Fred Eaglesmith has no time for “redneck” fans of new country who wear camouflage, drive giant, jacked-up trucks and carry “4,000-gallon coolers for their beer.”
And he admitted these gun-obsessed guys don’t tend to be too fond of his music either.
“Some of them come out (to his concerts) because they’ve heard Toby Keith and Miranda (Lambert) have done some of my songs,” said Eaglesmith, who brings his Travelling Steam Show on Friday at The Hideout, south of Red Deer.
“But I get them out pretty quick” with intelligent tunes that require listeners to think.
Like the best short stories, Eaglesmith’s country-folk songs tend to consider life from an unusual perspective. He writes lyrics about quirky rural folk that often contain irony, surprise endings, unreliable narration and plot twists.
For instance on Katie, from his latest 6 Volts CD, a farmer shoots his wife and her lover after discovering them together in the barn. Upon burying their bodies in the yard, the man, who never wanted to farm in the first place, realizes he’s forever stuck with a property he can never sell, lest his crimes be discovered.
His song Johnny Cash, from the same album, is a tribute to an old-school singer he has always admired. But there’s mention of the hipsters who have now claimed the late Cash as their hero. Where were they in the 1980s, when Cash was struggling financially, asked Eaglesmith, who believes, like many great artists, Cash was largely overlooked in his own time.
His off-kilter views fall in line with his Zen-Buddhist beliefs: “You have to always think of the other side,” said Eaglesmith, who believes it’s important to see “what other people are not seeing.”
During the singer’s most recent tours of Alberta — the first province “to be good to me,” even before his native Ontario came around to his music — he sees the dust settling from the recent oil boom.
The 56-year-old maintains he’s a fan of the “civil Alberta” of the 1980s, when the term “redneck” prompted tongue-in-cheek jokes rather than boorish behaviour.
He said he’s always glad to see old fans turn up from this less “pushy” period.
Eaglesmith’s own father was a farmer who had emigrated from Holland to make a better life in Canada. But even in the 1950s, farming was a tough slog — especially for a family with nine children.
“I was raised on agriculture, religion and poverty — and that’s the formula for rock ’n’ roll!” said Eaglesmith (born Frederick Elgersma) with a belly laugh.
Although his music career didn’t really take off until the father of three began getting popular in the U.S. — a fact that got him into hot water with patriotic Stompin’ Tom Connors at one point — the singer believes he has maintained a special relationship with “fredheads” in Canada.
On Thursday afternoon, after Eaglesmith was pulled over by Canadian border guards after crossing into Saskatchewan from Montana, a farmer got out of the vehicle lineup to vouch for him.
“He said all of his neighbours listen to me while they’re out in the fields. ... It was hilarious! It seems I kill in Killdeer,” Sask.
Tickets to his 8 p.m. show are $20. For more information, call The Hideout in Gasoline Alley at 403-348-5309.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com