Theo Fleury takes a shot at ‘hockey-tonk’
Theo Fleury has had a hurtin’ life.
A twanging ballad of pain and shame and, finally, atonement.
The ex-hockey star documented the dark truth of it in his autobiography, Playing with Fire: Sexual abuse as an adolescent at the hands of a predatory coach, drug addiction, booze, wildness, self-loathing.
But he’s not that tormented soul anymore, the despairing man who once stuck a pistol in his mouth and debated whether to pull the trigger.
“Last Friday was 3,652 days of sobriety,” Fleury told the Star recently. “Because I don’t count in years. It’s a 24-hour reprieve.”
Post-hockey, a civvy-street Fleury tried on — and discarded — various professions. Entrepreneurship (concrete business with family members), acting (filmed a TV pilot), design (started a clothing line).
Bit of a dilettante, a state of ambivalence which befalls so many professional athletes when they can no longer play the game.
In the back of his churning thoughts, though, Fleury always had an aspiration: Performing, writing and singing, a different kind of entertainment from the showmanship of NHL hockey.
From the genesis of that idea has emerged an album titled “I Am What I Am.’’ The debut single, already available on iTunes, is called “My Life’s Been A Country Song.”
Because it is. And not just a novelty stretch either. “I grew up around music. My family was very musical. My fondest memories as a child was sitting beside my grandfather, listening to him play the fiddle. My dad and my uncle were both entertainers. My dad played pretty much everything by ear, guitar, piano. If he listened to it, he could play it. My uncle had a couple of songs out on the radio. My mom did a bit of singing here and there. It comes from my Métis heritage.’’
Fleury and his own brother performed in the occasional talent show out on the Canadian Prairies.
“It was a special time. I often think about those times and how happy I was.”
A happy place is not what comes immediately to mind about the creative juices required for producing classic country and western laments. But Fleury doesn’t believe he needs to feel sad and brokenhearted, in the present tense, to write lyrics and music. The past is always with him and it’s a fount of inspiration to be tapped.
“I think music always either puts you in a great mood or a s----y mood because you can always remember where you heard that story and how it made you feel. Initially, the idea for ‘As The Story Goes’ — first song written — was I wanted to write a song that would be like a country music record played backward: Get your dog back, get your car back, get your girl back, get your house back, all that stuff. And that turned into being my life story, about where I was and how I was able to come through it all and get it all back.
The gestation period for the album — it will be released Oct. 23 — was about six years. He finally rang up a friend in Winnipeg, Phil Deschambault, who was in the music industry and said: “I’d like to stroke something off my bucket list. Would you be interested?” He was.
“As The Story Goes” was co-written their first weekend at the task. Fleury kept making short trips to Winnipeg and more songs were penned. Then he hooked up with “an old drinking buddy’’ in Calgary, Paddy McCallion, a guitarist who assembled a band for the album, the Death Valley Rebels, and produced it.
Fleury, who’s learning to play the guitar at age 47 but is primarily a vocalist, understands there will be skepticism. Here comes another ex-jock who thinks he’s Garth Brooks. But give a listen, he urges. The material is genuine, the singer on-key throaty.
“I didn’t just wake up one day and say, I think I’m a pretty good singer and I’m gonna dabble in some country music. We really took our time. We knew that so many athletes have tried to dabble in the music industry and they always get pummelled by critics and the public. So we really wanted to make sure that this was something people would actually want to listen to.
“Every lyric, every phrase, every chord, every note was carefully chosen. But at the end of the day, it’s all about the message.”
A message of small-town roots and family ties and depths of despondency and redemption. The sound is more country fusion than Stompin’ Theo’s version of “The Hockey Song.” “It’s tough to write a hockey song after what Stompin’ Tom did. How are you going to replace an iconic son and an iconic Canadian? So we just thought we’d stick to life experiences.
“We are creating our own genre. It’s called hockey-tonk. I grew up listening to Buck Owens, Charley Pride and Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson. It has a bit of that but it also has that sort of honky-tonk feel — steel guitars, fiddles, accordions.”
A tour to support the album is being planned. “When I started this project, I was still dealing with a lot of anger and resentment issues and sadness, all those things that I think the whole writing process helped me get through. And brought me to this wonderful, awesome place where I am today.”
On the radio, on the stage. Country boy strong. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.