L.A. Beat

Pop folk star Dan Mangan has already been across the country  once with his band Blacksmith in support of his most recent CD “Club Meds,”  the long awaited follow-up to his last Juno award and Polaris Music Prize winning third album “ Oh Fortune,” but returns out west on his own to play a solo tour including a show at the Southminster United Church for the Geomatic Attic, Nov. 24.

He spent much of the hiatus between  albums by being a good father to his two-and-a-half-year -old son, but is pleased to be on the road supporting  the new album.

“It’s hard to be away from him for so song. (The new music) It’s interesting. I already did it with a full band. But it’s how I started. So it is a simple, more acoustic show. It’s exciting because it’s  different but at the same time oddly familiar,” said Mangan from his Vancouver home.

He noted it is a little challenging to strip the songs back to their essence for this tour.
“To some extent, but it’s like that old Bonnie Raitt line. If you can’t strip a song down to a guitar and a voice, then it probably isn’t a very good song,” he said.

“When you take away the bells and whistles and everything the band does on them, I have to make them so they still work,” he said adding the new CD, which was released in January, was a collaborative experience with the band.

“The lyrics and melodies were mine, but musically it was  a collective experience.It was all about the collaboration before all four members. The band was a huge component of the new CD,” he said.
“It’s because of them that everything came together musically.”

 

He noted he love the new video for the song ”Vessel” by Ben Clarkson.
“There is also one for  ‘New Skies.’ There’s a lot of kitsch on it,” he said.
He noted audiences have really responded positively to the new music.

“It’s been great. I was touring with a six piece band to represent the music. This tour will be a very stripped down, intimate experience,” he said.

“ It’s been ages and ages since I last played Lethbridge. It's been at least  eight or nine years, 2008 or 2009,” he said.

“I remember playing Big Buck Hunter at the Slice. I’m looking forward to playing the Southminster United Church. It will be nice to play a bigger venue,” he said.

 The show begins at  the Southminster United Church at8 p.m. Tickets are $35.