SPILL FEATURE: CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE – A CONVERSATION WITH JOEL PLASKETT OF JOEL PLASKETT EMERGENCY

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

A CONVERSATION WITH JOEL PLASKETT OF JOEL PLASKETT EMERGENCY

Joel Plaskett Emergency is celebrating the 20th anniversary of their current lineup! To commemorate this special occasion, the trio, which consists of Joel Plaskett, Dave Marsh, and Chris Pennell have released the super catchy single “Fill In The Blanks.”

“We haven’t released anything as the Emergency in years,” Plaskett says. “The guys have played on records that’ve come out under my name – you can hear the Emergency sound when those guys are playing. It’s been present. We’ve been doing shows every year. It’s not like we’ve been inactive, but we haven’t released anything as the Emergency in quite some time, so this is nice to do… I had a few songs on deck because I wanted one that would be good for our summer shows – it just felt like a summertime track and a bit like a Steve Miller song… We were not trying to make it gimmicky exactly, but hooky. Just trying to make it memorable for the sounds, the little percussive element, and the dropped lyrics.”

Originally, Plaskett wrote “Fill In The Blanks” in 2024 as an assignment for an online course he was taking about Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man. The song started as an acoustic cassette demo (the low-def version) before evolving into a full-band recording (the high-def version). In the song, Plaskett was trying to demonstrate McLuhan’s theory of “hot” and “cool” media. “Hot media [is] everything all at once, and it doesn’t leave a lot of room for you to use your imagination,” he explains. “If you have something a little cooler, it gives you less information. In the context of the song, riffing on the idea of somebody just playing it cool, like not giving as much information, so you can use your imagination. It does feel like the world is leaning more explicit. Everything is hot. Everything is just more information than you need. I pine a little bit for things that are a little less explicit.”

“Fill In The Blanks” is available as a limited edition 7-inch vinyl and is on all streaming platforms. Plaskett’s original cassette version is on the B-side of the vinyl. “It’s to show that there is more than one way to skin a track,” he states. “When you play music with different people or record them differently by using different microphones or different instruments, they can almost feel like two different songs, but at the core of it, it is the same melody and words.”

For the band version of “Fill In The Blanks,” Joel Plaskett Emergency drew inspiration from the Steve Miller Band and April Wine. “In the context of Steve Miller, there are songs [‘Take The Money and Run’] that have those ‘hoo hoo’ sort of sonic signatures,” Plaskett states. “One of the things that I really like about Steve Miller’s recordings, too, is that they’re kind of scrappy – ‘Rock’n Me’ the drumming is kind of loosey-goosey, and there are just things that don’t sound half as polished as all the things that you hear now… In the case of April Wine, I was just thinking of songs like ‘Oowatanite’ or just ones that come out sort of swinging and riffy. April Wine wrote a lot of just really catchy tunes, always with great guitar parts and tidy arrangements… I love both those bands, but I’m also not trying to do a specifically retro thing, even though I know we touch down in that world… I wanted to bring something new to it. Hopefully, the lyrical angle and the way in which we play can evoke a feel of something, but I don’t want it to be an entirely retro affair.”

PURCHASE/STREAM “FILL IN THE BLANKS” VIA BANDCAMP

The anthemic chorus of “Fill In The Blanks” features dropped lyrics that listeners can fill in the blanks with their own interpretation of the missing words. “It is a riff on choose your own adventure,” Plaskett reflects. “Whatever word you are going to sub in there, the song becomes something, and then you end up with the dance of not knowing what exactly the person means. The risk of even explaining the intention behind it, which I think is fairly obvious, is that I’m doing exactly what the song is saying don’t do. The song is saying, ‘Fill in the blanks. Don’t explain yourself too much,’ and here I am talking about it. It dawned on me when I was just thinking about that McLuhan hot and the cool media stuff is [the idea of] the implicit. What is it you are implying? You’re gonna have to use your imagination here. That whole dance of when something is spelled out, even more so now with digital technology, where everything is so full on, you almost can’t find room to think… When you hammer something down that you need to know what is happening here, people almost get pushed back, maybe a little dumbfounded, or actually spellbound, because it engages you so fully on some level, but it is exhausting. When you’re imagining something or close your eyes [while] listening to music, and you just take it in through a single sensory experience, I don’t find that as fatiguing. I actually feel like it allows you to be yourself more and find your own place in relation to the art… There’s always that threading the needle idea that I like, which is taking something that might be seemingly simple, then seeing if there is another layer on top that might reveal itself later and end up being a little deeper than you thought it was. I don’t know if this song hits those marks, but on some level, that is the aspiration.”

In other news, Plaskett helped contribute to the documentary Al Tuck My Blues Away. Directed by Brian Harrington and eight years in the making, the documentary chronicles the life and music of the highly revered Canadian folk-blues songwriter Al Tuck. It is slated to release sometime in late 2026. “That interview I did for it is probably from like 2016 or 2017,” Plaskett says. “I’m a big, big fan of Al’s and have been for years. He’s been a big influence on me, so I was happy to be part of it. I’m glad a documentary has been made, because he really is one of the more underrated musicians and is unknown in a larger context. I mean, those who know him love his songs. He’s influenced a lot of people, but he’s definitely flown under the radar.”

Recently, Plaskett was appointed to the Order of Nova Scotia and was honoured with the Portia White Prize. Receiving both awards means a lot to him. “It really firms up the ground beneath my feet,” he shares. “I’ve always felt supported by my friends, family, and community, so it’s not like that hasn’t been there, but to get recognized in that public fashion, it’s a real privilege and a huge boost of support… [With Thrush Hermit] I was part of a scene [in Halifax] that had a lot of momentum, a lot of support, and some people I looked up to who mentored us. I ran with that when I started doing stuff with the Emergency and under my own name… I felt really supported and embraced by Nova Scotia, even when I’m elsewhere, gigging in Calgary or Edmonton or wherever, all these Maritimers show up, and there’s this sense of home at the shows. People who just went to Dalhousie for a few years in their 20s right out of high school, they’re like, ‘I saw you in the ‘90s when I went to Dal,’ and they’ve been fans ever since. There’s this feeling of meaning something to people in the grander context of their own lives because music is one of those things that really marks a time and place, but also kind of exists outside of it. With the awards, while they were really surprising and really amazing honours to have, it just kind of reminded me that I’ve had a bit of an impact, which I’m happy about because there were a lot of people that had an impact on me.”

This summer, Joel Plaskett Emergency will play many shows, including stops at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival and the Dooryard Arts Festival. Be sure to catch one of their shows, which is sure to be an incredible time! “We’ve got a lot of back catalogue that we can lean into that people want to hear, and it’s nice to have something new,” Plaskett comments.

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Photo Credit: Mike Hall