Justin Rutledge can’t turn down an opportunity to play Canmore’s Communitea Cafe.
“It’s a lovely place,” said the folk-country singer-songwriter, in an interview with the Outlook. “They like having me back and I love coming back.”
Playing Communitea on Feb. 24, this will be his third time at the venue.
Currently based in Toronto, Rutledge began playing music professionally in 2004. About 10 years ago, he briefly lived in Canmore.
“(Canmore) has grown quite exponentially, but it’s really refreshing to get into that part of the Rockies,” he said. “Even the drive from Calgary to Canmore is really breathtaking and grounding in a certain way, and I always feel very fortunate to be able to make it out there.”
Rutledge has fond memories of the time he spent living in the Bow Valley.
“When I lived there, I would drink at The Last Call pretty much every day,” he said. “I had a job surveying old Canadian Pacific railway lines with an electrician.
“I was 23 at the time and I had a nice place on Eighth right by the river – I have nothing but good things to say about my experiences in Canmore, I just wish I was a west coast kind of person, but unfortunately I’m a city boy to the bone and I just can’t shake it.”
Toronto will remain his home for now though, he said.
“It seems like at this point in my life, it’s where I need to be, even though I’m certainly entertaining the option of searching for a quieter place at night,” said Rutledge. “Toronto just seems to have what I need right now.”
Since 2004, Rutledge has released five studio albums, including his latest – Valleyheart – which hit the streets this week.
“(Valleyheart)’s a very quiet record, it’s very sparse, it’s more in tune with the way I’m thinking these days – it’s a very patient record,” explained Rutledge. “I’ve sort of reached a point in my career where it’s my fifth solo offering and I feel like I know what I do well.
“I set out to make a record without any sort of pretense, just concentrating on getting the words across and letting the dynamics govern what should be done with the song.”
With that in mind, Rutledge is very happy with the end result, he said, and that things couldn’t have turned out better.
“I’ve done exactly what I set out to do, which is very rare in this line of work, to achieve what you had heard in your head, so I feel lucky in that respect,” he said. “There’s been some compromise in the past – you go into the studio and you record something and it’s not always 100 per cent there.
“Making music, you’re continuously learning about your craft and your ability and disability and what you’re good at. I just seemed to have all my ducks in a row recording this and got the right people involved. It can be really labour intensive, but this album seemed to come off without a hitch, and I’m very happy with that.”
While his previous album was produced by another Communitea alumni, Hawksley Workman, Rutledge decided to go it alone with this release.
“I heard something in my head and I knew where to go with it,” he explained. “Having a producer is nice, and the reason you hire a producer is because you want someone to shape the sound.
“I hired Hawksley because for the last album I really liked his approach to music making and he understood my songwriting, and I wanted to utilize his aesthetic. But with this album I really knew what I wanted and I went for it on this one. I wasn’t even going to put my name under the producer credit, but a friend talked me into it.”
Also with this album, Rutledge changed record labels, from his longtime favourite Six Shooter to Outside Music.
“A change is as good as a rest – I’ve been working with Six Shooter for nine years and they’re really wonderful people and it was a very amicable split. It’s just like being in one apartment for too long – you move to another one and get a different view,” he said. “I’m really happy to be with Outside, they’re very cool to work with so far.”
The first thing Outside Music did for Rutledge, he said, was get a song of his onto a compilation album for Heros Hockey.
“They’re a charity that gives underprivileged youth a chance to play hockey – playing hockey is a pretty expensive ordeal when you’re nine years old, you gotta get skates and pads and all this stuff – and this organization really helps kids get on the ice,” he said. “All the proceeds from that album go to Heros Hockey. We donated in memory of a friend of mine who passed away.”
For this show at Communitea, it’ll be just Rutledge playing solo on stage.
“I can’t afford to bring my whole band out just yet, so I’ll be there by myself,” he explained. “I just play the songs – the songs are good, they gotta stand up on their own – what I do isn’t any big secret, I’m just a guy with a guitar.
“Those are the breaks when you’re a solo act. You don’t have the where-with-all of a four-piece band, everyone chipping in, it’s just me on the road. In terms of the songs, I really haven’t played these songs live yet, I’m hoping they stand up on their own, and that’s all I can really hope for.”
After this tour, which is a span of eight shows covering mostly Western Canada, Rutledge will head east and then look at plans for the summer.
“You never know where an album is going to take you, and there’s no real sense in me going down to the States – I’ve reached a stage in my life where I’m not trying to conquer anything, I’m going to play the places where people want to hear me play – if opportunities present themselves I’ll do that.”
To hear his music, visit justinrutledge.com
