having them anymore or not, it’s a question of… The Hidden Cameras… there’s no formula for a live show. The moment there’s some sort of predictable thing, it’s the moment I would not want to do that. Next week we may meet some hot guy who wants to be our go-go dancer. And if we’re all feeling like we want to have a go-go dancer come on stage for three songs, then we will.
MUD: It’s back to the point of people expecting something from an artist.
J. G.: Yeah. I don’t like that. And I don’t like also… Journalists always want to know “What are you guys going to do at the gig next week?”, and I’m just gonna be like “I don’t wanna tell you. I don’t want to give it away”. That’s not fun. Then it becomes “now we have to do this”, because I’ve spoken about it, and it’s not fun at all anymore.
MUD: And it wouldn’t be a surprise for the audience, if they knew what to expect.
J. G.: Yeah. Exactly.
MUD: We know you have a European tour; after that, what is next for you and The Hidden Cameras?
J. G.: I’ve been recording a lot of material over the past few years, so the next record is already recorded in a way. I just need to keep working on it. Then there’s another record that is also… I’m just working on some songs. I don’t really work like a typical… When a band writes a record together, they go in a studio, and then they go on tour… And write the next record. It doesn’t work that way ‘cause I’m the one who’s a songwriter. It’s a different model for what this band is. We don’t write a record and we don’t record a record really either. It’s more… I get in the studio when I can, and work on songs that I’ve already written.
MUD: The idea of a band having to go inside a studio to write an album is slightly surreal. You can’t just push a button and be creative.
J. G.: For some people it works. Some bands just make the music, they’re just playing the guitars, and the singer will hear the music they’re making and go off in their little world and start writing the lyrics. I don’t know if I can’t, but I know I don’t do that. I feel that when I create a song, it almost comes finished in my head. I don’t just play around and create a little melody and then hope that somebody will write the lyrics, ‘cause I write the lyrics. I’d love to work with somebody, though, who maybe does the lyrics, then I can just play around with music.
MUD: Did you ever have a similar experience?
J. G.: No, but that seems really fun.
MUD: Was it a conscious decision to name your project The Hidden Cameras instead of Joel Gibb?
J. G.: Exactly. I could’ve done that, you know? It Is very much my creative baby, but I just wanted a band’s name, and I did want a band, that’s the thing. The Hidden Cameras is many, many things: it’s a band, it’s a performance group, it is a vehicle for my songs, it is… It’s so many different things, there’s not just one way of having a band. It’s better to have the definition really open.
MUD: How do the musicians learn the songs you write?
J. G.: I usually sing the parts – like, I’ll sing the horn parts to the horn player, or I’ll sing the violin melody that I was thinking of… Or I’ll play it on the piano. The drum beats… I always have ideas for drum beats. Usually, I just want it to be like a drum machine, but it’s very difficult to find a drummer who wants to drum like a drum machine. Usually, drummers want to show off, and I can’t stand that. It’s my pet peeve in this world. I don’t like guitar solos either.
MUD: We wonder if you think of yourself as a musician or as someone who makes visual arts. Or both.
J. G.: I usually think of myself as an artist. That opens things up, so you can be anything you like. Nobody taught me how to be an artist. I didn’t go to art school; I went to university and studied humanities. There’s no rules. And I would hate to go to art school – they can’t teach you how to be an artist. I didn’t like music class either in school. I thought it was a joke.
All images via the band’s myspace page
