THERE’S ALWAYS ANOTHER RECORD TO MAKE
A CONVERSATION WITH JERRY LEGER
“Some of the best songs are the ones that get left off the record. They just don’t fit with the story of the album. I’ll think, ‘Well, I’ll have them in my back pocket, or use it on the next album.’ But you get to the next record and you’re in a different head-space.”
Jerry Leger is one of those musicians who seem to be continually creating art and pushing his own boundaries. With thirteen albums to his credit since 2005 (whether solo, with his band The Situation, or with one of his side projects), Leger’s output has been prolific, and he is not one to sit still for long. It is appropriate then, that we met up on the day that his latest album Time Out For Tomorrow was released.
Time Out For Tomorrow is Leger’s most recent work since his double album Nonsense And Heartache in 2017. As with his previous two albums, his latest recording was created with legendary producer (and Cowboy Junkies’ driving force) Michael Timmins. This fruitful collaboration has a lot to do with both artist and producer having similar points of view, and with simply getting excited about music. Of their relationship, Leger says, “It’s good that Mike is like me, and has eclectic tastes. I feel that we like a lot of the same records, and the things that we get off on, musically, are very similar.”
“Even though we like a lot of different types of music, we gravitate towards a lot of the same artists, in each genre. But there has to be some kind of depth to it. I’ve just always been like that. If it’s punk rock, I’m gravitating towards a band like The Clash, because they didn’t put themselves in a box. I think, when we make these albums, they’re just naturally different. For the next one, if I think, “Well, I want to make a Country record, like a real Country record, I’m sure Mike would be like, ‘Okay, let’s go!’ He can adapt to all that because that would probably excite him, and that’s what keeps the relationship going.”
Leger’s practice of writing continuously gave him plenty of songs to choose from. Of the twenty songs that he had written for Time Out For Tomorrow, ten songs made the final cut. When it comes to selecting songs for an album, Leger notes, “There’s just a certain feel. It’s like a novel. There’s the beginning, the kind of introduction, there’s the arc, there’s the ending… It’s important for me that albums have to have a certain flow to them, and a story throughout. Like I was saying earlier, some of the best songs don’t make the album. There’s a couple out of those ten than didn’t make it that are probably some of the best songs I’ve ever written. They just didn’t fit. I think it would have hurt the album. Even with such a great song, it could hurt the album, because it takes you out of it.”
PURCHASE TIME OUT FOR TOMORROW
Many of Leger’s songs possess a familiar vibe, but contain musical or lyrical surprises. A case in point is the song “Read Between The Lines”, from the new album. It seems to cover familiar musical ground and then hooks the listener with unexpected chord changes, creating something new and beautiful. Leger is matter-of-fact when this point is raised. “When I write, I just go with the feeling. I don’t follow any rules. Listening to Neil Young, and Gene Clark, two songwriters I find that, when you hear their songs it seems so simple. But if you’re a musician and you go to play them, there’s always these curve-balls, like, ‘Where did that come from?’. Even though, sound-wise, it makes so much sense, then when you’re playing it you think, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that. I think some of my songs can be like that.”
Going with the feeling when writing a song, and having the right feel in the studio go hand-in-hand for Leger. As for the recording process on Time Out For Tomorrow, the artist comments that “Most of the vocals are live, and the band is live. The only time I re-did the vocals, was just for a couple of things. Because I was getting over a cold in the first couple of days, there were just certain things that I couldn’t do, that I really wanted to do.”
“For the most part it was live. I like all the records to be as live as possible. We have some overdubs, like organ, and backup vocals and percussion. I ideally want to keep the live vocals, and I always want to have the band live. I’m not interested in working with people who say, like, ‘Let’s get the drums first’. I can’t make records with those people. It’s just not the way I do it.”
Although he has worked with some well-known artists in the past, Leger is circumspect when the question is raised about future songwriting collaborations. “It’s hard to say, because I don’t like forcing that stuff. I mean, if I sat down with some of my favourite songwriters, nothing might come out of it. I’m not really into that. I’d rather it be like, if we were just hanging out, and something happened. Like, ‘I’ve got this idea, what do you think of this?’”
“I’m not into the idea of going to Nashville, where they put writers together. I heard somebody on the radio recently, and they were saying, ‘I went to Nashville, to write with these people…’, and I’m still supposed to believe that these songs have some deep meaning. I think, ‘How did you and eight other people get together and create this real deep, earnest song?’ That boggles my mind.”
On the topic of touring to support the new album, some dates in central Canada are planned for this fall (including a Nov. 28th album release at Toronto’s Lee’s Palace), as well as some overseas touring in early 2020. As for writing and recording work beyond that, Leger observes, “There’s always another record to make.”
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Photo Credits: Russ Styles
