The Tenors tune into platinum success
Singers embody democracy — to the max
TORONTO — The Tenors’ defining strength is the way their four voices blend harmoniously together. But on a conference call, it’s just confusing.
The popular Canadian classical crossover group — consisting of Victor Micallef, Clifton Murray, Remy Pereira and Fraser Walters — has no frontman, and thus handles everything from songwriting to telephone interviews with exacting equality.
Even when their policy is, quite frankly, a pain.
“It slows things down a little bit,” said Murray, joined on speakerphone by his group mates.
“But it also forces us all to bring something strong because we know we’ll be critiqued by the rest of the guys. You have to be passionate about it.”
Of course, the distinction between “discussion” and “argument” is often a matter of degrees — and sometimes the temperature does turn up.
“It’s good to have a little fire to keep the house warm,” Murray replied. “We like to keep that fire burning. The creative dialogue that we’re always having about the direction of the group ... it gets really heated sometimes.
“But we embrace that. Sometimes the answers are there in the fire.”
Later, Walters offers up a similar metaphor: “Diamonds are created under pressure.”
So far, the Tenors have at least shown a knack for forging platinum.
Each of the group’s three releases has reached that status multiple times over, a sales achievement that’s seemingly impossible these days for any other Canadian band not named Nickelback.
Their fourth album, Under One Sky, was issued this week with production help from such Canadian heavyweights as David Foster and Bob Ezrin. The Tenors co-wrote eight of the album’s 13 tracks, with at least one attention-grabbing foray into pop (Drowning in Love).
Writing together offered a further test of the band’s one-for-all philosophy, with stalemates settled by thorough discussion followed, sometimes, by a vote.
Ezrin has mentored the group since its earliest years, becoming a reliable source of clear-eyed criticism. “There’s probably no one more ... brutally honest, you could say, than Ezrin,” Walters said. “It did create that friction along the way, but we appreciate the experiences.”
To Ezrin’s eye, the group’s setup is unorthodox but not without benefit.
“It’s difficult to run a democracy under any circumstances and it’s particularly difficult when you have an even boat,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s not an easy thing that they’re attempting to do, but they’re running this group as equals, truly.
“That sometimes makes it pretty complicated because you have four points of view that will have to be factored into what’s going on,” he added.
“Sometimes you have something incredibly magical because you have this combination of talents and the strength that comes with (that).”
The creative dialogue that we’re alway shaving about the direction of the group... it gets really heated sometimes.
CLIFTON MURRAY
MEMBER OF THE TENORS