Copyright theirishworld
Canadian singer- songwriter Frazey Ford told David Hennesy why she is stoked to be returning to Ireland, re-releasing her album Indian Ocean which she recorded with Al Green’s band and coming to fame with the folk trio, the Be Good Tanyas. Canadian songstress Frazey Ford is ‘stoked’ to be returning to Ireland. Although she has done relatively little performing in Ireland, she refers to a Dublin show from a couple of years ago as one of her favourites. Frazey was a founding member of the hugely successful folk trio The Be Good Tanyas but she went out on her own with the 2010 solo debut, Obadiah. That solo career really took off with the release of her album Indian Ocean in 2014, recorded in Memphis with members of Al Green’s Hi Rhythm Section. It cemented her reputation as a solo artist and was a defining record for Ford. Highlights of the album include September Fields and Done which continues to evoke poignant reactions from Frazey’s audience. This album has just re-released along with unreleased tracks. Frazey’s most recent album 2020’s U kin B the Sun had 5 star reviews across the board making many Best Album of the Year lists that year. Frazey chatted to the Irish World ahead of her current European tour that includes Irish dates at Dublin’s Button Factory and Sligo Live Festival. How are you looking forward to getting back to Ireland? “I’m so excited. “One of my favourite shows was in Dublin a couple years ago. “Still when I think about the show, I smile. “I’m so happy to return to Dublin and, without a lie, I’m just totally stoked to come back to Dublin and play again. “I love it there.” Tell us about the recent release, Indian Ocean… “It’s a reissue of an album I did about 10 years ago with three new tracks from the vaults that I never released then, so we’ve been just kind of revisiting that. “I am working on a new album and we’re looking back as we’re looking forward.” What has it been like to revisit an album from more than a decade ago, is it like looking back at a different you? “Yeah, I’ve been glad to do this because the experience of doing that album was so magical. “It was so overwhelming to meet these absolute heroes of mine, Al Green’s band, and to collaborate with them that I kind of almost couldn’t take it in at the time. “I’m not a particularly nostalgic person but it’s been really lovely to go back and remember the whole experience. “And then there’s these tracks that we never released. “One of the band members died. “Teenie Hodges, the guitar player, died about six weeks after we finished the album so it was amazing to go back and remix and re-edit these songs that we never released posthumously remembering what a brilliant person he was. “That experience was so magical and such a pinnacle moment of my life and my career. “That album took me on such a ride that lasted quite a while so it’s been neat to just go back and think about how sweet and special that time was. “And yeah, it does feel like a different person and I do feel like a different artist now but it’s nice to kind of go back.” The Indian Ocean album came about when filmmaker and writer Robert Gordon heard Frazey’s song If You Gonna Go on the radio. He invited her to record at Royal Studios in Memphis and that was the beginning of Indian Ocean’s journey.. “The whole thing was so crazy because I had been obsessed with Al Green’s band since I was a teenager. “When I went to make a solo album, my producer and I were like, ‘Let’s try to make the sound of this first album Obadiah sound somewhere between Neil Young Harvest and Al Green I’m Still in Love with You. “That’s kind of the aesthetic we were looking for and then somehow this guy named Robert Gordon just contacted me out of the blue. “He had heard my song at a gas station in Memphis and called the radio station to find out who it was. “And then he emailed me and said, ‘Hey, I know these guys and I can tell that you’re influenced by them’. “So that’s just how it happened. “And then before I knew it, I flew to Memphis. “I brought my co-producer John Raham and we just started the process of collaborating with these guys. “I think they had had people come in before and they just wanted them to do their sound and kind of one and done, you know? “But I think as soon as they sensed that I was really looking for a true collaboration, they were so sweet and they were so excited about it and they just treated me like family. “We would eat a lot of fried chicken and we’d talk about the emotional side of the songs I was doing and they just were so welcoming and so sweet. “I was terrified because they were my heroes. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is terrifying’. “It was a whole process but they still text me all the time and treat me like I’m their little sister or something. It’s so sweet.” The reissue includes three previously unreleased tracks, is that like unearthing forgotten gems from your own back catalogue? “Yeah, I always record way more songs than I put on an album and I very rarely go back and pick through it. “I really like to have a lot to choose from when I’m putting an album together and I’ll leave a lot of stuff off. “It just occurred to me. “John Raham was like, ‘Wait a minute. What about Happy Song? Whatever happened to that?’ “And then he dug it up and he was like, ‘Holy sh*t, this sounds really great. We’ve got to release this one’. “And then I was like, ‘I bet there’s a couple more in there that are good’. “And then we just started combing through and it was so fun. “Teenie is gone now we were like, ‘We kind of need to put these out because it is some of the last stuff that he did and it’s so beautiful’.” It was with The Be Good Tanyas that you first came to prominence, what did you take from that experience? “That was the first band that took off and it took off really unexpectedly. “I probably had seven bands by then. “I would just kind of do a project for a while and then I would go work in the mountains tree planting. I was always just trying to balance figuring out working and doing art. “I was pretty committed to just doing that, not really making a living at it but just making art. “I joined the Be Good Tanyas and it really reminded me of the music that I sang with my mom. “And then that band took off which was unexpected for me and it kind of took over my life for a bunch of years. “We started touring all the time and it was amazing. “I think the experience of being a young person and having fame happen pretty quickly was intense. “It was a lot of pressure on us as friends so it was stressful a lot of the time.” Did a time come to leave the band and do your own thing? “I think at a certain point, we were all just ready to start doing our own projects. “That project did go for about 12 years so it was quite a stretch for me. “I had never been in a band that long. “And then Trish (Klein), who was in the Be Good Tanyas, she toured with me for years, she played on my albums so our musical core just moved over into the next project. “Things come and go. “It wasn’t like a big, ‘This has got to be over’ thing. “It was just the solo thing started to take over and I was kind of more ready to explore that direction.” What was a highlight of when The Be Good Tanyas were taking off? It must have been a whirlwind.. “It was a whirlwind. “I remember the first tour we did in the UK. It sold out immediately and we had never been over there. “We were just a little unknown band from Canada and suddenly we were playing these completely packed rooms and doing all this radio press. “And then pretty soon we were playing bigger and bigger and bigger places like the Royal Albert Hall and stuff like that. “It was pretty wild. “I was young and it was overwhelming, fame and attention. “I’m a kind of a shy, quiet person, or I was back then so it was challenging even though I loved it. “Getting all that attention was weird. “It was weird how you navigate it. “Suddenly you’re so busy all the time too. “Of course I loved it but it was a tricky thing. “Unexpectedly your life is sort of taken over by a record label and all the machinery of it. “Some of it was so amazing but it’s kind of inhumane what the industry expects of young people. “You see these very talented young people and then the industry can eat them alive if they’re not careful. “I love seeing now people having more boundaries with their touring schedules and with their engagements and stuff because it can be really hard on people’s mental health. “I had a really good time but my mental health was more touch and go. “It was overwhelming and wonderful. “I don’t mean to complain. “It was amazing but it was both things.” Since you went out on your own, what has been a highlight of all the stuff you have got to do? “God, I’ve had so many amazing times. “I got to meet Neil Young the other the other day. “It was crazy. “I got summoned backstage to meet Neil Young and he was saying he loved my cover of his song. “I was like, ‘What?’” Which Neil Young song do you cover? “I still can’t get over this. “We covered For The Turnstiles with The Be Good Tanyas, we also covered Birds. “We did a Neil Young tribute concert in New York quite a few years ago. “We ended up recording For the Turnstiles and I always thought, ‘Maybe he would hear it’ because he’s married to Daryl Hannah. I’ve met her before and she’s a fan. “But then at the Neil Young show, she called me backstage and she was like, ‘I just want to tell you that I played your music for him a bunch of times but this time he really heard it and he really loves it’. “And I was like, ‘Okay, sure’. “But then after the show I get it a, ‘Please come backstage’. “And he’s just so nice. “He’s just like, ‘I love your band and I love your music’. “And I was like, ‘What is happening?’ “I still can’t quite deal with what happened with that. “He’s Neil Young. “When I went to meet him, I actually freaked out because I was like, ‘He’s such a huge part of every single thing that I do’. “When I’m making decisions about writing songs, I’m always thinking about him and his structure and what he’s doing so actually meeting him was really emotional and overwhelming for me. “I was like, ‘Wow, you are actually the foundation of almost everything I do’.” What other highlights come to mind? “One of my favourite things is just being with my band. “My band is so funny and so kind and when we’re on tour, we are just like laughing together all the time. “Highs or lows, we’re just having a ridiculous time together. “I had a really great time making the video Done. “That was beautiful experience. “Based on doing that video, I get so many letters from people all the time telling me that they’ve left an abusive relationship or something. People let me know that this certain song really helped them. “That’s a real highlight for me: Just people letting me know that certain music really helped them.” I bet that means more than any review to have that sort of poignant reaction.. “Yeah, somehow that song really hit. “It’s kind of a pretty common thing that someone says, ‘That song helped me’ or ‘was my anthem as I was dealing with this really difficult thing’, or ‘leaving this hard situation’. “I went through a hard time and it ended up becoming a song and the strength I got from going through that time somehow translates through the world to someone else and helps them feel confident to allow themselves to have a better life. “That probably moves me more than anything.” What inspired that song? “I was in a legal battle with my son’s father and it was just a difficult situation. “People think it’s a breakup song but it’s more about just trying to appease a difficult situation for a long time and then realising you have to kind of protect yourself from this difficult situation. “But I think that that song comes from having lived through a lot of generational abusive situations. “I think it spoke to a lot of my own healing from difficult things that happened in my childhood, difficult things I saw. “I think it spoke to generations before me which maybe couldn’t leave difficult situations. “I think it’s more than just my personal story. “I think songs are always more than your personal story. “I leave enough out so that people can put what they feel into it because that’s far more important.” What is it you love about Ireland? “I just feel very at home with the humour. “I have a lot of Irish heritage and I would say a lot of the musicality in my family- It’s a long history of music in my family- comes from the Irish side. “I did my DNA test and it’s hugely Irish so when I come there, there’s something about the sense of humour and the way people are that is very familiar to me.” Can you tell us more about your Irish roots of your family? “They were Cajun but then there was a lot of Irish mixed in there. “They were these river people that were French- Irish mixed but I think it just became more and more Irish. “It was a lot of red headed fiddle playing, singing, lots of music through my grandfather’s side.” When did you know you wanted to sing and play music? “I always sang. “My mom came from this really intense musical history with this French, Irish, Cajun background so she sang all the time so it was just always around. “My parents listened to all kinds of music so I just thought everybody was musical like that in their homes, it wasn’t a big deal. “But later as a teenager, as a young person, I went through a really difficult time mentally and emotionally and I really turned to music as something that was really central to my mental health and that’s when I committed myself to keeping music in my life as a focus. “Regardless of whether I made a living at it or not, it was just very important to me emotionally and spiritually.” Are there any Irish artists that have inspired you? “Van Morrison, of course. “I’m pretty inspired by Kneecap at the moment. “I appreciate any artist that has the balls to stand up right now because the billionaires have decided to shut everyone the f**k up. “I really appreciate everyone who’s standing up to the rollout of fascism and I think that’s a spirit within music.” Indian Ocean and the single, The Happy Song are out now. Frazey Ford plays the Button Factory in Dublin on Monday 27 October and Sligo Live Festival on Tuesday 28 October. For more information, click here.
