Metric is Emily Haines (vocals, keys), Jimmy Shaw(producer, guitar, keys), Joshua Winstead (bass guitar, keys) and Joules Scott Key(drums). They have spent over 20 years together in creative partnership and are releasing their 10th studio album in 2026 maintaining the original lineup.. “The band has become Canadian indie-rock icons,” says Pitchfork. “Metric [has] their own increasingly rare success story.” The band resisted major label offers in favor of starting their own label and retaining control of their own material and career, and for the last two decades have found themselves on an unusual trajectory of increasing success while continuing to push their own artistic boundaries past conventional expectations.
Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw are also early members of Broken Social Scene. While Metric has always been their first priority, they have both written and performed songs on all of the collective's albums from 2002-2017 including such tracks as “Almost Crimes,” “Swimmers,” “Sweetest Kill,” “Sentimental X’s” and “Protest Song.” Emily’s most notable contribution to the group is the breakout hit “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl,” from the award winning album You Forgot It In People. Haines has also collaborated with numerous other artists, most famously striking up a strong creative connection with the late Lou Reed, who performed “Wanderlust” on Metric’s album Synthetica and joined Metric on stage at their sold out headlining show at Radio City Music Hall in 2013 to perform “Wanderlust” and the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes.” Haines worked with Lou Reed on various additional live events overseen by the late producer Hal Willner as well as performing “Ballrooms of Mars” on Willner’s final tribute album, Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs Of Marc Bolan and T. Rex alongside U2, Nick Cave, Joan Jett, and others. Haines has released three solo studio albums, including the acclaimed Knives Don’t Have Your Back. Jimmy Shaw has also released a solo album and works as a sought after, JUNO award-winning producer
Metric have a long history of creating music for film, starting in 2004 with their appearance in Olivier Assayas’ Clean, acting and performing their song “Dead Disco.” In his Scott Pilgrim series, graphic novelist Bryan Lee O’Malley based his fictional band Clash at the Demon Head on his experience of live Metric performances, and director Edgar Wright used their song “Black Sheep” in his 2010 film adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Also in 2010, Metric contributed the theme song “Eclipse (All Yours)” to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack which they co-wrote with Howard Shore. In 2012, they won a CSA (Canadian Screen Award) for their score of David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, also with Howard Shore. Metric songs have been featured in numerous feature films and television shows including Grey’s Anatomy, The L Word, Zombieland, Nikki Glaser’s HBO Special Good Clean Filth,the hit animated film Nimona, and popular Netflix shows Wayward and I Love LA in 2025.
Both Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw grew up surrounded by art. Haines was born in New Delhi where her father, poet Paul Haines, was writing the lyrics for Carla Bley’s monumental Escalator Over the Hill and her activist/teacher mother Jo ran a household steeped in experimental art and discourse stemming from their years in the Greenwich Village scene in the early 1960s. Born in the UK and raised in Toronto, Jimmy Shaw spent the first half of his life immersed in classical music and was accepted at the age of fifteen to the Curtis Institute in Boston and later graduated from the Juilliard Music School in New York. Metric has been nominated for numerous Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Awards, including five wins. Metric has appeared on The Tonight Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Later…With Jools Holland and have toured extensively, playing headline shows and festivals around the world.
