A ROCK ’N’ ROOTS RETURN
Joe Nolan is back and touring his long-awaited record, Cry Baby
A few years back, Joe Nolan was visiting Nashville when he ran into his old agent.
“I had signed with him forever ago, and he asked me, ‘What happened to Joe Nolan?,’” the Edmonton-based singer-songwriter recounts over the phone. “He hadn’t heard anything in two or three years about what was going on with me.”
Nolan looks back on that moment as a bit of a wake-up call, considering that only four years ago he was the toast of the town.
Signed to Toronto’s Six Shooter Records while still in his early 20s, Nolan grabbed the attention of critics, respected musicians such as Colin Linden, and music industry types with a gravelly, rootsrock howl and beyond-his-years songwriting showcased in 2011’s Goodbye Cinderella and 2014’s Tornado. After that?
Well, the truth is that sometimes your career path turns out to have more bumps in it than you’d expect.
Nolan has been navigating past those bumps diligently, however. Now back to being an independent artist, he’s returned with his latest record, Cry Baby, an aching, ruminative piece of downbeat rock ’n’ roots that features such guests as country singer Lydia Loveless and Tommy Banks, who provided the arrangement for the string section in the album’s closer, Ode to Sturgeon County.
We spoke with Nolan, who was buzzing on three cups of coffee and little sleep, about his latest work.
Q: Four years seems like a long time between records.
A: It felt like an eternity to me. I always wanted to be one of those guys who puts out a record a year, though people always said to make it every two years. There are lots of reasons I wasn’t able to record, but eventually I just realized that I had to go and do it myself.
Q: Did you attempt to do a followup to Tornado soon after? A: I spent a lot of time waiting for others. I did some experimenting; there were demos with Hawksley Workman, and I tried doing different things that other people thought would work, but it never felt quite right. Finally I realized that I needed to steer the ship myself.
Q: The intervening four years had to have an effect on your songwriting.
A: I’ve definitely felt like I’ve grown a lot, personally and musically, in last five years. At the same time I felt like I’d become stagnant, which was a hard place to be in.
Q: To go from being a young guy with a full team behind them to someone who now needs to take care of some of the business end of things must have been a bit jarring.
A: Actually, I wish that someone would have hammered it in my head when I was 21 that I should watch after the business end. Everything was so surreal; people working with me would say, “Cool, yeah, you take care of the songs, don’t worry about the rest.” I thought that was the way it was, but really it’s a business as much as a passion, and it’s become a lot more rewarding being in control.
Q: Let’s talk about your record. Most musicians name their albums with care, so I’m guessing that Cry Baby isn’t just an afterthought of a title.
A: Truth is, I knew that would be the title before I started recording. It’s a bit of a play on the Ryan Adams album Heartbreaker, which I really love for the vibe.
Q: Because it shows vulnerability?
A: It shows vulnerability, but the title also makes people think that it’s going to be depressing, which it actually isn’t. From what I’ve seen some people are uncomfortable with the title, which is interesting. I don’t know that a lot of people in Alberta would buy a T-shirt that says Cry Baby on it.
Q : You worked with local engineer/producer Scott Franchuk on Cry Baby; was it a collaborative effort?
A: Very much. Franchuk was the ultimate to work with, and an angel. He really allowed me to experiment and to help me realize the vision I was going for. I’m really grateful to have done this with him. We spent a lot of time together talking about ideas for songs, and he’d guide me very gently toward what I wanted. That was very special.