OLD MAN LUEDECKE JOINS OUTSIDE MUSIC TO RELEASE NEW SINGLE FEATURING BAHAMAS
LISTEN / SHARE “MY STATUS IS THE BADDEST” FT. BAHAMAS HERE
BUY / STREAM “MY STATUS IS THE BADDEST” FT. BAHAMAS HERE
PERFORMING JAN 10 - 15 AT TROPIC OF CANCER FESTIVAL - BAJA, CA
PERFORMING JAN 20 AT SANCTUARY ARTS CENTRE - DARTMOUTH, NS
It’s been a few years since we last heard new music from two time JUNO Award winner Old Man Luedecke. Where exactly has he been? On a scallop boat of course, and working with Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas).
Today, he shares the first new track from their time together, “My Status Is The Baddest”, which sees Chris Luedecke leaving behind his signature banjo to explore songwriting and finding a freedom in it. The track is a joy-filled complaint of parenthood. Channeling Steve Miller and Tom Petty with a breezy existential refrain, Luedecke tries to sort out whether the high road of parenting is espionage against the true nature of the beast.
‘Am I a coward or a traitor? I’m always at war with my nature’ Holding it all back to be a good parent, or trying to be, most of the time. Suppressing flight urges, keeping the train on the rails, trying to get the kids what they need. All these things are in this feel good ditty about how the joys and bliss of parenting are also really a lot of work, doubt and heartache with little right to but also little escape from complaint. Sweet otherworldly guitar lines keep the humour ethereally above the Steve Miller-like candy rock of the melody.
LISTEN / SHARE “MY STATUS IS THE BADDEST” FT. BAHAMAS HERE
BUY / STREAM “MY STATUS IS THE BADDEST” FT. BAHAMAS HERE
MORE ABOUT OLD MAN LUEDECKE
How did Old Man Luedecke go from touring the world with his banjo to suddenly giving it all up to work as a deckhand on a scallop boat, and abandoning his signature instrument?
“I was just going over to my scallop farming neighbour’s house to get some scallops to have for dinner”, says Chris Luedecke. “Knowing that the live music world had slowed down, he asked me if I wanted a job on his boat” And so, Luedecke accepted and began going out to sea in the North Atlantic, not far from his family home in rural Nova Scotia. He was giving up the game of music.
Throughout that time working on the water, song ideas would pop in his head, and Chris would stash them away in his sea salt-stained notebook and battered iphone, not sure if anything would ever come of them. During downtimes, Chris and his family would host all-day sap boils and wiener roasts over an open fire on their property where they tapped their maple trees and boiled the sap to make syrup in the late days of several winters. A frequent visitor to these fires was Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas) who brought his family over for the BBQ and syrup and to chat music and play around on their guitars.
“What about not playing the banjo on your next record?” suggested Jurvanen. Initially, Chris thought those may have been fighting words, and prepared to throw down with his fellow JUNO Award winner. Luckily, it didn’t come to blows and Chris understood that Afie’s question was rooted in how much of a fan he was of Chris’s song writing, and that maybe perceptions of the banjo distracted from that.
“I was a musician, a banjo player, known for my old-time Appalachian-based sound, and Afie thought that we should let go of the chains and expectations that come with writing songs around an instrument, and that I should just write the songs without the instrument in mind. He convinced me to abandon my signature sound, and I had this newfound sense of freedom in my song writing.”
It might have been easier to just quit the game, and stick to scallops, but being able to let go of the instrument that made him, brought new life to his song-making process. And fans need not worry, the banjo is always close at hand. There’s a treasure trove of songs that have soundtracked the lives of many, that feature that signature sound. The absence of the banjo is not forever, just for now.