The Paul Wells Show - k.d. lang's brilliant career

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

k.d. lang reflects on her four decade-long musical career, which may have reached its end. “All music tends towards silence and I have to honour the silence,” she tells Paul in an open and wide-ranging conversation in Calgary. 

One of the greatest performing artists Canada has ever produced. It is an honour this week to bring you my conversation with Katie Lang. I know who I am, but I don't know anything about my career. I don't know anything about the art that I've produced. I can make guesses, but I don't know anything about the art that I've produced. I can make guesses, but I don't know. I'm Paul Wells. Welcome to The Paul Wells Show. I'll tell you the truth. I'm not sure how this week's interview came to happen. As you'll hear, Katie Lang doesn't have a new album or a tour to promote. My friends have been asking me, Katie Lang doesn't have a new album or a tour to promote.

My friends have been asking me, Katie Lang, how did you get her? The only answer I have is, we asked. Why I wanted to talk to Katie Lang is an easier question. There's almost no bigger star in Canadian music in the last 40 years. And she's always done it on her terms, coming out as a lesbian and a vegetarian in Alberta in the early 90s, after releasing her most ambitious album, Ingenue. She's often changed her musical style over the years, from traditional country to lush ballads to duets with Tony Bennett, even dance remixes. You get the impression she's always been guided by her own sense of what should come next, not by career guidance from her team. been guided by her own sense of what should come next, not by career guidance from her team. I did a lot of research for this one, went back and listened to her entire discography.

I'm ready now to debate the merits of all her albums, like Shadowland from 1988, when she was 27 and she got Patsy Cline's legendary producer Owen Bradley, who was 73, to make sure the album sounded right. That level of preparation came in handy. Lang can be shy and we had never met before. But it's always been obvious that she takes music seriously. So we bonded over music. And when it came time to talk about where she is in her performing career, which is maybe at the end, she was ready to talk about that too.

Katie Lang, thanks for joining me. It is my pleasure, of course. Thanks for welcoming me to your town. You had not been living in Calgary, or at least not only in Calgary for some time, but you've settled back here. I go back and forth between Calgary and Portland. Which one's better? That's unfair. That's a totally unfair question. Way to start the interview off right. Might be safer if I take you back to some prehistory. So I started doing some research for this.

And I found, of course, the legendary 1985 Juno acceptance speech for most promising female vocalist, which you delivered in a wedding dress. And you delivered it by coming forth with a bunch of promises. I didn't get the joke until later that you were the most promising female vocalist, so you're going to promise to do a bunch of stuff. Yeah. Last thing you said is, I promise I continue to sing for only the right reasons. Right. And I thought, my God, she's delivering a manifesto. Yes. And then I got the joke and I thought, well, no, she's just goofing.

Both. But maybe it was a bit of both. It was both. Yeah, it was simultaneous. Yeah, but maybe it was a bit of both it was both yeah it was simultaneous um yeah no i was taking advantage of the moment of being most promising female in a wedding dress but uh yeah the manifesto for sure was right and hopefully i mean there's been a couple times where maybe it was a little slippery slope but for the most part i think i've adhered to my aspirations of of singing for the right part, I think I've adhered to my aspirations of singing for the right reasons. What are the right reasons? Authenticity, motivation. I guess I've already

always looked at music as a kind of holistic self and that it's my job to offer it up to those who want to listen and um you know try to take that into consideration every time i perform or make music in the studio these considerations would not i haven't quizzed them all but these considerations would not necessarily have been on the mind of all of the Juno winning, uh, most promising vocalists. Like that's a time in your life when you're often just having fun or just trying to figure some stuff out and that urge to kind of hold yourself to account. Did you feel at the time that not everyone was doing that? Um, I don't know. That didn't have any factor in me wanting to make that manifesto, but I don't know what other people think. I just know that it was important for me to

understand the gravity of being a public figure and a musician especially. I think of it as such a privileged life, not necessarily the best life, but a privileged life to be able to make music for a living. So yeah, I guess I understood that as a youngster. When did you start thinking of yourself as a singer? When did you start thinking that that might be a life? About five. So there was between seven and 12, did you think you might want to be a dentist

or a jet pilot or something? No, I always knew I was going to be a singer, always, always. But when I went to college, I went to play volleyball and I also wanted to take cinematography, but that was just to do something other than music. Cause I don't have any formal training, even though I ended up going to music school and Red Deer college. But yeah,

I thought I was going to be an Olympic volleyball player at one point, but that was really the only divergent thought. Did you keep playing volleyball at all seriously for any length of time after? Well, I went to Red Deer College specifically for the coach who was quite renowned at the time. And I broke my ankle in the first week of tryouts. So that kind of sidetracked that dream. I also found the spoils of marijuana at the time and sort of also sidetracked my ambitions as an athlete. Was it hard to get good pot at Red Deer College or was it harder to avoid it?

No, actually it was mostly hashish I was smoking at the time because I knew a guy and became very good friends with kind of a dealer. And, um, yeah, it was plentiful. Now, um, you've told the story sometimes about getting some Patsy Klein records when you were 21 and that set you off on a, on a course for the next several years. What were you listening to in the three or four years before you heard Patsy Klein? What were you listening to in the three or four years before you heard Patsy Cline? Yeah, certainly wasn't country.

It's pretty eclectic. I mean, I grew up with classical music surrounding me at all times because my siblings all played classical piano. Grew up with Peter and the Wolf and sound music. And my sister was listening to Delaney and Bonnie and Eric Clapton and Cream and Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstad, then Joni Mitchell, of course, and then Kate Bush, Ricky Lee Jones, jazz came into the picture. I just was all over the place. Then, yeah, when I turned 21, I was looking for something performative, like with a kitsch factor and with some humor, and I found country, and it was perfect. And yet Patsy Cline's music spoke to me on a deep level, on a deep emotional level. So

it just resonated with me. All the pieces came together, the costumes, the humor, the real emotional narrative of the songs, and also the idea that I could take something so traditional and have at it, you know, like deconstruct it and rework it, add contemporary thought and themes into the construct the construct of country music was there a country community that you were able to plug into or did musicians who were playing essentially punk rock at the time did you have to sort of coax them yeah both i i didn't fit in either so i just sort of skated i played like lots of punk rock type of gigs I think at the time there was a kind of a new country thing with, oh, what was their names? I'm spacing on it. But even like Joe Eli, like the rockabilly stuff, the punkabilly. So I sort of was on that peripheral.

I was never really embraced by the country establishment, maybe ever. Maybe just for one moment, but never really. Often young musicians have a hard time finding two things. First of all, information. If you grew up in the middle of nowhere, which to some extent most of us did one way or the other, you have a hard time getting the right records or people who you can talk to about this stuff. The other thing is outlets, places to play, places to hone your craft.

Were you well set up on both of those fronts? I feel like I was because my dad owned a drugstore, so we had a never-ending supply of Rolling Stone magazine, which was very informative to us, my sister and I. And so that was one big sort of portal into the world of music because it informed what records we bought. But when I got to Edmonton, I realized that if I were to have a course for success,

I would have to stay in Edmonton because there was less competition. Like if I were to go to Toronto, it just seemed like there were too many fish. So I thought it's probably better for me to stay here and make a big noise, which it was ultimately. Now I asked about all this stuff before Patsy Cline, because there's essentially an after Patsy Cline too. When an album like Ingenue comes out,

it seemed at the time like a big departure from this country, cow punk, recline persona. But you told some interviewers at the time that actually that was a re-entry into all the other stuff that you loved. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's so many influences. And Peggy Lee and Carmen McRae were very influential. Brazilian music was very influential in Ingenue.

Yeah, country music was kind of like this little sidebar into this world. It was performance art for me, to me. That's the way I viewed it. And the real music was, like I said, my real influences were Kate Bush, Ricky Lee, Joni, Peggy. Yeah, so I re-listened to Angel with a Lariat, truly Western experience. And it's funny the extent to which it does sound like it also partakes of the independent Canadian music scene at the time.

Like Suk-In Lee had a band at the time called Bob's Your Uncle. And I'm sure you guys were not comparing notes. I'm sure of it. No, we weren't. I knew who they were, though. Yeah, but the second thing that comes to my mind is, this sounds like Bob's Your Uncle. notes i'm sure of it no we weren't i knew who they were though yeah but and the the like the the second thing that comes to my mind is this sounds like bob's your uncle i never never got that before yeah it's i think it's just um the rooms the rooms on one play and would have a sound

the the the the guy behind the bar there you know like it was a world yeah i don't know if that makes any sense no it totally does i can't tell you that i'm aware of it but i am aware of a canadian sound in music for sure yeah now you you're up there on national television winning a juno you're starting to get uh more and more mainstream attention international attention at some point does that start to feel like pressure no it never felt like pressure when i i had so much kinetic energy and so much uh to get out that it didn't feel like pressure then it started to feel like pressure i don't know, well after, I guess after Ingenue started to feel like pressure. I think just because Ingenue had sort of been the pinnacle of success.

So the bar was at an unattainable standard. I mean, when. Unsurpassable. Not unsurpassable, but maintaining that bar. Yeah. Do you start to get a lot of voices in your ear telling you, you know, you got to do this or you better not do that or. Yeah. Although I don't think I ever listened to them because I followed Anjanue up with even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

And that was like, I guess, from a marketing and a commercial point of view, a sabotage. Because Cowgirls, the film was delayed the release was delayed and then it just it didn't receive any attention and then I sold about 38 copies of that and then in the grand commercial computer it looks like my last record sold 38. So then that's where they hold me commercial viably. So I guess it was a mistake from a commercial point of view, but not from an artistic point of view, because I really enjoyed that process and enjoyed that left of center thing. I was thinking about Shadowland actually, how left of center that was after Angel of the Lariat. And that, I'm sure it shocked people that I wanted to do something so easy listening.

But that's like a huge part of my identity. Yeah. I mean, if we were going to go record by record, I bet you have been asked about more, you have given more interviews about Anjanou than anything else

in your catalog. But that earlier album, Shadowland, feels like almost the bigger risk, right? Because it's not, it's not hilarious.

No. It's not, you know, you're putting your marker down as I have some stuff I actually want to say here. It was a big risk because I was signed to Sire Records, Seymour Stein, who signed Madonna, The Talking Heads, The Ramones, The Pretenders. So a very edgy rock label. I was signed under the guise of being cow punk. And then I made Shadowland and actually

for the first contested months, they didn't even want to count it as a record on my contract because it was so different. But that was honoring my connection to Patsy Cline and working with Owen Bradley who was Patsy Cline's producer and who produced Shadowland. And I wanted to go into that world and pay my homage and experience it as close to her as I could. And I mean, I don't think you can get any closer to Patsy than where I was. I mean, I don't think you can get any closer to Patsy than where I was. And then at that point, and especially after even Cowgirls Get the Blues tanks, you're kind of free. You can sort of do what you want.

Or was that how it felt? Or was it, I'm climbing out of a crater here. Don't mind me. Kind of all of the above. And then I made my second or my next tanker, which was All You Can Eat. And that was a commentary on how just the pop machine, just like the music world and how relentless it is and how quickly you move through the various stages of fame with it and yeah and i obviously that's so cliche and so redundant for an artist to talk about but it's real and it and it was something that i was experiencing and between ingenue and all you can eat you came out you did the vanity fair cover you did some work with uh peta which did not go

over super well in parts of alberta um it it's almost like you were engaging with that uh pop machine but on your own terms or trying to yeah to god that you could. Yeah, I was definitely doing my own thing. I mean, I think it was a huge asset to be from small town Alberta and to not understand the workings of show business. Because I think about somebody like Billie Eilish, for example, who is extremely steeped in the world of Hollywood and music and Grammys and that world. And I think how heavy that must be to know. And I think it was definitely an asset to not know and just to be like, let's go.

Let's choose pink this time. Let's do brown. And just completely just toss the dice and do whatever I wanted to do. That must also help you get away from the pressure of trying to figure out what your career is going to look like. It's going to look like what it was when it's done. in the in the moment it's just going to look like this next thing yeah well i mean the artists that i that i loved um like i i think i i cited people like roy orbson or Ray Charles or even Elvis to that extent, Linda Ronstadt. They would do a mariachi record or they would do, you know, Elvis would do all those crazy, you know, do a Hawaiian record and then do a, you know, whatever kind of records.

Ray Charles would sing country, he would sing R&B. kind of records. Ray Charles would sing country, he would sing R&B. And so I never, I never tried to channel into one thing. So I just, I don't even think that way. I don't listen that way. And I don't think that way. After the break, Katie Lang will talk about working with Tony Bennett and why she may be done with writing music. I want to take a moment to thank all of our partners, the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, the National Arts Centre, our founding sponsor, TELUS, our title sponsor, Compass Rose,

and our publishing partners, the Toronto Star and iPolitics. To the extent I have a plan here, I'm kind of secretly leading up to when you start to work with Tony Bennett, because at the time, I wondered how he would have become aware of you. And he's a singer with very high standards. And at the time, it wondered how he would have become aware of you. And he's a singer with very high standards. And at the time, it wasn't obvious to me why he would embrace a country singer. Then I heard you sing both on that record and in person. It must have been one of the moments, one of several moments in your career that felt like a kind of a benediction. Pardon the pun.

Pardon the pun. heard of me or I mean he could have possibly heard crying with Roy Orbison I'm not I don't know how Tony became aware of me anyway you know I think working with Tony I think I spent so much time being available for the conversation of gayness and homosexuality, that that was such an amazing opportunity for me to again put my voice at the forefront, but also put my gayness in a situation that was like parental and that I could show the world that it wasn't as sexualized as Lady Gaga and Tony, which was pretty sexualized, but ours was more platonic and more parental. And I thought that was a very good representation for people to see. And not only that, just being able to have a personal tour guide into the American Songbook who actually helped establish it was like, to me, university. It was like an incredible opportunity. He must have been a wonderful guy to work with.

He's a guy with high standards, but he also seems just like this bundle of benevolence. He is. and he's he's such a gentleman he's so professional oh my lord i mean when i was touring with him what year was that 1990 i don't remember do you know whenever oh i know actually i was on tour with him when 9-11 happened around 2001. He would play tennis, he would paint, and he would do the show. And he would travel. The same schedule I had, and I was opening for him. And yeah, he was just unstoppable, truly unstoppable.

He had so much creative energy and lust for life that it was mind-blowing. Do you remember the first time that somebody that you viewed as an elder, as a figure that you looked up to, dealt with you as someone who was going to be fine, who was going to be okay, who they admired? There may be another example, but I nominate Stompin' Tom when he did that song about you, but there might have been cases before that. There's so many people like that.

Stompin' Tom was definitely one of them. There's so many people who championed me. I mean, starting from when I was five years old, my piano teacher at the time, Sister Xavier from Castro, Alberta, suggested that I try singing and not piano. And so that's when it all began. My parents were both champions of me. There's been so many.

Minnie Pearl was a huge one. Roy Orbison was a huge one. Do you ever look at younger artists coming up, Billie Eilish or I don't know who, and wish that you could give them advice or warn them away from hazards of music? Or do you feel like that call of mentorship that you benefited from? I definitely feel a call to mentorship. And I go through the process of creating a list of do and don't do in my head.

And then I always come to a point in my mind where I'm like, that has absolutely no bearing on their success, my opinion. Because ultimately, no one knows. No one knows what an artist needs. Only an artist's instincts can tell them. And so I have always made a very conscious decision to step back from mentoring because the best thing you can do to mentor is give them space. That makes a lot of sense. The one thing you can be sure to give them is you not nattering at them about what they should do next oh god yeah that that it doesn't unless they ask if they ask and they ask specific questions it's like good buddhist teachers right they will never prophetize they will never give you a teaching out of nowhere but if you ask you will get a teaching and i kind of feel that way about music too if you ask, you will get a teaching. And I kind of feel that way about music too.

If you ask me, I will give you my opinion, but I'm not going to offer you my opinion because that's just pollution really. What part of the recording, touring, promotion life did you enjoy the most? Because I know there are parts that have been hard. I bet you didn't come running to this interview, for instance.

I kind of ran because it's blizzarding outside, but. Did I enjoy the most? It's a tie between recording in the studio and being on stage. And I'm making a distinction between on stage and getting on stage because getting on stage was very, very difficult. Getting your mind up, getting your body, getting energy, getting your nerves down.

I mean, it's so exhausting. I think my adrenals are totally toast from the years of touring and traveling. But once you step out on the stage with colleagues and with an appreciative audience, then all that other stuff kind of washes away. On a good night, it washes away. And you are just experience the synergy as athletes refer to being in the zone. And you're just a vehicle for all of the energy. And you just happen to be in the vortex, but I'm not driving it or the music's not even driving it. of, is that the right word? Convergence of energy that only can exist when it's, you know, in sync.

And you could also have some of the same experience in the studio? Because the studio seems to me like it's always provisional. The product's not finished. The answers aren't obvious. Yeah, I agree. But it's intellectual. It's creative.

It's mathematical. It's nitpicking. But it's also full of possibilities. So I don't know. I love being in the studio. So I don't know. I love, I love being in the studio. Um, might as well put a name on what just happened.

You were talking about, about your performance career in the, in the past tense. Do you think it's pretty clear that it's in the past tense? You know, I went to a Banksy exhibition the other day and there was a, uh, a piece that said, never say you quit, just say you're resting. So I'm resting, perhaps for the rest of this life. But I don't actually know. All I know is honestly, I feel absolutely no drive to do anything creative. I mean, musically. I feel like painting. I haven't gotten back into it. But, you know, I just, I honestly don't have it for music right now. It's kind of sad, but you also have to trust.

And silence is as big as part of music, as music itself. And I think all music tends towards silence. And I have to honor the silence, I guess. Do you still listen to music? Oh, more than ever. In the kind of investigative sense that you would have brought to it when you were 19? No, because it depends, much less so, because now I'm hearing music and I'm just gobstruck at how creative people are. Like, music now is just so incredibly beyond me.

So I'm definitely intimidated by it. I mean, I understand it and I love it. I love what I'm hearing. I love music. I love it. But yeah, it's beyond me. It feels almost a little unfair to ask you names, but are there specific artists that you've been checking out? specific artists that you've been checking out? No, because I'm not a collector of music necessarily. I listen to a lot of eclectic radio, like my ipad or my you know my shuffle mode i don't i don't collect and i don't necessarily even buy albums isn't that awful to say but it's true well i mean i mean i haven't owned a c CD in probably six or eight years. Well, there's nowhere to play them. Well, this is it.

In my car. Yeah. That's not true. Sometimes musicians give me a copy of their latest CD and I'm like, well, I'll check it out next time I'm driving because that's the only thing. I've been watching a lot of your performances and a lot of interviews and stage appearances and stuff. And it seems to me that you often would use comedy as a way or humor as a way to decide how much of yourself you wanted to show. Is that right? Kind of the playful, sincere, playful, earnest thing, right?

Like the joke is always an option. And then you would decide whether you want it to go a little heavier. Interesting. That's probably true. But, you know, it's definitely a tool in the tool shed. And, you know, when you're on stage, you're, you know, humor is as important as fear or as heartbreak. It's just another aspect. So I didn't know that about myself.

I mean, I guess if I thought about it, I could see that, but that's perceptive and it's probably true. They both depend on a kind of engagement with the moment, right? Like the joke's only going to work if you have a sense of the room and an album like Shadowland is only going to work if you've got a sense of what you're capable of this is this is the lousy part of the interview where i'm giving you the answer so no i pass that no i appreciate it because honestly i have to say i don't know anything anymore i don't know anything about myself i mean i know who i am but I don't know anything about my career. I don't know anything

about the art that I've produced. I can make guesses, but I don't know. I don't know anything. In May, you're going to be feted at, that's F-E-T-E-D, at the Governor General's Performing Arts Award in Ottawa, where a bunch of people are going to say a bunch of nice things about you. And I assume that there is production going on now on a tribute video and things like that. Yeah. Is that just a thing you got to get through because some people feel good about you? Or does that give you a chance to think about the the road that you've traveled i don't know maybe a little bit of both i'm not thinking that much about the road i've traveled

because of the governor general's award maybe i will that night when it's all happening. I'm sure I'm going to cry. I'm sure it's going to be very emotional. But yeah, I'm not sitting here going, oh, my life in music. Yeah, I'm not really doing that. I think we'll end it there. Okay. Thanks for taking the time. Of course.

My pleasure. I got a little deep. Yeah. Honestly, I'm not even kidding, and it's not even a shielding technique. I honestly don't know anything about it. It just seems like such a, not even a blur,

because I remember a lot of it, but. Well, almost the hardest thing is to analyze this stuff on demand, right? Because like, what was the point of it or what were you trying to do? The thing you made is the point of it or what were you trying to do? The thing you made is the point of it. And to kind of pick a piece of it out and say, put a label on it and say, you know. Yeah.

For some reason, I always use food as an analogy. So I'm going to continue on that. But to me, it's like saying to the orange, how is that orange flavor? Do you like it? How would the orange know? The orange has no idea. Yeah. And that's how I feel.

I feel like I just got dropped from a tree and I did what I did. And, you know, I'm not the one consuming the orange. Public Policy. It's published by the Toronto Star and iPolitics. Thanks to our founding sponsor, TELUS, and our title sponsor, Compass Rose. Our senior producer is Kevin Sexton. Our associate producer is Hayley Choi. Our executive producer is Lisa Gabriel. Stuart Cox is the president of Antica. If you're enjoying this show, spread the word. We'll be back next Wednesday.