3 questions with PREOCCUPATIONS

The Calgary-born band Preoccupations has had an eventful couple of years. Originally called Viet Cong, the group received glowing reviews for its 2015 self-titled debut, but faced harsh criticism from activists, who felt the name was disrespectful to those of Vietnamese ancestry. With that controversy behind them, the four musicians—singer-bassist Matt Flegel, guitarist Daniel Christiansen, guitarist and synth player Scott Munro and drummer Mike Wallace—are moving on with a brilliant new self-titled album and a homecoming show at MacEwan Ballroom on Saturday. Lisa Wilton spoke to Munro (far left in the above photo) about the band’s next act.

You must like the Stranger Things theme, then. Yeah, yeah. I like John Carpenter and that’s full John Carpenter aping. Big Trouble in Little China is one of my favourite records. Carpenter did some great stuff, movies aside.

Preoccupations has an even icier sound than Viet Cong. Was there a particular album or artist that you were inspired by while making the

record? We were trying to rip off Bowie (laughs). I mean, not really. It’s the same sort of stuff that we liked before. We listen to a lot of The Cure. We’re pretty much always listening to David Bowie. The ’70s Iggy Pop records are great. I guess one noticeable difference is that last year I got heavily into early minimalist synth records. I was listening to a lot of Bernard Fevre. He’s a French composer who was doing home-studio synth records in the mid’70s that are amazingly good. He was sort of in the same scene as JeanMichel Jarre and Alain Goraguer. I guess in a way it sounds like video-game music. It’s proto video-game music.

How did the controversy surrounding the band’s original name influence the songwriting, if at all? And how did it affect the band members personally? It was pretty stressful personally. There was a massive online petition and we had protesters at a bunch of the shows, especially at the shows in the Pacific Northwest. I would say that’s where the most meaningful conversations happened, too. There were a few people who organized protests in more than one city and we’d go and drink a beer with them afterwards. I feel that’s where we made the most progress. Talking to people who actually fled the Vietnam War and hearing about their experiences with it and realizing that maybe we were a little off base with naming the band Viet Cong. Some of it was really productive. I feel some of the stuff on the Internet was less productive. As far as it affecting the record, I’m sure it did. But it’s hard to say how. If we had kept the name Viet Cong, would we have made a different record? I don’t know. Preoccupations: Saturday, Oct. 1 at MacEwan Ballroom, U of C. Doors, 8 p.m. $20. TF.