JamBase Questionnaire: Plants and Animals

Welcome back to JamBase’s baker’s dozen to the bright lights of the music world. Last time we heard from Chatham County Line.

Matthew Woodley by Scott Eagle

Plants and Animals are an evolutionary entity. There lays the forward rushing molecular energy of new things forming inside what seem pop and rock vessels. Only two full-length albums in this Montreal-based band is handily slithering out of easy definitions and rote rockin’ with the fabulous La La Land (released April 20 on Secret City Records), which engages with pop culture in a wholly winning, smarter-than-most way. In wrestling with “American Idol” and “Tom Cruz” (two cheekily titled cuts), Plants and Animals find depth in the shallows of contemporary life. And beyond the brainy subtext, La La Land offers up beautiful, sometimes elegiac music that’s unafraid to saunter into brittle jitter, island streams, Beatles-esque grandeur or ambient exploration. Kindred spirits include Apollo Sunshine, Big Light and The Slip, whose Brad Barr guests on piano. Put another way, La La Land is one of those glorious slabs that gives up its juices slowly but quenches every time. (Dennis Cook)

Here’s what Plants and Animals’ Matthew Woody Woodley had to say to our inquiries.

Nicknames: Le Woodman

Instrument of choice: drizums

1. Great music rarely happens without…
Soooooul

2. The first album I bought was…
a-ha‘s Hunting High and Low.

3. The last song or album to really flip my wig was…
a-ha’s “The Sun Always Shines on T.V.”

4. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be…
An orthodontist

5. My favorite sort of gig is…
Old theatres with thick curtains

6. One thing I wish people knew about me is…
I have an underground indie orthodontist practice back home in Montreal.

7. I love the sound of…
The barred owl. “Who cooks for you?”

8. One day I hope to make an album as fantastic as…
Al Green’s Greatest Hits

9. The best meal I ever had on tour was at…
Guu – Japanese fusion tapas in Vancouver

10. I always find the coolest audiences in…
Montreal. No place like home. A close runner up is Reykjavik, Iceland.

11. The worst habit I’ve picked up being on the road all the time is…
Letting things slide in shows that shouldn’t slide.

12. The Beatles or the Stones? Por qué?
The Stones. Murky voodoo magic. The Beatles did some pretty okay stuff too though.

13. The craziest thing I ever saw was…
Once Bill Clinton waved at me from a limo.

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