Though not a household name, Vic Chesnutt has no shortage of famous fans.
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Though dark folk songwriter Vic Chesnutt has been confined to a wheelchair since a car crash at the age of 18, he has refused, throughout his 20-year career, to sit still. Almost every one of the 14 albums in his accomplished catalogue boasts a different cast of collaborators, from contemporary guitar visionary Bill Frisell to REM lead singer Michael Stipe. He’s even been the subject of a tribute album featuring Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage and Indigo Girls. He’s done dark, severe rock ’n’ roll and light pop songs, stripped-down solo affairs and lushly arranged productions, all to an engaged but underpopulated audience.
If you ask him directly, Chesnutt will insist that he never actively sought out his collaborators, that they always found him. One does not find what one is not in some way seeking, and through his partnership with Fugazi guitarist Guy Picciotto and Montreal post-rock collective Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, Chesnutt seems to have settled, at least for the time being, into a sonic space that perfectly showcases his impeccable literary ruminations.
“I’m middle-aged and I was kind of floundering in my career,” Chesnutt admits. “I just didn’t know what I wanted to do in my life anymore. I was kind of in a mid-life crisis and making [these records] really changed my life. It gave me hope again that, wow, I can make good music.”
It was longtime friend and indie filmmaker Jem Cohen who initiated the meeting of Chesnutt and friends at Montreal’s legendary Hotel2tango studio in 2006 that eventually culminated in 2007’s brooding and powerful North Star Deserter, but it was pure synergy that brought them back together two years later for At the Cut, released in September on the Montreal-based Constellation label.
“North Star Deserter was kind of Jem’s brainchild — we were like players in his little game,” Chesnutt jokingly explains. “But after we went on tour, we realized that we have a musical rapport that we had only scratched the surface of, and we wanted to go deeper.... We hardened into a real band.”
Where North Star Deserter often seemed to go for mood over message, with Chesnutt’s lyrics acting more like a vehicle for his bandmates’ thunderous din, concentrating and intensifying their dramatic instrumentals, At the Cut sees Chesnutt at the eye of the storm. He conjures a calm center around which the key players can effortlessly swirl, all while delivering some of the most concise, direct and personal songs of his career, swaying between poignant emotional imagery (“Chinaberry Tree,” “Granny”) and candid ruminations on his own existence (“I’ve Flirted With You All My Life,” “When the Bottom Fell Out,” “Chain”).
Despite the sensitive themes, Chesnutt is far from some fragile, handicapped spectre creaking out “Why-me?” laments. His crushingly compelling turns of phrase and the poetic flow of his lyrics, along with music that swells to the size of mountains in the hands of his musicians are powerful enough to envelop band and audience alike.
“Writing songs and making music is, besides making me happy, an intellectual pursuit,” he explains. “There’s a great deal of crafty shit going on and pure intellect going on [in my music], and catharsis is part of the intellectual endeavour I’m trying for. It’s not like I’m just a little cripple boy who needs to play music or else he’s gonna cry.”
“But the power this band gives to me is an emotional experience and a very sensual experience,” he continues. “It’s a physical thing, not just an emotional thing. The sheer volume of playing with this band is physical. The energy it takes to ride this rocket of a band — to steer it or whatever — is very different than playing solo.”
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