Shane Koyczan on Cohen, writing, new movie and his tour
Shane Koyczan is an award-winning spoken word poet, author, musician and champion of social causes such as anti-bullying. He resides in Penticton. He tours internationally and is including a stop in Penticton on Saturday, Nov. 4, at the Cleland Theatre on his current Canadawide tour.
A documentary, Shut Up and Say Something, about reuniting with his estranged father, premiered last month at the Vancouver Film Festival and is being shopped around to other major film festivals.
He spoke with Herald editor James Miller about his career.
HERALD: How do you organize the content in each of your shows?
KOYCZAN: I’m always working on new stuff, constantly adding to the show or taking material out. A lot depends on what you’re feeling that night. It comes through, pieces on your mind, things from your heart. People always have their favourites. No matter what the show is, maybe you’ll hear your favourite, maybe you won’t. They’re constructed in such a way that none of them is so heavy or so funny. I try and find a balance. I want people to experience a range of emotion, things you feel — laughter, joy, anger, sorrow, grief, sorrow, melancholy. People who come to my shows, it’s an experience.
HERALD: Leonard Cohen died almost a year ago. Was he a huge influence on your life?
KOYCZAN: Oh yeah. When I first got into writing in general, your voice is made up of people who influenced you along the way and Leonard Cohen was a big influence, as were a lot of others. Growing up, he was interesting to me. What I really loved about Leonard Cohen is when you cut through all that stuff — his choice of words, his choice of music — you will get to the beauty which is in the words, texture and feelings.
HERALD: Did you ever see him perform live?
KOYCZAN: No, I never had the opportunity and it’s one of life’s great regrets.
HERALD: You and some friends from Penticton put together a Cohen tribute for two nights in Penticton which was amazing.
KOYCZAN: What I was really happy with was to give the community a chance to see that these people (other musicians) are truly talented artists who live in your community but you don’t come out to their shows. You stay home and watch reruns. We have culture here. Look at a band like Loverboy. They play all the time everywhere but never here in Penticton where their lead singer (Mike Reno) is from. Penticton is a small place and there have been so many great artists who leave here because there’s no opportunity. I came back to Penticton after I made opportunities work for me and I didn’t need to live in big places. We have a booming wine industry here but you need culture as well. We have tons of great people — singers, songwriters, filmmakers. Penticton is an incredible place to be, but some people haven’t woken up to where we are. I travel the world and Canada is in a weird state. We don’t celebrate our artists like other countries do but we really have a tendency to ache when we lose them.
HERALD: You also did a unique show with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra a few years back.
KOYCZAN: That was one of my favourites. Any time you work with a wall of beautiful sounds like that, it’s really easy to connect with emotional spaces. Music does that. You can make an emotional connection through songs. Music really speaks in a way that language doesn’t. We associate certain things with music: our first dance, our first break-up.
HERALD: Is performing exhausting for you?
KOYCZAN: Yes. Every show is made up of a lot of faces and I don’t like to stand for very long. Emotionally, talking about very personal things, opening up in a way... vulnerability can be an armour but it’s also vulnerability. I still have triggers. People forget because a microphone is in front of you and you’re famous, it doesn’t mean you’re not human.
HERALD: Was it hard for you to be involved with Shut Up and Say Something?
KOYCZAN: It was emotional but most of my work is. I give my dad a lot of credit for doing this.
“Hi, haven’t seen you in a while and do you mind if we shove a microphone in your face?’” I’m very happy with the final product.
HERALD: You skillfully limit the number of shows you do in a year in Penticton. Are you trying to avoid over-exposure? You must get asked a lot.
KOYCZAN: In a smaller town you reach critical mass pretty quick. Really, I don’t do a lot of shows in Penticton because this is where I come to breathe, to do the writing side of things. This time I’m fortunate that I could work Penticton into our tour. I get a lot of requests and it’s hard saying no, but home for anybody is where they can hang their hat, relax a little bit and do the unseen work. When people come to my shows to hear the work, that work doesn’t just magically happen. It’s hard to write when you’re on the road.
Coming back to Penticton, this is where I do it. I really enjoy writing, sitting in front of a keyboard, putting on some music and start going. HERALD: Do you find writing difficult? KOYCZAN: The way the world is now there’s no shortage of things to write on. The world is so maddening right now. You turn on the news and see the next thing that happens. It’s a weird time. HERALD: Do poets need to be political? KOYCZAN: When I first started, people were telling me I was too political. People want or need different things from you and in some cases that’s an emotional release. Emotions can be as toxic as any other thing you hold onto. It’s like why you go to a gym, you want to sweat out the toxins that you’ve put in your body.
HERALD: Do you still get, “Oh my gosh, it’s the guy from the Olympics?”
KOYCZAN: I was just in Vancouver for a documentary film festival and being at that presentation, everybody had a story about where they were when they saw my Olympic performance.
HERALD: Have you finally embraced being famous?
KOYCZAN: It’s a weird thing. I don’t think anybody goes into poetry thinking, yeah, it’s going to make me famous. I’ve made choices along the way that led to different things and fame is a byproduct that I didn’t need or want. But it also gives me a platform to talk about things that are important to me. It can be hard, getting stopped on the street or in an airport. You want to give people a little bit of time, but usually I have somewhere to be.