He played with Sarah McLachlan for 12 years at the peak of her career, played with the Wild Strawberries, Ginger featuring members of the Grapes of Wrath for three albums, and even played with D from Run DMC, not to mention Delerium which features former members of Skinny Puppy, but what Sean Ashby has always wanted to do was be a roots/ Americana singer/ songwriter.
“I’m doing this old school. I’m not just sitting in my living room trying on costumes, my clothes are dirty, I can’t get to a dry-cleaner. I’m on the road,” said the Vancouver raised, Toronto based singer/songwriter Ashby, on his way to Swift Current for a gig on his latest tour which comes to the Mocha Cabana in Lethbridge on Thursday.
He has logged 230 shows in the past 18 months, crossed Canada five times dipped down into the U.S. in addition to taking some time off to surf and write in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
He released his second solo Cd “24 Hours of Daylight” back in March and has barely stopped to take a breath.
He is touring with bassist Rob Chursinosf and drummer Al Boudreau.
“I don’t have a band of my own yet, I have bands in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Toronto,” he said adding while he had a lot of success with Sarah McLachlan, including Diamond and Platinum selling albums, not to mention his songs appearing in films and movies, and three Lilith Fairs, he has been concentrating on his solo career for the past three years.
“I did that for 12 years, when we started it was pretty open but as it became more successful, it became more fixed.
“It turned into a job, we toured a lot and it was $4,000 a week to play music, so I could pay my rent. It would be that or moving furniture,” he said.
“We’re selling lots of CDs at the show, which is pretty surprising and I’m getting a lot of hits off of CBC 3,” he said adding people like some of the bizarre sounds his drummer gets as he incorporates chains and 2x4 for additional rhythm, so he’s incorporating some of that into the show.
“It’s raw, though not as raw as some others, but there are very few edits,” he said adding even though he has played with some heavy hitters and has his own successful band, Jack Tripper (which had a song in the Bill Pullman movie “The Guilty”), and a lot of solo success including songs placed on shows like the Chris Isaak show and the L-Word, that’s not what his live show is about. He uses six different guitars and explores a variety of musical styles.
“I don’t perform the songs I wrote with other bands. Sometimes I’ll get a request for ‘Blackbird’ the Beatles song, because I recorded it with Sarah, but she sang on it. I just played guitar. But this is not a retrospective of my career as a sideman. I don’t just want to play boring singer/songwriter stuff. I’ll do covers, but my own versions of them. I do a surf instrumental called “Mirsirlou” and I do one Tom Petty son “Breakdown,” but I’ll do things like “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” And I play a lot of lap steel guitar, ” he continued adding he feels lucks to have the success he has for TV and film placement.
“I don’t know what advice I can offer. Good luck. There was a brief moment in time — about eight years where TV and movie producers were looking for indie bands. Now record companies control them. It can be done,” he said adding his girlfriend was working on a movie with an editor and turned him onto Ashby’s band Jack Tripper. In another case the music editor of another project was a fan of the band.
“They have libraries of music to draw from, so when someone is looking for music for a film, they just go to their libraries,” he said.
In the meantime, Ashby is getting a lot of support from CBC and to a lesser extent college and university radio.
“That’s a shortcoming on our part, sitting down and sending CDs out to them. We’re doing tours, and getting to venues And I’ve got to set up six guitars and because I’m a singer, I have to eat at weird times,” he said.
Ashby plays from 6-9 p.m. at the Mocha Cabana, Aug. 12. There is no cover.
