‘I’ve been really domestic.... It got to the point I was going to chew my arm off” — Mark David Stewart (centre).

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Prairie of Prax hosts open stage with Bob Keelaghan
Ship & Anchor Pub
Saturday, May 29 - Saturday, May 29

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In the early 90s, Mark David Stewart was young and full of rock ’n’ roll energy. As principal songwriter of local alt-rock four-piece Rabbit Has Brain and an eclectic solo musician, he turned pop conventions on their head and weaved twisted narratives about God, the devil, the struggles of mortality and the silliness of it all. In 2010, he may not be quite as young, but with a new album of original material coming down the pipeline under the moniker Prairie of Prax, Stewart is proving that he has just as much energy, wit and pop prowess as he ever did as a young pup.

To put together his first official release since his 1994 solo album She Can’t Cook or Sew, and She Won’t Scrub Your Floors, Stewart approached Calgary stalwart and studio magician Lorrie Matheson with a suitcase full of demos, running the gamut from children’s songs to murder ballads. Together with über-talented drummer Chris Dadge, they set about crafting an album that would playfully showcase Stewart’s XTC-influenced, darkly humorous, storytelling style.

“I’ve never given control completely to a producer before,” says Stewart (who, full disclosure, is a regular contributor to Fast Forward Weekly). “I said, ‘OK, if I get Lorrie to produce this, I’m going to let him produce it,’ so I threw him 20 or 25 demos, he picked the songs and I really trusted him. We had enough common vision, and I think this sounds more like me than anything I’ve ever done.”

The result, When You See the Devil, Say Hello, is a series of clever fictions around our definitions and personifications of good and evil and the inevitable grey areas and contradictions that arise in the circus of our everyday existence. Using familiar religious imagery to convey emotion, rather than direct references to his own feelings or experiences, Stewart prefers to tell tales and use characters to illustrate his point, rather than risk sounding self-involved.

“There’s this thing about songwriters being confessional — bearing their soul,” he says. “I’ve never subscribed to that, because I think it’s kind of boring. I want to tell stories and create scenarios and make images. I’m not interested in saying ‘I’m a boring middle-aged guy with two kids, living in the suburbs.’ Who wants to hear about that?”

Though he steadfastly avoids bringing his own life into his work, he admittedly attributes the decision to take his songs out of the basement and back into the studio to his “boring, middle-aged” existence and the inevitable knock of mortality at the door that comes with getting older.

“I’ve been really domestic, which isn’t a bad thing, but honestly it got to the point I was going to chew my arm off if I didn’t do something,” he says. “I had all these songs, and I thought if I got hit by a car, they just wouldn’t exist, because until it’s recorded or it’s performed, a song is just like an idea, it’s not a tangible thing.”

In addition to a CD hot off the press, Stewart has also put together a new band to make things really tangible. Comprised of himself, drummer Matt Chaplain and bassist Dan Poole, the trio will make its debut at the CD release party, along with some help from fellow Rabbit Has Brain bandmate Bob Keelaghan. With the new set of songs firmly in existence, according to his parameters, Stewart is sure to perk up ears around town whether they were there 20 years ago, or they were just being born.

“I realize that there are artists that are really successful when they’re considerably younger than me,” Stewart admits. “But then they don’t do very much when they get older, they just kind of get boring. I feel like I’m writing better songs now than I’ve ever written.”