Bry Webb lets his light shine
Canadian singer- songwriter discusses going solo, raising a son and reuniting the Constantines
The evening of March 13 was a rehearsal night.
In a converted garage in Guelph, Ontario, Bry Webb and his backing band the Providers — drummer Nathan Lawr, bassist Anna Ruddick, guitarist Rich Burnett and pedal steel guitar player Aaron Goldstein — were running through some new material when Webb’s phone began blinking wildly.
Eighty kilometres down the highway, one of the biggest bands in the world was covering a song they learned watching Webb front The Constantines when the two groups toured around Eastern Canada in the early aughts.
“I guess Arcade Fire covered Young Lions tonight,” Webb announced.
“He looked at his phone, relished it for a minute, then was like ‘ OK, let’s move on,’ ” Goldstein recalls. “I was like, ‘ Don’t you want to go inside and tell your wife?’ ”
Sitting in the lobby of the Postmedia building in Toronto two months later, Webb smiles while contemplating that moment, “It was very sweet and very nice of them to do that,” he says, “very opportune as well.”
Tall with a rakish curly mop and blue eyes that project the appearance of a daytime lightning storm, the 36- yearold has found himself, to use his own wording, at a very opportune juncture: releasing a second solo album of campfire- warm acoustic songs as he reunites the Constantines for a string of unexpected dates.
“It was as much a surprise to us as it was to everybody else,” he says of the Constantines reunion, which is timed to the 11th anniversary reissue of their seminal sophomore album, Shine A Light. The reissue was released on June 1o.
After fading away in 2009 ( such things are now referred to as an “indefinite hiatus”), Webb contends the regrouping has as much to do with coming to terms with his own place in life as it does good timing.
“I think the biggest thing was that everyone was in a secure enough place in their lives outside of what the Constantines were that it felt OK to do it again without the pressure of us recording or going on a huge tour,” he says. “It was all about reconnecting as the five of us.”
For Webb, that journey began with the birth of his son Asa.
Provider in 2011, which was written for the then three- year- old, signalled a distancing from the punk- meetsSpringsteen bombast of The Cons.
On followup Free Will, released in May, Webb continues in the vein of Nick Drake- ian contemplative folk, wrapping his soft baritone in swashes of slide guitars which sweep like duelling orchestras around the contemplative dirges. “All the songs I’m writing are still mostly written for my son, but now he’s a full- blown toddler and learning about his own agency in the world,” he explains. “The record’s called Free Will because, thematically, it’s about the conflict between wanting to help someone make responsible and considerate decisions in this world but also them discovering their agency and will.”
“One of my favourite things in this world is watching Asa make a decision that I wouldn’t have made.”
Equally exciting, he says, is his son finally being able to watch him front the Constantines.
Currently, the group only has a handful of shows planned, most at festivals this summer; however, Webb says the reunion “could keep going.”
“I don’t know if we’ll record or play new music but I’m just looking forward to spending some time together again,” he smirks. “We haven’t even rehearsed yet.”