Ron Sexsmith is rightly regarded by many as one of the best singer-songwriters over the past 30 years. The shy and hugely affable Canadian has built up a hugely loyal fan base and can name rock legends such as Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Elvis Costello as among his ardent supporters. His melodic, wonderfully insightful songs have been covered by many artists including Emmylou Harris, K.D. Lang, Mary Black, Rod Stewart, Feist, Chris Martin, Katie Melua, Eddi Reader... the list goes on and on.
Before his first international gig in over two years, Folk and Tumble was invited backstage in Dublin, to talk about his career and plans for the future.
FT: Some artists put out three or four albums, and then follow up with a greatest hits album. You’re seventeen albums into your music career and no retrospective. Is that a conscious decision?
RS: No. I mean it has been kinda frustrating. I’m 58 now but when I was about 47, I was asking the folks at Warner in Canada, “Hey, you know I’m gonna be 50 in a few years, maybe we could do a double CD, 25 songs on each one, best of retrospective”, and it was like tumbleweed. No interest at all. And so, I sort of gave up on it. In a few years, I’m going to be 60 and I wondered if I should pursue it again. I don’t know if that’s something Rhino (Ron’s Label) would do? I would love for that to happen. I even had a name for it. I was gonna call it ‘Retrosextive’. So yeah, if there was any interest, I would be all for it.
FT: That’s a great title. Eye-catching as well.
RS: Originally, I had a title called ‘Early or Later’, with the first disc having a picture of a younger me, and the second, more up to date. Maybe they’ll do one someday. Some of my contemporaries have had one. They did one of Neko Case, another of Rufus Wainwright.
I am not sure what format it would come out now. Would it just be a streaming thing? The fun thing for me with those sorts of retrospectives is the artwork and pictures in the booklet. I hope it happens. I’m definitely going to put a bug in my manager’s ear. I’d love to curate it because oftentimes the songs that I felt turned out the best weren’t the ones that were the singles.
FT: It’s eleven years exactly since ‘Long Player, Late Bloomer’, your most commercially successful album, but you felt it was too glossy and pop-orientated.
RS: I thought Bob Rock (Producer) did an amazing job on the album, especially when for years the vast majority of people, they didn’t get it. He sort of framed it in a way that people did get it. But all that auto-tuning, airbrushing, didn’t happen until it was mixed. I didn’t hear that until I got the finished product and then it was kind of too late, and I was sort of dismayed because my ear goes to that. I don’t like that sound particularly.
But then the album is released and I have two – in England anyway – two top ten hits so I shouldn’t complain. But, it’s funny because Bob and I sorta had a falling out over that. We were going to make another album and I happened to say would it possible to do it without all that. I would still love to do a remix of that album one day without the auto-tuning etc.
But again, the people who love that album don’t seem to mind
FT: I think us ‘Ronheads’, we don’t hear the auto-tuning. We just get the incredible songwriting, the overall sound, and particularly your voice.
RS: I think I had the songs on that album, which could withstand the production. The following album I did, ‘Forever Endeavour’, I was going to do with Bob but as I was working on it, I don’t think Bob’s right for these songs as they were more folky things, and so I did it with Mitchel Froom.
Bob has a certain style, and we really got on well together during the recording. At that point in my career, I think I felt I had some radio-friendly songs, and I wanted to get the right production. ‘Retriever’ was probably one of my personal favourites, and that didn’t do so badly on the radio, and I really loved working with Martin Terefe. We actually tried to do ‘The Last Rider’ with him but we couldn’t afford him (laughs).
But yeah, I would love the chance of working with Bob again someday but I don’t know if it’s going to happen.
FT: Looking back on the albums, you can see groups of songs with a particular theme. ‘Retriever’ seemed to have a tenet about resilience, ‘Forever Endeavour’ the theme of regret. Looking back at your musical career, do you have any regrets? Is there anything you might have done differently with hindsight?
RS: Well, I think some of the early albums – and I don’t even know if it’s a regret – but I don’t think I had found my voice. I was younger and it was a little unruly. More nasal. I would try to learn from each record from the previous one and produce a warmer tone. I think I’m finally at a point where I’m singing better than I ever have, and that started for me around ‘Retriever’.
‘Cobblestone Runway’, I think I was getting there, but there are times when I think I sound like Kermit the Frog on that record. The other problem with the early records, is they were done on tape so if we did three takes of a song, maybe there was one where I felt, “oh the vocals were really good on that”, but Mitchel might say “well yeah, but take 3 has got the best overall vibe”. So sometimes I was left with a vocal I wasn’t super happy with because you couldn’t isolate tracks in the manner you can now with digital recordings.
FT: If you had to suggest one of your albums to a potential fan who hadn’t heard your music before, which one would you choose.
RS: Well the one I always really liked is ‘Retriever’. I had fans before that album but it opened up a lot of places for me like Germany and Spain. Even in America, I could see the number attending shows grow and in Canada I had two top 20 hits from that record so I would usually recommend ‘Retriever’.
I also think my new album, which hasn’t been released yet, maybe because it’s new. Brad Jones has done a really great job, and I’m singing really well. And it’s a nice collection of songs.
FT: Have you a title for the new album?
RS: Oh yeah, it’s called ‘The Vivian Line’. There is a route near our house whenever we need to get out of town, it’s almost like our escape route. I always try to find a title that doesn’t single out a particular song and something that is somewhat playful. I don’t even know the background story on The Vivian Line, like who was Vivian?
But I was intrigued by it. I had other titles but I kept coming back to that. It’s almost like a continuation of the last album, ‘Heritage’, lyrically because it’s about the new life, country life, and the new kind of domestic peace. It’s pastoral, very kind of baroque pop. In some ways, like ‘Whereabouts’, except, I’m singing better now.
There’s a lot of woodwind and strings and horns, whereas the last album was almost an amateur hour with me doing everything. I have to say, I was really blown away by Brad Jones on this album with his production and arranging. He just has great instincts.
FT: Going back to your first album proper, it seemed to hit a resonance this side of the Atlantic, and artists like Elton John, Elvis Costello, and Nick Lowe were quick to help promote your name as a huge talent. It became a much-revered album.
RS: Well I owe that to Elvis Costello in particular. That album came out in North America in ’95, and the label at the time didn’t really push. They considered me as difficult, which I don’t think I was difficult at all. I was just trying to fight for my record. Even I was worried about the record because I remember thinking this didn’t sound like a major label debut by their standards. They wanted me to scrap the whole album and redo it with Daniel Lanois producing. Mitchel told me, if this is the record you want, you have to stand up and fight for it, and I’m so glad I did.
In North America, it didn’t really resonate at all initially until December of that year, when Elvis held it up on a magazine. It really changed everything.
FT: Without music, where would you be today?
RS: I shudder to think. I was a courier for seven years. If I hadn’t met Bobby Wiseman who produced the Grand Opera Lane album, I don’t know where I’d be today. Bobby had a friend at Geffen in LA, and he helped set up a showcase for the label, which led to a publishing deal with Interscope. Ronnie Vance was my hero for signing me. And then Elvis Costello. Those three things had to happen for me to be here now.
It’s weird, but I have the same birthday as Elvis Presley, and Bowie too. For me, when I finally moved to Toronto to pursue the music, it looked pretty grim. That was the one thing I held on to. That must mean something. It must be some cosmic thing that’s in the stars. So I never gave up, despite a lot of friends, good friends, telling me I should give up. Trying to be kind. But to my credit, I had this thing about fate and that it meant to be.
FT: You’ve also branched out into prose writing. Can you tell us a little about your book ‘Deer Life’?
RS: Well ‘Deer Life’ is a fairytale book that came out in 2017. I started writing it in 2015 and maybe 12 drafts after I started, I finally finished it. And it’s probably, from a writing point of view, the hardest thing I’ve done, even though it’s not a big book.
And now I’ve written a musical, ‘Deer Life’. I really want it to come out in some way, whether it’s a movie or a stage play. The songs I’ve written for it, I’m so excited about it. I think they are some of my best songs.
FT: Will it come out as an album?
RS: At the very least, if it’s never a movie or a play, it’ll come out as a CD. I thought of doing an album of it, casting different singers, kind of like what Randy Newman did with ‘Faust’. Or do I put it out just as me on guitar and piano? I’m not sure.
FT: Anais Mitchel did a great cast version of ‘Hadestown’ before it hit Broadway. Still, it’s a nice problem to have?
RS: I think after this next album comes out, maybe then I could focus on that. I didn’t expect to have an album out so soon. I’m not writing as much as I used to so I was sort of amazed to have this new batch, and it just worked out that Brad Jones was free.
I’m so proud of this album. I’m trying not to listen to it too much now as I have to wait until January until it comes out. But for people who are into me, I think it’s a record that has all the things that I think people like and want to hear.
FT: Sounds like there’s a lot for fans to look forward to. Ron thanks for taking so much time to talk to me today, it’s been a real treat.
RS: My pleasure, and thank you!