The New Pornographers

credit: The New Pornographers

Over their nearly 30-year career, beloved Canadian indie band the New Pornographers have been known for their upbeat-sounding power pop. But their latest record, The Former Site Of, finds the group striking a more reflective — even melancholic at times – tone compared to past efforts. It’s an assessment that A.C. Newman, the band’s singer, guitarist and primary songwriter, agrees with.

“It's a lot bigger themes,” he says. “When I talk about it, I realize the word ‘impermanence’ comes up. There are a lot of things in this record which deal with the way deal with impermanence — the way we think of things that aren't there or people that aren't there or things that are about to leave…just saying things that are gone, things that are going to be gone soon, [and] how you choose to deal with it.”

The Former Site Of, which was recently released on Merge Records, is the New Pornographers’ follow-up to 2023’s Continue as a Guest, and features the current lineup of Newman, singer Neko Case, keyboardist-singer Kathryn Calder, bassist John Collins and guitarist Todd Fancey. To promote the record, the band will embark on a tour starting on April 22 in Boston.

Newman says that The Former Site Of is a continuation of the sound of the preceding album. “Some of the songs on this record are kind of concurrent. When I started writing them, they existed at the same time I was writing for Continue as a Guest. So there are songs in this record, I think, ‘Oh, they could have been on that record.’

“The big difference is like the way I wrote lyrics,” Newman continues. “Not completely, but I think I was trying to make an effort to write more narrative songs. The sound might not be hugely different, but to me, the lyrical attack was. I think that kind of affected the sound of the record, too.”

Another change for the band was the presence of veteran drummer Charley Drayton, best known for his work with many famous acts, including Keith Richards, Fiona Apple and Divinyls. He stepped in as a last-minute addition during the recording of the new album (Josh Wells will be drumming for the upcoming New Pornographers tour).

“He was like, ‘You need somebody to play drums? I’ll do it.’” Newman recalls of Drayton. “And I thought, ‘Okay. Awesome.’ I don't think I would have asked him because I would have felt like I was asking him to slum it, because here's the guy who's played with Dylan, the Stones and Neil Young. I realized when I was in the studio with him that I've never played with a drummer that good…It was like he has this knack of getting that sound, the way he plays. That was amazing.”

Among the tracks unveiled ahead of The Former Site Of’s release is the electronic-textured and rhythmic “Pure Sticker Shock,” a meditation about self-worth. “I was just trying to write, in my way, about being in a band,” Newman explains. “You're creating art, but then when the art is monetized, you kind of have to deal with it. If you ever bring it up to people, all they're going to say is, ‘Boohoo, you sensitive artist. Your art has been monetized.’ It's great when your art is worth a ton. You're like, ‘Yes, this is awesome. I'll cash in.’ But then, all of a sudden, years pass, and your art isn't worth as much. And people aren't spending money on your art anymore. Your art is essentially free. So it was things like that.”

“Probably Pure Sticker Shock and Calligraphy are the two songs that I think are the most biographical [on The Former Site Of],” he adds. “I don't know if they're cynical, but they're both about like navigating a world where there is a warped sense of worth.”

For the driving “Ballad of the Last Payphone,” Newman says he was trying to write a little short story inspired by the actual last payphone in New York City, which is now in the Museum of the City of New York. “I just had the idea of somebody who's fascinated by it, somebody who goes to visit it, but is not sure why,” he says. “They're not sure why they're so fascinated by the last payphone, even though I would think it's kind of obvious why a person would be so fascinated by it, because it got left behind. It's a relic of the past.”

The most poignant song on the record is “Bonus Mai Tais,” a dreamy, waltz-like number based on Newman’s meeting with a friend who has cancer. “The whole story of it was true,” he says. “I was at my friend’s place, and my friend’s wife, whom I had known forever, had almost died months before when she found out she had advanced cancer. She did say to me, ‘I should have died four months ago. This is all the bonus rounds for me. Everything is a bonus.’ So she held up her mai tai and said, ‘This is a bonus mai tai,’ and it just kind of stuck in my brain. And then, like 12 years later, I had the song.”

The epic, ambitious title song, which concludes the record, strikes a nerve lyrically, considering the state of today’s society (“Oh our land, it is sinking/but the country, it is rising/Either betting on us floating,/or they’re counting on us dying”) — even though it was inspired by an actual historical event in New York State about 100 years ago.

“I was writing about something very specific, where these towns were forced to move around in the early part of the 20th century. New York said to all these upstate towns, ‘You have to leave because we're going to turn your town into a reservoir. We're going to flood it.’ So when I was writing the lyrics, that was in my brain. Then it became very obvious that it was applicable — especially the line about "Either betting on us floating/or they're counting on us dying" — [it] feels like a very appropriate line for the last 10 years.”

The Former Site Of is the 10th studio album for a band that has plenty of material to draw from their back catalog for the setlist of the upcoming tour. In a career that has lasted nearly three decades, amid personnel changes within the band and shifts in the indie rock landscape, the New Pornographers have persevered. It’s something that Newman doesn’t take for granted.

“It’s pretty crazy,” he says about the New Pornographers’ long career. “I think I’ve been looking over my shoulder for like 25 years. I thought when we were making our second record [2003’s Electric Version], I thought, ‘Maybe we’re just going to be one of those bands where people like our first record, and that's it.’ And then eventually, time passed, and I was like, 'Wait, maybe I've got something here. Maybe I've got something like a career.’”