‘Being a musician is the one time in my life that I really fit in to anything. I’m probably an outcast to everyone except musicians, regardless of what music they play. That’s my tribe, for better or for worse,’ confesses Bobby Dove. I hooked up via Zoom with the spirited artist whose current release HOPELESS ROMANTIC has deservedly been earning killer reviews. After an introduction to Bobby’s cat (‘my tour manager at the moment’) we chatted about the album, the talented bunch of musicians playing on it and its predecessor THUNDERCHILD.
What’s a typical day in Manitoba during lockdown?
Try to get out of bed (laughs). Only joking, I do karate, which is probably the only scheduled part of my life right now. I’ve barely seen anyone for a year, haven’t seen my family. Haven’t seen my mother’s face since last May, I really miss her. My dog, that was living with my mom, died back home.I’m one of the people that during this pandemic has done nothing by way of physical movement and involvement in any kind of project. I haven’t even been in an empty club with a sound person.
Before we talk about your new album HOPELESS ROMANTIC, tell me about your debut album THUNDERCHILD, that blends, honky tonk, ballads and some full-on roots tunes. The title track is particularly wonderful.
It wasn’t at all intentional but I think that album back in 2016 just happened naturally. Sometimes you just bring someone on to a project and it really works. I brought Bob Cohen in to play guitar on that one song, the title track. He used to be Jesse Winchester’s guitar player and he rocks out. What I think about the THUNDERCHILD album is that it shows my versatility as an artist and a songwriter, and that I don’t just write country songs. I do love country music and country music arrangements, and old-time country music has had a huge influence on me. On that album the songs did not come from a certain place in time, I also reached back for songs I had written ten years earlier. I had written Cowgirl Bob when I was nineteen, just as I reached back for a song on the new record Gas Station Blues, which I wrote ten years ago.
I can identify a lot of country artists and bands on HOPELESS ROMANTIC from Emmylou and The Hot Band on that song you just mentioned Gas Station Blues. Am I also hearing John Prine on the song Early Morning Funeral?
You’re one hundred percent right and you’re not the first person to mention John Prine with that song and I really appreciate that. When we were recording that song, I said ‘let’s do this like a John Prine song.’ The song has that John Prine swagger. It was also different to most of my songwriting because I had a co-writer on that one who does not even consider himself a singer/songwriter. He’s a guitar player named Eric Sandmark, who used to play for Ray Condo and used to be my drummer. The song was about him so I called him up to get some background information about his day job as a pallbearer, so I could put that into the song. I was on the phone to him back and forth and he ended up injecting a couple of rhymes into the song. I said to him this is as good as a co-write. I don’t normally write songs with other people but this was as close to a co-write as I have ever got. So, I gave him credit for that song. The musicians I had in the studio knew exactly what I meant when I said ‘let’s do this John Prine style.’
Tell me about those musicians and how you came to co-produce with Bazil Donovan of Blue Rodeo.
I put the band together individually with musicians I had played with and met in Toronto. I had Burke Carroll, the pedal steel player, on my last album. I found guitar player David Baxter playing with Corin Raymond and I asked him to play a gig with me. Singer songwriter Doug Paisley hooked me up with Basil Donovon. I had seen Doug open for Lucinda Williams at Massey Hall and he had seen me play in some little bar. He sent me an email telling me how much he appreciated seeing me play at that tiny hole in the wall and he put me in contact with Basil. It was crazy because when I put these players all together, I didn’t realise that all these guys were actually already in a band together called Hey Stella, who backed up the singer songwriter Lori Yates. Michelle Josef, who plays drums on the album, is also in that band with them and it made perfect sense to also use her. So, I’d put together a band that were already together. I co-produced with Basil. Sometimes he didn’t like my ideas. It was funny, he’d say ‘no we’re not ending the song like that, it’s not professional.’ I was nearly in tears. Making a record is such an emotional experience but it worked out perfectly well in the end. At that stage I had played about twenty shows with the different players in the band in Toronto. We never rehearsed because I was driving back and forth from Montreal to Toronto. I was fresh off the highway, six hours on the road, get to the club, change my shirt, put on my sunglasses and I was ready to play. So, the things that we would nail would be the old-time country songs, because they had been playing them for years and knew them so well, and I knew them from the records. Then we’d get to my originals and they didn’t come together as easily. But when we got into the studio and had the time to play the songs a number of times and record them it was another story.
When was the album recorded?
We started in September 2019 and there were a few things added later, like Jim Cuddy’s vocal on Chance In Hell. He added that just before I mastered the album last November. Most of the album was done in September 2019 and and most of the vocal tracks are the original recordings from the studio with me tracking acoustic guitar and singing with the band. There are very few overdubs.
Is classic country where you see yourself as an artist or are you more of the Daniel Romano school, where your next album might be from a completely different direction?
I not sure if I’m locked into classic country. I don’t know what’s going on in Daniel Romano’s head but I wish I did because I love that guy. I met him five or six times in Nashville at AmericanaFest and the guys from the record labels were all over him. He knew my debut album and was saying ‘you need to meet Bobby’ and trying to give me a leg up (laughs). I’m more of the ‘who knows what they’re going to do next’ because I have a foot in different worlds. My background is not country, that said, I am a diehard honky tonk listener and that is going to influence everything I do and whether I like it or not, I’m going to be some sort of country artist for as long as I can imagine. You can never be too sure because the magical thing about art is the X Factor. However, I’m definitely more Daniel Romano than Dwight Yoakam.
Before Covid-19 was it possible to get numbers out for country music in Canada?
Yes, it was. I was just at a point in my career when I was going to set up some shows supporting the album and selling tickets, when this pandemic happened. I have been building on the street credibility that’s been growing for me. Some festival directors had started noticing me and I got to play some major Canadian Folk festivals on the West Coast like The Vancouver Folk Music Festival. I also got to open for Irish Mythen, who’s a powerhouse singer and a solo artist. She definitely took me under her wing at a couple of festivals and got me to open for her at sell out shows in great rooms.
I would try and organise roots and country music shows in Montreal, where I come from, but Montreal is a large city in a French province and the bigger music scenes there are more indie, electronic and even world music. If like me, you’re a small fish in a very large pond, it can be difficult. Montreal isn’t easy and it’s ironic because one of the most famous singer songwriters Leonard Cohen is from Montreal. I grew up in the same neighbourhood as him, a Jewish kid, listening to his music as a little kid. I’m a songwriter and only discovered country music when I was twenty-five and not from a front porch in Alabama. I don’t pretend to be from the Southern States.
What was your musical background prior to releasing THUNDERCHILD? Were you playing in bands or a solo artist?
The answer is both. I played my originals and country covers in a band with Eric Sandmark on drums and a punk rock bass player, and I would usually lead with my telecaster, sometimes hire a fiddle or steel player. Folks were calling it "cowpunk"! When I dissolved that band, before recording THUNDERCHILD, I played mostly solo or in duos with instrumentalists for a year or two. I have, and will always be invested in playing solo shows, but I also love duos, trios and any combination that works for the event.
Since the release of that debut album have you been touring and playing solo or with a band?
I have been touring mostly solo for financial and logistical reasons and because I did not have one or two musicians that could constantly play with me. I had a band for my shows in Toronto. Also, I did not want to have the worry about accommodating other people all the time. If you can support your own music with a guitar and a suitcase it becomes the logical thing to do. So, if I went to Toronto I’d play with a band and if I went to Alberta, I had a band there that I would use. There were other times that promoters would hire me solo specifically. So, even though Vancouver Island Music Festival could of course afford to hire me with a band, they preferred just me and a guitar, playing my songs and telling stories.
Interview by Declan Culliton Photograph by Jen Baron