Hanging out at the Arts & Crafts office on a Monday afternoon may not be typical for Reg Vermue, the erstwhile indie-pop conjurer behind Gentleman Reg. But lounging in the record label’s downtown Toronto office, there’s no doubt the musician’s among friends. Behind his head of white-blonde curls -– recognizable to anyone who’s seen Shortbus (he played the albino), or, for that matter, anyone who frequents certain West Queen West bars -- there’s a row of posters splashed with familiar names: Stars, Broken Social Scene, Constantines, Feist.

You know all those Canadian bands, but Reg knows them better. They’ve been his friends and collaborators for years. He’s been a frequent tourmate of Stars and a card-carrying member of Broken Social Scene. Bry Webb of the Constantines has been jamming with Reg since their younger days in Guelph. As for Feist, there used to be a time when his superstar friend was warming stages for him, and not the other way around.

Jet Black, Reg’s fourth LP and first on the A&C imprint, is out this week. A vinyl copy of that freshly pressed album has a place on display with all the other record-label mementos. If Reg has his way, the office’s shelves won’t be the only place he finds equal footing with his friends.

“The last few years everyone around me – or a lot of people – have done very well, and have done really well all over the world. I just want to be up there alongside them,” he says.

Just looking at the d?cor, you can get a pretty good idea which old pals he’s referring to – and he laughs at the suggestion. As for specifics: “Well, obviously Leslie [Feist] is at the top of the pile,” he says – before going on to recount how she’s the sort of friend who’s happy to share her spot on top. In late 2007, she invited him onstage during a show in Paris. “For her to interrupt her show so I could sing one of my songs, this sold-out show at La Cigalle in Paris, it was a really special moment.”

That experience and others like it have given Reg a taste for more. “It’s not a total ego thing, it’s just like, ‘Oh, OK. I can do this.’ I just felt like I was at home there,” he says. “It’s nice to know that your sound and your songs can transcend that.”

It’s been five years since Reg’s last album, 2004’s Darby and Joan, (his former label, Three Gut Records, folded shortly thereafter, a fact which he says led to a period of some professional uncertainty, but never any creative crisis). Like that last collection, Jet Black’s new batch of songs are soft, wispy pop tunes, with occasional jolts of rock and theatrical pop (in the vein of Rufus Wainwright). Bry Webb lends rock-guitar punch to several tracks, including first single “You Can’t Get it Back.” In the liner notes, Reg thanks Webb “for the T-Rex,” but the rock ‘n’ roll touches on Jet Black shouldn’t be mistaken for anything that raw and glammy. (The closest thing to T-Rex here is Reg’s voice. On opener “Coastline,” he croons like Marc Bolan in his softer moments.)

His recent signing to Arts & Crafts means that this album will be his first to get distribution outside of Canada (a collection of songs from his previous releases with Three Gut, Little Buildings, was put out in the States last November). Ever the gentleman, Reg wanted to get his first impressions right, and says that he went through two versions of the album in his pursuit of pop perfection.

One drastic change he made was to throw out most of the slow songs. “It’s a lot to ask someone to sit through a six-minute piano ballad,” he says, half-jokingly.

Another change was the addition of disco throwback “We are in a Thunderstorm” – sort of his answer to “Careless Whisper” – and a shock to the system after six tracks of straightforward pop-rock. It’s also one of the best songs on the album (with a video set for release next week).

He’s not surprised when I admit I’m a fan of it. “So is everyone else, apparently!” he laughs. “That’s the one the label loved, that’s the one that everyone who’s listened to it, it’s their favourite one so far.”

And yet, it made the cut as an afterthought. The track was written long before the others on Jet Black, as part of an extra-curricular dance music project he’d been tinkering on with a friend, Shaw-han Liem. When he realized Jet Black needed a little extra something, he figured one of his old dance tracks could be it. “The producer [Dan Draves] and my drummer Greg [Millson] and other people were skeptical because it’s very different, but it grew on them and you know, I think they realized it works,” he says.

“I love that era of pop and I love that sound and I would love to do a whole album of music like that.”

In the meantime, his goal is just to spread his music to territories outside of Toronto indie-rock’s inner sanctum.

“I want this record to hit you right away,” he says, “because you know, in a way this is a bit of a beginning, even though it’s a fourth record.”

Jet Black is in stores now.
Gentleman Reg’s Canadian Tour Dates: March 11, Peterborough; March 12, Toronto

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