The Joy of Sexsmith

Kicking off with the brassy pop of ‘This Song’, Ron Sexsmith’s new album, the Steve Earle produced Blue Boy marks a major departure for the Canadian singer songwriter. For one, it’s the first album he’s done without long time studio associate Mitchell Froom at the controls. And despite the title it contains fewer ballads and more up-tempo numbers than any of his previous records.

“It’s a little rougher and there’s more guitar on it,” he explains. “Steve’s rougher anyway and it rubbed off on me. I also think the record is more freewheeling and not as methodical as my earlier stuff. With Mitchell we’d always have this period where we’re sitting alone in a room, arranging the songs before we recorded them. With Steve all that was done in the studio. It was more spontaneous and off the cuff.”

Sexsmith had known Earle from his early days as a struggling troubadour in his native Canada, as he explains. “I met him first back in 1988 when he wandered into a gig I was doing at the El Mocambo in Toronto He was trying to help me out but he couldn’t even help himself at the time – he was in the middle of a major drug problem. When he got clean he re-emerged and he’s been supportive ever since.”

Though he’s been universally critically acclaimed and feted by the likes of Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney, Sexsmith has yet to make the kind of major breakthrough that would put him in the big league.

“I’m always struggling,” he concedes. “Every record I do is like my first. I’m hoping I can have the same kind of luck that David Gray’s had with his career. The trouble is, his album is very contemporary sounding. I don’t even know how to do that. But I’d like to have a breakthrough by the time I’m 40 where I can stop and just think about what’s happened in the last ten years.”

Things looked up briefly when Rod Stewart recorded a version of Sexsmith’s ballad ‘Secret Heart’ on his last album.

“It didn’t do as well as I had hoped it would,” he says. “Everyone around me was telling me I was going to be rich out of it. I saw some money but not as much as I was led to believe. I had mixed feelings about the way he did it too. I had a feeling that he was reading the lyrics when he was singing. Nick Lowe also does that song and he makes it sound more like an old Buddy Holly classic.”

Meanwhile, Sexsmith’s constant touring has resulted in a heavy personal price and the title of the new album might well serve as a metaphor for his current domestic state.

“My family fell apart last autumn,” he reveals. “It wasn’t entirely because of the touring but that played a big part in it. It’s understandable in a way. You come home after being away for a long while and you’ve had all these experiences that you haven’t shared with each other. A kind of distance gradually comes between you. The problem was, I couldn’t really stop touring. I certainly didn’t want to go back to being a courier again so the family suffered.”