There are only a few weeks left until you kick off your “The Mask and Mirror 30th Anniversary Tour” and many gigs have already sold out. You’ll be stopping by various venues in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Germany, and Italy. Are you still able to find time in between concerts to enjoy the local cultures that inspire your music so greatly?

Well, tours are not designed for doing much research. We travel in the day and we’re often traveling in the morning, the same day of the show, and then set up. On those travel and show days there’s little, or no opportunity to see or do much. It’s only when we have a day off, when we can plan ahead that we get to enjoy some of the places we visit. Sometimes I’ll hire a guide, go to a museum, or to a great restaurant, something that is indicative of where we are. Beyond that, we stay focused on the tour itself. My research trips are richer with opportunities to deeply experience different things.

Remembering some of your remarkable performances, like the one beautifully filmed at Alhambra in Granada or the live recorded at The Royal Albert Hall in London, is there a specific concert or venue that holds a special place in your heart?

There are some performances that ‘stick out’ for obvious reasons. Of course, the Alhambra is one of them, the Herodion Theatre in Athens another. The many Greek and Roman amphitheaters, such as in Taormina or Ostia Antica too. We often find ourselves sitting in an amazing footprint of history together with the audience. To share that kind of experience in one place at the same time, it seems so rare and so significant. There’s the beauty and the significance of such historical places.
I’ve also performed in some places of natural beauty. Sometimes it’s as simple as the folk festivals back in Canada. Once I started a festival workshop that was tucked into a forested area. The scale or the antiquity aren’t the only variables, but also the richness of the environment, and how does that infuse itself for us as performers, as well as the people who listen. I think back to Ostia Antica when we managed to hire a guide. It was unbelievably rich. It was a significant point of research, that was done in the middle of one tour. I’ve thought of, reflected on and spoken of it in many conversations since. It’s unpredictable when these moments might occur.

From Dante to Yeats, from Shakespeare to Alfred, Lord Tennyson – just to name a few-, literature and poetry references represent a very common trait in your musical journey. How did your extensive and varied cultural background take shape?

When I moved from Winnipeg to Stratford in 1981 to work at the Stratford Shakespearean Theatre for four years, that heavily influenced the kind of visual and theatrical component to my creative impulse and also a deep appreciation of language and of different writers over the centuries. Even as recently as the other day in our rehearsals and I was reflecting on what W.B. Yeats was writing in his poem “The Two Trees”, that there are universal and timeless elements that are often captured in the works of real, strong classical writers like Shakespeare or Tennyson, for example. This is really an examination in a metaphorical kind of way, using trees as the allegory. It’s tempting to become jaded, cynical and negative about oneself or the world, or relationships and so on, and it’s really important to work at keeping that positivity in your personal relationships. The core things that I found about the classical writers are those universal, timeless themes that resonate with people all over the world, and that is what speaks to our needs. That is, we have a need to be loved, to belong, for equality and equity, and self-determination—those are the things that draw me. I’ve also felt that lyric-writing is not my strongest skill, so it’s always nice to have those writers who are far more sophisticated in their wordsmithing to hold half the role. I’ll just play the musical part.

You went to college to become a veterinarian before dropping out entirely in pursuit of a career in music. This is quite the leap. Was music ever a part of your childhood growing up? Can you recall a specific moment in your life that triggered your decision?

I came to realize, as years went on, that I came from an unusually strong musical community. This was largely because of a German Mennonite constituency that still lives in that area. Music was very strong in all the churches and was also infused into the schools. There were music festivals, talent nights and variety shows. This went on all the time in a very small community of 3,500 people. Even though my household was really, relatively speaking, not musical, my grandmother would come over and play the piano when my brother and I would go to sleep, while minding us. Beyond that, there was no live music in our house. My mother enrolled me in Highland Dancing when I was five, but it was also at an age when our family was involved in a car accident—I broke my legs so I couldn’t dance anymore. She enrolled me in piano lessons, and my music teacher made it a prerequisite that her students also belong to a children’s choir she led. It held an unusually high competency. In fact, it was beyond competent—it was a very high level of performance. This was before I could read words, before I could read music. I felt that the brain-ear synapses were being built before my visual literacy was, which is akin to how most folk music operates. Most people who learn folk music will learn it by ear, and they teach themselves to play instruments. Even though I went on to study classical piano for eight years and learned to read music, and I studied classical voice for about four or five years, I always kept hold of that aural dimension. When I was a teenager in Morden, Manitoba, I was exposed to and listened to the folk music of the day. It was Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Simon & Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot and that was before I ever heard Celtic music. It wasn’t until I moved to Winnipeg after my grade 12 year when I visited a folk club and exposed to Celtic music. It was just such an infectious kind of sound.

Attending one of your concerts is a highly emotional moment in which every aspect, from the acoustics to the visual presentation, looks meticulously curated. Even your dresses/outfits always reveal a great deal of research, are you related in any way to the world of fashion?

I have not been a person who is infatuated with fashion. In fact, I would say I’m almost… I won’t say anti-fashion, but I’ve just kind of marched to my own drummer as it pertains to what I wear and how I dress and how that reflects what I’m interested in. Being immersed more in period music or traditional music, I just wanted to wear clothes that had that feel to them. I don’t explore it because of a lack of time to focus on it. But I’ve not been fashion conscious in the least and I see that has applied to my music as well. I’ve never written music for a hit single. I have written music that was pleasing to me, or responded to something innate within me, rather than saying, ‘I’m going to do that’. It’s a conscious, deliberate decision.

In times of Artificial Intelligence and dominance of the computer realm, how much does technology affect your current music production and what do you think will be the role of tradition and cultural heritage in the next future?

There are two very different and big branches to the question. I think of 20 years (or more) from now, after this technological misadventure experiment, or whatever you want to call it. I think we have seen how unregulated technology provides a number of good things and some amazing opportunities, while at the same time some devastating things. When I personally look at the balance sheet of those things, I see the devastating things outweighing the good ones. So personally, I am of a view that I have seen enough of this. I think we are in an emergency situation around the world and that we should put on the brakes like a nuclear moratorium, because it affects everything. I think it’s creating such insecurity in everyone’s world and life, not just those working in the music industry. Of course, the music industry was the first to be struck by unregulated technology. The industry is divided into two parts: one is the commodification part and the second is the performing part. The commodification part has been destroyed. For example, an artist such as myself, who used to be paid 25 cents per song on a CD or vinyl, is now paid 10 cents per thousand plays, or $0.0001 on Google Play. That doesn’t bring in enough revenue to cover the expenses of expensive creative explorations like The Mask and Mirror, or The Book of Secrets, where we incorporated musicians from all kinds of cultures and places. Because it’s unregulated, unprotected, it’s really killing-off a lot of the creative class. I think additionally, there has been this false equivalency that fame means success – and fame does not pay the bills. If there’s not a viable, predictable business model in which creators can live their professional lives, then there’s just not a future for them. There’s a carving out of the creative class which becomes a very, very few top-tier artists. The Taylor Swifts, etc. and then very young people, or very talented people who might be extremely well known on TikTok, but can’t make enough money to support themselves, much less a family. This puts various genres into peril, including folk music. Contrary to what many of the tech companies may want to see, is that people innately have a gravity, like a central point in themselves that they’re now feeling either the damage or the shallowness or the lack of something that’s involved in this and that. They’re gravitating back to some more analog experiences. I think of myself and the musicians that I work with, it’s unbelievable to think that we are like dinosaurs – from the standpoint that we create the music live through human endeavour.

Much of the younger generation has long forsaken its ancestral traditions and is seemingly headed towards unprecedented levels of cultural homogeneity, due to social media’s impact, among other factors. How important is it in your experience to give prominence to the forgotten lore of our predecessors in an age where we rarely take time to reflect on and study the past?

I hope that we’re appreciating that there is a much richer experience which is like a life force, a result of the interaction of human beings to human beings, rather than technology to human beings, or human beings to technology. Everything is being mediated through technology. But we must understand… I think we collectively must grow the maturity of understanding, as to how to use technology to its benefit, where to use it and when. Or, just to leave it alone and get it out of our lives.

You have been very vocal about the progressive downfall of the music industry and its struggle to find a profitable business model in the age of streaming and artists mistreatment. How have you managed to carry on as the founder of an independent label (Quinlan Road) in a profit-driven industry?

To the degree that my perception is somewhat accurate, I feel there are not the circumstances for much success right now. I think it is a massive gamble to put all one’s eggs in the basket of a career. At this point, a musical career… I think it would be highly advisable to keep working at it, developing it, keep studying where the opportunities are. Whether it’s in live performance or various kinds of promotion online or otherwise, but really have a second or third career lined up. If things improve or you win the lottery, then great. But what I do know is if I were to start out now, my career could never have reached the height that it did. In the era that I’ve lived in, it just simply couldn’t have. However disappointing that might be, I would rather give people what I feel is realistic advice and say don’t abandon it all together, but at the same time, go into this with your eyes wide open.