Motorists are Never Singing ALone
Photo Credit: Colin Medley
The last time Toronto-based band Motorists made a record was 2024’s Touched By The Stuff, which in this author’s opinion was the best album of that year; a Big Shiny Tunes-esque blast of riffs and hooks by the power trio consisting of guitarist/vocalist Craig Fahner, bassist/vocalist Matt Learoyd and drummer Nick McKinlay. It was created when all three were based in Toronto. In the interim, Fahner moved to New York for work, plus when they were performing the Touched By The Stuff material live, they realized they could use another guitarist to give Motorists some additional oomph and power. They met that fourth band member, Moa-Linn Rosenlöf, on the ‘Touched By The Stuff’ tour, but oh yeah, she’s from Sweden. So while they now have a fourth band member, they are now in three different locations. How could Motorists make new material now?
To get into the answer and the deep thematic resonance of Motorists’ latest album Never Sing Alone, we have to, like the first episode of a prestige TV drama that began in medias res, go back to the beginning. Over a decade to be exact, back to Calgary. Craig Fahner and Matt Learoyd are originally from Calgary, they met each other in high school, playing in bands and being in the mix of the DIY scene at the time, where they played Weeds cafe, the Carpenters union hall and Tubby Dog, among other classic Calgary DIY venues. After Fahner took a brief sojourn to Montreal and Pittsburgh, he came back to Calgary in his mid 20s, and well. I’ll let Fahner explain it from here: “When I came back to Calgary in my mid 20s, I moved on the same street as Matt, so we all lived on the same street in this row of houses on 14A Street, every single house was a rehearsal space, Melted Mirror jammed in one house, a member of Empty Heads was in another. I had a little studio where Feel Alright [Fahner’s band] would record and I would record a bunch of bands. There was an era from 2013 to 2018 where Matt and I hung out every single day as he lived down the street. I recorded all of his projects, he played bass in Feel Alright, then he moved to Toronto, and then a year later I moved to Toronto. I thought we could continue that same thing in Toronto. We brought that spirit of best friends playing music together, close knit friendship transferred into the band.”
From there, Craig Fahner and Matt Learoyd met drummer Nick McKinlay, who is originally from Sarnia, Ontario, who met Fahner through a trivia night, and when Fahner and Learoyd needed a drummer, they connected on a deep level. So much so that McKinlay himself almost feels like an honourary Calgarian, stating “I love Calgary, i’m excited to go back. I was doing the math, and outside of Toronto, the Palomino is the venue I have played the most in Canada, possibly in the world.”
Let’s now cut back to the present, or rather, to 2024, when Sweden-based Moa-Linn Rosenlöf joined the band as a second guitarist. With Craig Fahner living in New York City, Matt and Nick living in Toronto, and Moa-Linn in Sweden, how were they going to pull off making a new record? Initially exchanging Ableton projects amongst each other (which included McKinlay recording drum tracks with Alberta ex-pat Jesse Northey), they got encouragement from their label, We Are Time, to properly develop the demos in studio. Going back to Taurus Recording in Toronto with engineer Jesse Turnbull, the same studio and engineer as Touched By The Stuff they recorded twelve music beds (meaning, just the instruments playing together, no vocals) in a short amount of time. McKinlay described the process as thus: “because time was of the essence, and with Touched By The Stuff, we kind of developed by getting together every week, because we were in the same city. [Never Sing Alone] was kind of interesting, demos were flying around, songs from old jams, we went through old voice memos. We were developing parts of songs we had never heard before at certain points, which was kind of exciting in a new way to work. It changed our preciousness with the material.”
Losing that sense of preciousness was key, which Fahner related to the recording of a song called “Stander,” which he elaborated by saying “there’s a song on the record called ‘Stander,’ which Matthew wrote, and he laid down the most barebones demo possible. It was Matt strumming an electric guitar and singing, and that’s it, no rhythm section, barebones. We said there’s something there, we started working on that in the studio. So it was first thought best thought, let’s figure this out, and it turned out to be my favourite song on the record.”
To finish the vocals, Fahner, back in New York City, met up with his friend Ian Rose (of the great band UV-TV) to go to his Brooklyn-based studio Daisy Chain to record his vocals. The band then went back to another studio in Toronto, and then finished in Gothenburg, Sweden, in what Fahner dubbed a “wild, ‘70s prog studio.” To help make all of these wildly different sources and studio recordings cohere, Motorists enlisted in the legend Chris Cohen to mix the record, rising to the occasion as only the genius who has worked with Deerhoof and Weyes Blood could.
The release of Never Sing Alone was preceded by three wonderful pre-release singles, which begins with track one, which also happened to be the very first song Motorists wrote after finishing Touched By The Stuff: “Cristobal.” It is a formative song in Motorists’ canon, as it was one of the main reasons why they realized they needed to become a four piece. The band explained:
Nick McKinlay: That was the first song we had written after Touched By The Stuff. We toured that thing for almost two years.
Craig Fahner: Basically, we all met up in New York before going on the Touched By The Stuff tour, we rehearsed our set. I said I have this other thing kicking around. I thought, “oh that went well.” We would try it out on soundcheck for all of our shows in Europe, and we thought, “well that rocked, we are definitely playing that.” We did the same thing when we played Masey Hall [opening for Jack White] on stage we were like “should we play that? We gotta play that song!”
Nick: The big guitar solo at the end, once we finished it, once you hear the guitar harmonies, we really had no choice but to be a four piece band now, that song in particular.
Craig: It was a bummer playing it as a three piece. We realized that’s not all the way there, we need the extra juice.
“Crisotbal” became the first Motorists song Moa-Linn learned how to play, and thus, the new iteration of Motorists was born. It is an amazing start to the record, and if there was ever any doubt that the new four piece iteration of Motorists was stronger than ever, the opening seconds of “Cristobal” cement it.
The next two pre-release songs are also really the stories of Never Sing Alone thematically. Let’s start with “The Damage,” written and sung by Matt, a little ditty about Eva and Ben.
Matt Learoyd: I don’t usually have characters in songs. My songs are usually more esoteric and more abstract. It was an experiment. I have a tendency for making songs too complicated. I will bring songs to the group, and there will be seven different parts that repeat.
Nick McKinlay: This song is a real “we gotta let Matt cook.”
Matt: This song feels rather simple, but still does the complicated stuff, but couches it in a bit of fun, so it doesn't feel proggy or you are being jerked around. It feels more natural, having a straightforward narrative where you are bopping along. Because it was an experiment for me lyrically, I was on the fence about it. Once the other guys got their hooks into it, I know Craig at one point, when we were demoing back and forth long distance, Craig said “oh I love that song!” And then he sent it back with a lot of the guitar stuff that is on, in demo form, so I thought, “oh I guess this song does rock?” So it really was one that really shined in a group setting, once we got everyone’s touches, it became alive.
Nick: Every Motorists record needs one song where Craig goes off on guitar.
Nick: That song really showcases the stuff we are really good at: huge harmonies, has the big sludgey intro, it gets really tight.
Craig Fahner: We had a demo, we were on the fence about it, everyone put their touches on it, that is the philosophy of the record in a way. We have these ideas and everyone brings a lot to bring them to life. The album title ‘Never Sing Alone’ is cute but that is the reference there. Everything you are hearing is us in our little hidey holes coming with ideas and all of them really coming to life when we are singing them together.
Next up, it’s the beautiful and poignant “Frogman,” which is new territory for the band, proving they don’t always have to rock and can instead get into some dreamy wistfulness.
Craig Fahner: There were two phases with the production of this record. We have “Cristobal,” we have been touring it, we have more tunes in the chamber. Six months had passed since we were on tour, we were living in different cities. It is a very typical songwriting atmosphere for me, being a little bit nostalgic and homesick. My life in New York is very professional and I don’t have people like Nick and Matt who I am in the process of making music with constantly. With “Frogman,” I really wanted that feeling, so sitting down and hashing out that tune and thinking about how it would be a Motorists song and sending it to those guys was a way of getting that feeling back in the picture, even from a distance. In the kind of wistfulness of the lyrics, it’s all about missing and not really realizing how much you miss something until it has slipped away, like a slippery frog.
Nick McKinlay: That song was pretty early in the process, we were all floored by that song. It really opened a window to us making a record, realizing we don’t have to rock, we can be pretty. It gave us permission for songs like that and “Stander,” mid-tempo songs. Those two songs, “Frogman” and “The Damage,” the story of the record are in those two songs. Giving us permission is how I feel about it. That led to us going to Chris Cohen, to give the record this softer feeling after going so Big Shiny Tunes on the last one.
Something that both “The Damage” and “Frogman” have in common are two wonderful music videos that feel like they could have slid onto an episode of 120 Minutes or MuchMusic’s The Wedge, which was definitely the intent.
Nick McKinlay: The video for The Damage was truly one of the most fun three hours of my life. We had a really good video and it cost us literally 21 dollars.
Craig Fahner: Yo La Tengo’s “Sugarcube” video was popping up for me as we were conceiving of these videos, in that they should be funny. The idea of some atmospheric and moody video didn’t really align with how we feel about these songs, we want to have fun and bring people to that feeling. Especially with the video for “The Damage,” I want people to feel they are improvising in the room with these characters. The other one that comes up for me is “French Inhale” by Thrush Hermit, my favourite music video of all-time, which has that very art school feeling. Everything was done scrappily with borrowed equipment and favours from friends. I actually heard, there’s a scene in the “Frogman” video where the Frogman goes into a convenience store, that’s down the street, Low Bar, where we rehearse at, it’s a community hub. Noelle who owns Low Bar said, “oh yeah there was a guy that kept asking about the Frogman video. He watched it, and loves it.” It’s about involving the whole community.
Motorists will be coming back to The Palomino on Friday March 20th to play Never Sing Alone in its entirety, on a bill filled with Calgary greats Spec Realists, Suburban Pagans, Factory Walk and Sad Birthdays. What are some of the songs from the new album the band are excited to play live?
Nick McKinlay: “The Man in the Circular Window.” It’s only two minutes, it involves a lot of concentration, the harmonies are tight, the drums are really busy.
Craig Fahner: “Diogenes” is a surprising one to play live. It started as a drum machine only demo we built in the studio. When we went to play it live, we didn’t come strapped with technology. What could the four of us do with guitars without synths and drum machines? The result takes it more in a Orange Juice/C86 really kind of jangle pop direction. That one has been my favourite to play lately.
Never Sing Alone continues the levelling up of Motorists, and with the wonderful Moa-Linn Rosenlöf turning the band into a four piece, the band sounds more muscular and world-beating than ever. Nick McKinlay added “It’s so specific the pockets of time where we can get together to do Motorists stuff. We really try to make it worthwhile for us and the listeners.” It’s why Never Sing Alone will end up being one of 2026’s best albums and why Motorists’ return to The Palomino will be one of the must see shows in Calgary in the month of March.