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What:
Fred Eaglesmith
When:
Friday, Nov. 5, 10 p.m.
Where:
Patrick Sullivan’s
Cost:
$7
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On the Road
Fred Eaglesmith’s approach is all his own
by Molly Kincaid
Fred Eaglesmith has a formula for success, but it only works for him. His secret? In a sea of artists clamoring for fame and fortune, he audaciously turns his nose up at commercial success. It’s not that he thinks he’s too cool for school, it’s just that, well, he is.
“There’s so much buzz out there, and I didn’t want the buzz to be bigger than the bee. I just wanted for people to like my music for what it was, not because someone told them they should,” says Eaglesmith. Due to this reasoning, he shuns publicity for the most part. In fact, it’s rare to find Fred Eaglesmith albums on the shelves at record stores. He sells them almost exclusively via his website.
Though not even a tributary to the mainstream scene, Eaglesmith has somehow built his own success story by touring relentlessly and pounding out record after awing record. His grueling tour schedule has paid off in the form of an intensely loyal fan base, who call themselves Fredheads and sometimes fly across oceans and continents just to see him play. “They like the fact that I am just this guy that they have sort of discovered,” Eaglesmith says of the Fredheads.
It’s hard to describe the Fred Eaglesmith sound, but it’s easy to proclaim him one of the most searing songwriters that’s not six-feet-under. He cites “that era when country music sort of hit rock—not typical Nashville country, but that other thing” as an influential time in his development. He says of early ‘60s country artists like George Jones, Tammy Wynette, and Merle Haggard, “I really like the sound of those albums—you can hear that they are really whacked out, but they are trying to keep it straight,” he says.
While Eaglesmith’s songs could be better described as whiskey-fused than drug-induced, they share a raw loneliness found in the songs of his mentors. Throughout the recording of 15 albums, he’s been able to vary his sound, sometimes bringing a hefty dose of rock into the mix, other times sticking to a slow, heart-wrenching style. “This is what happens to me: people will hear one or two albums and form an opinion of what they understand me to be. I’ve been making albums since 1980, so they are all different, and they all move around,” he says with a measure of indignance.
Though he certainly could have been picked up by a major label, Eaglesmith decided to start his own, giving it the facetious name, “A Major Label” or AML. For a while, he had some other little-known talents on AML, but he found that he didn’t like being “a record-label guy.” Basically, Eaglesmith’s template just wasn’t working for the other artists. “I built a grassroots following by touring and not relying on newspapers and radio. For some of them, that wasn’t going to work, but I didn’t know how to do it the other way,” he says.
Eaglesmith’s tried-and-true road regimen manifests itself on his most recent album, Dusty. Though he calls Canada home, this album takes the form of a rugged ode to middle and southwestern America, invoking the spirit of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.
The song, “I-75” pairs fragile string arrangements with dark lyrics reflecting a trucker’s inner thoughts in such a way that could only be phrased by a true road veteran. “That’s what I do, I’m on the highway. I’ve come up and down that particular highway so many times, spent so many nights in truck stops, broken down, fixing up. It’s in my blood, that road,” he says.
Taken as a whole, Dusty paints a scene from a classic western, conjuring rolling tumbleweeds and lonesome cowhands. Its themes of “broken rainbows” and “horse-trailers full of dreams” ease along with tangibly melancholy instrumentals. Eaglesmith credits a tour from Texas back to Canada for its inspiration, saying, “a lot of it is that whole Midwest, down-the-road vibe—it’s heartbreaking because life is changing rapidly. The innocence of that time is going away, and I wanted to put that on the record.”
Though it’s a task to wrangle Eaglesmith into a particular musical category, he can best be described as a storyteller. He says of his life on the road, “I’m only as good as my best story.” Luckily, his stories, though often heaving with sorrow, make for reminiscent lyrics that are lucid with honesty.
November 4, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 45
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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