SHAUF RETURNS TO MUSICAL ROOTS AT EXCHANGE SHOW
Juno nominee used to clean, tend bar at Regina club
It’s 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, and Andy Shauf ’s bandmates have just begun unloading gear from the undercarriage of their big tour bus.
He’s fine skipping load-in, he says, and we head into The Exchange, a place he’s been many times.
“It feels good. It feels like home,” Shauf says, seated in the Club side of the venue on March 3.
“I mean, I used to clean in here, so there’s also the feeling of like I’m at work or something.
“I did the flooring over there in the bathroom,” he goes on. “I painted a lot of these walls. Someone drew — there’s like the art thing in the back — and someone wrote their descriptions for their paintings in Sharpie on the walls. So I had to like, paint over that a few times, because Sharpie is really hard to cover up.
“I called myself the janitor. I also, like, bartended here for shows and stuff.”
He’s not here to clean or bartend. A few hours later, he’s on stage before a sold-out crowd that welcomes him with cheers and hollers: “I love you!”
“How’s everybody doing out there? … It’s really nice to be here in Regina,” he tells the audience, which he expected would include family members and a few friends. These are some of his very few words between songs; he’s a pretty shy person.
“It felt natural to want to play (songs) for people,” Shauf explains. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m good at talking on stage; that’s something that never really came along.”
It’s a full room of people, mostly standing.
Shauf has outgrown The Exchange, with its 315-person capacity. At least the past three shows — including last May’s show with his band Foxwarren — have sold out.
He doesn’t know what the next size up would be.
“The Distrikt used to be over there and I think that was a little bigger and that’s closed now. … I think I’ll just keep coming back here,” he says with a warm laugh.
Shauf’s tour bus arrived from Saskatoon — another sold-out show there — at around 5 a.m. For this 3 p.m. interview, he’s just woken up, with plans to hit up an old haunt for supper: “I’m gonna go to Mr. Sub. That was like my move when I worked here.”
After Tuesday night’s show, next was Winnipeg and another soldout show.
Shauf is kind of a big deal these days. He even caught Jimmy Kimmel’s attention, performing on the network late night TV show on Feb. 12.
“It was — scary,” he says with a pause, finding the best word to describe that experience. Even though Kimmel’s set mimics a club show, “There are still those cameras pointed at you.”
Shauf doesn’t have pretence. On Kimmel, “I messed up a lyric. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, you’re never gonna watch those things and be satisfied, I don’t think. As long as people didn’t notice.”
His only apparent imperfection during his Regina performance this week — a frog in his throat during Early To The Party — elicited huge cheers and a few laughs.
Shauf, who grew up in Estevan, Bienfait and Caronport, spent his early music career in Regina.
He lived here when his 2012 album The Bearer of Bad News was released. (Its re-release in 2015 slightly predates Shauf’s move to Toronto, where he has a studio a few blocks from his apartment.)
His last song was from that album; the murder ballad Wendell Walker might have been for the spectator who shouted, “make us sad!”
“My son, my son, she is the Devil’s child, won’t you save her while you can,” he sings.
He’s alone when he steps back on stage for his encore.
“Raise your hand if you want to hear something,” he says.
There are requests for Jeremy’s Wedding and Hometown Hero.
One person suggests “play your favourite,” and he replies, “I hate all the songs.”
Whether that’s true or not, Shauf is a brilliant songwriter, and his latest two solo albums have broadened his acclaim. The Party (2016) was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize and garnered three Juno award nominations in 2017.
Like The Party, The Neon Skyline (released in January) is a concept album — set in the bar halfway between Shauf’s apartment and his studio on Queen Street West.
He wrote 50 songs and chose 11 for the album.
One that didn’t make the cut was about a bar patron’s tattoo. A few more songs feature Rose, a fictional bartender inspired by one of Skyline’s real staff members — “she has a lot of spunk.”
Writing on guitar, Shauf said his aim was to create a folk record with guitar and vocals at the core, “so that I could play the songs by myself and you wouldn’t miss the arrangements.”
The recording — as on The Party — includes clarinet, which Shauf taught himself to play after high school on an instrument his mom gave him for Christmas.
And, as with his previous records, he played every instrument himself.
He has company during his tour — Colin Nealis (keys), Karen Ng (clarinet and saxophone), Chris Bezant (guitar), Josh Daignault (bass) and Phil Melanson (drums).
Shauf’s other band, Foxwarren, includes some of his best friends — Darryl Kissick, Avery Kissick and Dallas Bryson.
Their November 2018 record is nominated for the alternative album of the year award at this year’s Juno Awards.
Shauf isn’t holding his breath. “I mean, it’s really cool to be recognized that way,” he said. “I rarely win them so I don’t really get my hopes up. Yeah. But I’m excited.”
The awards are in Shauf ’s home province next week, and he’ll be on tour in France.
“But I’m excited for the guys to get to go, and I really hope we win it so that they have to give a speech,” he said, laughing.
“I mean, none of us are public speakers. I had to give a speech once and it was horrible. So yeah, I’m excited for that.”
It felt natural to want to play (songs) for people ... But that doesn’t mean that I’m good at talking on stage; that’s something that never really came along