Total Fucking Darkness

Wrestling with relevance is a thing of the past for Stephen Ramsay and his friends. Perhaps it's age or energy—or a combination thereof. What is clear is that Ramsay (Young Galaxy), Torquil Campbell (Stars), and Tom McFall (producer for Bloc Party, R.E.M., U2) are only interested in making music on their own terms. To clarify their intent, it's a sentiment even felt in the trio's name: Total Fucking Darkness.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Ramsay reflects on the internal reckoning that led to this new creative chapter for all parties involved. It's a story about shedding their collective need for outside validation and reconnecting with the youthful energy that made them fall in love with music in the first place.

Analogue: When we last spoke, you were talking about pushing yourself creatively—abandoning the guitar as your central instrument and embracing discomfort in your process. You didn’t want to worry about what fans expected or where you’d been. Now here we are, years later, talking about a project like Total Fucking Darkness, which feels steeped in a whole new energy. So let me start there: What’s your current relationship with instrumentation and the tools you’re using to make music?

Stephen Ramsay: This is my first interview in a really long time, actually, so it’s interesting to think about what’s changed. I think the process of being a musician is this constant battle between your convictions—this compulsion to express yourself creatively—and the sense that you’re a complete fraud. That insecurity has been a constant for me.

I’m a self-taught musician, so I never aspired to be someone who plays an instrument with a capital “I.” I just wanted to make music that spoke to what I loved about the form to begin with—being a part of the conversation.

When you’re self-taught, it’s a deeply personal process. You’re always asking yourself whether what you have to say means anything. I think back to our previous conversations, and it’s kind of nice to catch up now and ask, “Where are you at?”

Honestly, I just don’t have those insecurities anymore. Now, I feel like I can pick up any instrument and make whatever I want. If you want a Sonic Youth track, I can make one. If you want ‘90s house music, I can make that. Modern pop? Sure. I had this reckoning with myself musically where I realized I’d always been waiting for someone else to validate what I was doing. And as making music professionally becomes harder over time, you either adapt or fade.

Total Fucking Darkness came out of that. Torq [Torquil Campbell], Tom [McFall], and I are all veterans. Tom’s engineered for U2, Bloc Party, and R.E.M., but he quit the industry six years ago and became a schoolteacher. And that forced a question: Why do we still make music? What are we trying to accomplish?

At this stage, 20-plus years in, I don’t need to be understood or seen in a particular way anymore. Back when I was abandoning the guitar and diving into synths, it all had this desperate air to it—this need to be relevant. But now? I feel like I’ve broken down that idea. I’ve got all these tools, and I can just make what I want. It’s incredibly freeing.

So when Tom said he missed music and wanted to return, and when Torq and I, who’ve known each other for years but never written together, said, “Let’s finally do this,” it wasn’t because we had to. It was because we wanted to. There’s no reason for this band to exist beyond love and joy. That’s why we’re doing it.

Analogue: You talked about the things you’ve let go of, but I’m curious if there’s anything that still lingers? Are there aspects of the process or the industry that you’re still wrestling with?

Stephen Ramsay: It’s not Zen. It’s a struggle at all times. The music industry is a puzzle, constantly. I feel like my toolkit, creatively, is as sophisticated as it’s ever been. But figuring out how to survive in the industry? That’s the hard part.

I’ve probably said this to you before, but one of my favorite quotes comes from Nile Rodgers. He was once asked about his greatest motivator as a music maker, and he said, “Professional jealousy.” I nearly fell over. It was so honest and so true.

Musicians are petty. We’re vicious with ourselves. We get jealous when others do well. And it’s more competitive than ever. There are all these young artists coming up, and I feel better than I’ve ever been at what I do, but music’s weird. As you age, you become less relevant. That’s not true in other mediums—painting, writing, film—but it’s a thing in music.

So yes, I’m in a good place with what I can do. My personal relationship to music-making is solid. But my relationship to the industry? I’ve been out of it for a while. Young Galaxy went independent a long time ago. We still have ambitions—we want to make things that move people—but we also don’t need it to validate our identities anymore. That used to be the thing: if I didn’t “make it” in music, I hadn’t made it as a person.

But life has happened. I have a family. There have been ups and downs and tragedies, and all of that puts everything in perspective. What you have to do, if you’re going to keep making music, is connect to that original impulse, that moment you were 15 years old in your room and felt like you were being touched by God listening to New Order or Nirvana or Public Enemy. Those moments hit me harder than any religion or teacher or public figure ever did, and ever since, I’ve just been trying to stay connected to that.

Analogue: That balance is really compelling to me: how to stay in touch with that teenage awe while also letting go of the identity crises that come with it. How do you keep that youthful spark alive without being ruled by it?

Stephen Ramsay: It’s about staying present, in a healthy way. And it’s hard, because as soon as something becomes a “career,” the joy can evaporate. I work with a lot of younger artists now, and the speed at which they’re already thinking about career strategy is overwhelming. It kills the joy.

I love music, but I know a lot of musicians who don’t really listen to music anymore. They have a strange relationship with it because it’s their job. For me, I have to keep listening to make music. If I stopped listening, I’d stop creating.

Analogue: Let’s dig into Total Fucking Darkness. I want to start with the tone and posture of the band. From the outside, it feels like if you have to engage with the machine, you’re going to do it on your own terms, to turn it on its head. Almost like, “If I’ve got to do this, then fuck it, let’s blow it up.” Am I reading that right?

Stephen Ramsay: You’re reading that perfectly. The simple answer is that this is a band whose collective age is 150 years old. I’m right there with you. Everyone is either approaching or over 50, and that in itself is absurd in this industry.

Tom lives in England, which actually matters to this project. The spirit of TFD is rooted in UK dance music from that era we talked about earlier. Torq and I, being Canadian, are really part of the last big scene in Canadian music with international exposure. Montreal was the last major regional scene before everything was atomized by the internet. That era—Rolling Stone coming to DIY venues in Montreal—it felt like something lasting. But now?

It feels like the Canadian music industry could care less that we ever existed. It's incredibly self-serving. Most of it is propped up by taxpayer money, which sounds like a great thing, and in some ways it is. But it also means the gatekeepers—labels, companies—operate with institutional survival in mind, not artistic longevity. If you took away the grants, most of these companies wouldn’t survive. It’s all about keeping themselves afloat, not about fostering a long-term artistic community.

So Torq and I feel like legacy acts, but also like we’ve been left behind. And honestly, we don’t want to be part of that system anymore. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything exciting happening in it. It’s stagnant. So we started TFD from that place. Just going, “Fuck this.”

Analogue: So if no one hears it, if it never moves the needle, it’s still worth making?

Stephen Ramsay: Exactly. That was our premise. We asked, “If no one hears a note of this, what would we still want to make?” And the answer was music that reflected a particular energy. That’s how I think now—not genre or even emotion, but energy.

We wanted something completely devoid of introspection—just forward motion, fun, propulsion. Something that felt like it was tumbling forward with its own momentum, and the songs came fast. Torq is a crazy writer. The first time we sat down to write, I played him a loop and within five minutes, he had lyrics ready. He turned his pad around and was like, “Let’s go.” That first take is what you hear on the song “Good Times.” One take. That’s it.

Analogue: That sort of immediacy—writing and recording songs in five minutes—is pretty wild. Is that energy carrying over into the live shows? I know you threw a party at the end of May. How did that go?

Stephen Ramsay: It was amazing. We did it here in Montreal, which meant I had to do most of the organizing because Torq is in Vancouver and Tom’s in London. Honestly, it was stressful for me. Asking favors from a hundred friends to come out to a show is literally my worst nightmare, but people were amazing.

There were about a hundred people, mostly friends, but also some folks who came just based on the music, which was nice. The feeling in the room was incredible. A friend of mine who did the Young Galaxy live visuals in 2018 came on board again. He built this self-contained setup where the music triggers the lights. So it was an ambitious presentation.

Tom and I were wearing beekeeper outfits. Torq had these wild masks he was pulling on and off. He’s a third-generation actor, so he’s just completely at home on stage. We all agreed: the days of going to shows to watch someone be “revered” are over. We didn’t want that kind of performance. We wanted it to feel like a rave.

So we structured the set like a DJ mix. The songs ran one into the next. We even threw in mashups—there was Daft Punk in there, some Oasis. We were deconstructing the whole idea of a precious, personal experience. We wanted it to feel like a shared one. And yeah, people danced.

Analogue: That’s the gift, right? Especially in a time when it feels like everyone’s so exhausted by everything.

Stephen Ramsay: Exactly. Most of the people in the crowd were parents. It was a Thursday night at nine. I sent out an email saying, “I wouldn’t go to this show if you were the one performing, but I could really use your presence.” [Laughs] And they showed up.

I read recently that going to gigs adds years to your life. So now the goal is to tour. We’re looking at the fall in Europe. We’ve got an agent over there piecing things together. Having Tom based in London helps. We think the UK and Europe will get this project, maybe more than North America.

Analogue: It does feel like a very of-the-moment thing, both as a reflection and a reaction. Do you feel like there’s a timeliness to this project?

Stephen Ramsay: Absolutely. I think a lot of people are exhausted. The music has that “fuck it” attitude because that’s where we are. When you’re worn down and hopeless, you have two choices: “fuck it, I give up” or “fuck it, I’m going to do what I want.” We chose the second path.

Analogue: This might sound like a softball—and I hate softballs—but I am curious. Does this project make you feel youthful again in a musical sense? Just the energy of creating quickly, reconnecting to something intuitive?

Stephen Ramsay: We’re excitable people. That’s true for anyone still making music at our age. Torq, Tom, and I have a group chat where we’re constantly sharing tracks, sending each other music, things we find hilarious or moving or just good. It’s ongoing.

But I don’t think of it as turning back the clock. One thing I’ve learned from being a parent is that people are just layers. Every year adds another. And those younger layers are still there. You just have to find the right environment to access them.

So yeah, maybe TFD is tapping into that feeling of going to our first raves at 19, but we’re doing it with the full awareness and perspective of being 50. And that’s great. It’s not nostalgia—it’s energy that bridges who we were and who we are.

VISIT: TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS

*Photo Credit: Andrew Whiteman