Catching Up With Born Ruffians’ Luke LaLonde
Photo by Vanessa HeinsAt present, Canadian indie quartet Born Ruffians are affixed in the lull that comes between albums—well, seemingly.
In the year-and-three-months since their third studio album Birthmarks was released, the band has been busy—changing drummers, releasing stripped-down, acoustic renditions of their previous material, and accidentally landing Toronto’s most famous crossing guard in a spot of trouble.
We caught up with Luke LaLonde, singer and guitarist of Born Ruffians, to chat about the reshuffled lineup, crossing-guard bureaucracy and if a new LP is on the horizon.
Paste: The deluxe version of Birthmarks has been on the shelves for a few months now. What was the impetus for stripping down the studio album and releasing acoustic tracks?
Luke LaLonde: It started with the thought of songs having multiple lives, and wondering if we got it right on the record. I guess I was fiddling with these other versions that we really like and presented them in a different light. A lot of them came from working out radio stuff or filmed acoustic sessions. I tend not to play the song straight up as it is, but rather figure out a version that makes sense and sounds right on an acoustic guitar. That’s where those versions came from. And I thought I’d show them to people, too.
Paste: And some of the songs on Birthmarks were originally written as acoustic material, right?
LaLonde: Yep.
Paste: Your latest track, “Oh Cecilia,” sounds like your most studio song yet. Is that a natural progression, or a bit more calculated?
LaLonde: Definitely not calculated. The song started on my laptop, and the elements just translated as they were into the studio. It was kind of an orphan song—I knew it wasn’t going to go on the next record because it was a little too silly and it didn’t really feel like it fit. And it was written too late to go on Birthmarks. So we thought, “let’s put it with all this other stuff that’s coming out.” I do enjoy the lyrical content. The concept of the song is a meta-poetic thing. The narrator is trying not to write a certain kind of song, but he keeps drifting into this love song.
Paste: Also regarding “Oh Cecilia”—your music video landed its star, Toronto’s “dancing crossing guard” Kathleen Byers, in a bit of trouble. [Read the saga here.] Has she gotten her uniform back? What’s the latest?
LaLonde: The last time I heard from her, she was happy not being a crossing guard. She quit because she was sick of fighting for her job. The struggle of whether or not she should dance had been going on before we put her in a video. But she’s had all these great opportunities come from the attention people have given her. She’s taken all the negative and positive with a really good attitude. When she quit, she did it with a smile on her face. She’s still having fun—she emailed me about a folk concert she was doing in her living room, she was doing a fashion shoot, she was modeling clothing. She sees life in a positive way, but she’s definitely not crossing anyone.