Hawksley Workman lives in day tight compartments.
It’s how he manages to release multiple CDs a year, write and star in a musical an work with Ryan Dahle from Limblifter and Age of Electric plus Steve Bays from Hot, Hot Heat and the plethora of other things he is into.
He isn’t sure where he gets his inspiration from.
“10 or 11 years ago, when I wa
s getting some success and beginning to believe my own hype and drinking gallons of alcohol, I started to get mild anxiety about the schedule and what I had to do. Now I only think about what I have to do today,” he said.
“ If I pick up the phone and someone has something interesting to say, I’ll put them into the schedule and that’s what I’ll do that day. And I will only think about what I have to do that day, I’ve already forgotten what I did yesterday, and the day after tomorrow, I’ll have forgotten what I did today,” said Workman, who put a show at the Southminster United Church for the Geomatic Attic into his calendar for Nov. 2 in the middle of a cross-Canadian tour with long time pianist Mr. Lonely.
Ticket sales for the show has been so popular that they had to move it to a bigger venue. Most of the shows on his current Canadian tour have sold out in advance.
“ That does feel pretty good,” Workman said from Toronto.
“ I’ve been doing this for 10 plus years and I just feel blessed people still want to come out and see me and hear what I have to say,,” he said.While he lives in the country now, he still spends a lot of time in Toronto recording and producing other musicians.
“It’s important to play something different for people. I could play ‘Jealous of Your Cigarette’ and ‘Smoke, Baby Smoke,’” and just go to bed. But I’ll be playing all of the quote, unquote hits and a lot of others,” he said adding while he doesn’t have a lot of new material to play, he may add a song from his new musical. It will be a rock and roll show,” he promised.
“I won’t even guess the last time I played in Lethbridge,” he said adding he hasn’t played the Southminster United Church.
“I’ve heard it is a beautiful venue,” he said.
“Touring is a way to connect with people. It feels quite amazing,” he continued.
“ It will be me and Mr. Lonely on piano,” he said, crediting newspapers for his pianist's monicker.
“I was playing a show with him. His name is Todd Lumley. He’s been playing with me for like 13 years, and I introduced him as Mr. Lumley. The next day the papers called him Mr. Lonely and I thought ‘That’s awesome, we’ve got to use that,’” he enthused.
“I’ve played a couple show without him, but it has got to the point where people expect to see Mr. Lonely and if he isn’t there, they ask ‘Where’s Mr. Lonely,” he said.
He recently re-recorded his breakthrough album “Almost a Full Moon”
“It’s been 10 years. I was fasting in Paris when I wrote the music for it. It’s hard to fast in Paris because you are surrounded by so much good food there, so I started writing music,” he said adding he was thinking of Christmases past back with his family which inspired the songs.
“ It feels a little darker now,” he said noting he decided to re-record the songs with his new, darker outlook, plus a cover of one of his favourite Bruce Cockburn songs, “Coldest Night of the Year” on the new double CD set “Full Moon Eleven.”
He has had many career highlights.
“One off the top of my head is playing with Bowie in a Roman Colosseum in Nimes (France). I was playing a lot of Roman colosseums then. That night was pretty special,” he recalled.
Today he is excited about his new, one man musical about Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, grape harvest and ritual madness.
“ I wrote a musical last year and we’re already booking into 2015,” he enthused.
“ A friend of mine were talking about it and I thought it sounded like a good idea,” he said.
“I’m going to be in Calgary for three weeks with it,” he said adding he has siblings in Calgary who have new children.
“ So I get to be an uncle. In three weeks I’ll get about 15 colds,” he joked.
He doesn’t know if his project with Ryan Dahle and Steve Bays will tour any time soon.
“I’m playing drums which is my first instrument, Ryan is playing guitar and Steve is playing keyboards, but we’re so busy. Ryan is busy producing and has put Limblifter back on the road again and Steve has a side project, which is starting to pick up.”
Hawksley Workman begins at 8 p.m., Nov. 2 at the Southminster United Church. Tickets cost $42.50 or $40 for members and students.
