Diamond Rings leading pack of ’80s retro acts
Artist gives his substance a heavy dose of style
There are many insults you can hurl at a musician for maximum effect, to undermine them and nullify what it is they’re attempting to do.
Three of them are the dreaded “c” words: Careerist. Calculated. Commercial.
Somehow, those epithets are seen as being unable to coexist with artistry, as if the only way it can be pure is if it’s made in a vacuum as an expression of selfishness — art made by and for the artist. John O’Regan would disagree. “That’s the goal of any artist is to try to connect with their own species, to connect with other human beings in a meaningful way,” says the Canadian musician. “I don’t really care how that connection happens as long as it happens.”
For him, that happened this year with great effect through the release of his second album recorded under the Diamond Rings name, Free Dimensional, a superb, assured retro synth record which truly announced him as one of the most noteworthy artists this nation or music, itself, offered up this past year.
It has him leading a pack of 2012 ’80s-sounding acts, that also includes Tanlines, Metric, Stars and Twin Shadow, to name but a few, who are building something brand new from a base of nostalgia or fresh for those who are coming at it blind.
And, it’s also increased O’Regan’s audience greatly from his 2010 buzzworthy first effort Special Affections, earning him headlining tours as opposed to opening slots, getting him heavy rotation on radio, and finding him performing on taste-making TV shows such as the Late Show With David Letterman and even its more base and mainstream brother The Tonight Show.
To say that it’s all part of O’Regan’s master plan for making it big in the business would be dumbing it down somewhat and, actually, rather insulting to the artist, but it wouldn’t be entirely untrue.
“Being on late-night TV and doing music videos and television, stuff like that, it’s all stuff that I don’t want to say I never imagined that I’d be able to do, but it was always a distant kind of goal. So to have it realized is definitely really special.”
It was, from the outset, meant to be a pop record. Huge. Approachable. Catchy. Fun. And, yes, made with popular appeal in mind, the musician admits while sitting in 17th Ave. restaurant The Living Room prior to his local show this past November.
The album was about getting bigger and better, and making “music a career” for the 27-yearold, but not while sacrificing personal expression, sacrificing that unique voice.
And make no mistake, while Free Dimensional is music made with broad, beautiful strokes it’s also very much a record about those simple human emotions, such as love, lust, joy and loss — which gives it even greater appeal. Listen to the wonderful Runaway Love and feel that yearning, that thrill and tingle of truly falling stupidly head over heels in want and need: “I want to be the light to your dark/I want to shine like gold/I want to burn my name in your heart/I want to lose control.”
It touches individually, it touches indiscriminately.
“It’s hard to strike that balance between having something that’s relatable but not too relatable or not too obvious. I find that line a really interesting one because it’s very easy to cross. Sometimes it needs to be really obvious or really earnest or really relatable and other times it should be obtuse. But I really committed with this record to making a pop record, more than I ever have before,” O’Regan says, pointing to his debut.
“The first one wasn’t really anything other than a collection of songs. There wasn’t even the glimmer of the possibility that what I was doing could be popular. There was not Tonight Show on the horizon at that point, whereas this time around I was thinking that I wanted to reach more people and express myself in a way that would be more obvious and be more confident.”
Of course, that confidence — yet one more hard “c” — also manifests itself outwardly with the entire Diamond Rings image and persona, which is part Gary Numan, part Klaus Nomi, and all angular and pretty.
O’Regan takes it even further with his onstage act, which later at Calgary’s Hi-Fi Club, was a high-energy hour, and featured sensational versions of all of the new material, a great backup band, and of course, costume changes for the frontman: He entered as a weird, amorphous tree with glowing eyes; left looking like Billy Idol.
The artist is, not surprisingly, unapologetic about giving his substance a heavy dose of style.
“It’s about putting on a show,” he says simply. “People, especially now, there’s a ton of great music that exists in the world and people have a finite amount of time and a finite amount of money to spend on music to buy and music to go see. I just take really seriously the fact that if I’m playing a show and people have decided to spend the night standing in a dark, windowless room for three hours to make sure the show I’m putting on is deserving of that time and that attention.
“I want to really own the stage. I act and perform as if I expect that people are coming. It’s like throwing a party, you’ve got to be prepared: you’ve got all your records out, your snacks, your lights. It’s nice for people to feel as though you anticipated their arrival and want to give them something special.
“So I think the look and the songs both inform each other in that respect.”
And, again, as a testament to the strength of the material, that they work in that live setting — worked in that smaller club, and also scream for an even larger treatment — or any other you want to put them in. Which, lately, has been everywhere.
O’Regan, for one, is delighted to hear that his songs are getting played in different environments ranging from spin classes to restaurants and malls. In keeping with the entire Diamond Rings concept — and another — he’s just glad they’re getting heard.
“I get that question a lot where people ask, ‘What’s the ideal listening environment for your music?’ Or, ‘What would you ideally want people to be doing when they’re hearing your music?’ I feel like that’s a really impossible question to answer because I think so much about what makes music special is that it’s personal and that it’s up to each listener to define what their ideal experience is,” he says. “I’ve had transcendental life-altering experiences with music in giant nightclubs in Europe with huge enormous sound systems. I’ve had amazing experiences with music listening to songs on a portable record player in my bathtub. I’ve had amazing experiences with music on a dubbed cassette on a Walkman with the batteries dying with the song warping every 30 seconds.
“I think it’s not about experiencing something in any one way or the proper way, like a true audiophile. It’s just about having that song hit you at that moment when you really need it. If anything it’s exciting to know that that’s happening for people with my music, they’re having that experience through me. That’s really cool. That’s what I’ve always wanted more than anything, to be that song in someone’s life.”
Actually, by the time he’s done, he’ll probably be many. O’Regan admits that he’s also started writing new material and has even done some remix work, including for a track from his friend Tegan and Sara’s forthcoming album.
He does, he says and after Free Dimensional it’s hard to believe it to be possible, intend to have a lengthy career in this business.
And musically as well as imagewise, he also thinks there are bigger and better things to come from Diamond Rings in the future. In fact, he likens his evolutions as a songwriter, performer and producer to his first artistic pursuits, as an illustrator, which he was trained for and incredibly accomplished, before giving it all up for music.
“When I first started to draw when I was really young, probably before I could really walk or do anything, everything was a stick figure,” he says. “I would draw a head, with two arms coming out of the ears and legs coming out from the neck — there were no bodies. And then after a year or two I learned to draw a stick body. Then after another few years it became forms rather than twigs. And from there you can add shading and shadows and textures to give something depth and form.
“I think sonically I see myself on a similar progression. It’s about growing and changing and trying to hone and perfect the sound, try to make it perfect … It’s about learning to get better and better and better, about failing.
“This album, the body is in play,” he says and laughs. “But next one there’ll be a little more depth, I think. But I’ve got a lot of time, so.”