Colin James ready to rock PNE
Everywhere Colin James looks these days, he sees reasons to reflect. There’s his recent induction into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame. And there’s the release of Twenty Five Live, his first live album intended to coincide with the 25th anniversary of his self-titled debut album, which included such hits as Five Long Years and Why’d You Lie.
With all that in mind, the 49-yearold sat down with The Canadian Press to look back on a career that just passed the quarter-century mark. James plays a free concert at The Fair at the PNE Thursday night.
You’re celebrating your 25th anniversary in music but your career
goes back much farther than that.
Colin James: Yeah, I’ve been in bands since I was 13. I played mandolin mostly from 13 to 16, (playing) bluegrass and Irish traditional music. When I grew up in Regina, people consider it a bit of a backwater — it gets a bit of a name like that, but there were amazing musicians in Regina. I learned almost everything I know between 13 and 16. Even going on the road for a month at a time in a big bus full of people, it was amazing. I left being this kid, and I came back, my mom and dad were like: “What happened to you?” People would literally sit around campfires and teach me how to play.
So you didn’t hang out with kids your own age?
I hung out with 30-year-olds until I was about 16. And then I started hanging out with people my age and ended up upside-down in a car on a dirt road in no time at all. I thought ... “I gotta hang out with my peers.” That just got me in a world of (trouble), immediately. It’s funny.
To be the lone kid hanging out with grown professionals, you must have known you were a special talent?
I definitely had a blind faith for that. My intent was just to play for a living, so I think that gave me a fair amount of confidence. But when you’re broke and playing street corners it’s pretty depressing. I did a lot of that but I never liked it.
Major opportunities came to you quickly. How did it feel at the time?
Scary. I was the second artist signed to Virgin Records America — Iggy Pop being the first. My first producer was Tom Dowd, the guy who recorded Ray Charles and the Allman Brothers and Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin. So next thing you know, I’m in Miami working with this guy. It was mindblowing. Tom Dowd was known as one of the world’s best blues producers but he didn’t want me to play any blues because he’d already done it with everybody else. He wanted me to be like the Eurythmics. So it actually was a disaster with Tom Dowd. We spent scads of money and had to scrap everything.
Your first album was nonetheless a huge hit in Canada, and you won the most promising male vocalist award at the Junos. As an artist in you rearly 20s, all of this must have been simultaneously exciting and daunting.
My first time playing the States was five nights at the Radio City Music Hall. That was insane. I think back on it now, it was so bizarre. Playing with Stevie Ray Vaughan at The Wiltern theatre in L.A., and Stevie Wonder being backstage. Touring with Little Feat around the southern United States, touring with Keith Richards. Seeing these people you’ve heard about all your life. It was mind-blowing.
How did you keep your head on straight?
Well, it’s hard. Especially when you’re living on hype and you’re young and you’re doing things wrong like everybody does, unless you’re some kind of saint. There was definitely a time when it was too much. When you’re striking when the iron’s hot and they’re sending you all over the world, there was a time when I was definitely exhausted.