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Plenty of musicians travel by bus. But usually it's not a city bus. And they're not behind the wheel.
Then there's John K. Samson. When we last caught up with the Weakerthans frontman, he was sporting blue Transit Tom togs and working the business end of an orange Flyer in the South Osborne Street bus garage.
"See, you work the turn signals with your feet," Samson explains, offering us an obliging demonstration. "That's pretty cool."
No, the 34-year-old Winnipeg singer-guitarist hasn't changed careers. He's shooting a Caelum Vatnsdal-directed video for the song Civil Twilight, the first single from the band's fourth CD Reunion Tour.
And it's no accident that the song -- another one of Samson's wistful indie-rock anthems set in wintry Winnipeg -- is voiced by a busman whose route takes him by his ex's house.
"I actually spent a lot of time on the bus when I was writing these songs," says Samson a few days before the shoot, nursing a glass of merlot in an Osborne Village cafe near his Arbeiter Ring publishing house. "Three days a week for the past few winters, I would take the bus down to the library. I would sit near the bus driver and kind of stare at him. I kinda like their uniforms.
"And a lot of bus drivers hang out at the library -- it must be one of their stopoffs where they change buses -- so I would see them sitting there."
Samson wasn't just stalking city workers. The articulate songwriter was commuting to the library to force himself to work on lyrics, researching everything from the dot-com bust to Bigfoot to the paintings of Edward Hopper -- all of which inspired songs on Reunion Tour, which arrives in stores Tuesday.
"Two of the songs are actually based on Hopper paintings -- Night Windows and Sun in an Empty Room. I was going to write a whole album about Edward Hopper paintings, so I spent a lot of time reading about him. I only got around to two before I wandered off into other subjects. But all the research ended up contributing to the album. A lot of the songs are based on real people and events."
Some, like the experimental soundscape Elegy for Gump Worsley or the metaphorical curling love song Tournament of Hearts, are self-explanatory. Others, like the title cut inspired by the Great White tragedy, may be less obvious. But Samson says they all have something in common.
"In almost every song, there's this longing for reunion or reconciliation. It's always about what might have been. So Reunion Tour kind of seemed to fit as a throughline." Plus, he admits, it's an in-joke about how long it takes the meticulous tunesmith to craft his songs.
"I have real trouble letting go of them," he acknowledges. "I'm always real resistant. I like walking around with them. They're good company. But this is a long time, even for me.
"A while ago I was hanging out in New York City with Craig Finn (from The Hold Steady) and he said to me, 'You know, I've made three records since you made your last record.' It was kind of like, 'Get to work.' And I needed that."
So, in March, Samson and the Weakers -- drummer Jason Tait, guitarist Stephen Carroll and bassist Greg Smith -- reconvened with longtime producer Ian Blurton in a St. Boniface warehouse. Unlike the lyrics, the music for the album was still a work in progress -- which ended up working to the band's advantage.
"It was a case of us having enough but not thinking we did," says Samson. "We thought we would just go in and record what we had. But after eight days, Ian said, 'I think there's a record here.' And we were really happy with the way it was going.
"Because the songs were less carved in stone than last time, we felt like we had room to play with things and incorporate new ideas. So everyone was more comfortable with their contributions. There's more musical conversation this time."
It shows on the disc, which has a looser, more immediate feel than the decade-old band's heavily conceptual 2003 CD Reconstruction Site.
By contrast, Reunion Tour -- released on the influential punk label Anti-Epitaph -- is also the mellowest, moodiest and most mature Weakerthans disc to date, with a wintry feel that reflects the season it was written and recorded.
Former Propagandhi bassist Samson adds it's also "the most realistic record we've made. It's the closest we've come to a record that actually sounds like us, for better or for worse."
Also for better or worse, the band is embarking on its Reunion Tour tour, which kicks off in Minneapolis Tuesday, winds through North America and then heads to Europe before closing with a hometown show Dec. 22 at Burton Cummings Theatre.
"Touring can be very tough. I've seen it kind of destroy people in a way. It can be this alternate reality that's really destructive. But at this point, the lives we live at home are more important than the lives we live on the road," explains Samson, who shares a River Heights home with his singer-songwriter wife Christine Fellows and their two cats. "We're going to tour a lot, but I think our touring will be very focused and concise."
Spoken like a man who knows how to work the turn signals -- and when to hit the brakes.