Scotty Kipfer went on tour and all he got was a dutiful pig
Cambridge country artist talks about his first disc at age 35 and how he found Peter Porker
CAMBRIDGE — Scotty Kipfer went on a coast-to-coast promotion tour and all he got from the trip was a dutiful pig.
While that sounds like a slogan on a badly gifted T-shirt, Kipfer found his new pet, who he named, ahem, Peter Porker, on the side of the road in Upsala, Ont., during a cross-Canada promotional radio tour and has turned the sow into a minor celeb.
With the release of his new album, “Taking My Time,” Peter can be seen on the cover beating Kipfer in a game of checkers. Each is sporting a spotted bowtie. That pig is such a ham.
Full disclosure: the 35-year-old former Southwood Secondary graduate received more than a pig and a striking album cover from the trip, as he slept in his 2006 Volkswagen Beetle and showered at local YMCAs to pound the pavement with his new 11-song country disc and first single, “Falling Like the Rain.” The response was worth the kilometres put on his vehicle and body.
“The people who have heard it have loved it,” said Kipfer, who had been writing and making the album in Nashville for the past three years.
“The coolest response I’ve gotten is from people who jump online or shoot me a message and say, ‘Scotty, this is so you.’ That was so important to me. I wanted to have my identity shine through on this record, not just having a bunch of songs that anybody could sing. These are pretty representative of who I am as a person.”
But let’s get back to the pig, which seems to be the first thing Kipfer gets asked about.
Peter came into his life this past spring during a 37-hour drive from Edmonton, ending his promotional tour, to a show at the Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte, a town just 15 min- utes north of Barrie.
After having his 10-hour sleep window for the entire trip depleted when he forgot his wallet in Calgary — a friend met him in Red Deer to save him some time since he was in Edmonton — Kipfer shuttled all the way to Winnipeg before stopping for a rest.
That was halted after 45 minutes when police knocked on his window for parking on the side of the roadway, and it startled him enough to start driving again.
Two hours outside of Thunder Bay, he saw a pig sitting on the right side of the road.
“I thought, shoot, am I hallucinating or is this real? Either way, I’ve got to pull over because if I’m hallucinating I’m too tired to be driving. And if there’s a little pig on the side of the road then I need to do something about that.”
Realizing the pig likely fell off a livestock truck because it was cut and bruised, Kipfer cleaned it up as best he could, bundled it in his hoodie, and set it on the passenger seat for a nap.
That was where Peter stayed, with stops every four hours when the pig woke up for bathroom breaks.
Peter has been living in Kipfer’s empty chicken coop behind his house ever since. He does come in when it’s cold, though.
“Little piggy snuggles are the best thing ever.”
If the story makes Kipfer sound a little unique, he’ll back that assessment up 100 per cent. He admits he’s not like most country artists today, who have taken the genre to the edges of pop and rock. He’s more of a throwback, with an updated sound.
“With country music become a melting pot of genres, with rock and pop and hip-hop influences kind of spilling into country music, country music proper has sort of gotten lost,” he said.
“For me, having grown up on traditional country music, like Randy Travis, Willie Nelson,
Merle Haggard and Keith Whitley, all these great artists partnered with TV shows like ‘The Grand Ole Opry,’ ‘Hee Haw’ and ‘The George Jones Show,’ there was so much humour in country music that’s mostly gone now from the culture of country music.”
And just like those people he idolized on “The Grand Ole Opry,” Kipfer did everything he could to get his album out. Leaving the business side of music after 15 years — which included writing songs for other artists — he gave up everything to pursue his dreams in Nashville. That included a steady paycheque.
For money to produce, mix and release his album, as well as to live, he took gigs anywhere he could get them, moved pianos for extra money, played with bands and even had a turn on Broadway.
“It’s nothing without sacrifice. I think it just makes it that much more sweeter now that we’re here and the record’s out. It’s been the last three years of my life basically since I left the business side, went down to Nashville and started spending all my time down there,” he said.
“It’s something that will be ongoing, that I’m going to have to continue to have a day job and make enough money to continue down this road.”
That road, while bumpy at times,
seemed to smooth out for Kipfer after a writing session for Nashville artist Colt Carpenter. The song that came out of the collaboration was the title track for “Taking My Time.” When Carpenter said the song wasn’t for him, Kipfer listened to it on the way home and it was like a revelation.
“When that song came out and I realized that it was very me, then the rest was easy. It was, at that point, writing the rest of the record and getting into the studio to record it.”
Kipfer is hoping the album will give him a huge push in an industry he admits is for artists a decade younger.
“It’s sort of a young man’s game. But if I made a record 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have been good. I didn’t have anything to say, I hadn’t figured myself out as an artist; I didn’t know what kind of voice I had yet.”
“So when I left the business side and went down (to Nashville), it was sort of a now-or-never situation for me. You can’t really put out a first single at 40 and expect it to do well. Not that my biological clock was ticking or anything, but it sort of was.”
Kipfer likened himself to Canadian country singers Tim Hicks and Bobby Wills, who started their careers in their 30s. “I think it was sort of a similar journey to finding themselves and finding the right opportunities to make that happen as far as making their own records. It was the same for me.”
“This is what I was born to do.”