Back in 2013, Lonesome Highway made this comment on seeing Petunia and The Vipers: "You need a powerful presence to front a band like the Vipers, a very talented bunch of players. In the man called Petunia, they have an equally striking frontman, one who can step back and allow his players their time in the spotlight. Petunia cut his teeth as a busker who discovered classic country along the way and currently hosts a show that mixes his own songwriting talent with classic country songs that distil the essence of what is good and vibrant about the music." On his own website, this has been noted as "Louis Armstrong was once asked what his favourite kind of music was, and his response was simple; Good Music! which in this case can mean Hank Williams on acid … Tom Waits meets Elvis at Woody Guthrie's Hobo junction … Avant-Country night club scene music. Which is to say that his music has antecedents in the past, with an intuitive grasp of the future. Petunia kindly answered some questions for us while currently on tour.
At this point, after performing and recording, are you still in tune with your original musical vision for your material?
I believe so. I like to try and be like George J., who said, "Try to recall how you felt when first singing and writing the song".
For this album Callin' Me Back, you expanded your sound to include a bigger brass section. Was this a natural progression or something you wanted to do for some time?
Both actually. I had been toying with horns in song arrangements for a while, as far back as the Petunia and the Loons album in 2009. This has what are perhaps my first attempts at horn arranging.
It was also a natural progression since I had been playing weekly in Vancouver with a horn section of on and off players, from around the Vancouver area for a couple years, which ended up coalescing into loose arrangements, with some guidance.
We should mention the supporting players who have been with you for some time in The Vipers. How much of what you do have they been?
Huge. It cannot be overlooked, and I'm glad that you asked. Thank you for asking.
Jimmy and Stephen of course used to play with Ray Condo. They were 2 of his 4 Ricochets (Ray Condo and the Ricochets). I suppose that the whole band sound therefore, has foundations in their playing. You know, as band "leader" one is always trying to capitalize on one's assets, one's strongpoints, what you got, you know? I had Jimmy and Stephen, perhaps the best duo in the country at their sort of game. So, I played into that. We used their style of playing (Rockabilly/Western swing) to break into the U.S. West Coast scene, in Ray's footprints, so to speak. He had already built up a huge fanbase along the U.S. West coast, so we just tried to tap into that, initially, which was mildly successful.
Back then, Marc L'Esperance was our drummer. He helped record some of the Ray recordings and ended up co-producing with Phil Sgriccia and I, on our first breakout album, Petunia and the Vipers. That was also a big contribution that cannot be overlooked since that album has awarded us much acclaim. Not only that though, Marc did all of the bookings (tour dates and hotels), promotion, and most of the driving. Also, a very big part of any indie touring band. Without that stuff you don't really have a touring band. Not for long anyways. All that stuff I had to take over when Paul Townsend took over in 2013 and has been the drummer ever since.
We went through many bass players (and still do). First, there was Tony Labourie and Sam Shoichet, followed by James Lillico, then Patrick Metzger, who ended up playing with us for a number of years. Patrick passed it off to Joseph Lubinsky-Mast, who plays on this recording and the one before (Lonesome Heavy and Lonesome from 2018). There's gotta be perhaps 10 local bass players in the rotation these days, so you never know who you'll see on Vancouver dates. That may be said for the rest of the band as well. On this upcoming tour, it'll be close to the OG band with Jimmy Roy on lap steel and electric guitars, Stephen Nikleva on electric guitar, Paul Townsend on drums and first tour for Cyrus Wylie on upright bass.
Has it been an issue trying to hold together such an exceptional set of musicians?
Yes and No. On the one hand, you want to but can't always take the dream band out on the road, so you are forced to improvise. On the other hand, in improvising and creating different band combos, I've been able to play with interesting sonic combinations that I wouldn't otherwise have tried out. Who knew that playing with a punk rock lap steel player (Liam McIvor) and a trad jazz clarinettist (Joe Abbot) could provide such an interesting sound? That's the most obvious and recent example, since we toured for 3 months together last year across the USA, although there are other lesser examples.
This album was delayed due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. How difficult was that for you?
Hmmm … well, to be honest, I needed a break from touring. That feeling made itself apparent in the first 9 months of lockdown. I put down my guitar - I didn't have to play for the first time in over 20 years. I could experience the seasons for the first time in 20 years, in one location. I went camping a ton and LOVED it! … When I eventually did pick up my guitar to play and sing again, 9 months later, it was the feeling of being inspired that led me to play and sing. It was a genuine thrill to pick it up and play. I wrote 30 songs in this first 3-4 months of playing again, and most of them, I feel like are pretty good.
Since I play in a way back time machine kind of lens, or at least that's how I imagine people see us … I feel like the album is as timeless today as it would have been 5 years ago.
You have mentioned that from listening to and playing some songs written by others in the past has help you shape how you write your own material. Does that imply that writing is a difficult process?
Maybe if one is trying to write a song, it can seem difficult. I feel like I intentionally do not try. I wait. Or perhaps "live" is a better word. I live my life, and songs come to me. They come more abundantly and with a greater urgency if I'm also learning new material. I think that learning, in and of itself, can be a great life-giving force. Learning is a sort of gift. Perhaps it's that feeling that you get when you've learnt something new and are thrilled that you now know about that thing, or how to do that thing, or it makes you think differently or gives you a different perspective. It makes your step a little lighter, and springier for a time, learning does. Remember what it was like to first learn to ride a bike?! That first ride!!
Has the fact that you were able to play in Ireland and across Europe in the past changed due to cost and logistics?
Indeed. We are experiencing tougher economic times than ever. 1st world problems though. Most of us still have a roof over our heads, clean drinking water, food and a semblance of "culture".
Also, with an expanded lineup from the new album, is there a difficulty in getting that number of players on the road, or do you, for practical reasons, tour with a smaller combo?
Yeah, we tour as a 5 piece band. Whereas the album often has 9 to 11 players per song. I have toured for brief stints with the horn section, just before recording, in order to get the arrangements up to speed and sounding closer to what I wanted them to sound like. But yeah, it's too expensive for us at this stage in the band's history to tour as much bigger than a 5 piece.
There is obviously a passion in you to continue writing and performing your music, but is that harder in these times?
Yup. Tougher all the time. Builds bigger muscles though.
Can you surmise what attracted you to play your hillbilly influenced material?
A very sophisticated, classy and complicated lady, Sheila Gostick. A genius. We fell in love. She had a suitcase full of hillbilly music. I ate it up, learned to play and sing, and never looked back.
When did that particular music act as a catalyst?
Over 20 years ago. I haven't talked to Sheila in ages.
Your production partner Steve Loree, with his own musical background (Jr Gone Wild - a punk/country band), seems an unlikely pairing, but it obviously works.
Works great. He has a very farm ethic and that works for me too. No nonsense. He grew up, after all, farming and ranching in southern Alberta, so perhaps it's not as unlikely as it may seem. Steve is very hillbilly. And eccentric. And wonderful. And his musical sensibility is really varied, which helps a lot. He's a great host and has an excellent bedside manner almost all the time. He's even been our steel player at times, while on tour.
How have the changes in releasing music changed for you now from when you started?
Oh my gosh. So much has changed. You used to be able to sell your albums to fans at shows. People would buy CDs. I know, it seems crazy now, but you used to be able to recoup your recording costs through album sales. It was a beautiful thing. And promoting an album's release used to not be so nefarious. You'd spend money on a publicist and you'd be able to measure their success in articles that came out talking about your album in printed media. Now it's a giant algorithmic mysterious playlisting nightmare. It's become a lot closer to rocket science imo. There was a small window of time when the music industry had less of a grip on the market, where more DIY artists could thrive, but we've been moving backwards from that time for at least a decade now. I suppose there's always an ebb and flow of this sort. The people at the top with their fingers in the pie always want more, after all. That is the corporate world we seem to be living in. I digress.
Have you any particular career highlights that stand out?
So many! The first 3 to 5 years of hitch hiking around Canada were filled with adventure and too many highlights to recall. Busking and the life of an itinerant musician. Every day was a new adventure. I found a severed hand on the side of the road for God sakes … Finding my first car on the side of the road, without a license or registration or insurance, for $350! Sold it a few years later, in a bar after the show … for $350 … Going overseas was great, but I'd already had way more fun doing that before I played music, when I was just wandering around Europe and Africa for the sake of wandering. THAT was fun … Starting my first band was a highlight. Then I got banned from the Cameron House bar in Toronto, and the band split from me. They carried on playing there without me, calling themselves The Backstabbers … Starting my first band with drums! That was a fun ride too. That was in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Matt Carter had been the leader and orchestrator of the drum core of the world-famous Fredericton Pipe band. Yes, they won competitions all over Europe. He had rudimental chops up the yin yang and became our drummer. We almost burned the house down while recording our first and only album. For real. A guy had to come over while we were recording, and cut out a portion of the wall in the wooden cabin that we had turned into a recording studio. With a chainsaw. In the winter with 4 feet of snow. In the middle of the night. Cause that's when you record a lot of the times … Meeting Wanda Jackson who told me, "meeting people is my job", when I was trying to be scarce, coz I figured she wanted peace and quiet in a shared dressing room. Playing with Phil Alvin and Exene Cervenka in a roots band in LA when we'd tour there for a spell. Starring in The Musicianer , a 22 min narrative episode directed by Beth Harrington (The Winding Stream - From The Carters to the Cashes, Women of Rockabilly), like actual acting, not a documentary. Super clown fun. Most recently, touring through Argentina with Angry Zeta.
What is your vision for the future?
Action and adventure, romanticism, loneliness, being haunted by my own self, meeting awesome new people all over the world, making better and better music. Or at least, getting closer and closer to a less is more approach when recording songs. Recording on records, like vinyl records, most of my repertoire would be fantastic if that could happen. I'm proud of many of the songs that I can play, the people that I've learned from, the people that I get to play with and how we play those songs together. But then again, just playing music together with other people is a great reward. Reg Hartt once told me that, "The artist life is it's own reward".
Interview by Stephen Rapid
Callin' Me Back is out now and the review can be read in our album review section.