Sloan on the 30th Anniversary of 'Smeared': Copying MBV, Halifax's Nascent Scene and Still Going Steady

Sloan have spent three decades as one of Canada's most reliable purveyors of classic power pop — but they got their start on a very different stylistic foot, with the grimy shoegaze of their 1992 debut Smeared.

While the album has many of Sloan's core traits — snappy choruses, harmonies so tight it's tough to tell their four voices apart — it mucks them up with blistering distortion, injects some C86 cuteness into "I Am the Cancer," and apes Lou Reed's bohemian-poetry-reading sing-speak on "Left of Centre." For a band that has become closely associated with gratifying melodic sweetness, Smeared has a swaggering, detached sort of cool.

Smeared came out on October 1, 1992. To mark its 30th anniversary, as well as the arrival of new album Steady on October 21, Exclaim! caught up with singer-songwriters Chris Murphy and Patrick Pentland to discuss the secret coolness of Barenaked Ladies, shamelessly imitating My Bloody Valentine, and the dream of quitting Sloan to join Foo Fighters.

Looking back 30 years, what stands out to you about the indie rock scene in Halifax, and in Canadian music more generally, in 1992? 

Murphy: We thought the Halifax scene was super cool. We knew Eric's Trip from Moncton, and Hardship Post moved to town from St. John's. The Thrush Hermit kids were still in high school. There was a supportive local venue in the Double Deuce. CKDU supported local bands. It was a romantic time. We didn't think there was much cool stuff going in Canada outside our scene. We ended up meeting lots of cool people in small bands in towns across Canada once we started touring. 

Pentland: I feel like, certainly for Halifax, there wasn't much of a cohesive scene. There were some gigs, and there were bands, punk or whatever, but there was no infrastructure to help promote or sign bands, and so there was no real expectation that anything you did would go anywhere. I felt that the "powers that be," the main thrust of the music industry, was Celtic music, to the point where we were initially completely ignored on hopes that we would go away.

Murphy: We were young and in a gang and arrogant and thought of Toronto as having either whiskey and cowboy boots rock music or Barenaked Ladies and Corky and the Juice Pigs. We thought, "Is there anyone cool in that fucking town?" — aside from Change of Heart. I saw BNL play in Halifax in 1991 and met them, and their show blew me away. I thought they were funny and smart, but I didn't think they were particularly cool. Eventually, I realized they were the punkest of all because they were revelling in how uncool they were. I was too dogmatic to understand that then.

Pentland: In terms of Canadian music, we were aware or fans of bands like the Doughboys, the Nils, No Means No, SNFU and even Change of Heart. But they seemed a million miles away from Halifax, despite the fact that they did all play Halifax.

What do you remember about making Smeared?

Murphy: We recorded the original version of "Underwhelmed" in September 1991 with recording time we won in a song contest. A few other bands were given free studio time through this contest, and those recording ended up on a compilation CD/cassette called Hear & Now. We enjoyed the recording process and liked the guy who owned the recording gear and conceived of the songwriting contest, Terry Pullium.

Pentland: I remember most of it — certainly how we were a different band after we recorded the first few songs. We were more of a rock band before, and more of an alternative/shoegaze band after. I feel a lot of that change happened because I moved from bass to guitar while we were recording.

Murphy: By December, 1991, we had nine songs recorded. We added a few more in the beginning of 1992 and by spring we had 15 songs, plus a re-recorded, faster version of "Underwhelmed." In June 1992, we took six of the songs and released an EP called Peppermint on our own imprint, which we called murderecords. The 12 songs that comprise Smeared were remixed in LA and the LP came out that October. 

Pentland: By the time we mixed it in L.A. with Dave Ogilvie, we were suddenly a real band with an opportunity to become something bigger than any band we knew, certainly in the Halifax scene, which was still in its infancy in '92. 

Listening back now to Smeared now, what stands out?

Murphy: It definitely feels dated. We were really copying My Bloody Valentine. There are a few songs that almost feel like Rutles versions of songs from the My Bloody Valentine LP Isn't Anything, which came out a few years before. But we were just a local band who thought it would be fun to make MBV-type songs in our town. They wouldn't be coming to Halifax, and we weren't going to be heard outside of Halifax. But Nirvana's Nevermind broke wide open as we started to record these songs, and MBV's Loveless came out in November 1991 and they seemed a lot less obscure. All that to say, what we were doing was definitely du jour, and little did we know there were record companies out there looking for bands like us. I was embarrassed of how dated it was for years. We did a quick about-face stylistically on our next record, Twice Removed. I wanted to make timeless music. Anyway, all these years later, I don't feel embarrassment, and I think the songs are pretty good. 

Pentland: Everything. It's a great album. Chris was the main songwriter on that record, but it was very much a band album. Unlike now, where we tend to work in isolated groups of one or two.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently on Smeared? Conversely, is there anything about it you wish you had carried forward to subsequent releases?

Pentland: No. Yes. That's all I say about that. 

Murphy: I think we are beloved to some partly because we did such a musical about-face on Twice Removed, but we probably could have done it a little more gradually. We joked that Weezer's Blue record should have been our second record. The success of that record was hard to watch, because they were the second signing of our A&R guy at Geffen, Todd Sullivan. We were his first. And we were dealing with a commercial failure because we essentially made it difficult for Geffen to market us, because we turned into a very different band than the one they started to market with Smeared. Oh well. We're still here. And so is Weezer. Todd sent me some photos from 1992 a few months ago. All is well.

"Underwhelmed" is the first track and has remained one of your signature songs ever since. What do you remember about the making of that song?

Pentland: It was Chris's song, but he wasn't super precious about it. The second recording of it reflected more of what the band became, where as the first recording was — in my opinion — a bit of a drudgery mess. I had been the one pushing to change it. And we were already playing it live the way it ended up on the album.

Murphy: It is a rare example of a song that had lyrics first. It is from a time when I sat on ledges around town and wrote in a journal. I think I was 19 when I wrote it. Musically, it just seemed made up on the spot and owes a lot to the Minutemen song "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing."

Pentland: I thought that I came up with the harmony in the verses, but recently Chris said he thought Andrew did. Jury's out on that one.

Murphy: Andrew and I recorded it together. He made the weird harmonies on the original demo. When we recorded the original version Jay played a guitar part using the tremolo on a Beltone amp. We thought that sounded cool. We re-recorded it and made it into a duet. I start singing the melody, then I switch to a low part when Patrick sings along with me. We sped it up and made it more grunge. The original had a Cramps feel. The re-recording owes heavily to Dave Grohl's playing on Nirvana's "Aneurysm."

As well as being the 30th anniversary of Smeared, October 2022 also marks the release of your new album. What do you think your 1992 selves would have thought of the fact that you're still together with the same lineup?

Pentland: I have always set out to be a career musician. It wasn't so much about being stars or getting rich. I've often thought that we would have ended years ago if we had success with the first few albums. We're good at what we do, from writing to recording to performing. So, I would imagine my younger self would be happy that I'm still doing it.

Murphy: It was always my hope we would last a long time. Every decision we made was to encourage longevity. I wrote about three-fifths of the songs that comprise Smeared and Peppermint, but I wanted everyone in the band to want the band to last, so I happily shared the songwriting credit and royalties equally with Jay, Andrew and Patrick. They all wrote songs on that first record, and the song distribution evened out over time.

Pentland: At the same time, if Foo Fighters or someone needs a guitarist, I'd jump ship in a heart beat. 

What's it like for Sloan to make an album in 2022, compared to 1992? 

Murphy: There's not as much cross-pollination, but that's been true since the mid-'90s. There is more craft now than on Smeared, but there was some craft even then. It's maybe more tasteful now. Maybe it's too tasteful? Making Steady kind of sucked because of COVID. I'd like to record something a little more playful sooner than later. 

Pentland: The music world is a lot smaller. Big labels with big staff are a thing of the past. We have developed our own little world, we own our songs, license our records, and we have had our own studio. So we are fairly self-sufficient. At the same time, the way albums are marketed requires knowledge of social media, which is a pain in the ass at times. Working with Universal, for instance, they want TikTok content, which is not something I'm interested in doing, personally. But I have run the Sloan Twitter account for over 12 years, I think, and I started our Instagram, although many people have the keys for that. Magazines and papers are few these days, so I don't do a lot of that. And radio has always been good to us in Canada. 

Murphy: I had no aspirations when we were making Smeared. The only people we knew that made a record at that point were Jellyfishbabies, and most of those were under a bed on Gottingen Street in Halifax. Today, my aspirations are back down from where they got to in the '90s but of course I still secretly hope that some young band that loves Sloan will get big and talk about us in the press and we will get discovered by a new generation of fans, à la the Velvet Underground being talked up by R.E.M., but I'm not holding my breath.