The rocking return of Lee Aaron
As she answers her cell phone, Lee Aaron is fresh off a plane from B.C. and trying to find the car she has rented for the weekend.
She’s frazzled but pleasant, as always. “I’m so sorry, I might lose you for a bit,” she says as she enters a tunnel.
Lee Aaron
Where: Seneca Queen Theatre; 4624 Queen Street; Niagara Falls When: Oct. 28, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $33.25 www.senecaqueen.ca
At the car rental company, things take a weird turn. It seems they don’t have her reservation. Aaron has a show that night in Brampton, and suddenly doesn’t have wheels.
“Oh my gosh, this is crazy,” she sighs. “Maybe it’s me, maybe I totally screwed up.”
A few minutes later she’s calling to her husband and drummer, John Cody: “I got the wrong company. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s my bad,” she laughs, back on the phone. “I need a good manager to do all this stuff for me.”
As this is going on, she’s explaining - once again - why Canada’s former Metal Queen has come back to hard rock after a long hiatus. Why she’s back to the grind, which now includes car rental mishaps after long flights.
Turns out, she’s more of a weekend warrior than metal queen now. Being a mom of two kids, one now a teenager, fills the schedule that touring used to. She usually does “pockets of shows,” packing for mini-getaways instead of long slogs across the country.
But for longtime fans, her recent shows are a celebration. After bowing out of the rock scene in the mid ‘90s to pursue jazz and blues, she released the rugged throwback Fire and Gasoline last year, her first straightforward rock disc since 2precious in 1996.
“I was put off for quite awhile,” says Aaron, who makes her Niagara return Saturday night at the Seneca Queen Theatre in Niagara Falls. “The industry tends to be quite fickle in its love for the latest new thing. Myself as well as a lot of other artists…when the grunge phenomenon hit in the ‘90s, everybody’s career fell apart.
“It was a desire not to enter back into a music industry like that. Especially in North America, I find. We don’t really revere our artists who still out there, still vital, still making new music.”
She points to the “rude awakening ” shortly after Fire and Gasoline’s release. When she tried hiring a promo person to push it to radio stations, she was asked “Why would you hire us?” It was explained she was now classified as a ‘heritage’ act.
“Basically what I was told is, if you have a career longer than twenty years in Canada, you’re considered a heritage artist and there’s just no way you’re going to get radio play with anything except your old hits.
“It was a little disheartening. I hadn’t done an album in so long…I had all these great song ideas, I produced it myself, I thought it was probably my best record ever.”
But what could have been a downer has been a satisfying return to the scene for Aaron, with sold out shows at home and overseas. A strong collection of heavy riffs, Rock and Gasoline is Aaron’s most complete album since 1989’s Bodyrock, which was nominated for Album of the Year at the Juno Awards.
And she credits her son’s taste in “crappy music” for helping open the door again.
“I was like…’You got to hear old Led Zeppelin! Fleetwood Mac!’ So I started playing him all this ‘70s music that I listened to as a kid.
“At the risk of sounding like an old fart…in the age of digital technology, music is just not produced and created the same way. The value in music is not on song craftsmanship.”
As if making up for lost time, Aaron has already recorded another rock record, which she expects to release in the spring. To be followed by more weekend warrioring.
She was once Lady of the Darkest Night. Now, there are kids to mind.
“Usually, I’m not getting three or four hours sleep with motherhood and everything,” she says with a laugh. “Just trying to organize the care of my children before I leave. We always try to make our jaunts less than a week, with several weeks in-between so we’re home. Obviously, they’re the most important thing.”