Define your genre in five words or less:
Banjo songster.
Bearing the terrible clichéd nature of this question, what do you reckon people will say you sound like?
I usually don’t hear what they compare me to. But maybe the sweetness of John Denver on The Muppet Show mixed with Leonard Cohen.
Describe the best gig you have ever played.
I played a surprisingly large gig at the Ottawa Folk Festival that killed last year. It felt good to have my songs go over in an intimate way with many thousands of people. I think I had just enough fans that made the much huger number of strangers get it. I usually prefer playing much smaller places. The best gigs are when you can love them more than they love you.
Tell us about the last song you wrote.
The last song I wrote is called The Briar And The Rose, it’s pretty rad I suppose, but the melody is good and it’s sentimental in a pushing satisfying way. It’s a bit Townes Van Zandt.
Where would you like to be in five years?
Turning up here and there for my fix of performance and then retreating to my farm in rural Nova Scotia to raise a family band gently. I’d like to have produced my own record by then and really nailed how to get the live energy onto recordings.
Do you have a pre-gig ritual? If so, what is it?
Not really, but I like to have clean hands, and I wonder aloud if I can do the show until show time. I also pick away at little melodies on the banjo that sound like there’s an infinite universe of songs I haven’t yet written. I’d be great to write more songs backstage with all the nervous energy there.
Name an interview question you wish someone would ask you, and answer it.
Q: Did you really think you could get away with it?
A: Yes, but in the humblest possible way.
If your music was a chocolate bar, which one would it be, and why?
I’d like to say something everyone likes, most likely though a nearly virtuous high end dark chocolate with something dumb but not too dumb in it, like sea salt. Delicious.
OLD MAN LUEDECKE plays at the Flying Saucer Club on Sunday May 4.
