Music

Godspeed You! Black Emperor open up about Polaris Prize controversy

by Tyler Munro

Aside from a pretty jarring statement, the members of Montreal collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor have kept pretty quiet since winning the Polaris Music Prize back in September. But four months after calling the prize and its ensuing gala “tone-deaf to the current horrifying malaise,” co-founder Efrim Menuck elaborated on their stance on Vish Khanna’s Kreative Kontrol podcast.

“You have to remember that Godspeed’s relationship with the Canadian music industry has been terrible from the beginning,” said Menuck. “It’s been antagonistic from the beginning so it wasn’t unreasonable for us to be like, ‘We’re not going to get this thing. Why would they give us this thing?’ We said it in our press release: we feel like orphans in our own country. We feel fairly invisible here.”

He said that the band never felt like they had a chance at winning, not realizing until they were shortlisted that they had a legitimate shot at the big prize.

“It was really towards the end when were like, ‘Oh shit, we might and I guess we need to prepare ourselves for that possibility,'” said Menuck. “It was a really strange process.”

As for that process, it doesn’t seem to be one he understands in full. He told Khanna that Polaris staff approach labels and ask which records they’d like to put up for nomination, adding that Constellation Records said yes on the band’s behalf, not recognizing their chances or asking for their input.

While Polaris Prize head Steve Jordan has otherwise remained mum on the band’s statements, it’s this questioning or mistaking of their process that saw him take to Twitter to clear things up.

“We don’t do this. If wanted to we don’t have the resources. Don’t want to,” said the Polaris Prize’s official Twitter account, beginning a series of nine tweets. “When a jurist recommends a record for consideration via private discussion we ask the label for permission to upload the album. This procedure is designed to make the record freely available to all of our jury members so they can also consider the work. This does not mean a record is nominated at that time. It does confirm that it is being considered by at least one jury member. Should a label or artist decline this permission, a jurist could still vote for that title. It happens. Should the record then get nominated via jury vote, we ask for permission to use the album art in various ways, which was granted. We’ve never had anyone turn down a nomination but if they chose to we’d certainly honour the artist’s wishes. We have no comment on anything else said before or recently except to say that if you haven’t heard the record, you really should.”

It’s that last part that stands out. Through it all, Polaris stands by their jurors’ choice, eschewing to speak directly on the controversy surrounding the band’s statements and reminding fans that through it all, ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! is a fantastic record.

Those who followed this as it happened live will remember that the band announced it would use its $30,000 prize to fund music programs in Quebec prisons, an odd choice but one they truly believed in. Unfortunately, putting that plan in motion is a different story.

“All prison bureaucracies are difficult to deal with but in Quebec, they’re particularly difficult,” said Menick. “We’re reaching out to people in the States who’ve done work like this and see if they have any insights on just how to deal with bureaucracies like this. It’s a good headache to have. It’ll work out.”

Inquiring minds can—and should—check out the entire podcast here. Menick stopped by to talk with Khanna in support of the new Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light.

Watch Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Polaris Prize win right here.