Songcraft is what connects Ron Sexsmith to the greats. When I mention to him that Spotify pays him a compliment when its continuously play/radio function will follow one of his songs with Nick Lowe, Nick Drake or some other legend, he sounds surprised. But over 17 studio albums, he’s never made a poor song, so he shouldn’t be. A lovely chat about songs and music with one of modern times’ best songwriters.
I love doing this podcast. It is such a pleasure and a privilege to talk to my musical heroes, but it is just as satisfying to discover new favourite musicians through the process of preparing to speak with them about their life’s work. There are no more sincere human beings than artists. They give it to you straight and they don’t know any other way.
This was very much the case with Ron Sexsmith, whose music I have become gently addicted to in recent weeks. I have come to love Sexsmith’s songs. They mature on you, as if taking your time to sip a large glass of fine whisky or wine. After a while they will make you mellow, giddy with joy and gratefully intoxicated.
After he “couldn’t get arrested” in the 80s, post-grunge opened a window through which a then 30-year old Ron Sexsmith could climb. With his sincere, low-key ballads and simple songs straight from the heart, as was his 1995 self-titled debut. Produced by legend Mitchell Froom it was a stripped back affair, yet came with all the signature sounds of Froom and his engineer collaborator Tchad Blake (favourites of the crew here at The Art of Longevity). Those songs came as an antidote to the loudness of grunge and the hubris of Britpop. Sexsmith was a pioneer of a style that paved the way for a wave of troubadours including Teddy Thompson, Josh Ritter, Rufus Wainwright and many more. And of all places he was signed to Interscope - then one of the world’s biggest major labels.
“They didn't really know what to do with me. They called me a ‘cred artist’. Someone who got good good reviews and they could point to and say “we’re not just pop” so they could attract other real artists. I coasted on that for a while, but then around my third album (Whereabouts, 1999) I saw that it didn’t mean anything to them any more. To have an artist that was just good to have around”.
And so that early run came to an inevitable end as Ron was slammed into the wall of the ‘dropped artist’. By then however, he was into his stride as a songwriter. No longer an apprentice to those amazing producers he has worked with, he was on his way to mastering the craft. Indeed, these days he describes himself as more of a problem solver than a songwriter. This songcraft is what connects Sexsmith to the greats. When I mention to him that Spotify pays him a compliment when its continuously play/radio function will follow one of his songs with Nick Lowe, Nick Drake or some other legend, his response is modest yet enlightening:
“Well I didn’t know that but one of the nicest things anyone ever said about me was what Randy Newman told Mitchell (Froom) that “I like Ron because he does the work”. And I thought, yeah that’s true, I do do the work. That’s what I try to do and for the most part. There’s not a song I could play you where I’d think the song is terrible”.
Objectively, something strikes me about Ron Sexsmith’s 17 studio albums. When I plotted charts for many Art of Longevity guests - based on their critical reviews and commercial performance - there are always dips - creative missteps. But Sexsmith’s albums are consistently well reviewed and received. They have also consistently never dented the charts. When I ask Ron which of his 17 studio albums a new listener should start with, he recommends his personal favourite, 2004’s Retriever. That record’s opening track starts with the couplet:
“I’m a bit run down but I’m okay
Just feel like calling it a day.”
It sums up a career in which he must have felt this way many times about making his music connect with an audience. Yet like his other 16 albums, Retriever is no lacklustre affair. It contains a crop of fine understated pop songs. These include ‘Not About To Lose’, which Chris Martin himself first heard from Sexsmith’s dressing room and certified that it sounded like a hit. It also contains the devastating ‘For The Driver’. Retriever (produced this time by Swedish pop auteur Martin Terefe) was a step up in production and arrangement for Sexsmith at that period, and his work has since ebbed & flowed between that approach and more simple, stripped down sets. But what comes through is that songcraft and yes, that problem solving in action. It’s something he first learned from doing cover songs in bars aged 17, covering songs by The Flying Machine and The Kinks that contained shifting modulations. The Retriever album introduced Ron’s music to a wider, more international audience, and gave him a couple of minor hits in his home country of Canada. Still, chart & radio success evaded him. Mind you, sometimes that’s a blessing in disguise in this business.
“I feel like a survivor in a way. My career isn’t the way I envisaged but I have one. If people want to hear my record or see me play. Or when people cover my songs, that’s the icing on the cake. If I can write an evergreen like with my Christmas song”.
That Christmas song is “Maybe This Christmas” which is one of my absolute favourites, and has been covered a hundred times.
There is humour to his work too that’s so subtle and clever. Every so often I come across a song that I adapt as a sort-of personal theme tune. A constant companion to walk around with like a talisman around your neck. For now that song is “No Help At All”, from, as it happens, his most commercially successful album Long Player Late Bloomer. The opening verses go like this:
“I've been burning the candle at both ends
And running myself more ragged than a raggedy ann
I couldn't read the writing on the wall
Until I hit that wall and that was no help at all
I've been learning all my lessons the hard way
And nursing the exit wound from a near fatal mistake
You could say it was time for a wake up call
I never did get that call and there was no help at all”
Songs can sometimes be so helpful as to be therapeutic. Ron’s songs more than most - they could be life savers. May I strongly suggest you sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labour.
Album 17, The Vivian Line, is available here. Ron turns 60 next year and plans a review tour “Sexsmith at 60”. We need to make that happen!