Preview
SIMEON ROSS
Saturday, September 11
Night Gallery
First of all, I’ve never met Simeon Ross in person. Despite living in Calgary during the heyday of Red Autumn Fall. Despite the two of us having mutual friends and acquaintances, and even living on the same street one year.
I know this coming into the interview, but I don’t think Ross does. He keeps asking me more questions than I ask him. At first, I assume it’s because he has been walking 50 km by himself nearly every day since April 22, and he’s desperate for someone other than himself to talk to.
"This last stretch of being alone for a month where you’re only having conversations with waitresses and hotel owners – it’s pretty taxing on your brain," he admits. "I was talking to myself at the grocery store just yesterday and people were looking at me like, ‘Who’s that crazy guy talking to himself?’"
That crazy guy talking to himself was a big player in the Calgary independent music scene in the early-to-mid‘90s. Ross fronted Red Autumn Fall who were, well, I guess Calgary’s answer to Oasis. While Ross wasn’t exactly a Gallagher brother-calibre jerk, there were an awful lot of people in this city who loved to hate him. As we’re talking, I realize he might be worried I’m one of those people. (I’m not.)
"So did you ever see Red Autumn Fall play in Calgary?" he asks.
"Oh yeah," I assure him, "at the Republik, at Mac Hall..."
He cuts me off. "Oh my god, I was such a jackass back then."
I may not have known Ross personally back then, but I was familiar with his reputation. I remember reading plenty of stuff about him in VOX, Fast Forward and Core magazines.
He asks if Calgary Sun music editor Mike Bell still writes for Fast Forward. I’m not sure, I tell him. I haven’t lived in Calgary for eight years.
"He was kind of like Simon from American Idol," Ross says, "but a local-writer Simon, you know what I mean?"
He admits that Bell wrote something, however, that stuck with him all these years. "He was insulting me in some article and I was upset at the time, but now it makes me laugh. He said, ‘The only thing worse than a rock star is a local rock star.’" Then Ross lets out one of the many bursts of laughter during our 90-minute conversation.
Calgary, meet the new Simeon Ross. Gone (I think) is the reportedly pretentious, late-night, glamour-boy party fiend that I had heard about. The man with whom I’m now speaking is still making music, but he’s changed the way he lives his life. He comes across as a rather selfless human being, aware that there is more to life than fancy haircuts and record deals. He tells me he eats healthier and exercises more. And now he’s walking across Canada to raise money for cancer research. Two years ago, his friend and former RAF drummer Gail Thompson lost her mother to breast cancer. Ross came up with the concept of the walk, but with a twist. His band would fly into several of the cities he’s walking through so he can play a few gigs along the way.
At the time of our conversation, Ross is resting up at his mom’s place in Winnipeg. The journey hasn’t been easy, he says, and maybe for his next walk – he wants to try one across America – he’ll plan more details in advance. Simeon started walking in Nova Scotia this spring without any sort of support team, not even a cell phone. He’s had problems with blisters, mosquitoes, lack of water, deteriorating shoes, food poisoning, injuries and fatigue. He ran into a bear in Ontario and was nearly struck by lightning the same day.
"I told Gail the only reason I knew I wasn’t dead was because I was still alive," he says, and bursts out laughing again.
I tell him that when Terry Fox did his Marathon of Hope, he had a support person and vehicle. Why is Ross out there alone with just a backpack?
"I think about Terry Fox a lot on the road," he says, quietly. "Even though I’m raising money for cancer, there’s no comparing what he did to what I’m doing. Terry Fox had one leg, he was dying of cancer. That guy is a saint."
That still doesn’t answer my question. Why wouldn’t he just start up another fundraising event, like the Panacea music festivals he ran in the mid-’90s before he left Calgary for Toronto?
"To be honest, I thought one day it’d be the coolest thing to say to my grandchildren, ‘I walked across Canada,’" he says. But he wouldn’t recommend walking across the country without a support team. "It’s not something a human being should really do. It does, at times, make me break down and think I’ve reached the limit, but I keep going."
"The reward is, when it’s over, you look back on the map and say, ‘Holy F, I just walked 750 km and I wanted to quit at 400 km, but I didn’t.’ That feeling is awesome."
For more information about Ross’ walk across Canada, check out his website at www3.telus.net/simeonross/walk.html |
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