By David DeRocco

 It may not change the minds of the devoutly religious, but the new album from DEAR ROUGE is certainly proof that evolution is real. PHASES is the much-anticipated follow-up to Drew and Danielle McTaggert’s infectious 2015 debut Black and Gold, and fans will no doubt be satisfied with the results.

 Aptly created in phases through various writing and recording sessions in Toronto, Nashville, Montreal, New York and Vancouver, the album came together in collaboration with some carefully chosen people —including Tawgs Salter and Mike Wise, West Coast stalwart Steve Bays, producer Ryan Worsley and Canadian songwriter Dan Mangan With 10 songs that are equal part “grit and gloss” – including the Top 10 indie rock single “Boys and Blondes” – Dear Rouge has delivered an album for the times, full of deeply emotional lyrical content layered over punchy pop synths, big guitar hooks and great vocals.

 In anticipation of the April 5^th return to The Sanctuary in Ridgeway, the 2016 Juno Award winning Breakthrough Group of the Year took the time to chat with GoBeWeekly about PHASES.

 GOBE: The songs on PHASES were crafted during a very reflective and transformative emotional period in your lives. Do you think artists often exist in a bubble, perhaps out of necessity, that insulates them from things happening around them?

 DREW: I think everybody is in their own bubble whether they like it or not. While we were writing we were still playing shows. I guess you could say that each song is a bubble, musically or lyrically. When you get that inspiration, you want to dive in, you don’t want to think about anything around you. You don’t want to think about what people are saying. You don’t want to think about what’s on the radio. You want to commit to that song, to exist in that bubble to work on the specific inspiration for that song.

 GOBE: It’s been nearly three years to the day between releases. Why was that length of time needed to deliver Phases?

 DREW: Honestly, if it was just Danielle and I we would just be releasing stuff all the time. We wrote a lot of stuff for this album. Now traditional album cycles are not like they used to be. We wrote a lot, but because of the modern day music cycle we wanted to wait to put it out, especially knowing that this album would kind of shape who we are and shape our sound. We also tried some different musical approaches to some of our songs to see what it would be like. We basically had recordings of the songs when we went into the studio, then we added more live instruments and worked on sounds and the overall cohesivenss

 GOBE: Was there one song that gave you the most difficulty in terms of recording or writing it? 

DREW: That’s a tricky one. “Wicked One” was the easiest to write but the hardest one to record. It didn’t match the ideas in our head. The song actually fell into our laps really really quickly. I was working on music, our drummer had an idea and Danielle just wrote the lyrics and melody and we were all like, that’s awesome. But the one that we kept editing and editing and editing would have been “Motion.” That was the hardest one to write. It’s such a simple pop song lyrically, but we just revised it so many times.

 GOBE: There are a lot of emotions woven into the songs on this album. If you had to place keywords into the meta description for this album to describe the most powerful emotion fueling it, in what order of importance would you place these three words: redemption, forgiveness and empowerment.

 DREW: I would say empowerment first, forgiveness second and redemption third.

DANIELLE: I would say forgiveness first, redemption then empowerment.

 GOBE: Is that self forgiveness, or forgiveness of others?

 DANIELLE: For me it was self-forgiveness. I was definitely working through some past things when writing the lyrics. It was definitely helpful in that process.

 GOBE: The video for “Boys and Blondes” features some campy sexuality and fun frolicking. It that a fun part of the job or truly tedious trying to perform for the camera?

 DANIELLE: Not, it’s really enjoyable. It’s part of the excitement of it, part of the art form to do the visuals. We’re actually getting more involved in that end of things. The next video being released is more our idea. We want to make sure with this album we have our hands on more of it. I really enjoy making them. Drew does too, it’s part of the fun.

 GOBE: What can we expect from Dear Rouge at The Sanctuary April 5^th?

 DANIELLE: It will be a great show, with lots of energy, lots of connection with other humans, with us. We like to hang out. Just an all-round good time!