Lighting a fire with Tinderbox

Veteran songsmith Fred Eaglesmith delivers his best work yet

Very few artists have a career long and successful enough to even put out 17 albums. To have their 17th record be widely hailed as their best yet is even more rare, but that is the current situation of Canadian roots-rock troubadour Fred Eaglesmith.
Born and raised in rural Southern Ontario, this Juno-winning singer/songwriter has earned a loyal following on both sides of the border, and internationally too. That fan base is expanding further with the recent release of Tinderbox, an adventurous and totally compelling disc being met with unanimous glowing reviews.
Unlike earlier albums that oft had a rowdy country rock feel, this is a sparse and haunting collection of songs with a strong gospel vibe. Eaglesmith examines people’s need to believe during troubled and hard times, and he treats his characters with real respect.
We recently tracked down the ever-touring Eaglesmith on the road to yet another gig to talk about the album. He’s clearly pleased at the reaction, noting that this “is the kind of record you make and then just hold your breath when you put it out. It is risky. We worked on it for a long time in my little dark studio. Then when it came out and was this well-received, it was ‘thank goodness.’”
Not that he is swayed by the words of critics. “I don’t listen to them very much. A lot of my albums are my best work yet (laughs). Or a lot is ‘this isn’t his best yet,’ then four years later, it’s ‘it was his best yet.’ To be fair I hardly ever get any bad stuff from the critics. I am very lucky, so when I take a jab at them, I don’t really have much of a right to.”
The common themes on Tinderbox were inspired after writing the title song, Eaglesmith explains. “What started was I wrote the song ‘Tinderbox’ - ‘someone’s crying in the very back row.’ I always imagined it was a girl back there, so I sort of got onto her a little bit. I live in a Masonic lodge. I’d go up to my studio at four or five in the morning and just write the song and record it right then. A lot of the songs were done that way, then I’d get the band in and we’d work around that. I get these flashes of inspiration, and I’d go, ‘I’m going with this. I’m not going to second guess it.’”
The spontaneous feel of the record mirrors the way it was recorded. “I did a lot of this recording myself,” he explains. “Then when I got the band in we’d do a lot of quick takes and quick pieces, and none of us would be sure if it would be any good. But I kept a lot of the original stuff and sent it over to [producer] Scott Merritt, and I let him edit it. So instead of making sure the parts were all perfect when they were played, I just made sure they sounded like they were believable. Then I let the editor have it after that, as opposed to the other way around - ‘that take’s not good enough. Do it again.’ Then you lose the feel. So a lot of this record is really off the cuff. First time, first pass, and there are mistakes I kept in.”
Eaglesmith’s empathy with his characters is something he takes pride in. “I was trying to give them some credibility. I was trying to say these people are just as passionate as anyone else and they deserve their day in the sun, just like everyone else. Again, it was off the cuff,” he recalls.
Despite the theme of Tinderbox, Eaglesmith terms himself a non-believer. “I was raised a Christian in southern Ontario. It was very agricultural, very cultish, and with walls around the community, and I haven’t been a Christian for a long time. I had to really look at Christianity harder here, and this is not a Christian record.”
Over the course of a career now spanning three decades, Fred Eaglesmith has found his songs becoming coveted by other artists. American country superstar Toby Keith is a big fan and has recorded his tunes, but Eaglesmith is equally pleased when totally unknown bands play his songs.
“I’ve had 75 songs covered. That’s a tremendous amount, but it was not often from major artists. If you took all the artists around the world that play my songs, in the clubs, there are thousands. I was in Lubbock, Texas, last year, and a guy said ‘there are 14 bands in town tonight, and all of them play your songs.’ That was sort of my dream as a kid, that I would write songs like Hank Williams, songs that people would sing. I think I wanted that more than fame. It’s all about staying the course. This is what I’ll always do.”

Tinderbox is out on A Major Label. For tour dates, go to www.fredeaglesmith.com.

Publication Date: 2008-09-07
Story Location: http://www.tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=8572