After a musician wins Junos for Rock Album of the Year with two of their three first albums, one might forgive said artist for resting on his laurels and knocking out records that milk his appeal for years to come. But though Montreal’s Sam Roberts accomplished this feat – his 2004 debut We Were Born in a Flame also netted Artist of the Year and Album of the Year honours, while 2009′s Love at the End of the Road added Artist of the Year to the overall catch – his fourth and latest LP, Collider, is a marked step in a new direction.

"When I sat down to write this record, I felt a real sense of freedom," said Roberts, reached at his Montreal home. "I didn’t feel chained to anything we did in the past. I didn’t feel chained to any grand vision of the future either, and I just let the songs come out as they wanted to be, and I tried to get in the way of them as little as possible. Collider is what happened."

Along with the new LP, Roberts brought two new members into the band in the form of percussionist Ben Massarella (Califone) and woodwind master Stuart Bogie (Antibalas, TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and enlisted the help of producer extraordinaire Brian Deck (Red Red Meat, Ugly Casanova, Modest Mouse, Iron & Wine, Califone, Gomez). He also relocated the entire band to Chicago.

"Going elsewhere has always been a part of the journey of making a record for us. To me the idea that a record includes travel and the unfamiliar is all bound up in our approach now. Also, the uncertainty that three new individuals brings to the process is a fundamental change unto itself," reveals Roberts. "And I say ‘uncertainty’ because we allowed them to really create in the studio rather than us just giving them directions. That was a fairly big shift compared to how we did things in the past. When Stuart Bogie came in to do saxophone, for example, he listened to the song and would just start playing – spontaneously playing what he felt, and that is what we captured on the record. The takes on the record are usually only the second take."

"I think we embraced the concept of thinking on the fly, and contributing something meaningful to the song we were recording right then. Allowing Brian to have full control and not just be a coach led to dissections and commentary that we had never gone through either. We broke everything down to simplicity and built it back up again. I think this record has a different energy than all the other ones we’ve recorded and demonstrates a growing understanding on our part of our own identity."

Sam Roberts Band
w/ Zeus
At Métropolis
February 10