Corb Lund coming home for Canadian Country Weekend

Print

Corb Lund is excited to return to Southern Alberta to play his home turf at the Canadian Country Weekend outside of Fort Macleod, Aug. 4. He is good friends with one of the organizers, but couldn’t play the debut during to scheduling conflicts.

Corb Lund plays the Canadian Country Weekend,Aug. 4. Photo by Alexandra Valenti
He has just released his his latest album “Cabin Fever,” which he wrote in a cabin outside of Edmonton which his uncle and  ex-girlfriend helped build.
“It’s ( the CD) quite dark, but I like dark,” Lund said from the Ants in My Pants festival outside Helena, Montana.
“I spent a lot of time in that cabin and started to go a little snaky, hence the title “Cabin Fever,” he admitted.


“ He described the album— a double album with one disc being all electric versions of the songs, and the other all acoustic versions of them, as being recorded very organically with band mates, multi-instrumentalist Grant Siemens, drummer Brady Valgardson and bassist Kurt Ciesla.


“My band is very versatile,” he described, adding that not a lot of people record a double CD of the same songs both acoustic and electric. We drank a lot of beer and recorded it together, live, with hardly any overdubs,” he said.


“It‘s very organic. I think it’s my favourite album,” he said adding he had a few extra songs that didn’t make it onto the CD.


At the Canadian Country Weekend, they will be playing a variety of songs from the new CD as well as old favourites from his previous seven CDs.


 While he lives in the Edmonton area, his band live in southern Alberta so he doesn’t see a lot of them unless writing or touring with them.


“I play a lot internationally. But a lot of my songs are about Southern Alberta, so it will be nice to play my songs about southern Alberta, actually in Southern Alberta,” he said.
“I play a lot of festivals, but not a lot in Southern Alberta, so it feels good to play at home,” he said.


“I’m just happy to play a big outdoor festival around my home,” he said.

While his uncle passed away and he broke up with his girlfriend while recording the CD, none of the songs are actually about his personal experiences, though they are all based on truth, other than “Bible on the Dash,” which he wrote with Texan songwriter Hayes Carll, who also sings on it.
“Just the mood is dark, it definitely influenced me,” he said.


He wrote about 15 songs for the CD and chose his favourite 12.


He explores a variety of subject matter and stories on the Cd including a gravedigger, goth girls, a couple of drinking songs, antique pistols and survivalists.


 
And this time, Lund, who is best known for his song “The Truck Got Stuck,” this time, has written a song about cows — “Cows Around.”
“The audience for that one is a lot more limited,” he said.


“ I get bored easily. I’m not a huge fan of love songs, so I don’t write many. For a lot of people, love songs seem to be their default settings. I have a couple, but I’m interested in a lot of different things,” he said.

In early July, he played five Calgary Stampede gigs with musical mentor Ian Tyson, who played the Canadian Country Weekend last year.
“It was great. We played the same theatre for five nights. It was just the two of us sitting on stools. We wanted to leave a lot more room for talking and storytelling,” he said.


He said Tyson’s expertise on western cowboy history worked well with Lund’s family experience as cowboys. His family has a long history of rodeo in their blood as most of his family have competed in rodeos including the Calgary Stampede. Lund himself competed as a steer rider as a boy.
“Ian is an old friend. I haven’t had a musical mentor for a long time,” he said adding Tyson spoke highly of his experience at the Canadian Country Weekend’s debut year last year.

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
Share
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 31 July 2012 15:25 )