VanGaalen takes flight

When he became a father eight months ago, Chad VanGaalen’s thoughts about the world of children shifted — became a little darker, a little more tense.

“After my daughter was born, it got more scary … since you see a pretty brutal side of ourselves as parents,” said the Calgary-based indie-pop composer, who also teaches young children at an after-school art program.

“I worked at two different schools, and one had a lot of kids who came from abused homes, so I could see that dark side (of childhood) ... Then I would go to a French immersion school, where everyone is involved in extra-curricular stuff, and learning a new language, and there was a real contrast.”

This contrast is reflected VanGaalen’s new album, The Soft Airplane. The disc’s accompanying artwork depicts humans and skeletons with the same childlike, brightly coloured style. Lyrics sung in a Neil Young-esque tone and backed by sparse guitars and delicate synthesizers describe the process of death with the same mix of wonder and fear that his students bring to their work.

“Kids will tell you whether (something) is good or not — there’s no tricking them that something is cool when it’s not,” he said. “We kind of hide (that honesty) with our personalities as we get older, but it’s obvious if you’re young.”

Struck by the tragedy that parents can close doors for their children through their negative feedback and inspired by the inclusive, experimental approach of bands like Sonic Youth, VanGaalen advocates do-it-yourself art among his students as much as he practises it himself.

Long before he knew how to tune a guitar, VanGaalen tinkered with an old 4-track, figuring out how to “ping-pong” up to 12 tracks. Currently building an acoustic drum machine, he envisions a smaller version hooked up to robot arms and solenoids that can trigger a variety of percussive sounds.

Now, as VanGaalen works on music and paintings in his basement, his daughter sleeps peacefully upstairs. The room, which doubles as a studio, is piled with old drum machines, analogue synthesizes and canvases, the floor dotted with paint spills. Luckily, the walls are coated in semi-sound proof carpet underlay.