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CANADIAN
INTERVIEWS PUBLISHING, SEPTEMBER 3, 2009
CANADIAN INTERVIEWS
A PORTRAIT OF CANADA, ONE INTERVIEW AT A TIME
TIM
HUS - CROSS COUNTRY
How does it feel to open concerts for Stompin’ Tom
Connors? What is it like to play alongside the man? Or
better yet, what does it mean to hear Stompin’ Tom
tell an audience that he is passing the torch of distinctive
Canadian musical storytelling to you?
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L to R: Canadian music legend Stompin' Tom Connors
with Tim Hus
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Only Alberta-based country music singer and songwriter
Tim Hus knows the answers to all these questions. Playing seventeen
shows in sixteen cities with Stompin’ Tom this past July
and August, the young performer got a rare glimpse behind the
scenes with the legendary Canadian musician.
The tour was a stroke of good fortune that helped to introduce
Hus to thousands of listeners. After all, Connors is a unique
part of the Canadian cultural landscape, a man who has dedicated
his lengthy career to telling stories of people and places across
the country, collecting countless fans along the way. Hus followed
the Stompin’ Tom tour with a grueling schedule of his
own concerts in September, playing shows in Quebec, Ontario,
Manitoba and Saskatchewan before finally heading home to Alberta.
As 2009 draws to a close, Hus will perform in venues all over
the Wild Rose province, with dates in British Columbia set for
early 2010.
In March 2008 Hus signed on with Stony Plain Records, a label
rooted in Edmonton and well known for highly successful artists
including Corb Lund, Maria Muldaur, and Ian Tyson. The label
was established in 1976, and found firm ground in the mid-eighties
when Tyson’s record Cowboyography went platinum in Canada.
With a few albums under his belt, Hus made Bush Pilot Buckaroo,
the first of his recordings put out by Stony Plain and distributed
by Warner Music. It was released in May 2008.
In conversation before his recent concert at the
Dakota Tavern in Toronto, it is clear that Tim Hus is very pleased
and grateful for his recent career upswing. “I never thought
I’d get to be on Stony Plain Records. I used to listen
to Ian Tyson records, and I would see that Stony Plain logo
on there. Man, I never would have dreamed that I would get to
record for them one day. And I was hoping that I would get to
meet Stompin’ Tom one day. But opening a whole tour for
him, and then having him tell me that I’m the best opening
act that he’s ever had, and how long he’s been looking
for a guy like me, that he’s passing the torch to me --
I couldn’t even have dreamed up that kind of stuff!”
Time will tell if Hus is able to develop the deep connection
to all parts of Canada that his mentor has so successfully built,
but with songs like ‘Vancouver Blues’, ‘So
Long Saskatchwan’, and ‘Flin Flon’, he is
definitely moving in that direction!
CI:
You recently completed a tour of eastern Canada with Stompin’
Tom Connors. Is there anything that you can single out and say
that you learned from Stompin’ Tom as far as how to engage
an audience?
TH: Well, I think you always learn. Stompin’ Tom is a
master with an audience, right? He has such a huge stage presence
and charisma, and I’m standing five feet behind him every
night, backing him up. You can’t help but learn things.
He lays it all out on the line when he’s on stage, for
sure. He’s quite a different guy actually when he’s
off the stage. He’s quite quiet and reserved. He likes
to find himself a corner and sit with his back to the wall.
But he’s sure a showman when he gets up there.
CI: The crowd at a Stompin’ Tom show is an interesting
mix of people, different ages, men and women, people from the
country, people from the city, and it gets pretty lively when
Stompin’ Tom gets going. Do you remember anything from
the tour that was especially memorable as far as the behaviour
of the crowd?
TH: There were all varieties. There were shows where the people
were older and quieter, and then shows when the young rowdies
are out, for sure. What is really wonderful to see is just how
much his fans really love him. They were sending all kinds of
stuff back to the dressing room, paintings that people have
painted of him, all kinds of stuff like that. And just how much
he means to people! Every night, huge crowds, right? Every night.
The people just adore him.
CI: One song of
yours that instantly draws people in during the live shows is
‘Canadian Cowboy’ [a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter
Danny Mack]. When I watched the show at Centennial Hall in London,
you introduced it by saying that a lot of people tell you that
maybe you should head down to Nashville and see what you can
do in the U.S., but you have made the conscious choice that
you want to sing songs about this country. When did you make
that decision? How did you decide that that was what you wanted
to do?
TH: I don’t know! I don’t really recall making a
conscious decision. I remember when I first got into the music.
Of course, I always loved country music and storytelling music,
and all those old songs about train wrecks and all that kind
of stuff, but I do remember when I got onto Stompin’ Tom
and how that really turned my world around. It was those types
of songs that I already loved, from ‘Wreck of the Old
97’ to Johnny Cash songs or Woody Guthrie songs, but all
of a sudden it was in my world, right? He was singing about
– I’m from the west – he was singing about
the Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver, and I’ve been
over that bridge. All of a sudden it was all this great music,
but in my world! When I started writing my own songs, I didn’t
really make any kind of decision. I just started writing songs
about things that interested me. I would say I do that to this
day. Actually I don’t know how to write a hit song. All
I’ve ever done is written songs about things that interest
me personally, and I’ve found that people everywhere seem
to like the same stuff. It’s funny. I often get asked
this kind of question: when did you decide to start writing
songs about Canada? To me, it’s a little bit like asking
someone, when did you decide to become a non-smoker? I don’t
really think that you make a decision to become a non-smoker.
You just kind of are a non-smoker, and if you don’t make
any decision at all, you’re just a non-smoker. Then if
you make the conscious choice to become a smoker – well,
I think it’s a little bit like that. People say: how did
you get onto this niche of writing Canadian country songs? The
simple answer is that I’m from Canada! Most of my songs
are about western Canada, but that’s because that’s
where I’m from. I’m just writing about stuff that’s
familiar to me and stuff that interests me. So I haven’t
really made a conscious effort to do that, but somewhere along
the line I became aware of the fact that it seems like nobody
else is doing it!
CI: I think that’s
what interests people, right? There are many people that could
never understand why young songwriters didn’t want to
take that up, telling stories about people and places across
the country. Stompin’ Tom has talked about this for years.
Maybe it’s just because of the presence of the United
States, and it’s a bigger market, but I think that is
what’s driving people to ask you the question.
TH: Well, that’s what Stompin’ Tom has told me so
many times, how thrilled he was that he finally found somebody
else doing it. He used to always say that he was the only one
doing it. Now he says, ‘you and me are the only ones doing
it!’ He says that Wilf Carter did it. Wilf Carter was
born in 1904. Then he says – this is Tom talking –
‘I was born in 1936 – so thirty-two years later
I came along!’ Between Wilf Carter and himself, he says
that there was nobody doing it. Now, he had to wait another
thirty or forty years for me to come along! That’s what
he says: what’s wrong with this country? You can read
his various accounts of it. It’s been published many times,
including in his books. He just feels that Canada has an identity
crisis and a cultural crisis that way. It seems like it’s
‘uncool’ to write about Canada. I think that’s
what a lot of songwriters feel, which is what Tom has been trying
to combat. I guess maybe me too, right? Just because you’re
so accustomed to hearing American songs all the time, I hear
the critics saying about me, ‘oh, his songs are good,
but they’re too regional’. But I haven’t found
that that’s the case. I’ve even played my songs
throughout the States, in Louisiana, or in Washington D.C.,
and there the Americans say ‘this is great, we didn’t
know you guys had your own songs’. They do! As an example,
I would say that, telling somebody that, because I wrote a song
about Saskatchewan, only people in Saskatchewan will like it,
I strongly disagree with that. For people who are from there,
they are going to like that in particular, but for people that
aren’t from there, they will learn something new, and
that will interest them – if it’s a well-written
song. In the same way, I can’t imagine anybody telling
an American that a song like ‘Rose of San Antone’
– would you ever say, ‘ah, you can’t play
that in Alberta! Nobody’s going to get it. They haven’t
been to San Antonio.’ People wouldn’t say that,
but they say the opposite. If you do write something about Canada,
they say that no one else is going to get that.
CI:
One of my favourite songs of yours is ‘So Long Saskatchewan’.
When you look at the lyrics, it has a certain historical sweep
to it, grandfathers or maybe great-grandfathers coming through
the port at Halifax, heading out to the Prairies, and then a
change in circumstances comes that makes the family leave the
farm behind in Saskatchewan. When you’re putting these
songs together, are you drawing from family stories or from
stories of friends? Are you hitting the books, pulling stories
from written history?
TH: I would say a little bit of everything, but mainly I would
say that it comes from stories that I hear from people. That
particular song I wrote for a farmer south of Swift Current.
He told me how disappointed he was that he was farming five
hundred acres and his wife had to have a job in town. Everybody
else on his road had sold out, that kind of thing. My historical
songs, like I say, there are things that interest me, either
something that I have knowledge of or I get the knowledge from
somebody that has the knowledge, or I will research it. If it
is a ‘historic’ song, I want to make sure that the
details are accurate. That’s very important to me.
CI: You were born and grew up in British Columbia.
Now you are based in Alberta. What sort of songs did you listen
to growing up? Obviously Stompin’ Tom, and you mentioned
Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie. What was in the home as you grew
up?
TH: Well, my father was a real world traveler, right? He’s
from the big port in Germany, from Hamburg originally. He traveled
all around the world working on ships, helped build the trans-Australian
railway, worked as a bricklayer in Brazil, a real globetrotter,
a real vagabond and globetrotter. He liked to sing, so we had
those kinds of songs around, folk songs, sailor songs, country
songs, that kind of thing.
CI: When did you
start writing your own songs?
TH: When I came out of high school I was working in a logging
camp. I remember that was when I first started writing songs
and singing for the guys. It was kind of a remote camp where
we would be in for three weeks and then out for a week. That
was a great crowd. They were entertainment starved, right? Anybody
that could do something entertaining - they were all tone deaf
anyways from the chainsaws!
CI: So that was
a good group to start with …
TH: Yeah, right? I would sing them songs, Johnny Cash songs,
that kind of thing, country songs. They liked that kind of music.
I tried writing a song about the logging camp, about loggers,
the sort of stuff that we were doing, and of course it went
over great. I guess that you have a success and then you try
writing another song, and then people like that. I actually
fell into this music thing kind of accidentally. I mean, I always
liked it, but it was that thing where you just play to amuse
yourself, and then other people like your playing, and then
they say that you should try writing a song. You do, and they
like that, and they say you should write another one. You do,
and then they say you should make an album! Then people buy
that. Then you should do another album. Now I’m signed
to Stony Plain Records with Ian Tyson there, and we’re
traveling coast to coast, and on tour with Stompin’ Tom,
and on the radio and on television and stuff - I guess one thing
has led to another, and I can proudly say it’s because
people have always supported it. People have always liked what
I’m doing. I just kind of kept with it.
CI:
When you’re on stage, you work in stories before most
of the songs, and now as you’re traveling coast to coast,
as you say, are you working in some road stories now and then,
or are they mostly stories relating to how the songs came together?
TH: Oh, whatever – and they change, too! It depends. I
don’t use a setlist, right? A lot of entertainers will
have a predetermined list, a lineup of songs that they’re
going to do, but I don’t do that. Every audience is different.
Sometimes they’re up for more stories, sometimes they
just want to hear songs, sometimes they’re up for slower
songs, sometimes more up-tempo stuff. Maybe they’re a
big drinking gang, or more listening gang. I find that I can
do a better show if I can just pick it out of my hat, so to
speak, what I’m going to do.
CI: As
you know, this country is massive …
TH: The biggest challenge is how big it is!
CI:
… and there are profound differences between being in
Ontario and being in Newfoundland, or between being in Quebec
and being in Alberta. Somehow Stompin’ Tom always seemed
to be able to link the songs back to the idea of Canada. They
all fit in. He would tell the stories from the regions, but
it was all part of Canadian music. For you, is that your goal
as well, to tell the stories but be able to link it to something
that is coast to coast to coast?
TH: I don’t really know. I’ve done a lot of thinking
about it lately due to late night conversations with Stompin’
Tom! I would say that Tom really likes the path that I’m
on, and maybe I was on that path accidentally already, without
thinking about it really. I don’t really know how important
those things are. You tell stories about different people from
different places, and as your world expands you tell more. I’ve
noticed that myself, of course. They started out being songs
about B.C. and the logging camp, and when I went on and had
other experiences, I wrote other songs, lived in different places
and met different people. Now as I travel across the whole land,
that just continues, right? I guess, to answer your question,
I would say that that feeling of Canadian pride, or a Canadian
sense of identity, that you get from Stompin’ Tom’s
songs, that’s just something that happens when you hear
stories about different parts of the land. Right? I think the
link is actually just Tom. If you hear Tom sing a song, in my
example, if you’re from the west, you hear Tom singing
about the Second Narrows Bridge, and you think ‘ah, isn’t
that cool?’ A guy that is so well respected, and what
a great song, and he likes my part of the world! He knows something
about it, and he’s telling the history of my part of the
world to the rest of the country, and that makes you proud.
In the same way, then you’re interested in listening to
songs about the tobacco farmers in Ontario, which I didn’t
really know anything about as a kid. They don’t grow tobacco
where I’m from. But then when you come out here, you already
know something about it – ‘oh yeah, I already heard
a story about this’.
CI: If the link
is Tom, I think for most of the people in the crowd, it’s
a special moment – when they’ve developed this relationship
with Stompin’ Tom – to hear him say suddenly that
he’s getting older and looking to pass the torch on to
you. Do you think that is something that, at this point, is
your calling, to be the one that links places together through
stories, and opening up Ontario in the imaginations of people
who are from B.C. or Alberta?
TH: Well, I guess that’s already been happening. Even
before getting to tour with Stompin’ Tom, I think it is
something that I would have just continued. It’s just
always been supported. Why change what you’re doing when
everybody seems to like that? It’s great to hear about
other places. Sometimes you get that as a traveler, right? I
noticed that I get so lucky, you know? This year I’ve
played in all the provinces, and I started out in January playing
the Yukon Territory. So this year I’ve been all the way
from Vancouver Island to St. John’s, Newfoundland, and
have played in all the provinces along the way. I’m missing
the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Territory, but I think
that we might be going this fall to play a bush plane camp in
the Northwest Territories! My latest album is Bush Pilot Buckaroo,
and I know they were interested in flying us up there for a
show. I consider myself to be very fortunate. One thing that
I do know about this land is that the people everywhere are
great. They’re very welcoming everywhere, and the only
reason why some regions might talk poorly about other regions
is just because they haven’t been there. You’ll
find if you go to places, you meet good people everywhere.
CI: This last album, Bush Pilot Buckaroo, is out
on Stony Plain Records, released just last year. How does life
change for you when you get signed onto Stony Plain records?
TH: It’s a very well respected label, but still a smaller
independent label. It helps out great on the business side of
things, on the industry side of things, and of course Holger
Petersen, who runs that record label, really believes in me.
He’s so well respected in all the music circles, so it
opens up many new doors for you. When you’re doing the
type of music that I’m doing, this is not commercial music,
so it’s not the type of thing where things change overnight,
from one day to the next. Then there are all those intangibles.
It’s hard to say what exactly it does, but it’s
sure great to be working with the Stony Plain guys.
CI: As you’re touring now to support that last
album, do you have any timeline in mind for when you’re
going to go back and put together another collection of songs?
TH: Well, I’ve been doing one about every two years. I’ll
tell you one thing that has happened. We play so many shows
that I hardly get a chance to sit down and write songs anymore!
I guess as soon as I get a batch of songs together again, then
the time would be to do another one.
CI: What
do you find are the best conditions? Is it almost impossible
to write on the road? Is it better when you’re at home
and you get a little time to process what you’ve seen,
and that’s when the songs come?
TH: I would say that I gather ideas when I’m on the road,
that kind of thing, when I hear an interesting conversation
or I think ‘you know, that would be an interesting thing
to write a song about’. You kind of gather ideas, but
to actually sit down and put it all together, I need some quiet,
or I would like to have some quiet. It’s hard on the road.
We’re pretty busy just doing all that stuff. I still take
care of most of the stuff all by myself. It’s a lot just
playing the shows, setting up the gear, driving the van, finding
the places to stay, and on the telephone keeping on top of your
affairs.
CI: Is there anything else that you
would rather be doing?
TH: No! Absolutely, this is what I’ve always wanted to
do. It’s like a dream coming true for me, all these things
that I never thought I would get to do. I never thought I’d
get to be on Stony Plain Records. I used to listen to Ian Tyson
records and I would see that Stony Plain logo on there. Man,
I never would have dreamed that I would get to record for them
one day. And I was hoping that I would get to meet Stompin’
Tom one day! But opening a whole tour for him, and then having
him tell me that I’m the best opening act that he’s
ever had, and how long he’s been looking for a guy like
me, that he’s passing the torch to me -- I couldn’t
even have dreamed up that kind of stuff!
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Tim Hus Music Copyright 2008
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