Erik Lundgren, and One for the Road
Winnipeg's long cold winter has started to loosen its grip a little. I know my southern friends wouldn't think so. What we deem "warm" right now is still significantly colder than the "cold" weather I "suffered" through in Nashville a couple of weeks ago.
So I guess it's all relative. It is April 1 and Mick just posted an April fool’s joke on our Instagram. He posted a doctored email that said in the past month we have gained 350,000 new Spotify listeners or some crazy thing. Truth be told it is actually 2000. But still, relative to the 7 we had at this time last year, it has still been a very good month,
We thought that by having Mick go full-time on band promotion we would have all the time in the world for it. That didn't prove to be the case. He is running to keep up and we still aren't getting to nearly all the stuff that we thought we would. Part of that is because Simon and our drummer Chris are still in school. And I have a full-time job.
But I suppose that is all part of the growth. We would love to get to a place where all we ever do every day is music and creating; but even if we never get there, there is so much life in just trying.
So far a great deal of our growth has been on the back of one video, the one where we are in our living room singing "One for the Road." That song was written by a friend I made while living in Japan. Expats tend to find each other and in this case I encountered Erik, a Swede living there who seemed to enjoy my songs as much as I enjoyed his. I believe we had both placed in a song contest put on by a popular magazine. Now 15 years later I am back in Canada and he is a Swede living in Denmark. But the boys and I have been singing his song ever since the band started.
I don't know if I have ever told Erik but at one point, during one of the lowest points of my very long and ugly divorce proceedings, he paid me what might be one of the highest compliments I have ever received, the kind of words that keep you from sinking in stormy seas.
We hadn't spoken for a while, mostly we had just been keeping up from a distance by listening in on whatever music the other had put out. That tends to be our pattern, interspersed with long "update emails." But I hadn't been sending many because it seemed like anything I had to report was brutal and sad, and the music had died completely. I had lost all motivation to sing about pain anymore.
Into one of those moments Erik sent an update email. In it he mentioned that for most of his early adulthood he had been determined to not have any kids. He felt it was either immoral or ill-advised to be bringing children into a world that seemed to be going in such destructive directions. However, watching the boys and me traveling all over and singing together had made him wonder if in fact he was making the right bet.
He ended the email by saying that the joy he had perceived in what we do had moved his needle considerably, and the evidence of this had just drifted off to sleep in the next room. Erik and his partner had welcomed their first son. I never told him how hard it hit me. And how unbelievably perfect was his timing.
Erik went back to Japan for a musical visit a few years ago and recorded this gem, a version of One for the Road at a temple in Kyoto
Eventually we will find a way to meet him in person and do some collaborating. In fact, the version of One for the Road that has gotten so much attention on Spotify is an old version, from when the boys still sounded like teenagers. Last week we completed the recording of a new version with growed-up voices, and sent it over to Erik in Denmark. Though his main job in animation and effects, he is no slouch when it comes to audio producing, so he is going to take our basic recording and make something beautiful out of it.
We will have that for you as soon as it is ready!
Oh and please, as always, if you think someone would enjoy being on the email list, forward this mail to them and invite them to send me their email address.
Happy April!
