Earlier this week, the Deadly Snakes and the Constantines convened in Toronto to discuss plans for this weekend's co-headlining hometown shows at the Horseshoe. "After our sets we're going to do two covers together as a giant band," Snakes keyboardist Max "Age of Danger" McCabe-Lokos explains. Then he laughs. "It was like, 'hey, we're almost as big as Broken Social Scene!'"
The similarities end there. The Snakes, like the Constantines, are Torontonians through and through. They are most assuredly an indie band - so independent that they didn't even have a domestic record deal before recently signing with Toronto's Paper Bag Records, and still don't have a manager. But they're about as far removed from the much-hyped Toronto indie scene as you can get.
Alongside the likes of the Constantines, the Sadies and label-mates the Fembots, the Deadly Snakes are the grittier cousins of the bands on Toronto's red-hot Arts & Crafts label - their brawnier sound and demeanour an antidote for those who have trouble digesting the bohemian idealism of the BSS crowd.
"I don't know those guys or that scene personally," McCabe-Lokos says. "But you know, I've always felt really close to bands like the Sadies and the Constantines. We're more the stalwarts, I think.
"I think the Sadies' last record is fucking amazing. They're also a great live band. They're just not ever going to fall into the category - even if Toronto became the next fucking hip city, you can be sure they'll list band after band and the Sadies will not be on that list. Because they're just such a hold steady, you know?"
It's not, he says, that he has anything against the competition; while acknowledging that they make him feel like a "real traditionalist," he insists that he's happy for Broken Social Scene's success. But recalling an article in a U.S. newspaper suggesting the Snakes would be getting a lot more attention if they were on Arts & Crafts, he chuckles. "We're playing up against fucking - what's that band - The Most Holy Empire or whatever they're called. Those dudes haven't even gone on tour before!"
If they're not quite at the top of indie scenesters' lists, though, the Snakes are riding the best wave of critical buzz in their decade-long career on both sides of the border. Porcella, their fourth disc, marks a further evolution from 2003's Ode to Joy, which itself stretched the limits of garage rock with a rich blend of gospel, soul and blues.
This time the Snakes have pushed those boundaries further, throwing in some strings and adopting an even more kitchen-sink range of influences. But for all reviewers' talk of a change in direction, McCabe-Lokos contends it wasn't intentional.
"It didn't mean to be such a massive departure," he says. "Apart from the use of strings, there weren't, I didn't think, any massive songwriting differences."
The circumstances under which Porcella was recorded, did make a difference. There was the location - a cabin near Kincardine, Ont., that was "so melancholy that it probably had a huge influence on the way it sounded." And then there was co-frontman Andre Ethier's solo album.
"I think the fact that between the two records Andre had done a solo record probably shook things up a little bit," McCabe-Lokos says.
He doesn't deny that Ethier striking out on his own was a source of tension. "I'm not gonna lie - it caused some static," he admits. "But it's nothing that we couldn't work out with a little bit of healthy competitive songwriting."
Such is the nature with stalwarts. They fight, they make up and they play another show. And once Toronto has gone to trendy and back, they'll probably still be making some of the city's best music.
