For an atheist, DAVID USHER sure seems interested in religion. His new album, If God Had Curves, deals with religion, faith and lack of faith. Usher says the album title ponders how life would be different if our ideas of God were less rigid.

"Religious folks are becoming less flexible, but somehow we've got to find a way to live together. That's what society is. Christianity, Judaism, they're all sorts of different religions. A belief in science I consider to be a religion. We all have to find some common faith to get along these days, which seems to be lacking."

Growing up in Kingston, Ont., Usher was influenced by his parents' dual religions: Buddhism and Judaism. "I think seeing both religions made me realize that there's a broad diversity of what people believe. To say one is right and one is wrong is something that's wrong in the world. So I'm essentially an atheist, and a part-time humanist. Even us atheists are constantly trying to define our own faith. That's where I find myself right now."

The 39-year-old singer/songwriter has changed his personal life somewhat over the last few years, having daughter Coco in 2003 with wife Sabrina, and moving them to New York City. "Having a daughter has made me less self obsessed and less obsessed about my work. Having someone that needs things so specific, your own needs become secondary in many ways. Although work is still important, and I love it, I've found there are other things that are more important."

He says that moving to the Big Apple was good for his writing. "Living where the politics are very intense is always good for a writer - you want to go where the heat is. New York, it's a very intense place right now, and you want to immerse yourself in those changes."

The first single, 'Love Will Save The Day', features a sample from feminist icon Gloria Steinhem. Usher says that the song, based on America's cultural divide, was influenced by a Frank Rich article in the New York Times and Jon Stewart's infamous appearance on CNN's Crossfire. "[Stewart] was begging Tucker Carlson to have real debate rather than fake debate, instead of ratings debate. If we had real debate, if we listened to each other, we could get a lot further. The last [US] election made me think that we have to open up dialogue a bit. We all have to listen to each other a bit more."

Usher came into the Canadian music scene in the mid-'90s as the brooding front man for Moist. He released his first solo album, Little Songs, in 1998, following it up with the platinum-selling Morning Orbit and his third album, Hallucinations. His latest disc marks Usher's move to Maple Music, which he describes as being "such music lovers, they're very artist friendly."

As for a Moist reunion, although the band has not broken up, he says he doesn't see it happening "right now."

"With a band you have five distinct voices. Essentially, you write together, you play together. I write all the songs on my own record. There's a lot of freedom to bring different styles of music, there's room for experimentation. With a band, you have an expansive palette you can work with - the only thing that limits you is your negotiation. When you're a solo artist you just decide what you like and what you don't like."

Members from Moist figure prominently on the album, however, as bassist Jeff Pearce co-produced it, keyboard player Kevin Young played on most of the songs, and guitarist Mark Makowy helped mix a track.

Kim Edwards

MOBY
New album: Hotel
Label: V2 Records
Current Single: 'Beautiful'
Official Web site: www.moby.com

"Sitting here with my green tea and vegan muffin, I'm struck by how profoundly un-rock & roll this is," says MOBY as he sits in a fireside armchair at Toronto's Drake Hotel. He's here to promote his new record, Hotel, an eclectic combination of anthems and love songs which is something of a departure from his usual style.

"I think it's quite a lot different from Play and 18, which were mainly written with synthesizers and computers. This record was primarily written in that time-honoured tradition of a musician just sitting in his living room with an acoustic guitar, writing songs."

Why the shift? "If I had to describe this record, I would call it a new wave album," he says. "I went back to a lot of the music I was inspired by in the early '80s, like Joy Division, The Cure and mid-period David Bowie, because a lot of that music has been re-presented to me by a younger generation. Living in New York, you go out to a trendy bar and you hear Joy Division, you go to see a band perform and they sound like The Cure... It was a little disconcerting to have all this music that I grew up with re-presented to me almost 25 years later."

One of Moby's all-time favourites is New Order and he pays tribute to them through a cover of 'Temptation'. One of several songs on the album sung by long-time friend Laura Dawn, the track is transformed into a slow ballad more reminiscent of latter-day Aimee Mann than '80s new wave.

"I suppose from a marketing perspective the smart thing to do would have been to get a bunch of celebrity guest vocalists, but it was starting to feel really gratuitous," Moby says in reference to relative unknown Dawn's frequent appearances. "People make records where you feel like a lot of the guests are just there to help them sell more, as opposed to them actually making the music a lot better."

New Order isn't the only band honoured on Hotel. An unabashed Bowie fan, Moby can hardly let five minutes pass without some mention of his hero. Featured on the album is 'Spiders', which was written after Bowie's heart attack last year. "Music would not be what it is today without him," he says reverently. "Whenever I've worked with David Bowie, that's the work I'm most proud of."

It's been said that Moby has one of the strangest careers in music - a sentiment he heartily shares. "I first started making records under my own name fifteen years ago," he says. "In that time, I've made dance records and punk records and classical music and ballads, and have worked with all of my heroes. I toured with David Bowie and New Order, and I've done remixes for Brian Eno, Michael Jackson, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Britney Spears - not that they're my heroes. I've played punk rock shows to 50 people and written the music for the closing ceremonies of the winter Olympics for 1.5 billion people. And to put it in perspective, in 1989, I was living in an abandoned factory making on average five to seven thousand dollars a year. The career that I've had, if nothing else, is just really weird."

Ramona Zacharias

HOT HOT HEAT
New album: Elevator
Label: Reprise Records
Current single: 'Goodnight Goodnight'
Official website: www.hothotheat.com

They say that you can't go home again. Steve Bays knows the bittersweet truth of this particular cliche. Returning from a two-year world tour in support of his band's last album, 2002's Make Up The Breakdown, the HOT HOT HEAT singer-keyboardist found that he couldn't make a go of living in his Victoria, BC hometown.

"I just had this weird feeling of being caged in," Bays says by phone from his new Vancouver apartment. "It has nothing to do with Victoria. I'm so used to always being in a new city... and always meeting new people. So to go home and know that I'm on an island just started to mess with my brain."

That said, Bays credits the city's relative isolation as a formative influence on Hot Hot Heat's sound ­ an eccentric but highly danceable mix of new wave, rock and pop powered by crafty melodies and Bays' organ riffs.

Of HHH's evolution from math rock showoffs to pop song purveyors, Bays says: "I don't think anybody 'discovered' our band until quite late in the game. By then, we had changed a lot. With most bands, they get a little bit of success as soon as people start talking about them, and they don't want to lose that success so they stop changing and growing. I think being from a small town we were able to keep changing and growing because we really didn't have any positive feedback from anybody."

That situation changed soon after respected American indie Sub Pop put out Breakdown three years ago. Nirvana's original label pushed the catchy single 'Bandages' to radio, which made it the band's signature track. Touring with the likes of No Doubt and The White Stripes helped win them critical accolades, especially in the UK. Meanwhile, Warner, Sub Pop's Canadian distributor, re-released Breakdown at the start of 2003 and is releasing their new album, Elevator. Canadian touring happens in April.

As for the album title, Bays partially attributes it to the fact that "some days we all felt incredibly high and excited and other days we were all freaking out about how we were going to find a guitar player."

Ah, yes, their guitar player. Dante DeCaro has recently been replaced by young San Franciscan Luke Paquin. DeCaro, a smalltown boy at heart, made his distaste for touring known to Bays, bassist Dustin Hawthorne and drummer Paul Hawley while they were still on the road supporting Breakdown.

"You know that movie Stand By Me? I kind of picture his crew of friends being kind of that close-knit," Bays says by way of explaining DeCaro's departure. "I think he just missed his friends. He loved playing shows, but it's like... the army. If you're not totally into it, if it doesn't feel like it's 100% the right thing for you to be doing, then it's just impossible."

Still, the guitarist stuck around long enough to co-write the new album and play on it, at least until his lack of enthusiasm started translating into his performance. (Drummer Hawley ended up playing about half of DeCaro's parts.) "To have someone [feel] like 'well, I could do without it' totally messed up our heads," Bays says. "Emotionally, it found its way into the record a little bit. Quite a bit actually."

The singer credits new guitarist Paquin, who was about to take on a job painting a hotel when he got the call, with stoking Hot Hot Heat's creative fire. "Any time you have a new member or you start a new band, it's like every member... is a chemical, and you put it into a drink and it makes this new chemical reaction. Right now, everyone's just excited again. It feels like a new band, just 'cause I think we're looking at it through [Paquin's] eyes. Like 'oh man! We get to fly to this place? They're flying us out just to do this one show?' I feel like a little kid a bit."

Sean Plummer

ANDY STOCHANSKY
New album: 100
Label: Linus Records
Current single: 'Shine'
Official website: www.andystochansky.com

With 'Shine's buoyant chorus, "This is the day that we've been waiting for/ All the world will stop to watch you shine," from the first single off the album 100, Toronto's ANDY STOCHANSKY says, "I set out to write the most positive song I could possibly write. Maybe it's a song to myself, I'm not sure, but it's this 'Okay everybody, here's your moment, everybody should just watch out' [song]."

Stochansky hasn't had his moment yet. While drumming for Ani DiFranco for seven years, he put out two independent albums (1999's Radio Fusebox and 1995's While You Slept) with more experimental leanings before leaving her band to pursue a solo career. He signed a US deal and released his pop/rock debut, Five Star Motel, in 2002.

The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is well respected and well liked in the artistic community across North America, and earned praise for Five Star Motel from such publications as Blender and Alternative Press, but there is still considerable room and opportunity to raise his profile. That may come with 100, his new album, on Linus/Universal Music Canada, which is packaged with a 13-track live recording.

Produced by Goo Goo Dolls frontman Johnny Rzeznik, the studio album ranges from 'Rock Star', which was inspired by watching bad interviews, to 'America', about that treasured period in American history that produced the Beat Generation.

"I just feel a lot from his songs. He makes me feel like, 'God, why didn't I write that?' I know that might sound strange," says Rzeznik, who asked Stochansky if they could work together after he heard his new demos from management.

The pair made arrangements to meet in August of 2003 in Louisville, KY, when the Dolls had a break in their touring schedule. "I flew down to hang out with him and the two of us rearranged (songs) and talked about production and jammed and just hung out. It was great," says Stochansky.

Adds Rzeznik: "I said to him, 'They're great songs. We just need to tighten up the bolts in a few spots and polish them a little bit but pretty much leave them intact'. I didn't want to put any of myself on it."

In late 2003 and into 2004, Stochansky worked with Rzeznik at LA's famed Ocean Way Studios (Radiohead, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra), as well as Rzeznik's own studio. Out of 40 new songs Stochansky wrote, they recorded 16 and chose 12 for the album. Stochansky, who wanted to make a slightly heavier album than Five Star Motel, thought Rzeznik would be a good candidate to produce, even though his experience at the time was largely confined to co-producing the Goo Goo Dolls material with Rob Cavallo (Green Day, Dakona), and his first outside production, the soon-to-be-hit newcomer Ryan Cabrera.

"He just has a great knack for pop and for songwriting and tempos and arrangements," Stochansky says of Rzeznik. "It's always great to have a producer work on your songs, and you can get some perspective from it, I find. That's why I don't drum on my own records because I want to be on the other side of the glass and be able to tell the drummer what to do."

Karen Bliss