The blending of comedy and music has always been a practice that leaves audiences with mixed reviews, but Hamilton native B.A. Johnston has been hard at his sweaty, coarse and truthful craft for well over a decade.
The blending of comedy and music has always been a practice that leaves audiences with mixed reviews, but Hamilton native B.A. Johnston has been hard at his sweaty, coarse and truthful craft for well over a decade.
Having a penchant for writing songs about vintage video games, deep fried foods, bad breakups and living in his mom's basement, his new record S**t Sucks may be his finest and most poignant to date.
The Southern Ontario road rambler will bound his way into Banff for a live show at Wild Bill's on April 19.
With seedy song titles that are bound to turn heads and emit laughs or gasps from many, Johnston is more than just shock value; he is truly a creative and sentimental song-sculptor who channels humour to deal with the darker periods of life.
“I use humour sort of as a spoonful of sugar when I write about stuff that's painful. The song ‘My Heart Is A Blinking Nintendo' is about getting cheated on and dumped while being on a road trip,” he said, howling with laughter. “So you kind of use the humour to make it all a little more easy to digest, and I do that in my songs a lot. I mean, no one wants to listen to some sad-sack moan about his cheating girlfriend. You've got to dress it up a bit.”
With a one-man live act that features a lot of backing tracks, costume changes, vintage synthesizer loops and fast-strumming acoustic guitar, Johnston is not all about gimmicks.
His strong, punchy chorus hooks show he is actually a soft hearted, unique and strong songwriter beneath the many layers of comedic clothes.
“Yeah, you could say that (I'm sentimental). It's like when you find yourself driving a car and ‘Patio Lanterns' comes on and it makes you cry. That's maybe the downside of being sentimental, but I could just also be crazy for being in a car for 10,000 years, though. Lost youth, you know?”
“You get dismissed because for whatever reason, people don't like comedy acts very much. But I think the show is weird and fun and I hope that people get more out of it than just cheap laughs. But who knows. As long as they get something out of it, it doesn't really matter.”
Never trying to veil his truthful pursuits in slick, pop-music packaging, Johnston's songs can be seen as anthems for slothful couch surfers and allow the listener an honest view of a performer.
The tune “I Remember Skinny Jeans The Last Time Around” tells a humourous tale of a man who has seen many fashion trends come and go.
“It's a cycle of bashing because I've been around long enough that I've seen my friends' kids dress like they are from the ‘80s, or whatever, but they are only looking at the good part because they weren't there,” he said.
“They don't remember the down side of the ‘80s – like mullet-head dudes punching you because you hated Van Halen. They don't remember that, but they'll wear leg warmers and stuff and vintage t-shirts. I guess I'm waiting for the ‘90s to come back, but I guess they already have. “
Having spent many years playing live gigs in small, intimate character-driven bars in Canada, the traveling troubadour loves the road, but also knows its downfalls.
“The driving gets a little … long,” he said, pausing.
“It's especially hard in northern Ontario, because you're driving for seven or eight hours and then you have to do a show and then you drive for another seven or eight hours, and you have to keep doing that for four days.
“But once you get out west, the drives get a little smaller and it definitely becomes less of a grind. It's kind of like being in a stasis – you're just spending your day waiting for this 45-minute period every day. You don't really need to exist until midnight.”
Lighting the lamp for his hometown of Hamilton with songs like “Jesus Is From Hamilton,” Johnston takes every opportunity to write songs about his fair city, but he has sometimes received pushback from the local press.
“A Hamilton newspaper gave me flak for not talking about Hamilton enough, which I was a little bit – I was like ‘Come on, man. How much do you guys need?' I talk about Hamilton a lot on the new record so I don't know where the paper got that from,” he said, chuckling.
“There's one song where I talk about specific Hamilton places, like two bars, a sub restaurant that's closed, a bus line – I mean, no one will care about that song unless they are from Hamilton.”
A recurring theme throughout Johnston's albums is a signature style of eye-catching, cover-artwork that is thanks to Halifax artist Paul Hammond.
“Paul has done almost all of my stuff, and he does work for other bands, as well. It's almost reaching a point now where it's like (the mascot of) Eddie with Iron Maiden. My stuff and his art is sort of getting linked together.”
Although his new record kicks off with a slacker-rock bang, in the form of the fast-rock tune “Couch Potato Alright,” Johnston is quick to laugh at the irony of his flannel-wearing, misanthropic image.
“It's funny because I don't even get to do that. That's the irony of this whole crap. I would love to sit on my couch and eat Cheezies all day. That sounds like the best thing ever, but I really don't ever get to do that.
“People think I'm a huge slug, but I don't actually get to be lazy because I'm playing so much. I don't really get to do that as much as I'd enjoy.”
