Ron's Raves

Since coming to prominence in the mid 90s, Ron Sexsmith has won over an ever-increasing number of fans, with his idiosyncratic brand of laidback acoustic music.
On the phone from Seattle ( the US is still the most difficult market for me, he confides), Sexsmith gave us his lowdown on the songwriters who he considers to be either seminal, or a particular influence on him. And first in line is . . .

GORDON LIGHTFOOT
I guess he's really my favourite. When I'm sitting around at home or in a hotel room, playing my guitar, I'm generally playing his songs. I could do a whole tribute album today, without even rehearsing. He never made records that were cool in the way that Dylan's were cool or whatever. He's always been very kinda square.
I heard Gordon all my life. Coming from Canada he's like the Voice of God or something (laughs). Growing up, he was everywhere. Maybe it's a uniquely Canadian thing it's probably quite similar to the way Christy Moore is in Ireland.
It seemed that Leonard Cohen and he were able to write these songs that they could sing over time without feeling embarrassed or anything. Their music was never really based on being young, on jumping up and down or screaming. So I just thought for my own self-preservation it would be good if I could write songs like that because, you know, I want to sing for a long time.

LEONARD COHEN
When I was at high school I saw a documentary on Leonard Cohen, and I'd never heard of him before, so I went to the library and took out one of his records I just remember not getting it at all.
But years later I was living in Quebec and I saw the Best Of Leonard Cohen. It was in a bargain bin and I thought I should give it another chance.This time I got it right away, and it wasn't that long after that that I wrote 'Sleep With Angels' which was very Leonard-influenced. In Montreal, I saw him playing 'Heart With No Companion' for the first time, which almost became my theme song. It really connected with me. I used to get up every morning and sing that song, just for myself.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
I love Springsteen. I have my favourite period. I love The River, Darkness On The Edge Of Town . . . But I'm always curious to hear what he's doing. There's not too many writers who have reached his heights that I'm a big fan off, unless it's Dylan or Elvis Costello. But he's never really lost any of his credibility. He's very focussed on what it is that made him good in the first place. I do tons of his songs. I do 'Growin' Up', 'Dancing In the Dark', 'My Hometown', 'Badlands', 'The Factory', 'Promised Land' . . .

ABBA
I bought my daughter Abba Gold because I'm always trying to turn her on to things I think she might like.
We do a cover of 'Knowing Me, Knowing You'. I always liked the song, but I'd never zeroed in so much on the lyrics. I thought they were really sad. Most people would approach an Abba song with this really ironic leaning,
and I just wanted to try to play it like it was one of my songs.

BRIAN WILSON
A lot of his stuff is really sad. I came late to The Beach Boys. I was doing interviews for my first record and this journalist was going, 'You must have listened to Pet Sounds a hundred times', and I was going 'Actually, I've never heard that album'. Everybody was telling me about the record and it was driving me up the wall, so eventually I went and bought it and I was really happy to hear that it was as good as everyone had said. 'Ordinary Joe' was written as a kinda Country yodelling song, but then it turned into a kind of Beach Boys thing in the studio.

KYP HARNESS (WHO ???)
When I first moved to Toronto I started hanging around the songwriter scene. There was an open spot night on Wednesday nights in the basement of this Church, but you saw some really amazing talent . . . and you also saw people who were just totally out of their mind, but even they were great.
Those guys influenced me just as much as anybody, and probably even more so because I hung out with them. They wouldn't be known to the rest of the world, but Kyp Harness I remember thinking I was pretty good until I heard him (laughs).
Kyp's put out a bunch of independent stuff. Some people say that he can't sing or whatever, but they say that about everybody, and they say it about me all the time, too.

AND FINALLY . . .
I really like Beth Orton. Rufus Wainwright is really good. Elliott Smith is good. I always loved Beck. And Wilco. They are a real band. You feel like they're having a lot of fun together.
I don't know what kind of common ground we have, but there seems to be a commitment to 'old school' songwriting or whatever, whereas a lot of other music seems to be more to do with attitude. In the 80s I was trying to get a record deal and I was just hitting a brick wall every time. It took until the 90s before all of a sudden everything opened up. It was just as well it turned out that way. . .
Ron Sexsmith s new album Whereabouts is out now on Interscope Records. He plays Dublin s HQ on July 8th and 9th.