In 1984, Maritime football fans thought the Atlantic Schooners were destined to become part of the CFL and play out of Halifax. The team never played a game, however, leaving Sloan's Jay Ferguson a CFL virgin to this day.
"I've never gone to a football game," the guitarist, singer and native Haligonian says from the band's rehearsal space in Toronto. "I'm not opposed to football. When I was a kid I was really into football but I don't follow it so closely these days. I'd be game to go (to the Grey Cup), wave a few foam fingers."
Sloan, performing at the Pepsi Front Street Festival this afternoon as part of Grey Cup festivities, is currently in the midst of writing new material for a studio album. Ferguson says both he and singer/bassist Chris Murphy have gotten a head start but it's too early to tell where the album is heading.
One idea initially considered following touring behind 2006's Never Hear The End Of It was to take a page from KISS and release four solo albums simultaneously.
"Everybody has a lot of songs and writes and has their own identity," Ferguson says. "We thought it would be fun to do that. But then everybody has 10 to 12 songs, so that's 40 or 50 songs to record and mix and put down at once."
Perhaps a more realistic option Ferguson mentions is creating an album which is basically four EPs rolled into a cohesive, full-length effort.
"We thought about doing four solo albums on an album," he says. "Not because we're not getting along but because it's our ninth album. What do we do next? We could keep churning out the same album and everybody does their own three songs but we thought it might be fun for everybody to have their own little piece of real estate on the record. You can do one long song or three normal songs. So that's one of the ideas but it may not happen that way."
And while Ferguson was pleased with critical and fan reaction regarding Never Hear The End Of It, he says the next album will probably be a leaner affair.
"Almost as a reaction to the last record because it was so long was that I kind of want to make a really short record like a half-hour album like Rubber Soul, something in that format which I love," he says.
As for the Grey Cup concert, Ferguson says it was a no-brainer to say yes to given the fact "it's just down the road," keeping a new father in the band close to home and child. He also says the broader audience will result in the band delivering most of their hits.
"We'll do Money City Maniacs, The Good In Everyone, Rest Of My Life, we know those songs off by heart," he says. "We get offered some weird things, like weird private parties but not so many sporting events. I don't know if football fans are really big Sloan fans but we'll find out."
Following the show, Sloan plans on recording the new album in December with the goal being a May release. Ferguson also mentions that with plenty of leftover material and alternate takes from earlier albums, a "nice reissue series" is a possibility at some point.
"There's lots of great demos and lots of really interesting recordings I think would be interesting to fans, our hardcore fans," he says. "So we'll be releasing records for a long time. We have a lot to get off of our minds."
