Emily Haines

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Emily Haines bigraphy, stories - Canadian musician

Emily Haines : biography

25 January 1974 –

Emily Haines (born 25 January 1974) is a Canadian indie rock singer-songwriter. She is the lead singer, keyboardist and co-songwriter of the band Metric and a member of Broken Social Scene. As a solo artist, she has performed under her own name and under the moniker Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton. Haines possesses a soprano vocal range.

Life and career

Born in New Delhi, India and raised in Cache Bay, Ontario, Emily Haines grew up as a dual citizen of Canada and United States, the latter after her American-born parents. She is the daughter of Canadian poet Paul Haines. Her sister is the Canadian television journalist Avery Haines and her brother is Tim Haines, owner of Bluestreak Records in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.

After settling in Peterborough at the age of three, she grew up in a house rich with experimental art and musical expression. Paul would often make cassettes of rare and eclectic music for his daughter to listen to and her early influences included Carla Bley, Robert Wyatt, and later PJ Harvey. By her teens she followed her parents’ footsteps by attending the Etobicoke School of the Arts (ESA) to study drama. There she met Amy Millan and Kevin Drew, with whom she would later collaborate in [Broken Social Scene]. Haines and Millan briefly formed their first band around 1990 while at ESA. Emily also briefly dated Kevin Drew.Berman, Stuart. This Book Is Broken. 2009

Haines attended the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in 1992–1993, and Concordia University in Montreal in 1995–1996. She distributed in 1996 an early album titled Cut in Half and Also Double with a limited number of copies, that included songs written and recorded during her student years.

Emily Haines met James Shaw in Toronto in 1997, and the two of them began dating and making music. Initially, the duo’s name was Mainstream. After releasing an EP titled Mainstream EP, they changed the band’s name to Metric, after a sound that was programmed by Shaw on his keyboard in 1997 or 1998. In 2001, Winstead and Scott-Key joined them.

Metric has released five studio albums so far: Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? in 2003, Live It Out in 2005, Grow Up and Blow Away in 2007 (but recorded in 2001), Fantasies in 2009, and Synthetica in 2012.

During the years, Haines has also contributed vocals or backing vocals to songs by Broken Social Scene, Jason Collett, Stars, Delerium, K-Os, KC Accidental, MSTRKRFT, The Stills, Tiësto, The Crystal Method and Todor Kobakov.

In 2004, Metric appeared in the 2004 drama film Clean. Emily Haines and the rest of the band, appearing as themselves, performed their song "Dead Disco" and then went backstage for a small speaking role. "Dead Disco" also featured on Clean Original Soundtrack.

In 2006, she released the studio album Knives Don’t Have Your Back under the moniker Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton. The songs "Our Hell" and "Doctor Blind" were issued as singles and had music videos produced. Knives Don’t Have Your Back was followed in 2007 by the EP What Is Free to a Good Home?. These recordings were inspired by the death of her father.

Her solo work is typically more mellow and piano-based than her work with Metric. She occasionally plays a limited number of solo shows, often with Amy Millan as the opening act.

Synthetica, the fifth studio album from Metric, was released on 12 June 2012. According to Haines, Synthetica is "about forcing yourself to confront what you see in the mirror when you finally stand still long enough to catch a reflection. Synthetica is about being able to identify the original in a long line of reproductions. It’s about what is real vs what is artificial." The album contains a collaboration with Lou Reed on the song "The Wanderlust".

Guest appearances

  • Cameo appearance on the k-os music video, "Man I Used to Be".
  • Cameo appearance on The Stills music video for "Love and Death" playing a secretary.
  • Stars in Julian Plenti’s music video for the song "Games For Days".
  • Stars in Jason Collett music video for the song "Fire".