For first 10 or 15 minutes of the interview, it seemed like more of a conversation between award-winning, and highly respected Canadian singer/songwriters Sarah Slean and Hawksley Workman than an actually inquisitional process. The enlivened banter, the friendly jibes, the finishing each other’s thoughts and sentences – all hallmarks not only of two very close friends, but also an insight into why the new EP the two have produced, entitled appropriately These Two, is so evocative, compelling, and a true feast for the auditory senses.
And that banter, fun and evocativeness has carried over onto the stage, as the dynamic musical duo are set to wrap up a short jaunt around Ontario with shows in Ottawa on Friday, March 13 at Shenkman Hall, and Kingston on Saturday, March 14, at The Grand Theatre.
These Two contains the exceptionally well crafted, well performed and well produced original single Wound You, as well as three covers of classic songs penned by Canadian songwriters: Up Where We Belong, Flamenco, and Lost Together. There’s also an alternate version of Wound You on the release.
Workman said one of the reasons the recording sessions were so special was that there was a real, pure motive to the collaboration, one whose message and mission will hopefully spread throughout the industry where the focus isn’t as much on competition as commonality of purpose. And it was also a chance to finally work again with his friend of such long-standing.
“And here we are 20 some years later getting on stage together, almost I think as a mission statement about music and the music community and putting an image of community on stage at a time when there’s been this shift now with streaming and so much talk about streaming and the money that’s being lost and all that. What Slean and I seemed to talk more about behind the scenes was this whole streaming thing and how we can all see each other’s streaming numbers and Instagram followers and how many likes and how many retweets everybody’s getting. It’s almost like we’ve all joined a competition nobody signed up for,” the Juno-winning Workman said from his home in Peterborough, where he recently moved after spending a number of years in Montreal.
“We’re all of a sudden pitted against one another in a way we didn’t really anticipate. I think the mission statement of the EP and this tour is a little about how this is what community looks like. Yes, we were all competitive to a degree back in the late 1990s in Toronto, back in the glory days of Canadian songwriter, but the competition wasn’t so trite and so cheapening as it is now. It didn’t pander. It didn’t pander at all. I feel now that it’s just a massive popularity contest, which speaks to nothing about the music being created – it really doesn’t.”
The relationship between Slean and Workman goes back two decades, when Slean, still a teenager, was working on her major label debut album, and Workman was just beginning to build his reputation as a songwriter and producer of note.
“It was a really special time in Toronto for music and particularly songwriters in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There were a lot of really interesting people writing songs and making independent records. There were so many diverse writers all kind of in the same vicinity playing the same clubs on a loop, and really being excited about each other’s work and supporting each other and being influenced by each other. So, when I was a 19-year-old, I had the great fortune in getting signed by Atlantic right out of the gate, which was right in the middle of the ‘women in song’ movement. It was just so auspiciously timed because my Atlantic debut was sort of at the tail end of the big record label brass-ring machinery, and they had a lot of money and said for me to take my time, do another indie thing and really find the people I wanted to work with,” Slean explained from her home in Toronto.
“As soon as I heard [Workman’s 1999 debut album] For Him and the Girls, and then saw Hawksley play live, which I think was at C’est What in Toronto, I was 100 per cent sure that it had to be this person; that I had to work with him. And he was only 21 at the time, and I felt such a kinship from where he was coming from, that sort of theatricality to his music and his show and with just the general spirit of his lyrics I felt really aligned with where I was coming from. But Atlantic was a bit nervous. They were like, ‘we have all this money, why don’t you bring in this hot shit person from L.A.’ and I told them no, that this guy was amazing and we’re going to do this record. We did a couple of demos together in his little basement apartment studio which was so basic at the time, such that he was recording bass and tambourine at the same time on the same track playing the tambourine with his foot while he also played bass.
“We were so limited and yet the magic on those demos is undeniable; there is just such a spirit and an energy of young artists colliding. It was so funny because when the label said I could use Hawksley but that they were still nervous, I said, ‘just you wait.’ We went to the very expensive studio that they recommended and spent a month recording at this state-of-the-art place with these state-of-the-art dudes and we ended up using the demo of the song Sweet Ones that we recorded in that basement, with a 21-year-old Hawksley Workman playing tambourine with his foot, as the first radio single. It was such a great story. We just connected and it was real, and I wanted that energy on the first recording I made for Atlantic Records. I know if I didn’t get my way, as a 19-year-old, Atlantic was going to try and put me with some 45-year-old guy who has made a ton of records and thinks he’s God’s gift and is going to just pat me on the head and tell me what to do. I was not interested in doing that at all. The spirit of my collaboration with Hawksley at the time, was as friends and as equals and I appreciated that so much. I still listen to that record [Night Bugs] and hear just the genuine friendship there and the mutual respect. I think it worked great too because people still say they love that album.”
Workman also waxed sentimental when talking about the meeting of the musical minds between he and Workman seemingly a lifetime ago, especially in music business terms.
“When Atlantic Records finally did greenlight the idea of me working with Sarah, it was one of the greatest rock and roll recording experiences of my life. The kind of money that they spent on Night Bugs was the kind of money that I never even heard could be spent on a record before. And I don’t believe they’ve ever spent money like that ever since,” he said.
“We worked in the greatest facilities. The studio we ended up in, in upstate New York [Bearsville Studios] which was Albert Grossman’s old studio where Bob Dylan recorded, and then it became Todd Rundgren’s studio and a lot of great records have been made there, so the energy was thick within that building. And then, when it came time to mix, we went out to LA in a studio [Cello Studios] where the Beach Boys had done Pet Sounds. Even while we were there, Ric Ocasek [The Cars] was there producing Weezer’s ‘Green Album,’ the one with Hashpipe on it, around the corner. So, it was kind of a strange and wild time back then. And, you know, ever since then we have both sort of watched as the music industry got more and more humble or at least got more humbled.”
Interestingly, as glowingly as Slean describes the connection between she and Workman, while their friendship deepened and became richer, they never actually collaborated again until the These Two EP and tour.
“We made the Night Bugs record and we kept tabs on each other and would say hi and check in and ask about certain things or get opinions on something we were working on. But we really haven’t made anything together since. There were times we showed up at the same social things, or events where there’s a bunch of artists there and everybody gets on stage, but not in this capacity,” Slean said.
Last year, while Workman was still living in Montreal, Slean visited for a few days while on tour in Quebec, a seemingly innocuous visit that nonetheless sparked this new project, and potentially more collaborative endeavours between the prodigiously talented Canadian musical artists.
“When Slean and I started to kick around the idea of going on a tour together, we thought that would be enough, I’m sure, but it would feel like there was a real official reason to do it if we made some recordings together. While she was at our place in Montreal we talked about it for eight hours a day for the first couple of days and then it was like, ‘well, why don’t we go into my studio and see if we can turn any of this passionate chit chat into a three and a half minute pop song.’ Which is what we did,” he said, talking about the single Wound You, of which they recorded two versions, according to Slean, the second one called the ‘Smoky version.’
“The version we made in Montreal just kind of flew out of us really quickly. We were in the studio with Jean and we were starting to do the covers and the vibe was decidedly different. It was mellow, bare, it was really kind of reflective, really getting into the essence of the great lyrics in these songs,” she said.
“Hawksley suggested we do a down-tempo version of Wound You, and I feel that one is right at home with the covers; it’s the same emotional palate. It just works.”
Choosing which songs to cover proved to be a pretty arduous experience, as both Workman and Slean wanted songs that fit the vibe of what they were going for, fit their voices and represented the sort of sense of craft and point in time that was very influential in their lives and careers as songwriters. Workman said they could have picked from all eras of Canadian music, but felt that the time they were focused on, and the place [both The Hip and Blue Rodeo made their names and reputations as part of the mid-1980s Toronto scene] would be more appropriate than revising oft-covered artists like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.
“It was actually a really tricky part of the process. And we didn’t choose them until we got into the studio, which is characteristic Workman right? ‘Just let the spirit move us,’ which I appreciate so much because I can often be like a little too Type A where oh my God I have to know everything I am doing or else I am going to have an anxiety attack. Once we got in there and began working with Jean Martin, who is one of my absolute favourite producers and musical minds in this country, he just set the stage where Hawksley and I just threw ideas out there. We’d play three measures of a song on an instrument and it was really organic, simple and fast. In terms of the ones we agree upon, Up Where We Belong was a no brainer. It’s just such a timeless piece of art,” she said of the song penned by legendary Buffy Saint-Marie (and co-writers Will Jennings and Jack Nietzsche) and was a massive hit as recorded in 1982 by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for the soundtrack of the hit Richard Gere/Debra Winger film An Officer and a Gentleman.
“But the others were tougher. By the last day we were in the studio we were really struggling. I would say we had tried at least 25 other songs before arriving on [The Tragically Hip’s] Flamenco and [Blue Rodeo’s] Lost Together. We knew we were going to do a Blue Rodeo song, because they are so iconically Canadian and have written so many timeless songs. But from their catalogue we had difficulty choosing one because there are so many gems that stand out. For Lost Together, it really came down to the lyric, which is just so great and special.”
One might think with having two songwriters/composers of such great repute, renown and respect throwing ideas around that putting together a song would be easy peasy. Not so much, as Workman described.
“It’s one thing to be recording cover songs: that has its own kind of creative excitement to it. But there is something that’s quite revealing and sometimes a bit uncomfortable when you go into a songwriting project with someone else. Sarah and I both love writing lyrics, and sometimes if you are writing with another artist the lyrics can suffer because you sort of reach for the low hanging fruit, and at the end of the day, everybody wants to go home with a fully-written song,” Workman said.
“I know Sarah, and I know she doesn’t mess around and if we were to go in and try to write something together, it was going to have to be absolutely of the highest quality or else it wouldn’t fly. So, there was a bit of pressure for the two of us sitting in that room together. One of my main requirements for writing a song is I need to feel that nobody outside the room can hear me. I don’t like being in a room where I think somebody is listening through the door going, ‘oh, that’s what that guy is doing.’ When you put your cards on the table with another songwriter, especially one of Sarah’s calibre, your kind of going nude, and it’s not really all that comfortable. With Wound You, I think we just built up enough creative pressure with the conversations that we had for a few days in Montreal that the song just kind of burst out of the gate.”
Slean concurred adding that it was the two decades worth of trust that had built up over the breadth of their friendship.
“Honestly, I think we have built the trust that is required to cowrite. I feel the same as Hawksley during co-writing sessions or when I am writing in general that I don’t want anyone to hear me. That’s why I rarely cowrite. It just feels so weird and unnatural for me. But when it comes to working with someone you’ve known for 20 years; the trust is there. And there’s a foundation of that history, making it way easier to collaborate,” she said.
As for more creative banter and output from Workman and Slean, both said they are open to it, and hope it will happen soon.
“With Slean [he mostly calls her by her last name] our relationship can look quite a lot like a sibling relationship from time to time. We can squabble a little bit, but that’s just because we know we like each other. I don’t know if we have discussed this totally, but the feeling after we left the studio after doing the cover stuff that we did, and even through the writing session for Wound You before that, the feeling was absolutely, there’s going to be more,” said Workman, who is putting the finishing touches on a new solo album (his 26th release overall, between LPs and EPs), as well as scoring a musical based on a Christmas album he recorded 18 years ago in Paris.
For Slean, she has spent much of the past three years since the release of her last studio album Metaphysics, working with orchestras and honing her compositional skills, as well as writing songs for a musical.
“I am also doing a residency at the National Music Centre, where I think I will be writing new material. But I am not sure if it will be an album, I am not sure of what it will be. I am so interested in composing these days, so interested in orchestrating and writing for string quartet. I do a lot of work in that sphere now, so I feel like I am getting some chops. I am continuing to explore that avenue, and maybe I will record some of that. But I don’t know. We’ll see,” she said.
For more information on Slean, visit www.sarahslean.com, www.facebook.com/SarahSlean, or her Twitter and Instagram accounts.
For more information on Workman, visit www.hawksleyworkman.com, www.facebook.com/WorkmanHawksley or also his Twitter and Instagram accounts.
For information on the Ottawa show on March 13, visit http://shenkmanarts.ca/en/calendar_calendrier/march_mars_2020/sarah_slean_hawksley_workman/index.htm.
For information on the Kingston show on March 14, visit https://www.kingstongrand.ca/events/a-musical-evening-with-sarah-slean-and-hawksley-workman.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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