Preview
HAPPY KRETER
Saturday, May 8
Barfly
"I’m sorry if you’re on a tight schedule," says Happy Kreter, speaking from a cellphone at the shoulder of some lonely American highway, after offering a typically thoughtful, extended answer to an outwardly basic question. "I’m sitting here, somewhere in southern Indiana, closer to Kentucky than Illinois. I’ve just been thinking a lot about what I’m trying to do out here lately, you know?"
And so it proves that not even the most seasoned nomad is immune to a spell of long-distance loneliness. "I’ve been sort of isolated for a while," he explains, "and the opportunity to speak to somebody – I’m sort of taking advantage of it."
Kreter is accustomed to life on the move, but only recently has he begun to traverse the continent with only his conscience and his Toyota Corolla for company. When he was a mere 19 years old, he was the bassist for Vancouver punk-rock road warriors Gob, but at the moment the band began to flirt with mainstream success, he abruptly left to pursue an altogether different calling: pro wrestling. Several years followed in which no backwater B.C. burg was left untouched by the crowd-pleasing antics of Kreter and his grunting, sweating, spandex-wearing colleagues.
Now, Kreter is once again – literally and figuratively – travelling a different path. Late last year, he released his debut solo album, Paradigm Lost (Global Symphonic), a collection of gentle, melancholy folk-pop songs that document heartbreak and the search for meaning in an unsettled life. Predictably, critics and casual listeners alike are pointing out the seeming contradiction between the Kreter that held 300-pound men in a half nelson and the one who plaintively sings "Once we dreamed of growing/ Now we dream of dreaming."
"There is the yin and the yang and the night and day and the black and the white in everybody, and we all have different ways of expressing it," he says. "It’s just that I happen to have made mine public. I think it’s healthy to express a diversity of ideas and emotions and explore different parts of ourselves."
Although many would assume that Kreter’s current role as roving troubadour must be a welcome relief after the chaos of rock and wrestling, the singer counters that laying his heart on the line – alone – before roomfuls of strangers every night might be his most ball-breaking challenge yet.
"No matter what it is you’re doing, every time you put yourself out for public scrutiny, there’s going to be a number of people who dislike what you’re doing – or are indifferent, which is probably worse.
"But on the flipside, when I have a good night? Man, those are the best nights of my life, because that was me." |
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