Hangover Terrace Shows There’s an Edge to Ron Sexsmith

Now appearing in the role of nasty Bill Sikes in the musical Oliver!Ron Sexsmith?

Well, not exactly. But Sexsmith had the character of Sikes in mind (specifically as played by Oliver Reed in the movie) when he wrote the original version of “Damn Well Please,” a jaunty, pointed highlight of his new album, Hangover Terrace.

The song was initially intended as part of a musical Sexsmith was creating based on Deer Life, a fairytale book he wrote and illustrated, that was published in 2017.

“There’s this villain character that was going to sing that song,” Sexsmith, a great fan of classic musical theater, says on a video chat with BGS from his home in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. “I just remember thinking how Oliver Reed played Bill Sikes. But he didn’t sing, because the director said as soon as the villain starts singing it takes away from his threatening element. And I thought that was smart.”

So, while he is still looking to bring the musical to the stage, he had put this song in a drawer. Eventually, though, he reworked it as a screed against what he sees as oversensitivity endemic to our era, with everyone so easily offended, and set it to perky Baroque-pop music and a tone bearing more than a shadow of classic Ray Davies.

“I refashioned the lyrics to be more about a kind of grumpy, bickering kind of thing,” he says. “Just because sometimes I’ll get mad or because [he and his wife Colleen Hixenbaugh] will bicker sometimes about my wine consumption. And I’ll be like, ‘I can have wine.’ Or whatever. And I just felt that it was fun to sing. We tried it out in a concert recently and it went over really big.”

Now, just in case you’re confused, yes, this is that Ron Sexsmith – Mr. Sensitive himself, Mr. Melancholy, Mr. “Secret Heart” (the first song on his first real album, 1995’s Ron Sexsmith, and arguably his most enduring and much-covered number). All vulnerable and romantic.

Yes, it’s him, the guy known for wearing his heart on his sleeve, weaving his feelings into stunningly indelible melodies sung with engaging understatement, all endearing him to fans throughout North America and Europe, earning him 15 Juno Awards (including eight as Canadian Songwriter of the Year) and a 2010 documentary, Love Shines. The guy who has been lavishly praised by countless fellow artists, notably among them Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Steve Earle, Daniel Lanois, and Feist.

That Ron Sexsmith is here, slinging arrows at people he sees as too sensitive. “I’m intent on poking the bear,” he sings.

“It’s just kind of a song about the culture we’re in now, there were a lot of people tip-toeing around and afraid to offend all the time,” he says of “Damn Well Please.” “And I think maybe we’re coming out of that a bit now. When I played it live, there were some people who came up afterwards and told me they found it really empowering.”

He laughs.

“I don’t want to empower the wrong people, though.”

The fact is, he is feeling empowered to show that edgy side a bit more. While there is plenty of the sensitivity, the romance, the explorations of heart on this, his 17th studio album in three decades, there are several songs that show this trait, lashing out some at matters both cultural and personal.

In “Camelot Towers,” another with a clear nod to his Kinks devotion in its sharp view and Baroque-pop tones, he expresses disgust at the proliferation of fancifully named housing projects that in reality are blights. In “Outside Looking In,” with Hixenbaugh chiming in as something of a Greek chorus, he suggests that “some friends should come with expiry dates.”

Mr. Costello, one of his biggest heroes and biggest fans (as a songwriter he has ranked Sexsmith with Paul McCartney and Tim Hardin), famously arrived in the punk era bearing the tag of “angry young man” before later evolving with great emotional nuance. Has Sexsmith gone the other way, from genteel young balladeer to, at 61, an angry, uh… mature man?

“I guess it’s better late than never,” he says, a wry smile and shrug tilting his country-gentleman hat and large wire-rim glasses.

“I mean, my earlier albums were more melancholy and kind of sad, just based on what was happening. But I had a song on [2004’s] Retriever called ‘Wishing Wells’ that was kind of angry. And I’m sure I could go and find those songs throughout my career. They exist before this. Maybe they don’t all exist in one place like on this album.”

Make no mistake: He still wears his heart on his sleeve. In fact, the opening line of “Easy For You to Say” is “I wear my heart is on my sleeve.” And the very first words of the album’s first song, “Don’t Lose Sight,” are “Hearts get broken,” sung with great vulnerability.

In other places there’s the romance of wistful, poignant nostalgia, as in “Cigarette and Cocktail,” a colorful portrait of the seemingly carefree life of earlier generations with “a cigarette in one hand and a cocktail in the other.”

“I wanted to express the full range of emotions, human emotions. I don’t want to be the master of one emotion, like some people do these days. ‘That’s the guy who writes all the sad songs,’ or ‘that’s the guy who writes all the ironic songs,’ you know. I want to be an actual human being.”

Hence Hangover Terrace spans from pastoral (“House of Love,” a lovely ballad with brass that’s an ode to “a dirty happy home” filled with play and laughter) to perky pop (“It’s Been a While,” his account of a reunion with his old bandmates, with “shades of our yesterdays” and ‘80s-ish Casio-like keyboard lines) to pumping power-chords (“Burgoyne Woods,” with a little spirit of the Who). Produced by Martin Terefe – who has worked with artists from James Blunt to Engelbert Humperdinck and produced three Sexsmith albums in the 2000s – at his bustling London studio complex, it features among its musicians former Pretenders/Paul McCartney guitarist Robbie McIntosh (he provided the Townshend-esque licks to “Burgoyne”) and keyboardist Ed Harcourt (a fine singer-songwriter in his own right). But for the variety, or because of it, there’s a flow, an arc – it’s not a big leap to imagine the album as being the tuneful bones of a musical or narrative song cycle.

“I think I could probably write a story where these songs would fit,” he says, noting that no one had mentioned that before. “In all my albums there is a document of a particular time or phase that I was going through. So definitely with this record it was coming off the heels of the pandemic and all that stuff. You could probably write a story. I don’t know if I’m the guy to do it. But yeah, I’m going to think about that.”

Much of this, he says, reflects the life he and Hixenbaugh have led since moving from Toronto to Stratford seven years ago. Especially the theater orientation.

“Stratford, where I live now, is an internationally renowned theater town,” he says. “People come here from all over to see the plays and musicals. Maggie Smith worked here, and Christopher Plummer. I really love the theater and feel we’ve landed in a kind of oasis. The world is going crazy and we’re going to plays and all. I can’t believe our luck that we ended up here.”

Even outside the theaters, in this Stratford, as that bard from the other Stratford put it, all the world’s a stage. The players there? Superb. And for this Canadian bard?

“It’s been inspiring,” he says. “We have a yard with all these critters running around, like rabbits and things. We had an owl. Didn’t have that in Toronto. I feel like Beatrix Potter or Huckleberry Finn. It’s a whole different way to live.”

That has also brought out a wistfulness that counters, or at least complements, some of the hotter feelings expressed. Take “Burgoyne Woods,” a look back to a time in his life when the world was open and the radio rocked.

“It’s a very nostalgic song for me,” he says. “Every song on this album has its own character and personality. Here, I like rock. I love The Who and all that stuff. I was trying to write that kind of thing they do. It’s about a time in my life with my high school friends and we’d just go on trips through the woods near our house.”

That was his hometown of St. Catherines, down near the Niagara Falls/Buffalo area.

“It was that free-range period where your parents don’t know what you’re doing,” he says. “You’re just out there and just, you know, doing things you shouldn’t do. And drinking.”

So sort of his “Cigarette and Cocktail.”

“Yes,” he says. “Exactly.”

Even in “Camelot Towers” Sexsmith has found himself considering the humanity within the walls of the eyesores. “I’m just noticing, I mean, obviously people live there and they make the most of it,” he says. “And my son [one of two adult children from a previous marriage] lives in a place like that. You walk the halls and you can hear the people or you smell the different foods that everyone’s cooking. I kind of get into that in the last verse. Everybody needs a home and a home is what you make it.”

So yeah. Mr. Sensitive hasn’t gone anywhere.

And how does he bring the curtain down on Hangover Terrace? Well, he’s sensitive there too. Several songs before the album’s close, in “Please Don’t Tell Me Why,” a buoyant folk-rocker reminiscent perhaps of the Beatles’ “I Will,” he lets us know what to expect, or not to expect. He’s all about cherishing the moment, relishing the life and love he’s built with Hixenbaugh, savoring the theater and the wildlife around their home, without looking down the road:

I don’t want to hear
Don’t want to know
The trouble that surrounds
The happiness we’ve found
Don’t want to see
The way our story ends

That might even bring a tear to Bill Sikes’ cold eyes.


Photo courtesy of Cooking Vinyl.

Beth Rowley: Just One Song on the Rush of Attraction

Editor’s Note: Beth Rowley will take part in the Bluegrass Situation Takeover at The Long Road festival, to be held September 6-8 in Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, England.

“This is a song I wrote with Canadian singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith. I was writing for my new album and decided to go on a trip for some inspiration. I emailed Ron and a few other friends I knew in Canada and booked to go on a writing trip. Our writing sessions were very relaxed and laid back. Ron is a genius writer. I’ve written with many people and there are very few writers like him. Even his rough ideas sound like the most beautiful finished songs. I had a few ideas up my sleeve but nothing finished. I’d been a longtime fan and knew we’d come up with something cool.

“I read one of the poems I’d written and he played a few chords on guitar. It didn’t take long for some to stick and after some lyric tweaks it was there. We chatted lots about life, music, relationships and what it meant to be in love. ‘Forest Fire’ is about passion and desire and the rush of attraction when you’re around someone new. The excitement and possibility and the pull towards someone. But it’s also about choice and responsibility. Before you let yourself go or be led, you have the choice to go along with it or not. Sometimes it can feel like we don’t have the choice, and that if we feel something it must be right. This song is about the rush and fire of passion but then on the flip side of that of taking responsibility and owning our choices and the effects they may have on others.” — Beth Rowley


Photo credit: Maria Mochnacz

BGS 5+5: Stephen Kellogg

Artist: Stephen Kellogg
Hometown: Formerly of Northampton, Massachusetts – now in Connecticut
Latest album: Objects in the Mirror
Personal nickname: Skunk

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

I love books. Dickens writes with his heart–very inspiring. Also movies. I like those art forms because my brain never tries to deconstruct what I’m experiencing in quite the same way as it does when I hear a good song. So it can be the emotion without the intellect jumping in there. For years it would bother me because certain music that was widely accepted as great would mean nothing to me, and other stuff I loved would fall under the ‘cheesy’ moniker. Then one day I realized that it was all about the lyrics for me. If the worldview was something that resonated authentically I didn’t care about the production. The same was true in reverse, cool production isn’t really enough for me to dig something. Once I learned that about myself, I was able to apply it to the other art forms. If I feel what’s being said or commented on with piece of art, there’s a good chance I can get inspired by it.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

I once heard a quote from Tom Petty that was something to the effect of “When the muse comes to visit, if you don’t write it down that’s just ruuuude.” I think of that every time I get an idea in the middle of the night and have to wake up to jot it down in my journal. Lots of ideas come at really inconvenient times when you aren’t looking for them. When my mother-in-law passed away, her song came to me. The problem was, that I was just so sad I didn’t want to deal with it even though I knew I very much had to get it written down. I knew the moment the first line came to me that I would be singing it at her funeral a few days later, but even trying to write the song would bring me to tears. So I’d say “Ingrid’s Song” was the toughest because even though the words and chords came with some fluidity, it was a rough time to pull it out and do what needed doing. I’m glad I did though. She deserved that tribute.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

I like this question a lot. It strikes me as very important to understand one’s purpose in all this. It can really sustain you when there are bumps in the road. For me, I don’t play music because I love playing guitar or singing. I play because I love the human connection. In recent years I’ve been doing more speaking and writing of other kinds. I have my first full length book out in March 2019 and I feel a similar rush from those experiences too. My mantra that I keep around some of my social media outlets says ‘using words and intention in the hopes of a positive legacy for my family.’ I’d say that’s the mission.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

It occurs to me that maybe this question is simply one of picking an artist paired with the correct meal (like Sam Cooke with linguine and clams or something). I’m going to answer it though as it first occurred to me, as in who would you like to break bread with and what would you eat? There’s nothing like meeting up with an interesting person in a place where you can actually talk and kick around ideas. I do find that to be one of the great perks of the job. I always remember the anecdote that Dylan recounts of Bono swinging by his house with a case of Guinness. That sounds like a fun evening. As much as I’d love to have dinner with Tom Petty or Taylor Swift, I feel like the most thrilling connection usually occurs when you aren’t too star-struck and I wouldn’t trust myself with either of them. Also important to me in a hang is that folks have a good sense of humor. So I’d lean towards a night of steaks on the grill with Dave Grohl. I like his vibe.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

Rarely. Probably to a fault, I need to identify with a character if I’m going to sing it. It makes it increasingly hard for me to even perform certain songs from earlier in my career because I don’t identify with the wisdom being expressed or the aims of the character. I have a ballad called “Such a Way” that I wrote when I was in my mid-twenties. I sing about “the woman down the street with a daughter twenty years.” This made lots of sense when I was 24. Now that I’m in my 40s it feels a bit lecherous when I sing that line if I think too much about it. I mean I can get back to the sentiment of young love sure, but I also have a teenage daughter myself now and it just doesn’t feel as true to me to narrate; although I’ll sing it at shows, it’s hard for me to have an emotional experience with that song sometimes. No judgment because how else can Robert Plant sing “Whole Lotta Love” or Foreigner do “Hot Blooded” without feeling ridiculous? For me, though, if I don’t relate it’s kind of like acting instead of music.


 

WATCH: Lori Cullen, ‘True’

Artist: Lori Cullen
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario
Song: "True"
Album: Sexsmith Swinghammer Songs
Release Date: October 28
Label: True North Records

In Their Words: "A song about things we know to be true, instinctively, the way a child knows when something is real or not." — Ron Sexsmith

"The lyric video was shot on my phone. Most footage is of the sunshine coast in British Columbia. We stayed at a cottage next door to Joni Mitchell sharing her views of the Georgia Strait spilling into the Pacific Ocean." — Lori Cullen


Photo credit courtesy of True North Records