Remember Len? One-hit wonder Toronto band is back with new music

In 1999, Len’s sugary pop confection “Steal My Sunshine” became an unavoidable summer anthem, its repetitive disco beat playing in near-constant radio rotation.

After topping the charts, the band disappeared. Now, a new single called “It’s My Neighbourhood” is gaining attention, mostly because the video is a sweet, if stock image-laden, tribute to Toronto.

But don’t call it a comeback. Marc Costanzo, 40, one half of the brother-sister duo, said they don’t expect the song to be a hit — and after their negative experience with fame more than a decade ago, they’re fine with that.

“I can guarantee Len’s never going to top the charts like with ‘Steal My Sunshine’ ever again,” he said, laughing.

“We’re not putting out an album because we’re trying to sell a million records. We’re putting it out because it feels good.”

Len is not the first band to be plucked from obscurity and thrown into the limelight. But they may be one of the last to experience 15 minutes of fame in the days before file-sharing — when a single song could still sell millions of albums.

According to Costanzo, You Can’t Stop the Bum Rush, the 1999 album that featured “Steal My Sunshine,” sold two million copies worldwide.

The band’s sudden rise and fall were a surreal experience for Costanzo and his sister Sharon, now 42, who had always created music just for fun, he said.

“Steal My Sunshine” was recorded at 4 a.m. in a basement on 1970s 8-track equipment. The master recordings sat under Costanzo’s bed for a year and a half.

In the spring of 1999, the song was released and gained heavy radio play, sparking a bidding war between various labels. Boutique label Work gave them $200,000 to shoot a music video, Costanzo said.

The band spent most of the money on air travel, hotels, booze and food for the couple dozen friends and family they flew to Daytona Beach for the shoot, he said.

By early 2000, Work had folded and Len had been transferred to parent label EMI, who were getting antsy about the band’s lack of a radio-friendly follow-up.

The band responded by bringing in a full marching band to record a song debunking stereotypes about Canada. The label — to no one’s surprise — was not pleased.

In the spring of 2000, the band cancelled a show in Phoenix, turned the tour bus around and went home to Toronto. When the label dropped them shortly after, the band celebrated, Costanzo said.

“It wasn’t a hard decision. We just realized that everything we were, we’re not anymore,” he said, adding that making music stopped being fun.

“We made a choice to walk away from it rather than try to keep living that same moment over and over again.”

Costanzo retreated for a year to a home he owned at a B.C. ski resort, while his sister moved to L.A. The pair continued to record songs, work with other musicians and run several businesses.

He acknowledges his success from “Steal My Sunshine” has allowed him to only tackle projects he loves.

“That was one of the reasons we had the luxury to say, ‘Let’s stop, so we can do the things we really want to do,’” he said.

Their new album, It’s Easy if You Try, is the third they have released since 1999. It was recorded in various locations over the past two years.

The brother and sister were born in Montreal and moved to Toronto as teenagers. Costanzo has lived on Queens Quay for the past decade, and decided to pay homage to the city he loves with “It’s My Neighbourhood.”

The video features Costanzo’s family and friends lip-synching amid the requisite scenery — Chinatown, Kensington Market, Little Italy — and stock helicopter shots of the CN Tower borrowed from Tourism Toronto.

“I just wanted to show my city that I live in to people,” he said. “I feel like everybody avoids the CN Tower . . . I kind of did the opposite, just shooting all the obvious landmarks.”

Like “Steal My Sunshine,” the tune is maddeningly catchy, featuring a simple, repetitive piano hook. Still, Costanzo doesn’t expect to hear it in heavy rotation anytime soon.

“For some reason (‘Steal My Sunshine’) connected with the world. You can never expect to write another song like that.”