In the midst of social distancing to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus, SOCAN continues to conduct video interviews with our members – now online via meeting apps – in our new video series, “Staying Home with…” Today, it’s Owen Pallett.

Owen Pallett won the very first Polaris Music Prize in 2006, for the Final Fantasy album He Poos Clouds. He’s been nominated for an Academy Award  for Best Original Score (for the Joaquin Phoenix/Amy Adams-starring movie Her), and performed the theme on the Oscars stage. And he’s created orchestral arrangements for Taylor Swift, Arcade Fire, REM, Haim, Linkin Park, and Frank Ocean, among many others.

But he thinks of these musical efforts as work-for-hire, and the artists as his clients, and half-jokingly compares himself to “a lazy plumber.” He also talks abut how such string composing and arranging differs from the process of working on his own music; his life under the COVID-19 lockdown; and how a breakup worked its way into his current album, Island.