Gentleman Reg’s Leisure Life: album stream and Q&A

After dispatching his new album over the course of three EPs these past few months, Toronto’s Gentleman Reg brings them all together for the Leisure LifeLP, his most radio-friendly collection of stylized pop. Leisure Life is streaming here until Nov. 27 and, below, you can read an insightful Q&A with Reg about the record and his extracurricular activities.

ListenLeisure Life by Gentleman Reg
Streaming until Nov. 27
Tracklist

Leisure Life might be your boldest, most lush pop record yet. What was your mindset going in to make this LP compared to say, making Jet Black?

This album was meant to be a heavily produced, glossy, synth-heavy new wave rock record. For the first time in my life I had a recording budget and that freed me up to actually give the album a specific direction production-wise that I’d just never had the option to do before. I absolutely wanted to distance this album from my past work. In the past, some of my stuff could be very quirky and eclectic, slightly arty pop music. This album was meant for the radio. It’s all about the hooks, a big chorus and more widely accessible lyrics.

How has having a full-time band impacted you as a songwriter?

Honestly, it changed the making of this album completely. With Jet Black it was me, my drummer at the time (Greg Millson) and Dave Draves just toiling away in the studio figuring out how to build up the songs out of just guitar and drums, which is very untraditional. But having toured that album so extensively with a full band, and specifically a keyboardist, which I’d never had in all these years, I just had that in my head when writing the new music.

At that time too, everyone in the band sang, and we were doing all these three- and four-part harmonies live, and that’s something that’s carried over to Leisure Life. I definitely focused on the bigger songs I was writing, and left the quiet acoustic ones for another time. I also gave the band all my GarageBand demos and asked them which ones stood out to them and what they liked. I’d never asked for so much input before with my work, and I think it really shows in the songs.

In the last few years you've been Gentleman Reg on one hand, but also Regina the Gentlelady in Light Fires. How do you suppose the two personas inform each other?

Regina has basically allowed me to do everything that I’ve never been able to do as Gentleman Reg. She’s basically freeing me and giving me a blank slate with which to not only have a new band, but actually be another person. Even if I completely reinvented my "image" as Gentleman Reg, it wouldn’t have the same effect.

Regina has given me something where you can’t compare it to anything I’ve ever done before. It’s not relevant. With Light Fires I’m not stuck behind a guitar, the show is all about performing and body movement and entertaining in a completely different way.

But I will say that having performed almost exclusively as Light Fires for the past year, I am now excited and reinvigorated to pick up the guitar again and perform with my band.

Your last LP was on Arts & Crafts and this one's on Heavy Head. Can you talk about why you've moved on from A&C and what HH is all about?

My relationship with A&C had just run its course. I think I can fairly say that we were both slightly disappointed in one another and in the outcome of Jet Black, and when it came time to talk about this record there was just no spark between us anymore. We did some great work together, had some great times, but ultimately it was a business relationship, and if the money's not coming in, then business is bad.

And you have to remember that when I signed to A&C, Jet Black was completely finished for over [a] year before it finally got released. So when I presented them with Leisure Life and we decided not to work together on it, I just couldn’t bear the thought of shopping it around to labels and having to fit it into their release schedules, with the endless waiting times, and so I decided to release it myself. Hence, Heavy Head, which is my own label for myself, by which I can float or sink on my own accord.

What's coming up next for you in terms of tour dates and musical activity beyond the release of Leisure Life?

Well, so far we have a small tour of Ontario to get back into performing as a band, and then I’m going to try and focus more on touring Europe this time around. I am Dutch, and I also lived in Germany as a kid, and I’ve just been drawn to Europe for so long, I think it’s time for me to properly explore it with my art.

We also just recorded a cover song that we were performing live a lot on the last tour, and we're going to release that in the New Year along with some video stuff, which I’ll keep hush hush about for now. As well, I’ve just finished a Light Fires record with Jamie [Bunton, of Ohbijou and Light Fires] and so we’re just now figuring out when and how to release that. We’ve already shot a video for the first single, which is a duet with Owen Pallett. So: lots!

See Gentleman Reg live on tour.