For those of you, like me, who believe that the ‘80s synth-pop, post-punk, and new wave of artists like The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, and Peter Murphy represent the greatest period of pop music, Vancouver’s ACTORS might just be your new favorite band… However, they’ve technically been around for quite a while now. I recently got a chance to chat with ACTORS founder and mainman Jason Corbett, who tells me, “It all started around 2010, when I was touring with my band before ACTORS… The real change began when I started producing.” (Corbett is also the producer/composer/mixer behind Jackknife Sound recording studio.)
ACTORS released their debut LP, It Will Come to You, in 2018 and last year they released their follow-up, Acts of Worship. CVLT Nation characterizes the album as, “one long love song to post-punk, new wave, and darkwave,” while BrooklynVegan says single “Cold Eyes,” “sounds like neon-lit black leather.” Corbett tells me that all of the feedback the album’s gotten has been overwhelmingly positive: “Just in general, across the board, the band’s been stoked, and it’s been selling really well on Bandcamp… It ramped up right where the last one left off.” However, he also tells me that the foundations of Acts of Worship are little different from It Will Come to You: “A few of the songs on the first record, like ‘Bury Me,’ were out for about two years before that, so I’m glad that it still sounds cohesive. For Acts Of Worship I was writing a lot of the material on tour… I was interested in exploring the sonics in every single direction, a little more electronic at times, a little more guitar-heavy at certain times.”
Jason Corbett tells me that the current state of ACTORS started about half a decade ago: “For most of my life I had really bad anxiety, like I didn’t travel… But around 2017, as we signed our record deal with Artoffact, offers from all over the world started coming in, so I doubled down on trying to move past all of the anxiety… and I got to play cities I never even though I’d get to see.” And he tells me that recently things have gotten even better: “We got Xavier from Persona Grata, our booking agent, who is actually based on Paris. He got us into new cities, so many new cities that I wasn’t able to book for us before.”
Currently ACTORS have dates booked that kick off on March 26th in Detroit and wrap up May 15th in Vancouver, but Corbett tells me, “That’s just some of them [laughs].” ACTORS’ upcoming North American tour will have them at Ortlieb’s on Friday, April 1st, with support coming from Bootblacks and Catherine Moan. I tell Jason about the Northern Liberties hyper-intimate, jazz lounge-turned-Tex Mex dive and he tells me that, while that sounds like the perfect place for ACTORS, almost every show they play winds up being an amazing experience for the band and their fans: “Some of the best shows for us are those super intimate shows… We just enjoy being onstage and connecting with the audience, so every show is so special.”
*This show is presented by Spellbound and DJSC: Get your tickets here.
