You’re going to have to go through a lot of Google searches before you hit on anything resembling the Toronto four-piece band. You’ll have better luck if you try the phrase “AreWeNotGay” and “MySpace”.

And that’s not for lack of interest. In their relatively short lifespan Gay has amassed a loyal following of cool-kids and music journalists thankful of having found a band that play smart, sharp and fun pop music. The breadth of their musical tastes and themes is varied owing to the fact that all four members are songwriters and all contribute to the band’s songs freely. It is a rare breed that can build a fan-base off of live shows that let the audience have as much fun as the band.

Speaking recently in Toronto the two founding members Neil Rankin, of Foxfire, and Paul Erlichman, formerly of Young Doctors in Love, it becomes clear that it takes a lot more than sheer hutzpah to make one of the most exciting young bands out there. Interestingly, it has more to do with Richard Nixon than you might think.

“We were leaving Frost/Nixon, because we’re big Nixon fans,” begins Erlichman. “And Neil ...”

“I proposed to you,” Rankin interjects.

Indeed this happens a lot throughout the interview. Not in an irritating way, but in a we-can-finish-each-others-sentences kind of way. Not surprising for the two guys who’ve known each other since high school.  

“He proposed to me the idea of starting a band together under the condition that it was called Gay,” finishes Erlichman. What followed was several months of writing and playing together.  They invited several different musicians to come practice and jam to see what would work. The impetus for the band stems out of a feeling of community that Rankin found himself lacking.  “And the idea was pretty vague too,” says Rankin of the honeymoon period. “My initial plan and idea was just to put all the people we wanted to play with together and see what happens with rotating members and what have you. But that proved to be way harder than I thought. I thought that it would be easy based on how many people we knew who were already playing, but it wasn’t. That was the original idea though.”

The rest of the band’s story unfolds a bit like a Nora Ephron movie but, y’know, with less music from the Best of Lilith Fair.

“Tom [Avis] was the first that came for more than two practices,” Rankin says of the third to join. “The way I asked him is, I ran into him in the market on his birthday and he invited me out but I said I was going to a practice and asked if he wanted to come. He said he might come along next time. He said he could play drums and I thought, ok, cool. And he came around the next Monday and we started playing together.”
Yet, something was still missing. If this were the climax of a movie it would be when the two people who were destined to meet from the beginning of the movie spy each other across a room. “Tom had an old friend who was moving from Chatham [Ontario],” continues Rankin “and he said ‘He’ll be perfect. I know he would. We used to sing in the Murray Family Singers together!’ And then Cameron [Michael Murray] showed up and from that moment he I just knew he’d work out.”

Gay consists of a group of men who clearly had other options for forming a band, and certainly forming a band with a less... contentious... name. Certainly for Rankin who has achieved a fair amount of indie-cred fronting the much loved Foxfire, Gay was a labour of love. “[Starting the band] came out of me being really frustrated with Foxfire at the time because things were changing in the band. I wanted something that was freeing and free to be whatever it wanted to be. I wanted to start a band that wasn’t bound by constraints.”  

While ‘Gay’ may seem like a more definitive band name than intended the members are fully aware of what the name is and what it can mean. “‘Gay’ just seemed like the most ridiculously freeing name.” states Rankin. “It’s simple and it’s kind of ambiguous. I was never really certain what I meant by it when I came up with it. I just knew if my band is called Gay it’s free to be whatever. It was the furthest I could go away from the seriousness of my other band and become a fun open-format band. “

And on the plus sides: “It’s short and it’s catchy. It shows up very large on a banner.” says Erlichman. “I haven’t had anyone say that they themselves are offended. They’re always worried if other people are offended. It’s maybe more of a passive way of saying they are offended. But anyone who has any actual right to be offended...well, I haven’t come across them yet. And that might happen. Should that arise, I would say there really is no reason for them to be offended. If someone told me they were offended by it, I would ask them why. Then I would be receptive to whatever they had to say. The word itself can mean so many things.”

The name alone gives the band its own mythology. Few band names are that memorable and provoke a reaction. Thankfully the members are fully prepared for any interpretation. “We don’t reveal the sexuality of our members. It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about openly, there was no reason to,” asserts Rankin. “The ambiguity was really attractive to me. I didn’t have to own up to anything. I still don’t. I chose Gay because it’s a testament to how far we’ve come with gay rights. Thematically gay culture is more accepted now in the mainstream media for the most part. Maybe 25 years ago, someone like Freddy Mercury didn’t feel confident being out. If it offends anyone, I would be really curious as to why.”

Ambiguity is clearly the name of the game with these fellows. “We could be a Limp Bizkit cover band or we could be a Scissor Sisters cover band,” says Erlichman only half joking. “You don’t know.”

For a band that started with a name, Gay is producing some of the most thoughtful, enjoyable and inventive music that can be heard across Toronto. Veering from humorous to deep, no matter their name, they still get it right.

Alex West
		About the author:
		After a five year stint in Montreal Alex moved back to her native Toronto to do her Masters and began writing for different publications. When in doubt she always asks, what would Nick Cave do? Luckily the answer almost always involves velvet, wine and writing. In her spare time she enjoys watching civil war reenactments, sharing her James Bond level charm and talking about that girl who did that thing that one time. Read more of her work at: www.scare-tactic.blogspot.com
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