There’s something not quite kosher about Hawksley Workman’s new albums.
The eclectic Canadian eccentric is dishing up two separate CDs again this year: The rocking disc Meat, available in stores now, and the electro-pop digital release Milk, being served one slice at a time online.
But if you think The Hawk is celebrating Jewish dietary law with those titles — or even just playing with his food — think again. The prolific 34-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist was feeding a different appetite when he named the discs.
“To me, Meat and Milk are really euphemisms for sexualized man and woman,” says a coughing Workman, battling his fourth cold of the winter. “It had nothing to do with dietary restrictions.”
Instead, like a lot of Workman’s work, his 11th CD Meat has everything to do with love — or at least love gone wrong.
“I came home from Australia to an otherwise empty house,” he explains. “It wasn’t a huge surprise; it was something that had been coming for a long time. I knew I could have run myself into the ground very easily at that point; I can be very self-destructive if I’m left alone for very long. But instead of destroying myself, I invited my engineer up to my house and we made an album in two weeks.”
Stylistically, the 11-track outing is typical Workman, toggling between flamboyant glam-rock, hooky pop and earnest balladry. But sonically, it’s a grittier, noisier and murkier affair than usual, reflecting Workman’s dark mood at the time.
“We were trying to sound very real about what we were doing,” he says. “We had a mind to make the record feel dirty and clunky.
Lyrically, there’s a strong sense of being forlorn and very devastated. The record is about being in the muck, and I think it sounds like we’re in the muck.”
In contrast, Milk is a brighter-sounding work that came to light while he was in Sweden pitching pop songs to artists like Kylie Minogue and Kelly Clarkson.
“It happened totally by accident. Meat was in the can, and I was busy doing stuff and all of a sudden there was a second record staring me in the face.”
In keeping with his two-pronged approach, Workman is heading out on a two-stage tour with his band, crossing Western Canada this month and working his way across the East in April.
“We’re really concentrating on the new material. We’ve probably played older stuff like Striptease 500 times, so we’re really inspired to play these tunes.”
As usual, he’s not interested in playing by anyone else’s rules — even if it would mean bigger paycheques.
“We all know that the way to get rich is to serve the same hamburger the same way the world over. But it’s just not something I’m capable of doing.”
darryl.sterdan@sunmedia.ca
Hawksley Workman Tour Dates:
March 5 | Courtney | Sid Williams Theatre
March 6 | Victoria | Alix Goolden Theatre
March 7 | Kelowna | Community Theatre
March 8 | Trail | Charles Bailey Theatre
March 10 | Red Deer | Memorial Centre Theatre
March 12 | Banff | Eric Harvie Theatre
March 14 | Edmonton| Winspear Centre
March 17 | Calgary | Jack Singer Hall
March 18 | Saskatoon | Odeon
March 19 | Regina | Darke Hall
March 20 | Winnipeg | Burton Cummings Theatre
April 7 | Saint John| Blue Olive
April 8 | Fredericton | Playhouse Theatre
April 9 | Halifax | Rebecca Cohn Theatre
April 10 | St. John’s | Holy Heart Auditorium
April 12 & 13 | Charlottetown | Guild
April 15 | Quebec City | Le Cercle
April 16 | Montreal | La Tulipe
April 17 | Ottawa | Bronson Centre
April 20 | St. Catharines | Centre for the Arts
April 21 | London | Music Hall
April 24 | Toronto | Massey Hall
