Americana UK recently caught up with master songwriter Ron Sexsmith – admittedly only after the dark clouds of technical hitches had lifted to reveal the blue skies of a clear line to Canada (thanks in large part to Ron’s wife, fellow musician and in this case, technical advisor, Colleen Hixenbaugh). With his latest brilliant album “Hangover Terrace” due out on August 28th, Ron talked about the joys and trials of making records, how low-level marital bickering can lead to new musical directions, the problems with inadvertent Bing Crosby impersonations, and being surprised in Marks and Spencer!
Thank you so much for talking to us at Americana UK, and congratulations on another fantastic album. How did the name “Hangover Terrace” come about?
It was just something my drummer said as a joke. We were on our way to the London Palladium, and we passed a building called Hanover Terrace. I had a few album titles in mind, and when he said that, I said, OK, that’s the title, that works for me. I had two or three potential titles, but I’m always trying to find something that doesn’t single out a particular song, that captures the mood of it somehow.
So if it’s capturing the mood, maybe “Hangover Terrace” doesn’t seem such a positive mood?
Well, some of it is quite positive and nostalgic. But definitely there’s a feeling, a collective hangover that a lot of people, myself included, have gone through, since the pandemic and then the Trump era, and all this stuff. You know, a lot of people are still recovering from that. Nerves are raw. In my own life, I’ve had a few fallings out with friends and all that. It helped inspire some of the songs.
Yes, and that seems quite specific on a song like ‘Outside Looking In’ which opens with the line “Some friends should come with an expiry date”…
That was very raw. I wrote the lyrics to that, not in a rage, but in a feeling of hurt, you know. Sometimes you write stuff and you don’t know if you can sing it; it’s too close to the bone. But I was really trying to just be as naked as I can, because it’s cathartic. The benefit of being a songwriter, I can put it down in a song, and then move on from that, and feel something else.
Yeah, I get it. Your songs always feel like they come from a personal place, and yet they can also apply for the person listening as well. And I think that’s an example, ‘cos I think most people have people in their lives, and they think, I could do with losing them, but there isn’t really a mechanism for breaking up with friends the way that people break up with lovers or partners.
That’s the trick with songwriting – at least for me. They’re all coming from personal experience for the most part, but you want them to be universal, so you have to pull back and remove yourself a little bit from it lyrically, so people aren’t scratching their heads wondering what you’re singing about. You don’t really know how a song is going to resonate with someone, but I want to be able to communicate openly.
On the same subject, the song ‘Damn Well Please’, that feels like an unusual lyric for a Ron Sexsmith song (sample lyric: I can say whatever I damn will please / ain’t gonna tread light on tip-toes)
Well, that’s because I wrote that for a musical. In the musical, it was supposed to be sung by the villain. You know, in the musical “Oliver,” Oliver Reed’s character (Bill Sikes) doesn’t sing, and that’s a good thing, because it would take away from the threatening element of him. So, I decided I didn’t want my villain character to sing either. I just had this song, and I didn’t know what to do with it, but I liked singing it. So, it was years later, just last year or so, I thought I’d refashion the lyrics to be more about.. you know, sometimes my wife and I will bicker about my drinking or something, and I’ll get on my high horse, like I’m 60 years old. Anyway, we’ve played it live, and it really seems to go over well; people seem empowered by it almost. It’s a lot of fun to sing, and I feel in the culture at large, there’s a lot of tip-toeing around, people afraid to say what they really feel for fear of a backlash. I just got tired of that. People should be their authentic self. But you’re right, it is an unusual lyric for me.
Looked at from another angle, it could seem like a kind of MAGA feel, like a lack of empathy or something…
Yeah, well, that’s the danger. That was sort of a delicate tight rope act with that one. But it’s definitely not that!
And working through the songs.. the first single out was ‘Cigarette and Cocktail’… it’s a quirky little song but a great earworm …
Yeah, every now and then I’ll write a song that’s in that vein, it’s a kind of French front porch picking song. With the lyric, I think a lot of people of a certain age can relate to it; it’s nostalgic. Again, like ‘Damn Well Please’, it feels like it comes from a time when people didn’t care so much; they were more free-range. I remember as a kid being at these parties, so intrigued by what the adults were talking about, and the room was full of smoke, and you’d hear adult laughter, and it really appealed to me, whatever they were doing.
So, a slightly more serious song in a way, is ‘Camelot Towers.’ It feels a more specifically political song for you? (sample lyric: That’s a soulless piece of stone /and you just can’t escape it)
I think it’s everywhere, but we have a housing crisis here (in Canada), especially affordable housing in cities like Toronto. I grew up in low-income housing in St Catherine’s. Every now and then, they’d build some kind of high-rise apartment. It looked good at first, but would quickly become an eyesore. They’d usually give them these grandiose names, as a selling point or something. But it is also a slightly humorous song, an older song I’ve had kicking around for a while, but I’d not really found a home for it.
I can see how it fits the ethos of this album. In a way. Britain has a very similar issue with housing, too, I’m sure lots of other countries do, too. I was googling Stratford, Ontario (where Ron lives), and I could see there’s some beautiful old buildings there. They used to build them to last, and they’re still beautiful. But these new buildings, they feel like, in ten or fifteen years, it just becomes miserable to live in…
My son lived in one for a while. I’d go to visit, you’d smell everyone’s cooking, you’d hear everyone’s fights… I mean, like I say in the song, “Everyone needs a home and life’s what you make it.” It’s a social commentary, but I’m not exactly sure what the commentary is! But I mean, I’m glad to have found a home for that song.
One last thing about “Hangover Terrace.” The song ‘Angel on My Shoulder’ … it’s just a beautiful song.
Thank you. It was actually the last song I wrote for the album. A lot of albums, I end with a song like that… I’m really proud of that one. It comes, like a lot of the songs, from feeling a little bit … wounded, you know? Like … God knows your heart. It felt very naked, the lyrics, but like a lot of these songs, it felt really cathartic to sing it and record it.
Similarly.. the last song on the album “Must Be Something Wrong With Her” … it’s so delicate again (Sample lyric – “Must be something wrong with her eyes / she says I’m lovely / though the mirror says otherwise”), but as a long time listener, I was like “Ron, we all love you! You’re wonderful as you are”, you know?
Well, I am a very insecure person, and being able to reveal that in a song, without being claustrophobic, I think, that’s the balancing act. But that song, it’s a love song essentially. I’ve written many love songs, but you always want to come at it from a different angle. A lot of it just happens naturally from where you are in your life.
One thing I’ve noticed from your records… you are a very personal, a very emotional songwriter anyway, but the final track on your albums is often particularly vulnerable, you particularly seem to put yourself out there. I don’t know if that’s just by happenstance, or just the way the songs fit together or what?
Yeah, the sequencing of any album is so important; it’s like a movie or a book. I learned how to do it from working with Mitchell Froom early on. The first song and the last song are really important. Even though people listen to things by random shuffle these days, I still … I’m an album artist through and through. But ‘Must Be Something Wrong With Her’, the picking style and stuff, I think it’s something if you are a fan of me, you want to hear from me, that kind of front porch picking. And also, it’s a song of appreciation to Colleen (Hixenbaugh, Ron’s wife and a musician and songwriter in her own right), you know, and I’ve written many of those too. But I think back on some of my other last songs, like ‘Seem To Recall’ was similar (from ‘Whereabouts’) … though at the time, Mitchell didn’t like that song, he didn’t want to do it. So I’d kind of given up on it until the last day of recording in New York City. He could tell it meant something to me, so he said ok, we’re finished early, so let’s have a go at recording it, see how it goes. Then I think he finally got it, why I liked it and why it meant so much to me. I think that’s the reason, too, why I didn’t want to put ‘Angel on My Shoulder’ last, because I have other albums that finish with songs like that. I kind of had the sequencing worked out even before we started recording, I knew the story I wanted to tell. That also meant I knew what order to do it, when they said, what song do you want to record today, I already knew.
Well, it’s a beautiful song. And it puts me in mind of… well, the one album of yours that maybe sounds a little different, sonically, is the one you did with Bob Rock, “Long Player, Late Bloomer” – even that, when you finish with ‘Nowadays’, it’s like, here’s a classic Ron Sexsmith song, right at the end…I mean, I’ve got to say, I love that album, and your songs have always had that mid-’60s Beatles-ish pop sheen, but he really polished them up, so they came bouncing through the stereo…
Yeah, and I worried when we were recording that album that the songs wouldn’t stand up to the production. But he was very reassuring, you know, he’s a big Beatles fan, but there were a few songs, that one, and ‘Heavenly’… my only regret with that recording (of ‘Nowadays’) is that I went the full Bing Crosby on the vocal…maybe I should have held back on the Crosby! I do think it’s one of my most vulnerable songs; I still love doing that song live. The album was so important for my self-confidence, because albums came out and died prior to that one, and that one broke through in a small way; we had a couple of top 10 hits on that one in the UK. I didn’t in Canada, but over there, it was great!
It was great to hear you on daytime radio with that one. Before that, you always had lots of fans, but it would be the evening, the more specific shows and stations that would play you. Suddenly, there were things like ‘Love Shines’ just bouncing out.
I remember being in Marks and Spencer and hearing ‘Get In Line!’ And that’s the whole reason I asked Bob, because he’d made so many successful albums, I wondered what he’d do with a guy like me? And now, even on this new album, when I first heard (opening track) ‘Don’t Lose Sight’ in the studio, I thought, well, that sounds like a radio song to me. I don’t know if it’ll get any airplay, but it sounds like it could. Maybe I’ll have some luck with this one.
Yes, for sure, it does! And you often do have that poppy feel to some of your more up-tempo songs. I think every single album, right from the early days, has those songs. And for all of us who are fans, we’re like, why isn’t this guy on the radio? The songs are brilliant, the playing is great…
Well, Mitchell Froom, it was hard to get some of those songs on the early albums, because he never felt I was so good at singing them…
He’s wrong! (laughter)
…Well, I know on the first album we did, one thing I liked, there was a song called ’Summer Blowin’ Town’, it was kind of a ballad, but Mitchell said, I think this could come up more like a Beach Boys style song. I didn’t really hear it go that way… but there was another song called ‘First Chance I Get’ which was more like a rock and roll thing. I think it’s important I do at least one or two, because then if I did more in the future, people could say, well, he did it on his first album, it’s not like it’s some new thing. Then on the second, we did ‘Nothing Good’, and ‘Clown In Broad Daylight’, and when I’m playing live, I don’t want it to be all ballads, I want it to have the full spectrum of emotions. Also, Mitchell was right, I wasn’t very good at singing until about “Retriever”, so … since “Retriever”, I can sing almost anything now, but I hadn’t quite found my voice before that.
It’s a process, I guess. One thing I wanted to reflect on, thinking about some of the songwriters who, in my mind, you might have some kinship with… John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Mary Chapin Carpenter… you kind of slot into their family, if you like. But the one thing I’d say about you is there’s no such thing as a bad Ron Sexsmith album. I wondered how you do that? … even John Prine, as great as he is, maybe in the late ’70s, some of his records could definitely live without them. But you always seem to have the quality control pretty high.
I think because I never had the big-selling album… every album is another chance for me to introduce myself to someone. Or… another shot at it. I’ve never been someone who, when it’s time to make a record, I only have three songs, you know, I usually have twenty or twenty-five songs or something. That helps with the quality control. The truth is, with the producers I’ve worked with, there’s usually an A list and a B list, and there’s a big tug of war going on… they’ll be like, this song, and I’ll be like, what about this one over here… with “Blue Boy”, there was a tug of war for sure, he (producer and legendary singer songwriter Steve Earle) wanted to make “Revolver“, and I wanted to make “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” (which Earle had a hand in producing for Lucinda Williams). So there was push and pull. And I’m so close to it, it’s hard for me to say which ones are the good ones. I’m proud of every song on every album, but there’s a few which are not my favourites, for sure… like, I never really liked ‘Feel For You’ from “Whereabouts”, for example. I was trying to create a Frankenstein, where we took two songs and put them together, ‘cos Mitchell liked part of one song, but he didn’t like the rest of it, so he said, if we took the chorus from this other song, then you can have a hit… which of course, it wasn’t. But some people tell me that’s their favourite one off that album, so it’s just a personal thing.
So, which are your own favourites that you always look forward to playing when it comes to a concert?
Oh man… (sighs)… I never get tired of playing ‘Secret Heart’, because that’s my calling card, in a way. I hit those opening chords, and people recognise it, and that’s a good feeling. I love playing ‘Nowadays’… I’m always more excited about playing stuff from the newer albums, because that’s where my head is… I love playing stuff like ‘St Bernard’, that’s kind of a goofy song. Also, we’ve been playing this song ‘Up The Road’ again (from “Cobblestone Highway“). We haven’t played it for years, but I’m really enjoying singing that one. I think it’s a nice opening number because it’s very welcoming, it doesn’t bash you over the head…though sometimes it’s good to come out and bash people over the head with the first song. But I’ve always been someone who likes to ease into it… every tour, I try to dust off a song that I haven’t played in a while, that maybe complements the new stuff.
You know, it’s twenty-two years since you released “Rarities”… there must be so much stuff in the Ron Sexsmith vaults! We see people like Springsteen and Dylan and Neil Young pouring stuff out of their back pages…any plans to let some of that unreleased stuff out? Or are you holding them back to use in a future collection, like you have with some of the older songs this time, if they seem to fit?
There’s definitely more stuff, I just don’t really know where it is. Almost every album, there’ll be at least two or three songs that are left off, or used as a B side somewhere or something. There was talk, after Rarities came out, to do another in five years or so, but… I don’t honestly know how much interest there would be for that, a few people, maybe? I know I would love to just hear some of these songs again. B-sides and extra tracks… sometimes I can’t even remember how these songs go!
Well, you do seem to be able to keep putting out new albums of high quality, so maybe you don’t need to fill the gaps. But I think there would be an audience, and I’m sure there will be some great hidden songs… I was recently playing ‘Regrets’ that you recorded with the Abalone Dots, that’s such a beautiful song, and I’m sure there are other collaborations you have done, which if they were drawn together… anyway, I’m certain there will always be an audience for any of your music.
Well, the album “Whereabouts’, my favourite song we recorded got left off, called ‘Tears Behind the Shades’ (available on “Rarities”) … “Retriever”, there were some good ones which were left off too, though that’s one of my favourite albums I’ve done anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. That’s the thing, I try to do albums of ten to twelve or even fourteen songs, but I usually go in with twenty or so songs, so some get left off… or we carry them over to the next album or the one after that, so I try to find a home for every one.
Thank you for your time, Ron, and for all the music you do. It really touches people. Thanks to Colleen for supporting you, too, because I understand how important she is in the whole process.
Thanks to you, and look forward to seeing you all in the UK, hopefully early next year.
