INTERVIEW: Fred Eaglesmith - 2006

This is a transcript of an interview I did with Fred Eaglesmith in the summer of 2006. I've been moving and relocating it seems since that time and its just now that I've gotten around to transcribing it.

Laurie – I caught your show the other night.

Fred – Oh, right on!

Laurie – It was great.

Fred – Oh, thank you. We were a pretty beat up and tired old band at that point.

Laurie – Well I tell you what, I always think that a true mark of a great entertainer is that they play to a full house no matter how many seats are empty.

Fred – Well I've seen a lot of empty seats in the house before. I've had a lot of practice. (laughs)

Laurie – Well it was great, very intimate. I like that.

Fred – Well thank you very much.

Laurie – Now I took my son, and he's fourteen and he was totally impressed.

Fred – Oh good! The kids like me they but they just…

Laurie – I think they just recognize another kid at heart I think.

Fred – When they come out to my shows they like me but trying to get them to

come out to my shows they're like "I don't want to go and see that old guy" But when they do they totally get it…

Laurie – Well my son loves Johnny Cash and Big Dave McLean so he's got eclectic taste so you just fell right in there. He's now a Fred-Head. And he got all your jokes. (Fred laughs) He turned to me at the end of the night and said "Oh Mom, not only is he a great singer but he's a great comedian!  He's so multitalented."

Fred – (laughs) That's very nice.

Laurie – Let's talk first about Canadian audiences' verses other places that you play. Is it harder in Canada for you as a Canadian? Do you find that?

Fred – It's not as bad as it was. The music that I play is much more accepted in America. Do you know what I mean? Americans recognize and not necessarily country music. I go to a lot of places in Canada and they go "I don't like country music" and they think I'm a country musician. When I am a country musician but not a country musician like they think of.

Laurie – Right, more Americana, but in a Canadian kind of way.

Fred – Right but Americana, I'm surprised you even know that word, usually Canadians don't know that word…

Laurie – Well I'm moving to Texas in June so I have to be familiar with it…

Fred – Are you really?

Laurie – Yes!

Fred – Where are you going to move to?

Laurie – Austin, of course. Is there any other place in Texas? One of the reasons I'm moving down there is because in terms of the business that I'm in you have more legitimacy down there.

Fred – Oh yeah! That's where it happened for me. That's where it first came together for me. I made me career in Nashville and Texas. Even if you tell a Canadian about Texas all they think about is guns. You can't tell them about how much culture is there. I have to work very hard at that.

Laurie – I am just so impressed with the way it makes music part of their lives…

Fred – They love the music there, they love their culture. They're the whole deal…

Laurie – There's no pride in Canadian roots music it seems.

Fred – Well to be fair, I have had some pride. People have been very good to me. I can remember being very young in my career and being interviewed by CBC and they would say he's a farce, I've had a lot of that in my life and I've had a lot of Canadians latch on to me and say 'You know what? Fred Eaglesmith is ours' and that has been a very nice thing. In a small way of course, not in a big way, right?

Laurie – You've done that by just being yourself though right? You just do what you do…

Fred – You know Americana music, because that's what they 'call' it now. I was playing this kind of music before there was Americana music. This was the only music I knew how to play, I don't know why I knew how to play it – partially because I was raised on a farm and I listened to Hank Snow and Wilf Carter and Johnny Cash and Tammy Wynette when I was in Canada and I started my trade in bluegrass til I found this place in the middle of it all that they later defined as Americana music and you know the thing was that when I went to Texas they would so 'Oh no, this is our music are you sure you're not from Texas?" I heard that all the time but in Canada for many years they said 'This music doesn't exist, what are you trying to do?"  Especially because it had no Acadian roots, no Celtic roots…they just didn't understand it.

Laurie – And they're getting better at it now?

Fred – Of course now every little kid's got a cowboy hat and a pair of sideburns, don't they? Now Canada is emulating this music but unfortunately it's already moving on from what they're emulating – that was sort of the rockabilly thing that was going on in the 90's, you know what I mean?

Laurie – Yeah, I do.

Fred – The whole rockabilly thing, there was a big country band at time, but they're already gone. Canada's really three or four years behind.

Laurie – So they're just riding on the coattails…?

Fred – Yeah and I'm not so sure they're liking it, as much as their emulating it.

Laurie – So it's just a cool thing?

Fred – Yeah, especially in the major centers and that's never good for guys like me. It'll go away in about three years.

Laurie – And then what will Fred Eaglesmith do? Just keep on doing what you're doing I hope…

Fred – Well I did this before it was cool and so when I get uncool again….I've been uncool many times….I've been uncool a lot longer than I've been cool….I just need to be cool for six months at a time….(laughs) and then it goes away and it goes back to disco (laughs)

Laurie – Heaven forbid.

Fred – (laughs) That's what happened in the eighties. All through the eighties I was playing this music, can you imagine and now its very much like the disco era again all this dancing, and really that's the craze and this industry is money oriented so when it goes away, they usually when it does we have good decades, I'm hoping that the next decade will be really good or something else you know. The nineties were great, Kurt came along and swept up the metal right?

Laurie – So without Texas there would be no Fred Eaglesmith in Canada?

Fred – Well without Nashville there would be no Fred Eaglesmith in Canada. I really got discovered in the underground of Nashville, that's what really happened to me.  I went to Nashville and believe me, when I got there I was offered all these deals that made no sense looking back. I don't know why they offered them to me. It wasn't to be as much a commercial country artist it was 'we think you're a great songwriter and we want to participate in this' so in a really cool way and they invested a lot of money.

Laurie – And it paid off…

Fred – Yeah, and what they did, we had no gigs in America. I had this old 1958 bus and we got in this bus and did a radio tour in Texas that's how we started. We didn't even have a gig, their publicist would call up twenty four hours before and say 'I have this young band from Canada and they're driving around in an old bus, can they come play at your station?'

Laurie – So when did Canada catch on to you then?

Fred – Canada caught on as soon as I came back to Nashville.

Laurie – It took making your name elsewhere to get recognized in Canada?

Fred – Yeah.

Laurie – Basically everything Stompin' Tom hates you know?

Fred – Yeah. And that's what happened to me and I came back and then sort of they – I remember getting letters that I had 'sold out' to Nashville for the record I'd won a Juno for, the Drive in Movie record, and it was "so" not commercial but that's where it started and slowly it got better and better and it did until the last three years and then it got weird again.

Laurie – So they thought you were selling out commercially just because it was made in Nashville?

Fred – Yeah, if it was made in Nashville then I must have been selling out but the truth be known, the music that I play really doesn't sell to hipsters anyway, it was normal everyday people who finally heard it and went 'you know what, I don't know what kind of music this is, I don't even listen to music, but I like 'this guy'. I have so many people who aren't hipsters you mean, they just come to my show. They tell me I've only been to one show and that's Fred Eaglesmith and that's all I go to.

Laurie – And that's cool.

Fred – Yeah and its really great, and that's where you're really not part of any scene.

Laurie – Not a part of any big movement or anything like that…

Fred – Yeah, and there's no buzz we really don't the words buzz and movements, we do things we're not allowed to do. We don't Soundscan we don't do any of that kind of stuff because that's not what music is.

Laurie – So what really matters to you is the interaction you get every night while you're on the road – between you and the audience.

Fred – Me and your fourteen year old son who comes in and has a blank slate to go on and says I'm just going to listen to this because I like it, not because somebody told me to. That's way far away from cool, you know? So that's what matters to me is that I catch somebody. I was in Coleman (Alberta) the other night and it was so great because they were just from the woods you know. They didn't know who I was, danced their heads off and listened to the music – that's what matters.

Laurie – Do you find that you still have to…..I remember reading a little while ago there was a big to-do, and I can't even really remember the guy's name, and that shows how important he is, but he had made a comment about you, around your authenticity…

Fred – There is a buzz out there, it's very small and underground. You know when you become successful there is always people, especially other musicians, that are going to be very jealous of you and there is a little thing out there about that I'm not 'authentic'. Great, I'm not.(laughs)

Laurie – I thought it was kind of funny because I was born in southern Ontario and you know and people tell me I've got an accent and I don't know – when you deal with people you pick up a little here and there.

Fred – I generally started out in southern Ontario and I have a southern Ontario accent and I moved on. I went to the States. I had been in the States for almost 15 years. People everywhere I go, everywhere, tell me I have an accent. It's a different accent and do I put it on? You're darn right I do. I grew up watching HeeHaw and do I put on the dog and do I say dog with a 'w' yes I do and those guys that don't get that that's part of the show the jokes on them. Do you know what I mean?

Laurie – Yeah, your authenticity is the sum of your entire life experience, just like your music is, so you shouldn't have to justify that to anybody anyway.

Fred – Yeah, and I don't justify. You know what happens, you miss an interview somewhere and the disc jockey takes offence. You miss one and it happens to me all the time, and so if you and I weren't connecting over this afternoon you could have taken that and said 'Well he's a real jerk.' (laughs) This is what happens and the next thing you know they start a little movement and its really there own insecurities. You know what I mean?

Laurie – Yes, as soon as I heard that comment I thought 'That guy has his own agenda'

Fred – The interesting thing is that there are reporters that have followed me around for years and years, since I was a kid, they started with me…and they know. They say I interviewed him when he was eighteen years old and they know what I've done and who I've been. There have been no secrets, my whole life has been put out there in the open.

Laurie – I noticed that right away when this comment came up people jumped up to your defense immediately there was no one that said that the other guy was right so that in itself says a lot about the connections you've made throughout the years too.

Fred – Yes, and you know, do I put on the dog? Do I fake it to put on a show? You're darn right I do. Do I want people to go home feeling like something happened to them? Yes I do.

Laurie – Yes, you know I interviewed Hank III a little bit ago and I said to him "Do you ever get that people have misconceptions about you because you really don't sound like any of the press that I've read." and he said "I sure hope so, because I work awful hard at it!"

Fred --- (laughs) Have you heard of my friend Washboard Hank?

Laurie – Yes I have.

Fred – He's fabulous. You should follow Washboard Hank for what you do, you'd love him. And it's the same thing he can put on the dog like no one else and it's a show and that's what we do. A lot of this comes from the preciousness of folk music. Those little folk musicians go around and their staring at their navels and their fakeness is just as fake as mine.

Laurie – But the music remains authentic. When I watched your show the other night I left thinking I knew who Fred Eaglesmith was despite the jokes and everything else, there was that connection.

Fred – And you do and that's what it is. And my biggest thing is that I'm not going to lie to my fans, and sometimes that costs me dearly, but I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to.

Laurie – And you also do really well in Australia.

Fred – Yes, I do really well in Australia. I haven't been over there in about a year but things are good for me there. I have a good connection there.

Laurie – It was Ms. Audrey's version of Alcohol and Pills that I first heard. She does a killer job on that.

Fred – Right on. Do you know Kasey?

Laurie – Yes. 

Fred – Kasey has recorded two of my songs on a huge album over there in Australia.

Laurie – Great. They've got a huge roots thing going on down there too, but they suffer just like everyone else does. They have that mainstream stuff happening down there too.

Fred – They have terrible mainstream but underneath that they have some of the best country music in the world.

Laurie – Bill Chambers

Fred – Yes, Bill of course. You know when you go to a club in Australia you feel like you are in the 1950's. It's so good.

Laurie – You said – you made a comment the other night about small dreams. So is this it? Are you living your dream now? Small town to small town…

Fred – This is totally my dream. This has been my dream since I started. I just wanted to perform, I wanted to pull into a parking lot to do a show and the parking lot was full. You know almost everywhere I go the parking lot is full. My dream was never to have a stadium full, I don't like stadiums, I don't like playing them. I played for seven thousand, I did a show with the Cowboy Junkies once, with seven thousand people and I wasn't good there…

Laurie --- Because you lose that connection?

Fred – (hums and haws) I just don't believe in it. I mean I can do it now, if I get booked for a country music festival and I know how to play to those big crowds, but boy what a fun time we have in those little halls.  Some of those little halls, we're the only ones who are playing them. Sometimes we play in halls that don't have any other music ever. They reopen the hall and dust it off and we go play the show you know and my goodness, if that isn't fabulous. And when we get there and I am so surprised every night that the parking lot is full and I'm so thankful, so blessed. I use the word bless all the time. Blessed is a wonderful word – it means you are being taken care of and that's what I always feel like, so taken care of. And you know its hard for me, it's a hard life and I don't mean hard in a poor, poor me, but I mean by the time I left that Cranbrook show the other night none of us knew who we were, we were just spent - 2500 miles on a six week tour. It was the last week of a six week tour and we were just delirious.

Laurie – How many shows do you do a year?

Fred – Between 2 and 300.

Laurie – That's a lot!

Fred – We keep out there. We've been out there for many, many years.

Laurie – You are at the point where you don't have to be out there that many dates….

Fred – I don't have to, I could find another stream of income I'm sure that I could live without touring…maybe.

Laurie – But its part of you, its what you do…

Fred – It's what I do. Those cd sales that we have every night, that's a huge part of our business. It's our cash flow. I have ten people to support, you know. The staff, a payroll every week, and bookkeepers and publicists and my manager and the maintenance guy, I have to keep it going on.

Laurie – One of the things that I run across all the time with what I do is that I have such a hard time mixing art with business. Do you find that?

Fred – No I'm really good at it. I decided many years ago that I was going to be really good at business so that I wouldn't have to think about it as much. I have to struggle, as an artist you're never there, you know what I mean?

Laurie – Sure, if you're 'there' then you're dead.

Fred – (laughs) Exactly, as an artist you're never there but as a business person you can be there. So I run a really, good, tight ship.

Laurie – And that allows you the creative freedom to do what it is that the business is built around

Fred – Right I don't wake up in the morning worrying about my business. When I go to a motel room and I throw down a credit card I don't have to worry whether its going to bounce or not. I don't have to worry about whether my line of credit is good. We're ahead of the curve all the time in the business so I have surrounded myself with really, really top notch business people.  I have meetings with huge business people and they sit and talk to me about my business because they love it so much. They love the model of my little business.

Laurie – I heard Kori was your merchandise person before she was your drummer.

Fred – Yes, she started out just as a merchandise girl and then when we needed a drummer and she wanted to play. (laughs)

Laurie – Everyone always needs a drummer it seems

Fred – And it's great, she wanted to play the drums but she never wanted to be a drummer. So we don't have that stigma. When Luke joined the band he didn't play the bass and ironically when Willie joined the band he didn't play the mandolin. All of them learned their instruments in my band which makes it a very unique.

Laurie – I really noticed that the instrumentation is just so unique, you take those basic elements and instruments you've got on stage but the music and the way it all came together was just very unique. I noticed that right off

Fred – Yes, the thing is that these days I don't want to be another Americana band or a rockabilly band. I don't want that. I'm much more about putting on a show and it has to be a dynamic show and that instrumentation allows it to gets so quiet at times and at other times get so loud.

Laurie – I wanted to ask you about your creative energy. I wanted to ask you about your paintings that I saw online. I went through all of them actually and I loved them! So when did you start that?

Fred – Three years ago I was commissioned to do an art show in a gallery and I wasn't an official artist. I had done a little craft work but it was my hometown and they asked me to and I said sure. They gave me two years to do it. I never thought about it and a year later I'm 'Oh my God, I have one year to do a presentation in an art gallery!"

Laurie – Why would they ask you to do a presentation in an art gallery if you weren't an artist or known as an artist?
 

Fred – I think because I'm Fred Eaglesmith and they thought it would be funny. (laughs) Its really a good idea. Its sort of like taking an artist and stretching it and then I went and bought some oils and paint and started painting on these canvases and I hated them. And I hung them up and I thought these aren't good enough and I hung them up in my studio where I live and people came and they tried to buy them off of me. And I said don't and I was throwing them out and people were taking them out of the garbage and putting them back on the wall and I painted 65 that year and I sold 55 at the show and I couldn't believe it! And I'm going "Really?" and people were telling me how much they loved them and I could tell that some where there because I'm Fred Eaglesmith but lots of them were just….people buy now them from all over the world. There are orders for them, I talk to art galleries and the University of Texas Art professor is one of my best friends and he tells me all the time about it, you know about my art and…

Laurie – And you don't see that? You sound like its incredible to you that people like them.

Fred – You have to remember I'm almost 50 years old I've painted 110 paintings in my life and they're almost all sold. That's a little incredible. I have art people who are very mad at me. I meet their mothers (laughs) and they say my poor kid has been struggling all their life. (laughs) There are some people who don't get it but generally it has been very accepted.

Laurie – They are so powerful. There's such an energy in them, I think that's what I like about them, just like the music I guess.

Fred – It's so great for me because I get to do something else.

Laurie – It's a very personal thing I would imagine as opposed to your music which is a shared kind of thing.

Fred – It's different because when you write a song you have to present it. When you paint a picture you don't you have to do that. It's done, I don't have to do anymore work.

Laurie – It's wonderful, everything that I've run across that you've done has been wonderful

Fred – Aw, well thank you very much.

Laurie – So I wish you all the best and thank you for spending some time with me today and I hope the rest of your time on the road goes well for you and get home and get some rest.

Fred – Thanks so much. I loved meeting you the other night and I enjoyed our talk.