  Great Big Sea |
Safe Upon the Shore is more than an album title for Great Big Sea -- it's a state of mind.
It's no accident that all of the Newfoundland folk-rock band's albums -- including their just-released ninth studio disc -- have been recorded near the ocean, admits co-founder Alan Doyle.
"I think it would be very difficult for Great Big Sea to record in Toronto or Cleveland or somewhere like that," says the 41-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist from his St. John's backyard. "We wouldn't feel comfortable. Maybe that's where that title comes from. You know, I never really thought about that before, but that's definitely where we feel the best."
Ironically, however, the eclectic disc also finds the veteran Maritime troupe leaving their physical and musical comfort zone. It's the first album they've made outside of Newfoundland, with most of the 14 songs being cut in New Orleans, while others were captured on the road and in the moment. That loosey-goosey approach extends to the songs themselves. Safe Upon the Shore covers the waterfront -- along with the traditional Celtic fare and acoustic pop you expect, the disc includes collaborations with everyone from Randy Bachman to Doyle's Robin Hood co-star Russell Crowe, plus covers of The Kinks and Zeppelin.
Before hitting the road with longtime comrades Bob Hallett and Séan McCann, the freshly beardless Doyle -- "I literally just shaved it off; I'm now looking at my massive face" -- came clean about the temptations of The Big Easy, drinking with Crowe and life outside the Mothership.
There's quite a variety of material and styles on the disc. How did that happen?
Yeah, it's a mixed bag, man. No doubt about it, it's a dog's breakfast. The biggest reason is that we recorded it in so many different places at so many different times. Some of this was literally done in the back of our bus. Some of it was done in a basement. We had a bunch of songs we'd done in our own little studio. And when we found out our friend Steve Berlin (who produced 1999's Turn) was available, along with this studio we like in New Orleans, well, that was a combination we couldn't say no to.
How did you like New Orleans?
It was fantastic. I can't imagine there's a better music city on Earth. And I come from a pretty good one. The amount of music that lives in that city and that works in that city, it's amazing. We hired a tambourine player for one song! And we got him between his two other gigs. This 70-year-old guy says, 'I can do it between 2:15 and 2:45.' That's a tambourine player with at least three gigs in one day. And he was fantastic! It was that kind of vibe. New Orleans is a special place for music. It's a special place for a lot of things.
I would think some of those things might make it hard to get anything done.
No, not really. And we're lushes. Honestly, the most tempting thing to do was move there.
Why didn't you make the album at home the way you always have?
We would have just been bored. We knew we had to do something that was different. We always try to give our audience something new. And give ourselves something new. Don't get me wrong; we still like singing pub songs and shanties, and there's a few of each of those on the record. But if we just did that, we'd be bored out of our minds.
Russell Crowe co-wrote one of the songs. What's he like to make music with?
It's great fun. He's a lyricist and he's fabulous at it. I had this whimsical idea for a shotgun wedding song. These foolish ideas occur to me all the time, but I'm not capable of the poetry he's capable of. He's like a lot of my actor friends who are very gifted with the spoken and written word. It's fun to work with a guy like that.
How did making the movie change your life?
Well, I live in a cryogenic chamber now. (Laughs) No, really, it's made me more conscious of my time at home. I didn't get very much of it last year. And unlike Great Big Sea travels, which are kind of in my hands -- no matter how bad it is, it's at least one-third my decision -- when you sign up for a machine as big as a Hollywood movie, you just don't know where you're going to be. Effectively, I lived somewhere else for the first time in my life.
Do you have any good stories about Russell Crowe, copious alcohol consumption and random acts of violence?
Well, I'm not going to say that I never saw Russell drink. But I don't think I ever saw him drink as much as me. There was many a night after we finished shooting that we'd sit around in the trailers and drink a few pints of Guinness and sing a few songs and that kind of thing. And yeah, there were nights that the pendulum swung from one dude to the other in terms of who drank the most. But I'm not a guy to point fingers.
You're making movies; Séan just put out a solo album; Bob has a book coming out. Does all that get in the way of the band, or is that always the first priority?
It does make it a little more difficult to schedule the Mothership, as we call it. But it's really rewarding, doing these other things. Because either you like it and you bring something back to the Mothership, or you don't like it and you come back with a whole new appreciation. There's no bad result. And I've been really lucky, especially over the last five or six years. But I still haven't found a single thing anywhere that's as much fun as playing a Great Big Sea concert.
darryl.sterdan@sunmedia.ca
