DETAILS

Steve Coffey & The Lokels CD Release
Ironwood Stage & Grill
Friday, January 16 - Friday, January 16

More in: Folk / Country

“I was kind of in a funk and I was having a bit of a go with writing anything that wasn’t, you know, sucking big time,” singer-songwriter Steve Coffey says of a recent bout with writer’s block. “I had a pen and a piece of paper, and I was probably pushing too hard to write something, and Lydia, my daughter, came literally twirling through the room, in one side and out the other. I was watching her, and she did it a couple more times, came twirling past her old man, and I started thinking, ‘That’s funny!’”

The resulting unblockage resulted in “Twirlin Girl Boogie,” which would become the title track for Coffey and the Lokels’ fourth full-length disc. Lokel guitarists Lance Loree and Dave Bauer trade tasty, twangy licks while Coffey’s comfy John Prine rasp wraps around the simple, sweet lyric about childhood’s lack of pretension and self-consciousness.

On the phone from his home in Vulcan, AB, Coffey sounds remarkably grounded. Everything in his life and art seems to grow naturally and organically. He talks a lot about family, both biological, with his two daughters, and with his adopted musical brethren, the Lokels. They’ve played together for years, and their compatibility and cohesiveness permeate every lick and groove. Throughout Twirlin Girl Boogie, bassist Russ Baker and drummer Pat Phillips hold down massive grooves that are loose and comfy, yet rock-steady and solid. Nothing ever seems forced or contrived. Without straying far from their roots, Coffey and the Lokels manage to cover a wide swath of terrain, serving up various brands of danceable country that sweep you up and carry you along through the good times and the bad.

The disc’s opener, “Five Kids,” tells of a young Coffey out on tour with his late father. Bill Coffey was a professional musician, a pedal steel man who toured hard in North America and in Europe while posted in the Armed Forces. Coffey’s parents split when he was eight (his mom moved the family west from their home in Portage La Prairie, MB), but as an impressionable teen, he would have a chance to reconnect with his old man.

“I was quite interested in his background,” he says. “I was maybe 14 the first time I went back to Winnipeg to live with him. Actually, I didn’t even make it to Winnipeg. My dad met me in Moosomin with his band, and they were on tour doing all these dirty old honkytonks, so I ended up on the road with him and his band. The whole road thing was a real eye-opener, seeing how he lived, what moved him and inspired his music.”

The elder Coffey’s influence as a parental role model was not quite as direct as his influence as a musician. “A lot of his experience is what made me how I am today, with my family. I made a decision to do things differently. I had a really clear understanding of what to avoid,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t want to be the guy that’s not there.”

Coffey’s day job lets him stick close to home. He earns his bread and butter as a painter, rendering visually the same expansive prairie landscape and down-to-earth lifestyle that inspire his music. A pre-release gallery party affords Coffey the opportunity to directly connect his two creative worlds.

“I’ve done it with every record,” he says. “We do a performance [and] exhibition of new work at the [Kensington Fine Art Gallery] in Calgary. We squeeze in 120 people, and it’s a blast, but the whole idea is to try and bridge the two. My work is very much prairie oriented, and I think it all comes from the same place. Sort of just putting pictures to the tunes and vice versa. I think there’s a great deal of correlation that goes on between them.”