The early days of the twenty-first century marked the beginning of a new era in Canadian music. As bands like Broken Social Scene and the Arcade Fire rose to international prominence, scruffy-haired Canadian indie rockers were suddenly recast as superstars. Writer Ibi Kaslik was there, watching as her musician friends struggled to adjust to the demands of fame. She distilled her experience into her second novel The Angel Riots, a chronicle of the backstage dysfunction and personal turmoil in a semi-fictional Montreal band. Ibi answered my questions from Regina, where she is currently the writer-in-residence at the Regina Public Library.  How did the writing process for The Angel Riots differ from your first novel?

The first novel is groping in the dark. By the time you write the second one it's easier to control the arc of the characters and the scope of the narrative. I felt a lot more confident, in terms of structure, voice, and narrative, definitely, for the second book. Considering you've spent time touring with your friends in bands like Broken Social Scene, it's inevitable that readers will see elements of The Angel Riots as non-fiction. When did you first get the idea to turn your experiences in the world of Canadian indie rock into a novel?

Writers are always socking away details and taking notes so it was inevitable to write about an experience that so absorbed me for years. There was no conscious decision but I did want to write about a character like Rize (the main character in The Angel Riots) who was so unlike the chatty articulate characters in Skinny; I was fascinated by the notion of a character who was completely non-verbal, who could only express himself through music. I also realized, early on, that the band is a family structure, with different power dynamics and roles. The whole experience was dramatic and so it leant itself very naturally to fiction without too much conscious thought on my part.  At that time, I didn't know what else to write about, there were all these dominant character types and archetypal situations occurring, it just came out. Why did you choose to divide the narrative between the first person perspective of Jim, the young violinist from the prairies, and third person for Rize, the self-destructive savant? Rize is the insider: he has known this group of people for years. Jim, the young female narrator, is the outsider coming into the band fresh. Her uninitiated experience parallels the reader's introduction to these people and this world while Rize is the back story. It was a narrative and structural choice. Have any of your friends taken issue with any resemblance between themselves and your characters? We'll see if the people I'm still talking to continue to talk to me or if the people that I'm already alienated from begin talking to me again! Haha. All of the members of the band have extravagant character flaws, are spiritually damaged in some way. Do you think that bands attract that kind of personality, or do you see them as a microcosm of the general personal brokenness in the world? I don't think bands attract flawed personalities, no, that'd be a vast generalization about musicians. But a band, especially a large one, is a system, a family, often a highly dysfunctional one. It's also Darwinian: there are Alphas and there are Betas and you have to fit your ego and life and art into that role you've been cast into, even if it's static role with little room for growth. Somewhere between this pseudo-family structure and survival mentality you develop coping mechanisms, whether it's alcoholism or passivity (just like a family!). I don't know if there's a job quite like being in a band, except the circus, where your ego and whole being is sublimated into this inter/co-dependent group structure of ensemble work and travel. By focusing on the pain and doubt of this group of musicians swept away by success, were you trying to dispel the myths of rock n' roll glamour? Yes. Skinny was the same kind of idea, taking this experience that was compelling and glamorized and stripping away surface associations. There is a skewed notion that being a musician is so fun and gratifying but it's a very hard life: hard on the body, hard on your relationships and friendships. In my view, you don't have a lot of personal, psychic or emotional space to be an individual because you are always part of a group mentality that dictates your schedule and life. Plus, you are always around lots of people which can be beautiful and fulfilling and make life a big party all the time, but it's also fleeting and empty, too. It grinds you down and can make you delusional and cause you to make odd choices that serve the band but maybe not you, personally. It is also a very insular life; you are disconnected from the day-to-day connections others have in the civilian world, and so sometimes you can only relate to other musicians going through the same thing. Obviously, that kind of life is not for everybody. In the indie rock culture that has sprung up around Pitchforkmedia, a website you mention in the novel, a good band is treated with a special reverence. You can see it at shows sometimes: fans in the throes of something resembling religious fervour. Do you think it requires personal sacrifice to provide that kind of salvation for listeners? I think any true artist sacrifices a lot, whether it's the rigors of touring or working a shitty day job. I know painters, writers, and actors who make large sacrifices but don't receive the thunderous applause of a band. The reality is that to reach any modest level of success in Canada, as any kind of artist, requires personal and financial sacrifice.  As the lone writer in a social group comprised of so many musicians, do you ever feel like you're missing out on "the cabal understanding of bodies in a van, the rush of seeing darkness descend on a different city every night"? I'm no longer in that social group any more but when I was---and when I was younger---I used to want to be on the road, I guess. But even then it was hard for lots of reasons, as I mentioned, and I couldn't handle being around people so constantly. I have a friend in a band who is like me, very independent and solitary. He loves the road but I think he suffers a lot for it. Being a writer is not easy in its isolation, but at least you only have yourself to account for: five people aren't affected by every move you make. Even though there is no fanfare or constant travel, the writing life is satisfying in its own quiet way.