  John K Samson (Weakerthans frontman) at the Epitaph offices promoting his new album January 24 2012. (Dave Abel/QMI Agency) |
John K. Samson, the frontman for Winnipeg folk-punk band The Weakerthans, is the first to admit he's an unlikely sports advocate.
"I'm not a huge sports fan. It's something that's become more of an interest in my life in the last ten years or so," said Samson as he sat in the Toronto offices of Epitaph Records the same day his first solo disc, Provincial, was released this past Tuesday (Jan. 24).
" I went through a real anti-sports phase that a lot of people, I think, go through. It's something I enjoy now. And there's so many great stories in it that are kind of there to be kind of interpreted. I think for a long time I was wary of that (mythmaking). And now I'm just more interested in it."
To wit, about a year ago Samson started an online petition to have former Manitoba-born NHL-er Reggie Leach -- a.k.a. the Riverton Rifle -- inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
He's collected 500 signatures so far -- with plans to present the petition to the hall in about another year -- and the song version, www.ipetitions.com/petition/rivertonrifle/, is included on Provincial.
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"He was one of the great natural talents of the 1970s," says Samson about Leach, now 61 years old, who he met last year in Whitehorse during CBC's Hockey Day In Canada.
"He was a great player for the Philadelphia Flyers. He grew up in Riverton, Manitoba. He had real struggles to get out. He didn't have his own skates until he was 12 years old. It's an amazing story. He battled (alcohol) addictions during the '70s, though he was one of the great players so his career probably ended a little earlier than he should have. He became a role model for recovering from that. When you go to Riverton there's evidence of him everywhere. There's a mural, the arena's named after him, there's a street named after him, and I was just thinking about how it would be nice if he was honoured outside of the community as well in a way and the Hockey Hall of Fame came to mind. He wouldn't really qualify for the hall on statistics alone. So I wanted to think about the intangible things about what make a person great are."
That it would take Samson this long to make a solo record is interesting, forgetting of course that he released a 1993 fifteen-track solo cassette, Slips and Tangles.
Provincial, which was recorded in Winnipeg and Toronto with producer Paul Aucoin, grew out of a series of EPs about Manitoba roads that Samson had worked on 2009 and 2010.
In his research for both the EPs and the disc, he did solo day trips (sometimes with one or both of his dogs, Lefty and Lucy) to the towns of Riverton and Ninette, drove around Highway 1 and Winnipeg, and visited the Manitoba Archives and the local history room at the Winnipeg library.
"My whole idea was to do these seven inches and I liked the idea of the limitation of the seven inch. Having eight or nine minutes to say something about a different place and my idea was to do three seven inches about three different roads. And then I just decided after I did two of them that it would be a bigger project. I would do four roads. Then I got it in my head that I wanted the record to be if someone had a day free, I could take them to the site of every song."
Samson's cross-Canada solo tour in support of Provincial begins on March 7 in Kingston, Ont., and visits Toronto's Grand Hall on March 22 before wrapping up April 14 in Saskatoon.
He will travel with the three-piece of drummer Doug MacGregor (The Constantines), bassist Doug Friesen (Bidini Band) and lead guitarist Shotgun Jimmie, a smaller representation of a larger group of 15-20 musicians he recorded the album with, including his wife Christine Fellows on piano.
"I wanted strings and horns, I wanted the whole thing," he said. "I'm going to go out with the core rock band of those three other guys, but they're versatile musicians and we'll see how it translates live."
As for the solo album's title, Samson was having a bit of fun at his own expense.
"I was hoping it would be a bit funny," he said. "I think of myself as a provincial writer, and that's usually interpreted in a bad way. I guess 'regional' is a better euphemism for it, but I write about the place that I'm from."
In the meantime, Samson confirmed The Weakerthans will start writing again this year and make another record.
"I'm looking forward to that," said Samson. "A record of broader themes and less kind of prescribed, I guess."
JOHN K. SAMSON'S SOLO CANADIAN TOUR DATES:
Mar. 7 - Kingston - The Grad Club
Mar. 8 - Ottawa - Mavericks Bar
Mar. 9 - Montreal - La Sala Rossa
Mar. 18 - Hamilton - The Casbah
Mar. 20 - London - The Aeolian Hall
Mar. 21 - Guelph - E-Bar
Mar. 22 - Toronto - Great Hall
Mar. 27 - Winnipeg - West End Cultural Centre
Mar. 28 - Regina - The Exchange
Mar. 29 - Edmonton - The Royal Alberta Museum Theatre
Mar. 31 - Vancouver - The Biltmore
Apr. 13 - Calgary - The Palomino
Apr. 14 - Saskatoon - Amigos Cantina
