Carl Newman + Ron Sexsmith

Piano Bars and Bing Crosby

CN Hello – where are you?

RS I’m just sitting at home in Toronto. You’re in Vancouver?

CN I kind of moved, unofficially, to San Francisco ’cause my girlfriend lives here. I’m just sittin’ out on the porch.

RS Oh, that’s awesome. I love that town. Do you go to Lefty O’Doul’s? It’s kind of a piano bar.

CN Oh yeah?

RS There’s this woman named Madeleine. She plays the piano and all these old characters hang around, passing the mic around and singing songs. I’m practically a regular there. When I show up it’s like, “The kid is back in town.”

CN Anybody can go in there and sing a song?

RS Yeah, she gives everyone a turn. The times I’ve been, there’s always some old guy that comes there and just blows me away.

CN So, what songs do you do?

RS Well, my favourite singer in the world is Bing Crosby, so I usually do his songs.

CN I wouldn’t have picked Crosby as being one of your favourites, but it totally makes sense.

RS Well, I think if you hear me on a lot of my records, I’m trying to sing like him, sort of the kind of crooning that he did.

CN You know who you really remind me of – in a really good way because I’m a really big fan of his – is Tim Hardin.

RS Early on, when I first signed a publishing deal, my publisher signed me because he was a big Tim Hardin fan and he thought I sounded like him. He sent me The Best of Tim Hardin and I became a fan, after the fact. Hardin was a lot jazzier than me and a lot bluesier. Pop music was my roots, and I got into all that kind of stuff later. There were all those, you know, tragic songwriters. I’m hoping I don’t become one of them. Kurt Swinghammer has turned me on to other people, like Nick Drake, that I didn’t know existed but have been compared to.

CN From reading about Hardin, he seemed like that classic singer-songwriter who wooed people with his beautiful music, but I think he might have been kind of a dick in real life. Do you think there’s any real disconnect between the person that people think you are and who you really are?

RS It’s easier to be a good human being in music than it is in real life sometimes, you know.

CN Oh yeah, exactly, you can be the victim or the hero.

RS I’ve been watching these Classic Albums DVDs, and you hear all sorts of stories about the conflicts going on in the studio. John Lennon was notorious for having a temper, but he was also known for his peace stance. Everybody is a bit complex that way.

CN When you’re making a record, do you think you’re a control freak?

RS When I listen to my records, sometimes I wish I were more in control because I hear so many things, especially on my early records, that bother me. Not so much the songs, but some of the vocal performances.

CN Yeah, I feel that constantly.

RS You do too?

CN Yeah, I have a hard time listening to my records because I dissect them and I hear the tiniest flaws that nobody else would hear. I listen to it and I think, “Man, I am the worst singer and I can’t play guitar.”

RS You sound great on all the [New Pornographers] records, and I love the solo one [The Slow Wonder] as well. But we tend to obsess about a lot of those things. For the first few albums I was so intimidated, I was afraid to have an opinion about anything.

CN I really learned that through the years. I decided with New Pornographers that I was going to make records the way I wanted them to sound. I didn’t care what people said. If I failed, then I failed, but at least I tried.

RS Sometimes I’m listening to a record and I think, “Wow, the drums sound really good!” But oftentimes I’m just zeroing in on the song. My hero is Gordon Lightfoot, and I just kind of bypass the production because I love his voice and the songs.

CN Sometimes I find it maddening when somebody’s obsessing over some tiny detail in the studio when what matters is, is the song good?

RS At least for me, I’m trying to get something that sounds like people actually playing music. Think about all the great English bands from the 1960s and ’70s. You could tell Keith Moon from Ginger Baker. The guitarists from that period were amazing, like Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page. Somewhere along the line, it became really lazy in terms of musicianship.

CN Musicianship becomes lazy, I think, as this DIY esthetic grows.