Being in one of the most sought after Canadian indie bands would be time consuming for even the most organized rocker, but what happens when your side project is just as popular as your day job? That’s the challenge Dan Boeckner faces, as a singer in both Wolf Parade and the Handsome Furs.

These days the Montreal-based artist is all about the Furs — the band’s new record, Face Control, is out this week — but Wolf Parade isn’t far from his mind. “I’m always thinking about stuff for Wolf Parade,” says Boeckner. “I have a few things saved up for that band, but basically we finished or last tour and we’ll get back together in the fall and write new material together again.”

Managing both acts, which he says “is all just projects,” isn’t easy, but he seems to have figured it out.

He explains that Wolf Parade — which also includes Spencer Krug, another mutli-band musician — has evolved to the point where they don’t have to sit for months and hammer out material.

“We’re at a weird place where Spencer and I don’t write songs at home and bring them to the band,” says Boeckner. “We have really vague ideas and work through them together in our rehearsal space.”

Because Wolf Parade isn’t as time consuming as it once was, Boeckner is free “to go into the studio for a couple hours and try to bang something out” for Handsome Furs.

However, the duo’s sophomore disc (his wife, Alexei Perry, plays keys), isn’t a hastily created album — if anything, it’s one of the best records of ’09 so far.

In some ways this record picks up where their debut, Plauge Park, left off — there are plenty of synths, amped up riffs and infectious melodies — but with dance-friendly drum machine beats, louder songs and a more focused pop approach, Face Control ends up being a vast improvement over their first effort.

Boeckner says the more upbeat feel is thanks to touring behind Plague Park and getting a vital piece of equipment ripped off while on the road. “When we toured that record the band itself got louder and heavier,” he explains. “Then the drum machine got stolen and so we had to reprogram everything in the new one, but it ended up reflecting how we were playing at that time.”

Despite the volume shift, the band wasn’t trying to become some loud indie rock band. If anything they made a concerted effort to not write that type of record. “We didn’t want to make an indie rock record,” says Boeckner. “We don’t even listen to a lot of that. We were in Eastern Europe listening to CDs of early Polish punk and industrial bands — we wanted more punked out songs.”

His mission to steer clear from the typical indie sound was accomplished, so what’s next for this restless performer? “It’s pretty much all Handsome Furs right now, but I’d like to make a dance hall record,” he says, seriously.

“But I’m not sure if there’s time.”

If you go…
Handsome Furs play the Horseshoe Tavern Friday night as part of Canadian Music Week.