Island star rising

September 22, 2011 10:10 PM

XW: First off, your last album was Broken Hearted Beat in 2009, a great success, so what’s next for Morning Fold? TC: Well, as far as shows go, we’ve just been touring non-stop for the record and writing a lot of songs with a lot of cool people. For the rest of the month, we’re doing more with Joel and like Pop Montreal and the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax. When October hits, I’m heading down to Australia for a month to tour down there opening up for an artist who is fairly well-known. We’ve done a two-month tour with the Trews, so they’ll be down there. And then it’ll be back into the studio and more shows and more writing. This is the busiest I’ve ever been for a while. Busy is good when you play music. XW: So what is your writing process like? What’s your inspiration for your writing? TC: I guess really I’ve been doing a lot of co-writing lately, like on our last record with Joel Plaskett and Gordie Johnson who produced my record and who did Ashtray Rock with Joel. This one I’ve been kind of changing it up. I just got back from Nashville, and I wrote with Gordie Sampson, who wrote a lot of amazing songs, a lot of hits, and he’s from Cape Breton, but he lives in Nashville now, and with Gordie, and with the Trews guys, and affiliates of them. You write about whatever you feel. I think its something you can’t really force as far as writing goes. I tend to base a lot of my stuff on relationships. A lot of people can relate to them, because everyone has them, whether it’s good or bad. And then just everyday stuff or stuff that hasn’t really happened to me but happened to a friend. XW: So you’re from P.E.I. What’s the music scene like there? TC: Yeah, its crazy. There’s a lot of amazing musicians in P.E.I. Just not a lot of them get out and play really. As far as bands that are out there and doing it, I don’t know if you guys are familiar with Two Hours Traffic, or Paper Lions and Catherine McLellan. Everybody knows everybody, and it’s so small you so you get to know everybody pretty quick. I came from a really big family, and everybody played music, and I have tons of cousins who are amazing singers and songwriters and guitar players and fiddle players but who never had a desire to do it as a career. Just seems like a little amount of people actually get out and exposed to others. XW: So did you always see yourself as becoming a musician? TC: I always played, like my whole family, my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather played fiddle music. A pretty prominent thing growing up for me was Celtic music. I always played, but I never realized what went into making music a career until I started doing it, because you think “Oh I’ll just play a show and get paid,” and keep doing that, but there’s a lot more to it than that. It’s very business driven. You always have to be at it and working to make it and doing it full time. I’ve been doing it full time for a little bit. I’ve always loved to play music, but I wasn’t sure if I’d ever make a go of it. XW: You were quite young when you released your first album. Have you noticed a maturity now in your music? TC: Yeah, definitely as far as writing, and even your voice maturing over time, because I started singing as a teenager, and when I first started recording I had only been singing for a few years, so your voice changes. You get better at your instruments and learn a lot about song-writing along the way too. XW: You play quite a few instruments, don’t you? TC: (Laughs) I try I play a few, yeah. That was another thing too at home. I had a bunch of brothers who played a bunch of different instruments. All I did growing up was play music really. XW: Your first single off the album was Broken Hearted Beat. What’s the process like for choosing a single?

TC: It’s funny. On our last record, I didn’t write any songs to have a single or to have anything on the radio. It never occurred to me like that. Just wrote the songs and that was that. I never thought of it in that where a lot of people write songs to have a single and get on the radio. Whenever we decided to make a music video for a song, I just was like “Oh, might as well pick Broken Hearted Beat.” Not a lot of thought went into it. Just thought it kind of summed up the album the best, because the album is quite diverse: a little bit of rock, a little bit of country and folk. I didn’t necessarily think it was the best song.

XW: Is there any artist out there that you model yourself after as far as a career goes?

TC: Tons of them, but I like at someone like Joel [Plaskett], who’s been at it for a really long time and been very successful and just loves what he does, travels around and plays music, and that’s what I want to do, and what I love to do. Even someone like Gordie Sampson, who’s got a great thing going for him, and he’s an amazing writer, so he lives in Nashville. He can wake up and say “Oh, I’ll write a song today,” and make lots of money off it, because most of his songs make it to number one. If that’s what you get to do for the rest of your life, it’s pretty cool. You don’t ever feel like you’re working a day in your life.

XW: You’re doing a string of frosh week shows right now so playing in front of a group of rowdy students, as opposed to playing in a theatre or an acoustic environment. How do you get in touch with the crowd?

TC: Well, we did an acoustic tour with the Trews, for example, and I just had my guitar player with me. They did their acoustic set, and we just did 2 months of theatres, where it’s just everyone sitting down and listening to you. I loved that, because you could really talk about the songs and engage people, and the people have no choice but to listen. That was really great as far as people getting to know you on stage. Whereas tonight we were just out there pumping out songs and being loud enough to grasp everyone’s attention. You’re just trying to keep everyone’s attention for 45 minutes and hoping people get into it and dig it.

XW: Do you have a favourite or most memorable show experience?

TC: There’s tons of them. Well, on the Trews tour there was a lot of really great shows. We played out in Vancouver at the Vogue Theatre, and it was a sold out show, 1200 people. It’s just cool being there because all those guys are from the East Coast, and we’re from the East Coast, and that they can sell out a venue way out in the West Coast. It was just a great night: awesome crowd, people really took to it. It was almost like a vintage-ish kind of venue and had a lot of character to it.

XW: Before a show do you have any preparations or traditions?

TC: No, not at all. Most of the time before a show I’m running around down to the second before I step on stage. Hopefully, someday I’ll have time to do something before a show. If I do have time we just hang out and maybe have a drink. I don’t drink before my shows but like one drink to just chill out and mellow out and then go out and give ‘er.