They’ve become one of the buzziest bands in Vancouver, and with a cross-country tour starting this week and an upcoming album that’s being mixed in Texas by Canadian guitar guru Gordie Johnson, No Sinner’s brand of whiskey-soaked blues is a fire that’s sure to spread this year.
But before she hits the road with her group, which includes former members of Hot Hot Heat and the Matthew Good Band, 25-year-old front woman Colleen Rennison – whose powerhouse voice has won comparisons to greats from Janis Joplin to Etta James – headed for Texas, rented a motorcycle, and set out with a friend in search of adventure, and just maybe a little trouble.
CBC Music caught up with her on the phone from Austin, Texas, where she was sitting in a backyard after a breakfast of fried chicken and beer, and asked her about her trip, the new album, and the resurgence of the blues.
How are things in Texas?
It’s been a bit crazy. I was supposed to leave yesterday, but everything went an extra day because [famed country songwriter] Tom Russell ended up being in Texas and asked me if I wanted to come sing a song with him, so we did that even though we were supposed to be on the road to New Orleans. We were also supposed to meet up with Gordie Johnson, who’s mixing the album, but we had to ride from Houston, which is two and half hours away, and just as we were rolling into town, it just started to pour rain, so we had to pull over. Gordie had a really tight window of time, so we didn’t get to see him and I’m super bummed. But that’s just the way it goes, you know? You have your plans, but it’s always the stuff that happens in between that governs how everything works out.
How did the Tom Russell gig come to be?
I’m working on a new solo project with [Canadian guitarist] Steve Dawson. We’re doing a lot of covers, and one of the covers we were fooling around with is this song “Blue Wing” by Tom Russell, who’s written for Johnny Cash and Ian Tyson. So I recorded a demo of it with Steve Dawson and then one night I was actually drunk when I came home and was like, “I’m just going to send it to him.” And I immediately got a response – a really, really sincere and appreciative response. He invited me to his show in Vancouver in March, and I said I’m on tour in March but I’m actually going down to Austin this week, and he said, “I’m going to be in Austin this week too.” So it just happened to coincide, which was great. You’ve just got to go with the opportunities that present themselves.
How did it go?
It was at a little place called the Cactus Café on campus, and it’s a really cool little room where all kinds of people have played. We’d been on a bike for 12 hours and we got lost, so we were running late, and we didn’t have any room in our bags, so I was basically wearing all the clothes I own, and I just kind of clomped up on stage in my motorcycle boots and tried to whip out this song that we didn’t even have a chance to go over. But it was great. If we didn’t get a video of it, I don’t know if I’d believe it happened. It was kind of a trip.
What other great characters have you met along the way?
The people we’ve met have been so unbelievable. This whole thing materialized when I was talking about coming down here with Ken Stringfellow who plays with the Posies and used to work with R.E.M., and he invited me to come to New Orleans and do a duet with him, and I also knew that Gordie was going to be mixing our album, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to rent a bike and drive it from Austin to New Orleans and back?” And I was poking around on Craigslist, and there was a lady in Dallas who was looking for bodywork on her Camaro in exchange for a motorcycle rental. I gave her a call and she’s this rogue motorcycle-rental lady who has all of her stuff at an airport hangar, and she’s just the sweetest, sweetest woman. She put us up in her camper and she suited us all up and gave us a really good deal and picked us up from the airport. She was the first person we met, and that really set the tone for the other people along the road.
Then we got into Austin late one night, and a guy that I’d just met once when I was living in New York rode into town and he took us to the Continental Club where we saw Jimmy Vaughan, and he was playing with the drummer from Sly and the Family Stone and Frosty Smith. Last month Robert Plant did a secret show there, so it was super-cool, and then we went to a party afterwards where there was this awesome piano player and I ended up singing some songs by the Band down in the basement. And then we slept in a park across the street in a tent that we brought. Woke up, met some kids that were all living out of a van with their three dogs and then got out of town, got some really, really good roadside BBQ and took off.
And when I sang with Tom, there was this woman there, her name was Charlotte, and she didn’t go into details, but she implied she’d just lost her son to drugs. “Blue Wing” is basically about a guy who drinks himself to death, and she was really moved by it. She came up and she was just bawling her eyes out, and underneath all of that emotion you could tell she was just a really cool lady. She was like, “Y’all better come see us in Houston!” So sure enough, on our way back from New Orleans we were getting so tired that I was falling asleep on the back of the motorbike, and we ended up calling her up and we stayed at her house, and she was so sweet to us.
Then in New Orleans we stayed with this gay couple who were the coolest, most stylish, most in-love gay couple you could ever hope to meet, with self-portraits of each other dressed in superhero clothes and these little miniature greyhounds. And then on our way out of town we wanted to stay at a hotel, and there was this place called the Bayou Cabins. They’re right on the bayou, and there was this 18th-foot crawfish in the yard. We got up in the morning and we had smoked sausage and boudin and hogshead cheese. I ordered the Cajun platter. It’s not like I was going to sit there and not eat it, but there were some questionable gastronomical delights on it for sure. But everybody’s been so friendly, and we’ve just met the coolest people. It’s unreal. I love the southern United States. A lot of people say a lot of things about Americans, but we’ve had nothing but positive experiences.
Of course the politics down there can be a little different.
We’ve definitely experienced that. People have said a few things that have literally made my jaw drop. But you just kind of smile and nod.
So you’re not on tour with the band.
No, we were supposed to be back yesterday and I think I’m going to put our drummer Ian Browne into an early grave, because I leave everything to the last minute. We get back late Monday night, and we have to leave for tour on Tuesday. I know, right?
But we got a little bit of money from getting our songs on CSI: NY, which was really cool, and one on 90210, so I put about half of it toward the band and I was thinking I could either take half of it and squander it away in Vancouver on food and booze, or I could squander it on some adventure. And after talking to that woman with the motorcycles, I just took the leap even though it’s not really that practical. I’ve never really been known for being practical.
So how is the new record going?
It’s going great. I’ve been on the road since they’ve been doing all the mixes, but this is by far a more mature and experimental and just more well-rounded album. I look back at Boo Hoo Hoo, and we’ve come so far since then, just musically, artistically, and also in our relationships as a band. We hardly knew each other when we recorded that, and then we had an entire year grinding it out, trying to make things happen, and that’s really reflected in the music. Eric is just all over this album, on the piano, on lap steel and guitar, so he really gets to shine. And we’ve got a great organ player, Darryl Havers, and it’s amazing how much that escalates everything. Matt Camirand [of Black Mountain] is on some of the songs, which is great, and it’s so nice having Bradley Ferguson in the band now. So it’s exciting to see all that take shape.
This is by far the biggest and most important artistic endeavour I’ve ever done, and I can’t believe that it’s almost materialized. It’s very exciting, and also kind of scary, because when you do something that you really believe in and you’ve really taken risks you leave yourself vulnerable. It’s not like we’re trying to make it the best, craziest, most monumental album ever, but we’re just trying to do justice to the music that has come to us over the past year. We just want to do it right. But I guess if you do it for yourself, then in the end what people think doesn’t really matter. But of course it’s always nice if they like it.
What is the new album like?
Well, it definitely came with a lot more confidence. The songs on Boo Hoo Hoo were written mostly with me and [former Hot Hot Heat bassist] Parker Bossley in the kitchen – and then they were fleshed out by these great players who came into my life. And now actually getting to write with those great players, I’ve been able to utilize their talents, but also explore mine more. Because when I wrote Boo Hoo Hoo it was a lot with Parker really coaxing it out of me. I was a really nervous and unconfident songwriter at the time. And by writing that album with me he really legitimized my belief in myself, that I had something to offer in terms of that, you know, in terms of songwriting and in terms of creation. Right? That I wasn’t just a singer.
And so coming with that attitude I really wanted to make it heavier and I wanted to make it more mature and I wanted it to reflect the theme, I think, of our band and certainly of my life – just the push and pull between the good and evil inside yourself. And trying to live life to the fullest while still being a righteous human being and succumbing to your animal needs but still having heart and soul. Those have always been the things I’ve struggled with, and I think it’s like that for a lot of people. I mean, even the name No Sinner embodies that whole thing.
The bands I’ve acquainted myself with have been really influential as well. Just going to a lot more metal shows and more intense rock ‘n’ roll shows. But also still going to more folk shows. Just being a part of the music scene gives you so much opportunity to hear so much great live music, and it can’t not inspire you. It can’t help but sway what you’re doing.
What is your relationship with the blues. Did you grow up hearing that music?
In my dad’s car, we had Merle Haggard, we had a Aretha Franklin’s Greatest Hits. We listened to a lot of country music, we listened to the Band, we listened to a lot of Van Morrison, Kris Kristofferson. I was really attracted to the movie My Girl, and when I first heard that song, I pictured a bunch of white guys singing it. And when I first heard the Supremes, I pictured a bunch of white women, because it’s not in your scope when you’re seven years old.
But I just heard this sound that I was really attracted to, and my parents were always really supportive, and they love music, so when I started getting into singing they were all over it. They wanted to help me as much as they could, so they bought me old blues and gospel CDs and lots of really great Atlantic soul compilations. Mostly all I’ve listened to is music by black people that was made before the ’80s, up until a couple of years ago. Then I started getting into rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not a hard transition, because a lot of those people that were making the rock 'n' roll back in the day were listening to the same stuff that I was listening to my whole life.
And when I was a kid, I really just wanted to be in a band. I really wanted to play live music. But how to do that, I didn’t know. It was hard, because it’s kind of a boys’ club, like “Who does she think she is?” So I just started going out and playing at open mic nights, underage, going down to the Media Club and probably getting more drunk than I should have and getting up on stage and singing the wrong words to songs—but just pounding the pavement and being obnoxious about trying to make it happen. But when I met Parker Bossley, everything really changed. And he started writing with me, and I got embraced by this amazing community of musicians in Vancouver. And this new album is really a reflection of taking my stance inside that opportunity. Now, I’m not apprehensive anymore. I’m not afraid. So it’s a much more powerful album.
It takes a lot of chutzpah to brave open mic nights like that.
You just kind of close your eyes and jump. Once you get up there you’re in front of the microphone and the lights are on, I don’t know, something happens and you just flick it on and all of a sudden the show’s over and you hardly remember what happened.
Your popularity is coming at a time when the blues are undergoing renaissance, with bands like the Black Keys and Alabama Shakes high on the charts. Where do you think that’s coming from?
I think people are just getting tired of artificial life. I find that especially people around my age, there’s a real need to put that stuff aside. It’s just good old music, it’s part of the tapestry of all of our lives, it’s been there, like a heartbeat. People are just attracted to that because it sounds like freedom, it sounds like the real deal, it’s not packaged, it’s just good music. It’s easy to like, it’s easy to listen to, it’s easy to feel like you connect with it. It’s the music of the everyman. It’s like leather jackets and jeans and Converse: everybody can wear those. Nobody’s got a premium on that, everybody can like the blues. Whether you like punk rock, whether you like rock ‘n’ roll, whether you like metal, most of the people I meet, everybody’s got a soft spot for that music.
You’re also about to embark on your first big tour. Are you looking forward to it?
Yeah, it’s going to be really fun. I’m really glad that I’m going to be spending all that time with those boys. I’m really lucky that all the guys in my band are just great dudes and we all have a great time together. There’s going to be a lot of laughter and dirty jokes in that van. And I’m really excited to be performing a lot of shows in a row, so it’ll be a physical experience too. The smokin’ and drinkin’ make have to take a back seat to the singing for once, which would be a learning experience, definitely.
So what’s next on your life "to-do" list?
I want to be able to live off of music for sure, and just live life. This trip has been so amazing, all I want to do is be on the road and meet people and write songs about them. I want to live a life that inspires me, and on my own terms.
No Sinner kicks off their cross-Canada tour in Calgary on March 13.
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