After crossing the three thousand or so miles of his homeland in just over three weeks, Chris ‘Old Man’ Luedecke caught up with QRO over strawberry crepes and Belgian-style tea, before playing to a sold out crowd in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
QRO: You recently completed a coast-to-coast Canadian tour in twenty-four days. How do you feel about touring in the age of high gas prices and downloadable music?
Chris Luedecke: Well… great, fine. I mean I certainly don’t like some of it… Like I moved everyday to do it. But I really like the performing, and it’s just me travelling all that way, so I feel like it’s not that horrible – or not as horrible as it could be. And what else did you say? Downloadable music?
QRO: Yes.
CL: I think people still want the CD; you know… it’s pretty. [chuckles]
QRO: Seeing so much of your own country, the beautiful landscapes and all, how big of a role do imagery and natural beauty play in your writing?
CL: I do what I do… I mean, I tend to be nervous about each tune, but it’s important to me when I can do it well, to do it when I can. It is important, it has been important to me for years.
QRO: So, you’ve completed the entire tour solo, right? Well, most of it at least…
CL: Except for last night, yeah.
QRO: The new album [My Hands Are On Fire & Other Love Songs – QRO review] features a full band, which is sort of the first time for you…
CL: Well, the second time.
QRO: Right, sorry about that… the second time. Is it hard touring those newer songs that were originally joined with fiddle, bass, guitar and drums?
CL: Is it hard touring those songs?
QRO: Right. Is it hard touring them on your own?
CL: No, because I… I tend to write the songs so that… When I’m writing songs, I’m writing songs for me to play. So the songs, basically the albums are all songs that I can play for you, or for any number of people. Everything is sort of… On the album it’s just more of a palette, but it’s really just about I just want to be able to sing.
The banjo is a pretty full-sounding instrument.
QRO: So for this record… Is your writing process essentially that you write on your own and you bring what you get to the people you get to play with you?
CL: Well, Steve Dawson – the producer… Basically we made the record in three days, so I had the best songs I had, and I went to Vancouver like I did last time. I had three days with these great musicians, and we just sat around and played them, got them good, and recorded the process.
QRO: The transition on the last two albums to more of a full band sound sort of leaves a bit of the modesty that maybe your earlier fans were drawn to. Did you ever find that risky, or did you ever second-guess it?
CL: Um… I don’t think so, because the more that I think about song writing, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I really like that song, I should write a song like that.’ Then it’s like, ‘But I’ve already written that song.’ You know what I mean? Why would I keep trying to write the same song? I wouldn’t keep trying to write the same song, because I wouldn’t want to keep making the same album either.
I think by and large, like I do play so much by myself, and I probably always will. For me, making the record is like a different mode of expression. It’s like, ‘Let’s take these songs, and see what they sound like with other people.’ In terms of the modesty of it, I don’t know. It’s not a very slick record, I don’t think. [chuckles]
QRO: You won a Juno for Proof Of Love – My Hands Are On Fire‘s predecessor. How did this affect your mindset – if at all – in writing material for this new record?
CL: Well, probably not much, really. I mean, if anything, I turned around and spent most of last year… basically I decided to record an album in November, sort of right around the same time I won the Juno. Basically from the minute that album was recorded, most musicians – I think – would be starting to think about the next one. You know what I mean? Like, I’m sort of already trying to put stuff together for the next one. I just always want the best songs I can write to be on there.
So, In terms of the Juno affecting my ‘creative space’, probably not really; I don’t really… I’m not really sold that there’s any sort of effect on the creative process. The creative process is a pretty scary, it’s pretty dark and negative place to begin with.
The creative space is it’s own place anyway. When you’re done then you worry about that stuff, whether it adds up and measures up, but usually I’m just looking to write the songs that are closest to what I feel at the time… and that will hopefully stand up and I won’t be embarrassed in a week.
QRO: The Juno is arguably the biggest award you’ve won so far. How does it rank in terms of your list of greatest musical accomplishments?
CL: Probably not that high, but it feels good to have won it. I’m happier having it than not having it, you know [chuckles]. In terms of ‘is that a defining moment’, I don’t know about musically. Maybe in terms of my success, it’s certainly high on the list as a defining moment, but musically I wouldn’t say so. They’re quite separate.
QRO: In terms of your career then, do you have any goals in mind?
CL: Like, no. I mean you get goals as you go, but I just sort of found the banjo and fell in love with it… and found something that I really loved doing, and all this was pretty terrifying about how that was going to go. It’s only in the last couple of years that that seems to be working out in my favour… well not the last couple of years.
But where do I want to end up? It would be fun to play at [Toronto’s large] Massey Hall… I’d like to play in the U.S. more. I have lots of goals like that, little goals, but not like…
QRO: So you don’t have a plan for where you see yourself in five years or anything like that?
CL: No I’m not going to do, like, a collaboration with Timbaland [laughs]… Not yet anyway, maybe if he calls…
QRO: Do you have any career regrets so far?
CL: Um… I don’t know. Do you have any suggestions what my regrets might be? [chuckles]
QRO: No, no. I can’t really think of anything…
CL: I don’t think so. You know, you always wish that you were better. I always wished that I had more time to practice or something like that, to be better, but you get better by practicing too.
QRO: How do you feel about music pertaining to what you do as an artist?
CL: What do you mean?
QRO: What does it mean to you, in terms of… What do you draw from other music?
CL: There’s a vibration, some kind of spiritual fulfillment I guess. Music that tends to give it to me tends to be stuff I consider to be pretty ‘real’, in a sort of completely abstract way. I don’t know how you can explain that; I mean, it doesn’t sound like bullshit. Honest, just honest stuff. Among those things are just a bunch of stuff that is just about as complete as you would hope anything could be in the world, just like any other art form.
QRO: On "Machu Picchu" you sing, "There was never a song I couldn’t sing my way out of." What does this phrase mean to you? Is it a mission statement for what you do?
CL: I think it’s just a joke. I just think it’s a great… So much music is so self-reflective, and I think it’s just kind of fun to sort of go for the brag, sort of clowning around…
QRO: So sort of self-deprecating?
CL: It’s actually the opposite of that, it’s like bragging myself up… kind of like ‘bring it on’, which is unusual for me.
