Royal Wood

0:03Alright, well, welcome back. Good to be back. Welcome back to Calgary and with the new record this time. Yeah. The waiting. The waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting for what? Just the course of writing that record was really about a lot of sort of life changes and getting into my 30s and it was that whole duality and coexistence of everything where you feel you can feel love and loss at the same time and friends had their first child and I lost my grandmother and my grandmother and it's just like all these things were kind of going on at the same time and I kind of found myself waiting sometimes when you're in the worst of those emotions for the better one to come. And one of the lessons that I've really learned in trying to not capitalize on but focus on is just being in the now regardless of whether it's positive or negative but just being focused.

0:55So that was sort of the antithesis of that record. And there's no more waiting, it's out. Kind of, but the well see that's the interesting thing about living in the future and the music in the show. It's out on iTunes but you can't pick it up yet but I guess it is released. Yeah it's out on iTunes and released, I think that was May 11th but it doesn't come to store us until the 26th. And the reason that all got pushed up was because we got the David Gray offer to go on tour so they wanted to push everything up. Yeah, it's. Obviously to capitalize on us being on tour sales and they wanted it ready so. And it is and it's the single of the week right now too. It's single week on iTunes. You will get anyone for free. Talk about that song and why it's the first single. It's a very lusty tune. Yeah well that's why.

1:40It's just a song purely about lust and it was definitely the most straight ahead pop song on the record. It was a clear single choice, I can see why the label wanted to go with that. You know it's not, the record is not all of those kind of songs at all. It's like your stuff never is. Yeah well thanks. Well I mean you tend to write slower songs. Yeah and far more lyrically driven and far more almost theatrical and stuff at times. And that one was not, that was my pop song. Well there's another one on there as well. Yeah I think do you recall the second songs? Certainly down the more pop side but I think on top of your love was a pretty clear choice.

2:26Are you writing more on piano or entirely fish? It's about 50-50. I just always, I always find when it comes time for recording I want to gravitate towards the piano songs. And I think I just, I love the idea of playing a grand piano and I loved having the strings and the band. And for some reason the acoustic or even the electric for me just kind of takes the back seat. And I don't think that's going to happen on the next record. I think I might even lean more towards the guitar. Just to quote myself. I like putting myself into uncomfortable situations when I make records. Doing something different than I've done before. And I clearly see I have yet to make guitar records. So I think that's the next one. Well putting yourself uncomfortable positions was hard to give way to producers this time around and not play everything.

3:11That was the most uncomfortable I've ever been in my life. Yeah. Yeah which is why I chose someone like Pierre-Marshall and also working with my guitar player Dean. I really respected their work and I really trusted their judgement. So it was strange to not be calling all the shots or not even to be coming up with all the arrangements. And parts and because I'm so used to playing all the bass lines and guitar lines and doing all the overdubs and this was a whole other world of working with my band and doing arrangements on the fly and having someone else direct. And I just kind of had to sit back and be one of the crew. Which was... Which was... And still have my name on it and still have it represent the songs. But by the end of each day it was sometimes where I wouldn't have ever gone but clearly the better place to go.

4:03So it worked out. You're happy with it. Yeah I'm so proud of this record. I would play it for anybody. I'm one of the two who start the record cycle off with a big theater tour across Canada with David Gray. And this is day four, day five maybe. You've seen them play a few nights now. Yeah, yeah. We've been watching each other. I mean I was really honored to even have David in his band watching Side Stage My Set. Which is another rarity. I'm used to sometimes doing headlines where you just don't even see the headline act. But these guys are... they just love music and they're all really veteran players. They're all in their 40s and some of them might be pushing 50. And it's just so seamless watching those guys. It's kind of inspiring actually.

4:50Good. It's the first tour with a guy headliner in a way. Yeah. He's like, he's been past few years. Yeah, in terms of full tours. Yeah. It was Sarah Slean and Jill Barber and Kathleen Edwards. You know, it's always been the... I think that most songwriters want that though. I think most female songwriters want a male opener and vice versa. I think it's rare that they want someone to be anything like them as the opener. They want themselves to be a clearer showcase of their skill or their sound. You know, and I was actually kind of shocked when we got the David Gray tour. Because we're both guys who write on piano and guitar and we sing these kind of songs and I thought it might be, you know, getting into his territory or something.

5:35But that clearly hasn't happened. And it's working well. It's working really well. Do you have a piano to play on tour or are you just playing guitar? I'm playing guitar and then we're playing keyboard that's all dressed up to look like a piano. Maybe. But, yeah. Nice. What got you into music? What were the records that you started with? Where did I start with? Well, I mean, I started playing music around the age of four or five. Just because my parents had a piano and lots of instruments around the house. But my dad was huge into music. So, you know, I was listening to like Sinatra and Johnny Cash and just all of that at early age. And then my father's brother had died at a young age but we got to have all of his vinyl and reel to reel. So it was all like, Kat Stevens and Leonard Cohen.

6:20So I was listening to that when my friends were listening to new kids on the block or something. You know, like I got to skip that whole awkward stage of music. Which is great. When it comes up, there were two very singer-songwriter and mail audience. Thanks. The get up the one stage. So is that vest and where did this come from? Well, occasionally it's a full suit but it's, I just believe in performing. And I also believe in, as a performer, there's a bit of a mind shift when you put on stage clothes and you have a stage presence and you get in the mindset of performing. Because you know, when I'm hanging out in pair of jeans in my short sleeve shirt. Whatever, I'm not, this isn't performance mode. This is just, you know, me.

7:08And then I feel real shift when I get on stage. Like it's, I suddenly, even at these shows people are coming to the merch table and buying the record and saying that I'm really dry and witty and funny and all these things. And I'm like, that's not me. I don't feel like that person when I don't have the microphone at all. But on stage, there's, you become a performer. Right. Turn out your love. I just feel like stage clothes help and all that. One last thing about the record before I let you go. I remember we talked about the last record. After all the girls being ready to grandiose, you must strip it down consciously, not do as much. Yeah. Were there any production and conscious decisions for this one that... Yeah. This one, I really wanted to be lyric driven and not just piano based.

7:54I really wanted to be about the lyrics and the band. I wanted to showcase the band. And everything that had to be done had to be a choice of color, not something to be focused on. So there's no big guitar solo. There's no intricate piano going on. There's no massive string sections. It's all really delicately done. And it comes off as that. It's clearly about the voice and then the underlying sound this time. And where do people see you this summer? What happened after this tour? Lots of festivals coming up. So it's like Hillside and Stanton Rogers and a bunch of others. And then I'll be doing a full national tour in the fall, starting in October. So we'll start out in Victoria and head all the way east.

8:39Nice. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.