 |
About Us |
|
Add an eVent |
|
Contact Us |
|
eVent Night Out |
|
Personal growth needs to be nurtured |
|
Jazz and blues fest offers great lineup |
|
Why Christian tend to like Judas |
“You don‘t mind if I do the dishes while we chat, do you?” he asked, before the phone interview began. Just home from performing at the Olympics, Workman admitted “the belligerent television sales pitch before-hand” had made him a bit wary about the Olympics. “When I got there, I realized that all my cynicism was misplaced,” he said. “I forgot that when people work their lives to do something great, which I guess is much like my job, this is something very much worth celebrating. “Especially living in this time where we tend to celebrate mediocrities, I came home thinking it was a pretty cool thing to do.” Workman has two albums coming out this year. While that looks ambitious on paper, it‘s all pretty normal for him. “I tend to choose work over not working and because my job is songwriting and producing, I tend to produce a lot of stuff … I think it‘s a product of just not slowing down.” The two albums are completely different, said Workman. “Typically I make a second record by accident just because I‘m always a little overzealous when I start writing. I always have something sitting around that‘s being worked on while the official record is being worked on.” And while Meat, which has already been released, is what he calls “a rock album made in my garage,” he describes Milk as “a decidedly Euro-electro-synth pop record” which was produced in Sweden. Another difference between the two is the distribution – Milk will only be released digitally. “Since the record business is dying, although no one has said it yet, we thought we‘d try something different for the sake of keeping ourselves entertained.” Having two such completely different sounding records is one of Workman‘s trademarks. He attributes his versatility to his father. “We‘re so in tune with a homogenized Wal-Mart North America; we‘re used to hearing stuff sound the same and bands making records that all sound the same and eating hamburgers on the road that all taste the same, but I was lucky,” he said. “I was raised by a dad who collected records and liked a lot of different stuff.” It appears he was finishing up the dishes – the sound of water draining out of the sink could be picked up through the phone. “I didn‘t realize music was so specifically genre centric. I was raised in a way to be somewhat in opposition of what‘s fashionable, which is currently ‘write the same song over and over again until you become a millionaire.‘ I just kind of write whatever I like and whatever I want, and I‘m pretty lucky that I‘ve made a living just following my whimsy for so long.” While Workman is known for the 12 albums he recorded for himself, he‘s also a highly sought after producer, having recorded debut albums for some of Canada‘s current stars of the music world, such as Tegan and Sara, Sarah Slean, Serena Ryder and Hey Rosetta, to name a few. He believes it was producing Sarah Slean‘s record 10 years ago that caused musicians to start seeking him out. “Sarah‘s was a real favourite among musicians and real hardcore music fans,” he noted. “I guess these things tend to start feeding themselves. “What it is, mostly, is that I really celebrate people‘s abilities and talents and I get really excited by people‘s strengths,” he added. “I think those are worth nurturing and putting energy into.” Workman is also a prolific songwriter, having written songs for countless bands over the years as well as for himself. Sometimes, the songs he writes for others are a perfect fit, but other times “it‘s a little too much like me for them to sing so I keep the songs.” CBC Radio listeners nominated Workman as one of their choices to write a song in the Song Quest contest, where each songwriter was given a specific part of Canada to write about. His task was to write about Algonquin Park. “I grew up at the doorstep of Algonquin Park and the backyard of my house looks like Algonquin Park to me,” said Workman, who confessed he‘d sort of taken the place for granted. “It‘s like, you don‘t really notice the colour of your refrigerator anymore or things you see all the time. So it was great because I had to go back and re-think what was so magical about the place I grew up.” For Workman, the main thing he stresses is to follow your heart, even if that comes with ups and downs. “The music I make is a product of my heart and my mind and my experiences and my honesty,” which, he admitted, also makes him more vulnerable, saying, “if I read a daft review or the record doesn‘t sell well, those things really hurt in a more personal way than if I was a company that built toasters and my toasters didn‘t sell well.” For more about Hawksley Workman, visit his website at hawksleyworkman.com. Quick hit: Who: Hawksley Workman Where: Kelowna Community Theatre When: Sunday, Mar. 7, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $39.20 + tax at Ticketmaster, call 250-860-1470 or online at ticketmaster.ca On the Web: hawksleyworkman.com Top of Page |
|
|
September 7, 2010, 6:20 am |