In June, Hamilton, Ont. dance poppers Junior Boys released their fourth LP in a decade, the soulful It’s All True. With the release of an EP pegged for later this year, the duo of Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus will fulfill its obligation to Domino Records.

“I kind of feel like some time away from (Junior Boys) would be pretty good for me,” Greenspan says over the phone from his home in Hamilton. “I feel really proud of this record, it’s the type of thing where I could walk away for a while.”

Released in June, the nine-track It’s All True has gained an incredibly positive response from fans and critics alike.

“I don’t really follow how well it sells or anything,” Greenspan laughs. “We’ve probably had our biggest reactions to these songs ever.”

“ I don’t know what the future is for the band exactly, other than I know that I’ll probably take some time away from it.

Jeremy Greenspan, Junior Boys

The LP is much more of a headphone record than past Junior Boys releases, and the more intimate songs don’t always find their way into the live set. But as the Junior Boys are more studio oriented, there is always an accurate interpretation of the songs in concert.

“We tend to play the poppier ones to keep the momentum up, but live they change in a way,” he says.

The band goes to great lengths to make sure that the show is sonically the best thing it can be, which requires a lot of equipment and counter-intuitive ways of doing things.

“A lot of the time with electronic music you’re running it out of the computer and it’s basically like playing a CD. We play to a room, we have a dedicated sound guy and everything is being sent out individually. It’s much more like live sound then it is like playback.

“We take how everything sounds very, very seriously.”

Greenspan feels more at home in the studio than on stage. Last year he mixed Caribou’s acclaimed Swim record, and has already lined up production gigs for the future, including producing a new record by Code 9.

“Working with other people, doing that production stuff, I think that’s the type of stuff I’d like to focus on,” he says. “I’m going to probably do a record by myself, so that’s the next step for me.

“I’m at a point in my life where I’m feeling good about the whole Junior Boys thing. I don’t know what the future is for the band exactly, other than I know that I’ll probably take some time away from it. There are bands like Portishead who take 10 years off and then they release that record (Third) that everybody seemed to like. I suppose that could always happen, too.”

If this is indeed the end of Junior Boys, the duo is definitely going out with a bang.

“The response to us live over the last year has been the best it’s ever been,” he says. “It’s been a struggle for us. How do we, as two pretty unassuming guys, do this? We’re too polite to be the Jesus and Mary Chain and try and antagonize people because we don’t want to be up there, but at the same time we want to be good to the people who are there to see us.”

Published in Volume 66, Number 2 of The Uniter (September 8, 2011)