Folk singer-songwriter Jeremy Fisher just can’t stay away from the Valley.
“It just seemed like the right time,” he said, in an interview with the Outlook. “I made a couple of bookings a year ago and so I decided to make a two-week run of it.
“I’ve toured Alberta a fair amount in the winter, and I love it, I’m lucky enough that I’ve got a couple days off between Edmonton and Lethbridge, and so I’m going to get into the mountains and do some skiing.”
Fisher plays Thursday (Feb. 7) in The Club at The Banff Centre, starting at 8 p.m. His last time playing in the Bow Valley was at the Canmore Folk Music Festival five months ago.
“It was awesome. It’s like a real, old-school folk fest,” said Fisher. “It had a great lineup and I love that you’re right in town, but still surrounded by natural beauty. It was a highlight of my summer.”
While he did take some time to hike in Banff last summer, it’s been seven years since he played a show there.
“I was in Banff this past summer, I did a four-day hike around Egypt Lake,” he said. “But the last time I played there was in 2006, when I opened for Xavier Rudd.
“I remember it well, I had called a friend of mine from the stage and had a conversation with him. It was one of the few times I had done that, and somehow it was relevant to be using my phone during the show. I don’t expect to do that again, but it was packed, Xavier as you can imagine does pretty well in Banff, and it was a beautiful theatre and a lot of fun.”
For this tour, Fisher will be promoting his fifth and newest album, Mint Juleps, released last year.
“I think of it as folk music, but there’s a couple tracks that are definitely in the country or even bluegrass tinge,” he said, describing the music. “It’s a record that was really important to me to make a live performance.
“We set up in the studio and played to each other’s dynamics live right there in the studio and wanted to capture the essence of a live performance.”
While his previous records have been more heavily produced, he said, with Mint Juleps he wanted to give people an album that would remind people of the show they had just seen.
“This was an idea about how I could accomplish that, and I don’t know that I did, but it was a sure fun way to make a record.”
While Fisher has spent most of his life in Vancouver, four years ago he moved to Montreal and last year to Ottawa, where he now makes his home.
“It’s become my nature, I travel so much for work, it doesn’t feel like a big thing,” he said. I am trying to settle down in Ottawa, and it’s been a good place for me, I just get restless.”
Though in the past Fisher has been known for touring across the country by bicycle, with this jaunt around Alberta, he’ll be driving.
“Maybe we’ll come by cross-country ski, but it’ll probably be in a mid-size automobile,” joked Fisher. “It’s not quite as much equipment, but my show is fairly logistically simple – as long as I have a guitar I can perform.”
For his debut album tour in 2001, Fisher cycled from Vancouver to Halifax.
“On the bike tours, I strip it down to just my guitar and a cable and tuner and my harmonicas, and I have a little trailer that I tow behind my bike, and I take a bunch of CDs, a change of clothes and raingear, and that’s it.”
Touring by bike also has allowed Fisher to play smaller places, with better venues, he explained.
“A few years ago I made a conscious decision to focus on smaller communities,” he said. “When I started out playing I was touring on my bike and I’d play really small communities, only hitting a big city every once in a while. The kind of music I play lends itself better to that.
“And there are advantages – a lot of small communities still have beautiful, old theatres that a big city would have torn down – in Calgary, is there anything that’s more than 10 years old? I play all these great town halls and small theatres and that’s the type of environment that my music thrives in, so it just makes sense.”
While Fisher has had a couple bands over the years, he mainly prefers to play as a solo musician, as he will be doing so at this show.
“A big part of my show is storytelling, and it’s nice to take five minutes in the middle of a song if it’s appropriate and tell a story,” he said. “It’s kinda hard to do that with a band sitting there on stage, it can in fact be a little bit awkward, and I’ve grown quite a bit into giving context to the songs and connecting with the audience in a way that is additive, hopefully, to the audience.”
As to what those stories are about, it changes from day to day, he said.
“It can be anywhere from the genesis of the song to something that relates to the song for me, or something that happened that day – I love performing because it’s different each night and so much affected by the mood and the tone of the audience,” said Fisher. “I try to pick up on that and create more of a conversation back and forth.
“And I’m not really much like that in my personal life. I’m outgoing, but I don’t demand a lot of attention, but when I get on stage it’s like it consumes me a little bit and there’s no filter between my brain and my mouth. Sometimes it’s a blessing and sometimes a curse. My style of music doesn’t really lend itself to improvisation, but the stage banter is that.”
For more information on Fisher, or to hear his music, visit his website at www.jeremyfishermusic.com
