Dan Boeckner Addresses Handsome Furs' Breakup, Wolf Parade's Future and Another Potential New Band

BY Stephen CarlickPublished Aug 9, 2012

As if the breakup of Dan Boeckner's Handsome Furs wasn't already a stab to the heart, the knife was twisted just a little by their post-breakup shortlist nomination for the Polaris Music Prize thanks to the duo's 2011 swan song Sound Kapital. It must have occurred to fans, though: Might the duo play one last song as the Furs for the Polaris Gala? Alas, no.

"I'm flattered, I am," admits Boeckner to Exclaim!, "but we're not a band anymore." And though he wouldn't divulge any more details about why the duo split -- "I don't want to, I can't. Not right now" -- he did make some passionate comments about the band, and their potential future.

"We're not going to play at the gala. Maybe we'll get back together and record something sometime in the future, but right now... We made those three records, and Sound Kapital, for me, was the statement I wanted to make with the Handsome Furs. That's the record we were building up to. I don't think anybody else that year made a record like that, or talked about those things that we were talking about. It was a very specific record, so if we ever made another record, it would be a radical departure from that. It would have to be. So I was flattered that we got shortlisted for Polaris, but it was kind of bittersweet, too, you know? I do miss playing shows with that band."

Asked which of his defunct bands might reunite first, Handsome Furs or Wolf Parade, Boeckner chose the former: "With Wolf Parade, we have to wait a while. Spencer [Krug]'s got Moonface, I have Divine Fits. We stopped playing music two years ago as Wolf Parade, and I think it'd be kind of crass. 'Here we are! Playin' the hits, Coachella 2013! All your favourite tunes! That would feel bad.'

"If Wolf Parade ever did get back together again, it would have to be under the auspices of making a new album. It would have to be. There is no way that band is going to do a reunion tour. But yeah, I think Spencer's happy with doing Moonface, especially the new record, so there it is."

In the meantime, there's plenty of Boeckner to look forward to. His current project with Spoon's Britt Daniel and New Bomb Turks' Sam Brown, Divine Fits, will release their debut A Thing Called Divine Fits on August 28 via Merge/Universal Music Canada, he's working on a soundtrack, and he's got one more trick in his hat.

"I always need to have more than one thing going on," Boeckner confesses, "so I'm going to put together another band, probably at the end of the year."

For now, you can check out all Divine Fits' currently scheduled dates below.

Tour dates:


8/9 Salt Lake City UT - Pioneer Park
9/5 Toronto, ON - Lee's Palace

10/14 San Francisco CA - Treasure Island

A Thing Called Divine Fits - August 28 from Divine Fits on Vimeo.

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