Canadian alt country icon Fred Eaglesmith is enjoying a rare solo tour which brings him to the Geomatic Attic, July 30.
“ I thought I’d give the band a break. We had a very heavy winter,” said Eaglesmith from rural B.C., where he is enjoying a lot of places he doesn’t hit as often as he would like too.
It’s not every day we get to to Golden, B.C. or Great Falls, Montana,” he said.
“It’s tough for these little clubs. There’s so much music and so many bands playing. They deserve a sell out, so I’ll come in and i can do that for them,” he said.
“I go out on my own every two or three years,” he said.
He is touring with multi-instrumentalist Tif Ginn, who he has been playing with for six years now.
“ She’s a much better musician than I am. She reminds me of Willie P Bennett. He was a much better musician than me. He always pushed me to become a better musician. She helps me to become a better musician like he did,” Eaglesmith said.
“ It’s been really great playing with Tif. We started in Chicago. And it’s great to see people still excited to see us,” he said.
He said the set will include songs from throughout his 20 album career, some from his most recent “ Tambourine” and a lot of new material.
“The new record will be out in the fall. It is more of a narrative than it is about the band,” he said, adding his band appears on the new record.
“It is really stripped down. It’s more about the song, but it’s not folk like that, it still has a lot of rock,” he said.
“I started recording it before I left on this tour. I wrote a bunch of songs over the years, but had never recorded them. So it is about 25 per cent done,” he said, adding a lot of it is about machinery.
“Though there is still a lot of zen in it,” he said adding “Tears of Deere’” is how he sums it up.
Eaglesmith is constantly touring either with the band or on his own.
“ I’ve played 150 or 160 shows so far this year so I’m sure I will hit 200 by the end of the year.
I’ll rejoin them for the annual Fred Eaglesmith Picnic. Then we go out east, then down to the United States and then over to Europe. I’m pretty much booked solid into 2016. And we play pretty much every weekend around home,” he said.
He always enjoys returning to Lethbridge, if only because it is where his long time mandolinist/ multi-instrumentalist Willie P Bennett was from.
“ I have people there I’ve known for 35 years. People whose houses we stayed at when it was just me, Willie P Bennett and Ralph (Schipper),” he said.
“ It’s great we’re still considered to be very viable. That always surprises me people still want to hear us. I’ve been surprised by that ever since I was 25. It’s amazing” he said.
Tickets for the show are $32.50.
The show begins at 8 p.m. sharp with an opening set by Tif Ginn.
