Hamilton-born comedian Eugene Levy used to play in a folk group called Tuesday's Children back in the '60s.
So you can imagine that, four decades later, Levy is tickled to find himself nominated for two Grammys on Sunday night in Los Angeles for his songwriting efforts in the folk mockumentary A Mighty Wind.
Levy is up for best compilation soundtrack, and best song written for a motion picture (the title track).
"I was thrilled at both because the album is actually a great album -- it really is," said Levy, 57, during a recent chat at his favourite neighbourhood coffee shop in Rosedale.
"These songs turned out to be amazing folk songs that are inherently funny in their own right, but totally straight. And the soundtrack is a really easy album to listen to. There's not a clinker in the bunch."
So good, in fact, that the three groups from the hilarious film -- The Folksmen, Mitch and Mickey (Levy and fellow SCTV alum Catherine O'Hara) and The New Main Street Singers -- actually went out on the road together last fall. They played in New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.
"It's as close to being a rock and roll star as I'm ever going to get," Levy said. "And this concert, the crowds, I mean it's probably what performing in The Rocky Horror Picture Show must have been like. They were fanatical fans. They knew every lyric. They knew every song. They knew every joke. They would scream when the groups would come out. It was the greatest live performance I think I've ever experienced."
The comedian, beloved in Canada and abroad for his work as an original cast member on the groundbreaking SCTV, will head to L.A. today with his wife and their two children, aged 20 and 17, to attend the Grammys as a family.
As for his chances of winning, Levy said for him the nominations are more than enough.
"It's quite unbelievable, certainly for people in my position, who really have only been involved in comedies," he said. "When you're dealing in comedy I think we have a good shot at just about anything we do. Other than that, I think it's a big bonus and a lovely surprise and it's quite astonishing that people study your work enough to actually put down a vote and vote for you. And, here, it's musicians that are actually doing the voting. So on a musical level, the songs that we wrote for the movie really had to pass the test with the pros. And that just tickles me."
Following the Grammys, Levy -- whose most recent acting gig was the Toronto-shot New York Minute opposite the Olsen twins -- said he will stay in L.A. to brainstorm with his A Mighty Wind collaborator (and fellow Grammy nominee) Christopher Guest on their next mockumentary project. They previously worked together on Waiting For Guffman and Best In Show.
"We're looking to try and do something along the same lines but just a little different," he said. "(We're) trying to push the envelope with this kind of movie."
A Mighty Wind garnered Levy a New York Film Critics Circle Award for best supporting actor and will see him and O'Hara perform the Oscar-nominated song A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow at the Feb. 29 Academy Awards. Not surprisingly, Levy said the movie will always have a special place in his heart.
He did musical research for it by listening to his old folk albums.
"Honestly, listening to this stuff for the first time in, I'd say, 40 years, took me right back to 1966," Levy said. "It was quite amazing, listening to all these old tunes again, for the first time in so long. It was emotional for me. It took you back to a time when there was this idealism that, today, almost appears to be hokey."
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