Workman working on new definition for his life
What: Hawksley Workman with Fiona Bevan When: Friday, 7 p.m. Where: Alix Goolden Performance Hall (907 Pandora Ave.) Tickets: $27.50 at ticketfly.com and Lyle’s Place
Hawksley Workman has been suffering from what he calls “existential angst.” Be it the state of his career, the pains of getting older, or cutting down his wine intake to improve his health, there’s plenty of stocktaking going on in Workman’s head these days.
“You’ve caught me at such a funny time,” Workman said Tuesday from a tour stop Kelowna. “I’m having a lot of reflections on all of this stuff. I’m restless for sure. I get bored of myself really quickly. I can get caught up in that maniacal, myopic, forwardmoving, what’s-next guy, but I’m really trying to unhook him a little bit from my day-to-day. He’s such a troublemaker.”
The Juno Award winner, who turned 40 this year, is full of forward momentum at the moment. He released Old Cheetah, his 15th album, in June, and set out Oct. 1 on a tour that runs until Nov. 28. He will begin recording another new album in January, schedule permitting, and has written a children’s book that is also due next year. Workman is hoping to craft a followup to The God That Comes, the acclaimed 2013 musical he cowrote with Christian Barry.
Workman is prone to speaking in code, especially when he’s talking about what appear to be the two sides of his personality: the colourful and witty offstage person, and the wild, paradoxical onstage performer. “Some days I think: ‘Why does my keycard still get in this door?’ ” Workman said, referring to his career thus far.
“A guy who is sort of funnylooking like me, he should have been kicked out of this party a long time ago.”
According to Workman, it was in Victoria that all this second-guessing began. Following a three-night run at the Belfry theatre in March, which drew rave reviews for The God That Comes, the star celebrated with a slide down the theatre’s bannister.
He misjudged the curve and fell flat on his face in a front of a group of people who had just seen him play a cross-dressing king of Greek tragedy based upon The Bacchae.
“I fell really good and really hard. I left the theatre and went to the hospital, and when I woke up the next day — with a stitch and an aching body — it was a real wakeup. To go to the hospital with a bit of wine on your breath, in lipstick and eyeliner, it was a night that started me going: ‘OK, Workman. Your bannister-sliding days are through.’ ”
Workman arrived in Toronto in the mid-1990s, appearing with his flamboyant glam rock like an alien from Ontario’s Muskoka region. His first two albums cast him as a hardworking Bowie-like performer. Workman wrote, played, sang and produced every note on 1999’s For Him and the Girls and 2001’s (Last Night We Were) the Delicious Wolves.
The latter recording earned Workman the best-new-artist Juno Award in 2002. The success was welcome, but came with strings attached. He has been fighting his diva reputation ever since, Workman said.
“There are things in your personality that define you for so long, before you realize they are poison in a way. I don’t want to be defined by these things any longer.”
He found new life as an artist in Mounties, a supergroup he co-founded with Steve Bays of Hot Hot Heat and Ryan Dahle of Limblifter. The band’s debut, Thrash Rock Legacy, earned a longlist nomination for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize, an unexpected feather in the cap for all involved, Workman said.
The version of Workman that appears Friday in Victoria might be a thing of the past by the next time he enters the studio. “There’s a door that I am a little bit scared to walk through, and I can see it in front of me. It’s a door where I get to live a little bit more simply, and it’s a door where I probably don’t drink as much.”