{"id":149019,"date":"2012-03-01T19:08:50","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T19:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socancom100stg.wpenginepowered.com\/hey-rosetta-chief-songwriter-tim-baker-takes-a-literary-approach\/"},"modified":"2012-03-01T19:08:50","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T19:08:50","slug":"hey-rosetta-chief-songwriter-tim-baker-takes-a-literary-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/hey-rosetta-chief-songwriter-tim-baker-takes-a-literary-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey Rosetta! chief songwriter Tim Baker takes a literary approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Les traductions pour les articles avant l\u2019automne 2013 ne sont pas disponibles pour le moment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tim Baker has a problem. As frontman for Newfoundland\u2019s Hey Rosetta!, one of Canada\u2019s fastest-rising, hardest-working bands, he’s touring for 150 dates a year, performing concerts on three continents. Trouble is, Baker is also the group\u2019s chief songwriter and he has yet to master the knack of writing songs on the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I finally get home, it\u2019s difficult for me to set time aside because there\u2019s so much else to do,\u201d admits Baker. \u201cYour house is falling apart, you haven\u2019t seen your friends forever, and you have to design the band\u2019s next T-shirt. All this stuff creeps in, and the writing gets pushed out.\u201d
\nDespite those obstacles, Baker has been able to write songs for all three of the band\u2019s orchestral indie-rock recordings, including last year\u2019s best-selling\u00a0Seeds<\/em>, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Polaris Prize. And his compositions, such as \u201cThere\u2019s an Arc\u201d from\u00a0Into Your Lungs<\/em>\u00a0(and around in your heart and on through your blood), are among the most thoughtful and literate in Canadian pop.<\/p>\n

Baker formed Hey Rosetta! in 2005, after graduating from the creative writing program at Montreal\u2019s Concordia University (he had intended to enroll in piano performance, before a case of tendonitis thwarted his audition plans). Armed with the editing discipline he\u2019d acquired in Concordia\u2019s poetry class, Baker began singing his newly penned songs solo around his native St. John\u2019s, until he realized the music needed more texture and recruited other musicians.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, Hey Rosetta! has been rooted in Baker\u2019s literary interests. The exclamation mark in the band\u2019s name was inspired by Dave Egger\u2019s memoir\u00a0A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius<\/em>. \u201cThat book is very hyperbolic, doubtful and tragic yet celebratory \u2013 always in flux,\u201d says Baker. \u201cIt made me want to do something like that musically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assisting Baker in achieving the shifting sounds are cellist Romesh Thavanathan, violinist Kinley Dowling, bassist Josh Ward, drummer Phil Maloney and guitarist Adam Hogan, who co-wrote three of the songs on Seeds. Two of those, the title track and \u201cYoung Glass,\u201d draw from novels: Leonard Cohen\u2019s The Favourite Game and J.D. Salinger\u2019s Franny and Zooey respectively. \u201cYer Fall,\u201d meanwhile, is Baker\u2019s homage to James Agee\u2019s Death in the Family..

\u00ab\u00a0I realized the beauty of just letting a song be one thing… Just a simple song that\u2019s undeniably good.\u201d<\/div>\n

Musically, Baker cites Paul Simon, Cat Stevens and the Beatles \u2013 music he grew up listening to around his family home \u2013 as his biggest influences. But Hey Rosetta!\u2019s driving rock rhythms, stirring choral vocals and orchestral arrangements, written by Baker, Hogan and Thavanathan, mostly bring comparisons to Radiohead and Arcade Fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrings are an important addition to our songs,\u201d says Baker. \u201cThey deepen and heighten things and provide textures that I would never want to do without. That being said, a string section is not something you can have in every song. And it can certainly pose challenges in a live setting.\u201d
\nStill, the novelty of strings brought early attention to the band. So, too, did praise from Hawksley Workman, who predicted Hey Rosetta! would become \u201cCanada\u2019s next big thing.\u201d Workman produced\u00a0Into Your Lungs<\/em>\u00a0and the Juno-winning artist pushed the band to achieve its sonic ambitions on songs from the hymn-like \u201cPsalm\u201d to the anthemic \u201cWe Made a Pact,\u201d featuring singer Jenn Grant. Into Your Lungs was named Album of the Year at the inaugural Verge Music Awards held by XM Satellite Radio channel The Verge and was, like\u00a0Seeds<\/em>, shortlisted for the Polaris Prize.<\/p>\n

Workman, whose production credits include recordings by Sarah Slean, Serena Ryder, Tegan and Sara and Justin Rutledge, also produced Newfoundland\u2019s Great Big Sea. But while the latter and Hey Rosetta! have Workman and their Atlantic geography in common, the similarity ends there. Says respected author-journalist Stephen Brunt, who has booked Hey Rosetta! for his annual Writers at Woody Point festival in Newfoundland\u2019s Gros Morne: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of interesting music in St. John\u2019s that\u2019s not rooted in jigs and reels. Hey Rosetta! represents 21st century Newfoundland \u2013 a band proud of where they come from, but outward-looking and very much of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preconceived notions about Newfoundland music have placed Hey Rosetta! in challenging situations. Once, at a concert in St. George, New Brunswick, a crowd showed up to hear \u2018a band from Newfoundland\u2019 and was disappointed by the lack of reels and jigs in the band\u2019s set. Recalls Baker: \u201cIt was a bit of an awkward night, but pretty funny in the end. We were just doing our thing.\u201d
\nBrunt helped to boost the band\u2019s profile when he featured its song \u201cRed Heart\u201d in his video montage celebrating national pride at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games on CTV. An estimated 20 million people heard the song\u2019s stirring refrain, \u201cWon\u2019t you let your red heart show?\u201d
\nFor Seeds, Hey Rosetta! turned to Scottish producer Tony Doogan, who had worked with England\u2019s Belle and Sebastian and Mogwai. He\u2019d also produced Halifax rockers Wintersleep, with whom Hey Rosetta! share management. Doogan was able to \u201cdeepen the dynamics\u201d on Seeds, according to Baker, focusing on one song at a time to create a tonal distinctiveness for each track.<\/p>\n

Baker, meanwhile, took a new approach to his songwriting. \u201cThere was a time when I wanted every song to be everything,\u201d he recalls. \u201cFast and slow, up and down, loud and soft, all in one song. I realized the beauty of just letting a song be one thing, without a lot of tempo changes and big builds. Just a simple song that\u2019s undeniably good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Production and songwriting strategies paid off. Seeds debuted at No. 3 at iTunes Canada, while the singles \u201cYer Spring\u201d and \u201cWelcome\u201d topped the charts at Canadian radio, helping the album to achieve in excess of 20,000 in sales. Touring in support of Seeds, Hey Rosetta! took its passionate live show back to the United States, Australia and Europe, where the band continues to build a devoted fan base. And it shared stages in Canada last summer with Buck 65, Broken Social Scene and the Tragically Hip.<\/p>\n

Baker sometimes gets mentioned alongside the Hip\u2019s Gord Downie for his ambitious lyricism. But the Hey Rosetta! frontman, while flattered, rejects the comparison. \u201cGord is much freer than I am,\u201d says Baker. \u201cHe has this ability to connect disparate lyrical images and make them really powerful. I write almost like an essay, putting forth an idea and then trying to make it palatable and rhythmic and catchy, but still maintaining the cohesion of the idea. I\u2019m still stuck in that old-fashioned way of writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Brunt, Baker is the epitome of a literate songwriter, which is why he\u2019s featured the band twice at the Woody Point writer\u2019s festival. \u201cTim loves language and ideas, and he\u2019s not frivolous in any way with his lyrics,\u201d says Brunt. \u201cThey\u2019re deeply felt and deeply thought out. He\u2019s a serious, honest writer, and his lyrics have a strong emotional streak. Ultimately, I think his writing is sophisticated without being self-consciously literary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker, who went through a phase where he read every John Steinbeck novel, makes no apologies for his bookish approach to songwriting. \u201cI read a lot and I\u2019m influenced by that,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to write words, why not study really great writers and take a page from them?\u201d He adds: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to get up in front of a room full of people and basically yell things, which is what a band does, you should really make them worth yelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The year 2012 promises to be another filled with plenty of touring and yelling, as Hey Rosetta! performs again at summer festivals and headlines their own bigger concerts. With luck, there will be time in fall or winter to start recording the band\u2019s next album. But first, Baker will have to find time to write another album\u2019s worth of songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I\u2019m home, that\u2019s all I want to do,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s the happiest I ever am, after I\u2019ve written a song. I miss it so much when we\u2019re touring.\u201d Does he have anything yet in the can? \u201cI\u2019ve got a few things, but it\u2019s hard to know what\u2019s going to work with the band,\u201d he replies. \u201cI\u2019m definitely a pack rat of ideas. I like to save every little image or melody and try to stick them all together. Sometimes they come out like little Frankensteins. Nothing compares to sitting down at night and just receiving a song and in half an hour it\u2019s done. But that doesn\u2019t happen very often.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker admits that in order to meet Hey Rosetta!\u2019s demand for songs (not to mention the novel he\u2019d like to one day write), he\u2019s going to have to create the right time and space. \u201cI don\u2019t have a writing cabin or anything like that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And life on the road has so far proven to be incompatible with songwriting. \u201cI find it really difficult to write when there are people around,\u201d explains Baker. \u201cBeing in a hotel room with three other people, watching TV or carrying on, I can\u2019t find the quietude I need.\u201d Then, imagining a more luxurious Hey Rosetta! future, he adds, with a laugh: \u201cMaybe I\u2019ll be able to do that some d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2013 when he can find the time to write<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-non-categorise"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}