Top songsmith glad others stay in tune with his music

Ron Sexsmith talks to Joe Dermody about why he is grateful to his dedicated fan base for keeping his career on track in an industry that often demands commercial success.

FANS are welcome to highjack Ron Sexsmith’s solo shows in Cork and Limerick this week with requests for their favourite songs; he’s happy to oblige.

One of the most talented songwriters of his generation, the mellow 51-year-old Canadian is also at all times obliging as he chats for an hour over the phone in his suite in the sumptuous Hume Hotel in Nelson, on the Canadian leg of his world tour; obliging, even with the most annoying of questions.

For instance, despite having songs recorded by Michael Buble, KD Lang, Emmylou Harris, Katie Melua and Mari Wilson, Ron is constantly asked why he thinks his own career has yet to hit stellar commercial heights. Is he not tired of that question?

“No, not really,” Ron replies. “A lot of people are rooting for me. I’m grateful that they wish me well. People say they can’t understand why I’m not more famous, but I really don’t know what to say to that.

“I’m just really grateful to have a career in music. I was 30 when I signed a record contract, so I was glad just to get in the door. I have always tried to write hits, but I dunno, I seem to be always out of step, I guess.

“The music industry has changed; people don’t buy records as much. And with the type of music I play, I never really expected to be playing arenas. Still, I try not to complain too much. I have a very dedicated fan base that seems to keep growing.”

It certainly does. While many other artists focus on downloads of digital singles, Sexsmith still puts a lot of thought into song order on his albums, the latest of which, the decidedly upbeat Carousel One, is his 14th long player to enjoy steady sales, notably in England where he enjoys cult status.

Sexsmith doesn’t own an iPod. He doesn’t carry a mobile phone. His record comany manages his Facebook page. However, he does tweet, his own website carries very personal detail on the tales behind his songs, and yet he’s certainly not a recluse.

In conversation, frankly, you feel like your catching up with a lifelong friend.

Ron is loving life with his second wife, Colleen Hixenbaugh, who is also a musician. There is also warmth in any reference to his first wife, Jocelyne, with whom he had two children.

When asked how he writes songs, he recalls that most of his best-known early songs were written on Jocelyne’s nylon string guitar. He now writes on the upright piano he has owned since 2005, and on his 1956 Martin acoustic; that guitar features in many of the 300+ songs on his ’Acoustic Series’ on YouTube, but it rarely travels on his tours.

While his band are with him on the Canadian legs of his tour, the next few weeks of Irish and UK shows are solo acoustic nights. Ron enjoys visiting Ireland.

“I have always loved playing in Ireland,” said Ron. “It’s such a musical culture. One of the first times when I played Dublin in the ’90s, I couldn’t believe that everyone knew the songs. They were singing along, which wasn’t the case in most other places at the time, to be honest.

“It has always been a great place for me. I’m also excited to be doing solo shows. I have been touring a lot with the band recently, so we end up doing similar shows most evenings. You can’t expect the band to change it up when somebody shouts out a request.

“With the solo show, it’s a chance for me to get back to the intimacy of the song. You also get to take people on a journey from the start to the end of the show. Some venues have a piano. If they do, I’ll play the piano. Otherwise, it’s just me on the guitar. That can be challenging because it’s a naked way to perform, but it’s also a great way to show the foundation of the song.

“And the solo nights can also be highjacked by people’s song requests. That’s fine by me. In fact, it can be great because it probably means they know the songs and they’ll sing along. That’s a songwriter’s dream.”

At the time of going to print, some tickets were still available online for Ron Sexsmith’s shows in Cork and Limerick this week.

The Irishexaminer.com website carries more from Ron Sexsmith, including YouTube clips, the novel he has just finished and his cosmic connection with Elvis.

CANADA DRY HUMOUR WITH RON SEXSMITH

Songwriter Ron Sexsmith reflects on his cosmic connection with Elvis, his first novel and how Twitter has given him a tenuous link with the digital age. Interviewer: Joe Dermody

Iconic songwiter Ron Sexsmith’s birthday of January 8 is a date he shares with Elvis Presley, David Bowie, Stephen Hawking and, eh, Kim Jong-Un.

“I didn’t know about Kim Jong-Un,” admits Ron. “Of those, I most associate with Elvis. My mother used to say I looked like Elvis when I was young. One thing that always kept me going in music was sharing a birthday with Elvis, I felt that was a good sign.

“I always felt a cosmic connection with him. My weight is always going up and down; I have control issues too. And I love his music. But I was always more of a Buddy Holly fan; he wrote great melodies. We would never have had the Beatles or the Rolling Stones without Buddy Holly; he started me off in music.”

And, just like Ron himself, Buddy Holly wrote his own songs, which Elvis never did, I interject.

“I don’t mind that. People like Elvis, Sinatra and Dusty Springfield didn’t have to write songs to be great,” said Ron. “Some people are just so good they can sing anyone’s songs and do it in their own style.”

Does Ron ever imagine how one of his songs might have sounded recorded by Elvis?

“I’d love to hear Dionne Warwick record one of my songs,” he replied. “Her phrasing is incredible. I was asked once to write a song for her, but I don’t know what ever became of it. It was called ’I Hope You Know What You Are Doing’. It’s on some dusty old cassette tape somewhere.”

Sexsmith also sent several songs on spec to Michael Buble, along with a note highlighting their shared Canadian roots. Buble declined the offers, but eventually made an unsolicited recording of Sexsmith’s ’Whatever It Takes’.

“That was out of the blue,” says Ron. “He called me and played it to me over the phone. For years, I had been sending him crooner songs, then he recorded ’Whatever It Takes’. My version of it was more like a Bill Withers song. I was kind of hoping he might put it out as a single, but he didn’t.orded by other people were written for myself. I haven’t had much luck writing songs for people. I’m not really sure why that is.”

While big league stars like recording Ron’s songs, he is an excellent performer in his own right. He has packed out venues like the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London, where his latest CD, Carousel One, is his 14th album to sell well.

His admirers include Elvis Costello, Elton John, Paul McCartne, Steve Earle and Sheryl Crow. His songs have also been covered by KD Lang, Rod Stewart and Nick Lowe. And yet many of the YouTube interviews you’ll find with him invariably start with people asking him why he’s not more famous.

He generally shrugs it off. In his 2011 hit ’Get In Line’, he imagines a queue of people lining up to tell him where he’s going wrong. In it, he tells someone criticising him to “take a number and wait in line”.

In the in depth ’short sleeve notes’ on his website, Ron explains that the song came from a failed co-writing session in LA with a successful songwriting couple; they tried to put him straight on how the industry had changed and urged him to move with the times.

“It seemed like I was constantly disappointing people and there was this period there where everybody was lining up to tell me what I was doing wrong,” writes Ron. “I figured no one was going to make me feel any worse than I already felt, so I came up with the whole ’get in line’ idea and it made me feel better just by singing it.”

Ron’s visit to Ireland this week is wedged into a vast world tour with dates all over Europe, Australia and Japan from here to the end of November; then there’s a break until February, which itself tells you a lot about the man’s enigmatic world view, with a Christmas break taking precedence over world domination.

He’ll be watching Game Of Thrones, Deadwood and Breaking Bad. He won’t be watching 1970s Canadian series Beachcombers (“that was uniquely Canadian, very slow moving”), which he was surprised to learn was broadcast by RTE back in the day.

But whatever he watches over Christmas, it will probably be on DVD or TV. A globe-trotting star who loves home life, Ron is at once anachronistic and enigmatic. Owner of neither an iPod nor a phone, he is nonetheless a dab hand at tweeting.

“I don’t do Facebook - the record company looks after that - but I got talked into doing Twitter,” says Ron. “I really like Groucho Marx and Jack Benny; I come up with really bad puns, so it’s kind of an outlet for those horrible quips.”

If you’re on Twitter, follow him for a daily giggle. Here are two Ron puns: “Apparently, the Pope is a jack of all trades, and a master of nuns; If I had to choose between the morning and the night, I think I’d choose the morning ... with all dew respect.”

He also thanks Twitter for putting him in direct contact with his heroes, like Paul Williams and Jimmy Webb.

Ron also uploads a video every few days to his ’Acoustic Series’ on YouTube, which now features more than 300 covers of songs by everyone from Nilsson to Dylan. Very ’at home’ intimate, his cover of Warren Zevon’s ’Dirty Life and Times’ is one of many videos featuring someone in the backdrop walking around the room.

There’s also a great vibe to covers like ’I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine’, which Sexsmith would know from the Elvis Presley’s early Sun Records sessions.

Sexsmith keeps himself quite busy between shows. He has enough new songs for album No15, and he is also talking to publishers about his newly completed first novel.

“I wrote it earlier in the year,” he said. “I handed it in to a publisher in Canada and I’m waiting to hear back from them. It’s a fairytale, but it’s not for kids. I think that children might like it. It’s influenced by Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Anderson. I don’t really want to say any more about it because I don’t want to jinx it.”

Ron says he is not deliberately standing apart from his time, no more than he is deliberately writing songs that have a cult following rather than mainstream radio hit status.

“I love Elton John. I want hits, but I’m happy with what I have,” he says succinctly. “I do think it’s a pity some people never got to experience the thrill of queuing up for the release of a new album, but I wouldn’t trade or change the era I was born into.

“If anything, I think I was lucky to arrive on Earth when I did, at a golden era for movies and TV. I do feel a little bit out of step with the digital age, because I still live like I always did, buying books and DVDs. That probably makes me a bit of a Luddite, I suppose.”