Spindle Radar: Rare Americans Open Up About “Challenging Times” On New Album ‘You’re Not A Bad Person, It’s Just A Bad World’

Canadian alt-rock band Rare Americans have had an incredible year so far. With a long list of sold-out venues in North America and the UK and a slew of European festivals, the band has released their brand-new album, ‘You’re Not A Bad Person, It’s Just A Bad World’, out globally now.

The album hones in on the harsh realities of simply existing in the world today, touching on themes of mental health after battling a difficult few years. 

We caught up with the band to talk about the album release, what fans can expect from the new music and what’s next for Rare Americans.

Hey guys, how are you? 

Fantastic! Excited for the album launch and tour coming up in a couple weeks. 

Congratulations on the release of ‘You’re Not A Bad Person, It’s Just A Bad World’! How does it feel to have this body of work out into the world?

It’s great. This is the first new project of the year for us and I’m excited to kick start a chain of releases. We love song writing and always want to give our fans as many quality songs and projects as possible. It’s a confusing time for a lot of people, and we hope that these songs can provide some comfort in telling people, you aren’t alone. 

You touch on some absolutely vital topics within the album, what do you hope your fanbase will take from this new music?

That the last few years has been a challenging and confusing time for everyone. I can’t remember a period in my lifetime that feels this divisive. There’s so much noise and conflicting information online and it feels you need to pick a side of the fence to stand on. I’ve personally felt like it’s hard to keep my head above water. At the end of the day, I want people to realize that you are doing just fine, to keep positive, and that “you’re not a bad person, it’s just a bad world”. This isn’t to say the long-term outlook is grim and we won’t come out of this period much better, it’s more to say, look, it’s a strange time we are living through and it’s okay to be a little confused about it all.  

How does the new album compare sonically to the rest of your work? 

RA3 was a little “lighter” I would say. Even the colours of the album itself are bright. We deliberately wanted to dive into slightly heavier sounding sonics, subject matter, and even colours in the branding. I would say its slightly darker overall. 

You have a very impressive animated universe to tie in with your music, and even your own studios! What was the inspiration behind starting all this? 

When we first started, we did a mixture of live action and animation. We quickly realised that to bring the stories we were writing about to life, live action would just be way too expensive and time consuming. We also figured animation was a smaller niche that we could carve out for ourselves as 99% of artists are making live action videos. It’s become a big part of our brand which I’m really happy about. 

Let’s take it back to the beginning. What sparked your passion for music?

My parents loved music. They didn’t play instruments, but they always had incredible artists playing on the stereo growing up. Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, the list goes on and on. From there, my brothers and I started finding bands on our own that we loved. My dad always really appreciated the lyrics in music, and my mom loved the melodies. I think we got both sides from them which is the essential mix for writing music!! 

Do you have any artists you’d love for us to know about?

Excited to have Dylyn on tour with us, she is a great new artist from Vancouver. My cousin also plays in a great all female punk band from Winnipeg called Mobina Galore. They have opened up for Against Me, Pennywise, Strung Out, all sorts of iconic punk bands.  

Any dream collaborations?

Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys is one of my all time favourites so I’d love to learn his process from him. I also love Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse; I think his music is unbelievably original. I’d love to learn from him as well. 

What’s next for Rare Americans? 

We release YNABP, then hit the road for two months in the USA this September/October, and then we’re coming right back with a follow up record!!! It’s going to be a wild year. We are really excited for the next 12 months and what we have in store.

Make sure to listen to Rare American’s brand new album ‘You’re Not A Bad Person, it’s Just A Bad World.’