As almost always, Hawksley Workman is in a good, cool place.
The Canadian rocker with the swagger of a born street poet may not, he reflects, have had a career that fills up his garage with Aston Martins. But then Workman says he is not burdened with debt, like some other rockers, and worrying about how to pay off the Lamborghini this year.
"I'm in a position where I get to follow my whims," Workman says. If those whims mean some of the music of his January album Between the Beautifuls is back on another 2008 album, Los Manlicious, that is all good.
The music industry model of putting out an album every two or three years and then touring it into the ground is long gone, he says. "The Manlicious versions are obviously the original conceptions of those songs," he says in a Sun Media interview. "Between the Beautifuls was a very quick and classic recording process."
With songs from both 2008 albums likely to be on offer, Workman plays the Music Hall on Tuesday night.
His touring band includes B.C.-based violin player Jesse Zubot.
"He's a phenomenon, that guy," Workman says of Zubot.
Workman heard about Zubot -- known in London for gigs with Andrew Downing's Great Uncles of the Revolution and as an ally of B.C. guitarist Steve Dawson -- from friends. "That guy's a genius," the friends said. "I really should give him a call," Workman said to himself.
He did and now Zubot -- who has just about confidence to his stage fire as the man who hired him -- is a road warrior alongside Workman.
Also on Tuesday's bill is Newfoundland and Labrador band Hey Rosetta! Workman has worked with them as a producer. He recently had the same job with the most famous rock band to come off the Rock, Great Big Sea.
Even as he admits that his own albums make record companies a little nervous, Workman looks to his career record on stage and in the studio to keep things straight. "I've been doing it for 10 years . . . they're all three to five-minute pop songs," he says.
Ah, but the subject of many of those Workman pop songs -- the combination of love and sex -- is his own alone.
"There's a lot of baggage that we carry," he says. Still, Workman is the one who put Striptease out there, knowing it was headed for the Top 10.
"Striptease for me baby," he urges, as Striptease leads off 2001's (last night we were) The Delicious Wolves.
It is just one gem in a hot body of Workman work. There is lipstick that makes sex a disaster, naked bodies, you got me on fire woman, kissing girls (you shouldn't kiss), kissing alone in a parked car and much else.
Workman carries that whole lotta love and sex baggage better than almost anybody.
He does have a thing for cars, too, even as he tries hard not to romanticize the automobile. Think of those Aston Martins and Lamborghinis that haunt the dreams of other rockers.
Workman knows better.
When he is reminded that a Bondmobile might not be the best car to drive home to his Burks Falls base on a November night, Workman agrees.
A poet, a lover and a fighter, he's a practical man, too -- and he knows just how to get where he's going.
