The 34th annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Friday, July 15-Sunday, July 17, at Jericho Beach Park. Tickets, schedule and info: thefestival.bc.ca.
JOEL Plaskett has just performed an exorcism of sorts.
Last month, the Nova Scotian singer/songwriter released a record featuring a variety of demos, outtakes, rarities and B-sides spanning his solo career from 1999-2010. Entitled EMERGENCYs, false alarms, shipwrecks, castaways, fragile creatures, special features, demons and demonstrations, the album was released on his recently launched record label, New Scotland Records.
Planning to head into the studio in the New Year to record his next work, a follow to Juno and East Coast Music Award-winning album Three, Plaskett felt like he first had to "clean out the closet."
"On every record, I've always gone back to old songs and gone, 'What about that one? Should I rerecord that? That one never made that record, does it make sense on this record?' I just didn't want to do that again so I thought it would be cool to really focus on new material by exorcising all the old material," he said Tuesday, from his Dartmouth, N.S. home base.
In addition to promoting EMERGENCYs, Plaskett, who performs and records as a solo artist and with band The Emergency, has a busy summer ahead of him, including taking the stage tonight and tomorrow at the 34th annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival, which runs through Sunday at Jericho Beach Park.
While Plaskett is eager to move forward, that doesn't mean he's interested in forgetting any moments from his career thus far. The well-known voice in Canadian music has had an incredible degree of success since entering the scene in the '90s with rock band Thrush Hermit. In recent years he's received multiple Polaris Music Prize nominations, opened for Paul McCartney in Halifax and reached a million plays on CBC Radio 3.
Plaskett is extremely appreciative of the personal moments experienced over the years, encouraging him to continue to make music.
"There's a lot of little moments in clubs that happen and people that you meet who songs really resonate with - not to sound corny - but that is really cool when you really get a sense that people get what you're doing for the right reasons," he says.
Time spent with musicians on various tours and albums have also made their mark. "That's why I record a lot of music and put out a lot of stuff and play a lot of shows is because it creates all these memories and those are the things that are really important to me as an individual," he says.
Plaskett grew up in a musical home; his mother had a background in dance and his father, Bill, who's featured on Three and at times takes the stage with Plaskett, played in a folk band called Starboard Side. "He taught me the basics of guitar when I wanted to learn them as a teenager," he says.
Plaskett dabbled in music as a child, trying unsuccessfully to pick up an instrument; however, his future was cemented after his family moved from their Lunenburg, N.S. home to Halifax when he was 12 and he opted to pick up guitar, a means of hanging out with new friends Rob Benvie and Ian McGettigan.
"At the age of 13 and 14 when we really started getting into music and just picking up the instruments, we weren't thinking too much other than the fact that we thought Led Zeppelin were so cool and that somehow we would be cool, by wielding these axes," he says.
In the years that followed, the trio continued to play together and work on their songwriting. Plaskett recalls playing their junior high school talent show, and three sets at a school dance in Grade 9. "We played every song we could play and we couldn't play any of them," he says.
The group went through a number of name changes over the years - including Nabisco Fonzie and The Hoods - until they ultimately became Thrush Hermit.
"We thought it sounded like some '70s hard rock band like Pink Floyd or Foghat," he says. "It just had that sound, you know: 'Thrush Hermit.' You could hear a British guy saying it."
By the time they were 18, they'd inked a deal with BMG in New York. "It was the time when Sloan had the real excitement happening in Halifax, the scene, and we just got swept up in that," says Plaskett. "We had opportunities to tour with them and to their credit, Sloan really helped us out."
Eventually, the band parted ways and Plaskett has continued to pursue his solo career.
"I think I've just stuck it out and now it's this thing that I do," he says. "I don't really question it, I really enjoy it, it gives me a sense of personal expression as well as a lot of fun and fortunately I make a living out of it too - knock on wood."
Plaskett has produced an immense amount of work over the years, from his 2009 triple album Three, to a recent split single with Shotgun Jimmie, "Jimmie's Still Jimmie/That's Not Joel," on New Scotland.
"I've always admired people who just put out records really occasionally and it's really refined, Gillian Welch or writers like J.D. Salinger, as far as books go. That has a fascination to me. But for me, the way I continue to do it is through making a lot of music. For me, that's kind of how I stay in shape," he laughs. "I'm totally out of shape in other ways, but my writing chops, if I keep my mind active, then I tend to create more."
Plaskett has also become increasingly active as a producer (for example, working with artists like New Brunswick native David Myles, Emergency member Dave Marsh and San Diego-based Steve Poltz); as well as running his own label. He was inspired to launch New Scotland Records by Sloan, whose label Murderecords, founded in 1992, has been a strong supporter of East Coast music over the years.
"That sense of community is something that I thought I could bring into my own world, my own musical community," he says.
Releases include Emergency member Peter Elkas' Repeat Offender and last year's eight-disc Thrush Hermit box set.
Plaskett is looking forward to playing Vancouver tonight, his first time since the 2010 Olympics when he played with Steve Earle. This time around, he's following Earle's son.
"We just did another gig with Justin Townes Earle in the states, which is cool, so I got to see him play there," says Plaskett. "I'm also super excited that Gillian Welch is on the bill with us. She's one of my favourite writers and she's right before us and I'm so excited to see her show. It's wild."
Plaskett is set to take the stage with The Emergency at 9: 50 p.m. tonight. Tomorrow, he'll appear in two workshops at: 11 a.m., Sounds of Home, with The Burning Hell, The Dardanelles and Jim Bryson; and 2: 45 p.m., Changes in Latitude, with The Fugitives and Elliott Brood.
