Ottawa area roots/ Canadiana songwriter Trevor Alguire is excited to show Canada his sixth CD “ Perish In The Light.”
“Life is all good when you have a tour van waiting for you in your driveway but it’s even better to see your home town in the rear view mirror. I love it,” said Alguire, who brings his band (bassist/fiddle player Andrew Bueckert, drummer Jay Bradley and a guitarist to be announced) to the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Nov. 11.
Alguire is always excited to play Alberta. Usually he flies into a province and just plays that province on a tour. This time he is touring from Kemptville to Calgary before flying home and leaving his new tour van with his Calgary based buddy, drummer Jay Bradley.
“ I’m driving out with Andrew and picking up the other guys along the way,” he said.
“ I just love touring. I don’t care if I’m in Germany or Lethbridge,” he said.
He is excited to share the new music with audiences.
“ It is an album showcase tour, so we’ll be playing 9 or 10 from the new album and some songs from the others,” he said.
He chose some of the best players to perform on the CD including Miranda Mulholland of the Great Lake Swimmers and Belle Starr, keyboardist Jesse O Brien (who has played with Colin James and Bryan Adams) Bob Egan who has played with Blue Rodeo and Wilco and PEI Juno Award winning/ ECMA award winner Catherine MacLelland, with whom he sings the haunting duet “My Sweet Rosetta.”
“My good friend Catherine MacLelland is on the song and we did a video on PEI for it with our friend Millefiore Clarkes, who runs 1000 Flowers Films. There were a lot of things on PEI that I wanted to capture. Old abandoned homesteads. We did arial shots. She did a great job and I’m not much of a video guy,” he enthused, adding the video is part of the Charlottetown film festival.
The CD is already charting well.
“It’s charting really well. It’s in the top 5 this week. Before that it was 10 then made it to 9 then 5. And the best thing is that the guys on either side of me are all with major labels, so it’s been pretty spectacular to have this DIY indie guy making his presence known and show everyone I’m not going away,” he chuckled.
As always, his music closes a chapter in his life.
The songs are about the people he knows, has met or is related to, like “Out of Sight Out of Mind” which is about his 93-year-old nana.
“She passed away a few years ago. She was an amazing woman and the cornerstone of my family.
It is about never losing your memories of someone. It’s all relevant to me. I couldn’t sing it otherwise,” he said.
He is very pleased with the CD.
“ It’s definitely my most comfortable album yet. I feel very content about it. It definitely documents this chapter of my life,” he said.
Another highlight is the upbeat, Celtic tinged rocker “Flash Flood” one of several tracks featuring Miranda Mulholland on fiddle.
“That’s a relationship song about some people I know. That’s a fun, little rockabillyish number. I never thought of it as Celtic,” he said, and having Mulholland on the track was a highlight.
“It’s great. She plays fiddle or violin and she’s classically trained. I love the fiddle. It can go from sounding so badass to making the hair stand up on the back of your neck. She came in a loved the song and played what she felt on it. Which is great. It was the same way with everyone else. They came in and played what they felt. So it was great to have them and not just look at it as a job, but as something that means something,” he said.
“ I wanted to get some of the best to play on this album and they really put their hearts and souls into the music,” he said.
Trevor Alguire plays the Owl Acoustic Lounge Nov. 11 at 9 p.m.
Admission is by donation.
