He arrived from Canada a decade ago, fully-formed with an eponymously-titled debut album that drew praise from the likes of Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart, who later recorded one of his songs.
Since then, progress has been steady rather than spectacular. Despite releasing one critically acclaimed album after another Ron Sexsmith has earned the dubious distinction of being the best-known nearly man of the singer-songwriter brigade.
“Sometimes I think I’m gonna be a late bloomer like Lucinda Williams,” he says, sipping a pint of Guinness in a Camden Street pub. “I’m hoping that suddenly the kids will think, ‘Hey that old guy is really cool’. It’s happened to a lot of other people - Johnny Cash is still the coolest guy around but in the ‘70s and ‘80s he went through a bad patch. Even Dylan wasn’t cool for a long time.”
Sexsmith appears resigned to the fact that he will always be something of an underdog in the fame stakes.
“Sometimes people ask me, ‘Why do you think you’re not more famous?’ But I’m actually pretty happy with the fame, or lack of fame that I have right now. I don’t know what it is about people who think I should be filling stadiums. I filled the Olympia [in Dublin] and that’s my dream gig. Recently in Toronto I filled Massey Hall – which is our Royal Albert Hall. It’s been my dream to play there ever since I was a kid. So at 42 years of age I finally did it and it was unbelievable.”
Whatever about his sales figures he has certainly been prolific, releasing an album every year since his 1996 debut.
“I always felt it was a race against time,” he proffers. “I was already old when I got signed – I was like 30 so I wanted to have a body of work in place. I’m kind of amazed that I have so many records out in a relatively short space of time. I wouldn’t want to be starting out now. I’m glad I got in the door when I did and was able to build a fan-base.”
His eighth studio album Time Being sees him reunited with producer Mitchell Froom who helmed his first couple of albums. The songs are among his strongest and most accessible to date and he admits to adapting his songwriting approach to more mainstream tastes.
“Coldplay kind of created a monster,” he notes. “There are so many bands these days where the singer has a high voice and everything’s pretty. I toured with them a few years ago and I think they had a kind of influence on my last record. I’d be watching them every night and they always had these grandiose choruses. It shone a light on all my records. I was thinking I don’t have any choruses. So that last album had choruses!”