Belfast born troubadour Andy White has always made something beautiful out of something chaotic and stressful. He visits the Slice, Nov. 23 in support of his eleventh album “How Things Are” which was inspired by the dissolution of his marriage.
“That’s how I’ve always worked — try to make something beautiful out of something incredible stressful. So when it happened, I went into the studio and wrote and wrote and wrote. Then I left the songs for a while and when I came back I knew what hat the album was going to be about,” said Andy White from Orillia, where he is just beginning his first solo tour of Canada in a long time.
He noted the album isn’t just about mourning the loss of his marriage, it is about celebrating it.
“It is very celebratory. The song ‘Thank You ’ is about celebrating it,” he said.
“ But I didn’t just want to internalize it. A lot of break up albums are like that. It’s definitely more universal,” he said.
“This show will just be myself. I’m a troubadour with a guitar on my back,” he said, adding as a troubadour he writes about what is happening around him, ever since he was a child growing up in Belfast, Ireland, during the troubles.
“I wasn’t born during most of the troubles. I grew up listening to punk like The Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers and The Clash because they wrote abut what was going on around us,” he said.
“We couldn’t really go out at at night and you had to watch the news to see if you could and what parts of the city you could go. So I spent a lot of time at home listening to music. But there was a lot of politics, so we all rebelled against that and put aside religion and went out and listened to rock and roll,” he said.
“ That’s what my first album was about,” he continued.
“ I grew up in a very loving home with a mother who was a musician and a father who was a writer. My mom taught me to create something beautiful out of something really chaotic,” he said.
“ I started writing music when I was a kid and when I first heard ‘Working Class Hero’ by John Lennon, I knew that was what I wanted to do. So I started putting them to music,” he said.
Audience reception of the new CD has been excellent.
“It’s been great. In the UK, journalists have really liked it. Often audiences who listen to bands like Radiohead really want to hear if a band has evolved,” he said, noting the lyrics are just as important as the music on the album.
White has has toured Canada a lot. He played the Owl Acoustic lounge as well as the Geomatic Attic in Lethbridge preciously.
“ I remember it was very windy,” he said, adding he hopes fans from those shows will come out and see him at the Slice.
“It’s just me, but I bring a lot of effects and things with me. It’s not just acoustic, it’s very electric,” he said.
“ I’ve been touring here for ages , ever since I started working with stephen Fearing in abut 2005,” he said, adding he met Fearing at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.
“I didn’t know who he was, but he knew who I was because of my previous albums,” he said.
“ He took me on a date to a donut shop. I was impressed he had a car at the Winnipeg folk fest and we drove for ages through the Manitoba night to this donut shop where you could see the donuts, but you couldn't eat them because we caught them in the middle of a shift change and we just bonded. We started writing together a year later,” he reminisced, adding that lead to a fruitful collaboration including “ the song “If I Catch You Crying” which Fearing brought to Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. He will hopes to see Fearing in Duncan , B.C. on Vancouver Island for the last tour stop of the tour.
“ We’re not scheduled to do anything until February, but I hope he will come to the show,” he said.
Andy White plays the Slice Monday, Nov. 23 at 8 p.m. There is a $10 cover.
