A Spinal Tap for the Internet age
TORONTO — Schitt’s Creek star Annie Murphy’s new web series The Plateaus treats the music industry as a theatre of the absurd.
In eight years with her Junonominated husband Menno Versteeg — frontman for rock band Hollerado — Murphy has met enough outsized characters to make exceedingly strange experiences seem downright routine.
“There were so many instances of these heated band arguments over, like, who would hypothetically be the best tightrope walker — just ridiculous stuff,” she laughed recently on the line from Holland, where she was on holiday with Versteeg and her parents.
“[I had] so many encounters with ultra bizarre industry people taking themselves far, far too seriously, that I kind of had to start writing this stuff down.
“I wanted to write something to show the fun and outrageous side of the music industry and kind of poke fun at people who may be taking themselves too seriously.”
The Plateaus, which debuted Thursday on CBC’s website, focuses on a clueless indie band whose swaggering lead singer dies in a bizarre accident during band practice.
Fuelled by ambition and a lack of other options, the remaining three squabbling band members — played by Murphy, Matthew Raudsepp and Kyle Gatehouse — try to hoist the group back to its prior level of minor success.
The show veers from industry satire to the realm of the ridiculous — a dead cat in a freezer and a pack of angry nuns both provide plot points — but mainly Murphy and her collaborators saw an opportunity to poke holes in a self-serious industry.
“It just seemed like a lot of people were forgetting [that] what they were doing was supposed to be fun,” she said of observing the music industry.
“It was a lot of ego and a lot of ridiculous thoughts and a lot of crazy outfits. And crazy banter over very expensive cocktails.”
It turns out, celebrities were eager to poke fun at themselves.
Tim Fletcher of the defunct Montreal band the Stills plays the Plateaus’ short-lived frontman, while Jay Baruchel, Elisha Cuthbert and Tyler Kyte portray the Plateaus’ arch-rival band, Kiss Me I’m Stylish.
Also dropping by are Kevin McDonald, Fred Penner, Billy Talent’s Ben Kowalewicz and Sam Roberts, the Montreal rocker whose reputation for affability led the show’s writers to cast him against type as a deranged egomaniac.
“I remember him coming in and we had him in pleather pants, snakeskin shoes and diamond studs,” Murphy recalled of an early shoot with Roberts.
“And he was like: ‘I’ve never felt so good in my life. For once, I can be an [expletive]. And it feels so good.’ ”
Media personalities George Stroumboulopoulos and Liz Trinnear made cameo appearances as themselves — and they seemed right at home chatting with the empty-headed Plateaus.
“They were both so natural around the band — who were being such idiots — and they fell into their regular old interview ways,” Murphy said.
“I think that does say a lot about what they have dealt with in the past.”