“They thought I would be all excited. I was honored Lanois liked my stuff. But I kind of got pushed on him and vice-versa. They said, ‘Just do it, and if you don’t like it, that will be the end of it.'”
Lanois and Sexsmith retired to rural Quebec and cut demos that energized the label’s enthusiasm. “Of course, when the label heard [the demos], they wanted me to scrap my whole record and start again with Daniel. It became this real nightmare for me. I had to keep saying no, and I became known as The Guy Who Says No All The Time. Everybody’s noses were out of joint. It was so frustrating. All I wanted was for my record to come out.”
The stalemate lasted a year before they agreed to compromise. Lanois (whose photos of Sexsmith adorn the CD jacket) produced an alternate version of “There’s A Rhythm”, which was tacked onto the end of the record, but the collaboration with Froom and Blake remained intact.
Then something strange happened. A year-end record-roundup issue of British magazine Q featured Elvis Costello on the cover, holding a copy of Sexsmith’s record; inside, Costello proclaimed it to be his favorite album of the year. (“I’ve been playing it all year, and I could listen to it for another 20. It is a modest, elegant gem,” Costello was quoted as saying.) Critics got into the act, too, and Rod Stewart even covered “Secret Heart”, the disc’s opening track.
“It was unexpected. It gave me a leg to stand on. Until Elvis started speaking about it, it seemed the only people in the world who liked it were me and Mitchell. When Elvis started coming on so strong, the label had to step back for a second. Once it got into the hands of the press, then I just felt kind of vindicated. Maybe now some of those people say they liked the record, but I still don’t know whether they do.”
As is often the case, however, critical acclaim didn’t translate into significant sales. Sexsmith’s impression is that the label still doesn’t believe Froom and Blake are the right producers for him; nevertheless, he’s stuck with them for all three of his albums so far.
“They think we’re not capable of making radio-friendly records,” Sexsmith says. “We have tried. I am a pop writer. Every song I write, in my head, sounds like a hit, but I haven’t had any. So they would like to see me work with somebody else. Maybe I will next time. But I never planned to make three albums with Mitchell. We just became really good friends. I trust him.
“For them, it is a business and they are interested in selling units. That’s what they get excited about. There are great people [at the label] that are interested in music. They like having me around, and maybe they like my stuff. But I think they would be a lot happier if I was making more conventional recordings, something that sold more.
“I was very surprised they didn’t drop me.”
Perhaps Sexsmith’s best shot at a hit came on his sophomore disc, Other Songs, with the track “Nothing Good” — an irresistible mix of Byrdsy chime, buoyant Beatles bass and a chorus as indelible as a tattoo, camouflaging a deeply pessimistic message. In hindsight, Sexsmith thinks the version on the album isn’t as good as it sounds onstage some nights backed by his touring rhythm section (bassist Tim Vesely and drummer Don Kerr, drafted from Canadian rockers the Rheostatics). “We really went for that one, tried to make ‘Nothing Good’ as much as we could into a single. It is really catchy, but think about the public going around singing, ‘Nothing good can come from this,'” he shrugs.
In one of the more surreal turns of his career, Sexsmith was in the audience at the Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammys), and when grunge-rockers Our Lady Peace canceled, he was pulled from the tuxedoed crowd, handed a guitar and shoved in front of the camera. “I’m pretty cynical about awards shows. I’m up there looking out and singing, ‘Nothing good could ever come from this.’ It just seemed ludicrous. It just seemed kind of odd for me to be up there singing it.”
An unusual juxtaposition, to be sure, but one that perhaps sheds light on the deeper conflict at hand. In a time when subtlety and empathy are increasingly of little value in the musical marketplace, Sexsmith’s work brims with both. As such, it’s understandable he would have a rough time having a hit song.
“I don’t know if it is a Canadian thing, but I always find I am not very judgmental. You would think there should be this right and wrong stance about it, but sometimes I don’t see it that way. It seems like I am able to see all sides at once,” he wonders aloud. “Like, if some guy gets drunk and drives his car and hits somebody, I always find myself feeling sorry for the driver. Imagine the horror of that, the hell of knowing you have done that.”
Sounds like a great idea for a song.
Paul Cantin is a reporter with The Toronto Sun. When he was growing up in Winnipeg, the only 8-track tapes in his dad’s GTO were Johnny Cash At San Quentin and Don Rickles Live In Las Vegas.
