“Oh, I am very much a morning person which has never really jived with the rock and roll archetype.”
It’s a description which could be applied to Hawksley’s entire career. In his mid 20s after a series of self-financed albums he signed a deal with major label Universal and was very much seen as a rising star both in Canada and Europe.
But fiercely independent, the corporate structure of being a major label artist was never going to be an ideal fit and in spite of a few hit singles including We Will Still Need a Song and an acclaimed album, Lover/Fighter he settled back into being an independent artist.
Subsequently he has released more than 20 albums with songs ranging from rock, soul, folk and many other genres which make it impossible to fit a single description to his work.
Hawksley Workman (Picture: Ivan Otis)
“I feel like I have always been too indie for the mainstream; too mainstream for indie; too folk for rock and too rock for folk. And I quite like that,” he said.
He attributes much of his eclectic musical outpourings to his father.
“My dad was a drummer and a music fanatic,” he said. “He never seemed to lock into any specific genre so as a kid I just grew up listening to great music whether that was a singer-songwriter on a piano or Motown or heavy rock.
“Then, all of a sudden when you get into the music business you need to predicate your whole career by painting in your lane and just staying put. That never makes sense to me.”
He laughs when I mention that his Wikipedia page – that most reliable source of information – describes him as ‘glam rock’.
“When my first single came out in Canada I guess that was a song which could have been construed as glam rock for want of a better label, but it shows how those first impressions can be so lasting,” he said.
“I bet every musician feels same way, hemmed in by some form of categorisation – but what are you going to do?”
What Hawksley has done is produce a hugely eclectic body of work and develop a live show which always has an air of excitement and the unexpected about it.
“I like to get on stage with a reckless attitude,” he said. “I’m very interested why more people watch sport than music these days and I think that the more music becomes canned and predictable, the less you get what sports gives you – that sense that anything can happen.
“When I play my little single guy folk show I do it with that in mind. I don’t want it to feel like you can just relax because I’m in full control. You want to have that air of excitement.
“I go out with a mind to try to borrow from that energy of recklessness. I’m trying for the particular beauty of just doing it. Sometimes it pays off but in the age the music industry is now in, that risk is something that is starting to go away.”
Hawksley has built up a great relationships with audiences in the UK and loves to tour this country.
“The British are great music fans.” he said, “and the UK has created some of greatest pop music ever written. I think many Canadian and even American artists dream of being well known in UK.
Hawksley Workman (Picture: Ivan Otis)
“There is just that special ethos there about music and musicians. You guys have great taste and you still appreciate musicians.”
For Hawksley the era of music which inspires him the most remains the 1980s.
“Growing up I was a Smiths’ kid – it very much defined my adolescence,” he said. “If I had to pick one era I’d always pick the New Wave era of the 1980s.
“Bands like Echo and the Bunnymen and Tears for Fears and artists like Thomas Dolby were very much the lifeblood of my youth as far as music is concerned and all those artists still mean as much to me today.
“I think that’s why so many of my more recent records are so heavily nostalgic for that era. I do feel as though there was something magical about the Eighties. In the UK particularly it was a time of aggressively interesting pop writing and music was brimming with invention and an adventurous spirit which I fear is being lost today.
“Growing up in the late Twentieth Century, the music business was built on highly individualised characters – that’s what I am marinated in. As music become more normalised, I’m afraid that those individual characters quickly gets weeded out.”
Hawksley Workman plays Barnoldswick Music and Arts Centre on Tuesday, October 1. Details from www.barnoldswickmusicandartscentre.com
“