Broken but unbowed
In fact, local boy Luke Doucet is far from being beyond repair
John Kendle



A lot of people assert newfound independence with a purchase of some kind. A new TV. A bigass stereo. A comfy sectional couch.

For musician Luke Doucet, independence comes in the form of a second-hand GM Safari van.

“It’s like a mini-van on steroids,” Doucet says on his cell phone, just minutes after closing the deal on the first vehicle he’s owned since his ’81 Chevette expired. “It can pull a trailer full of gear but it’s also the kind of thing that I could travel comfortably in by myself.”

The van is significant for Doucet in many ways — none more so than the fact it represents his now-and-future musical ride. After years of being best--known as the lead guitarist in Sarah McLachlan’s touring band, Doucet has just released his third solo album, Broken (and other rogue states), and he is now prepared to follow his own muse for as long as it takes.

“I don’t want to have to work for anybody again, even people whose work I’m intimately involved with,” says the 29-year-old music biz veteran. “If people say to me, ‘Can you give me a year-and-a-half of your life so I can go tour a record?’ the answer for me is ‘No,’ — unless it’s an absolute economic necessity.”

Although he’s the kind of session player and sideman who is thought of as the ‘first call’ guitarist in most musician’s phone books (he’s played with practically everybody in Canada), Doucet is adamant that it is his songs and his performances that will now define his career.

Doucet has always felt the call of a creative outlet. Since 1996, he’s recorded three albums with his band, Veal (which featured bassist Nik Kozub and legendary Winnipeg drummer Chang), and he’s also done two previous solo records: 2001’s Aloha, Manitoba and last year’s Outlaws. These efforts have been uniformly praised (and Veal is on the verge of becoming a cult band in some circles). But two things separate his current venture from previous forays — his ambition and his songwriting.

Doucet’s renewed zeal for playing and leading his own group is obvious. Because of his previous outings with Veal and on his own, the Winnipeg-raised musician’s stylized Americana sound has a ready made following, and that represents an opportunity.

“This is the only real goal I ever really set for myself — this is it,” he insists. “I remember feeling desperate when I was younger and saying to others that all I want in life is to be able to drive to the next town where there’ll be 200 people who want to watch me play my songs or listen to my music.

“If I can do that for the rest of my life I’ll be happy as a pig in shit. So, for the next few months this is it and I’m just as happy about it now as I was when I was younger.”

Doucet’s name and re will draw the curious to his shows for the next few months. What will keep them coming back, helping to form his dream constituency, is his easy flowing music and the near-cinematic quality of the tales on Broken.

As its title suggests, the album chronicles the downfall of a romance and the pitiful puddles of emotion and despair people can become at such times. But there’s an ‘out’ in the title, too, in the form of its bracketed phrase, (and other rogue states).

Certainly Brother’s lament for a wayward friend (the tune also namechecks Walnut Street and a pair of ne’er-do-well musical pals) doesn’t speak to failed romance. Nor does the Back in the U.S.S.R. vibe of Vladivostok (the White Album is a Doucet fave).

“I think the through-line of things being in disrepair is consistent throughout — but I don’t expect people to listen to an entire album of maudlin, woe-is-me, she-left-me bullshit,” Doucet acknowledges.

Still, the twangin’, hurtin’ and sometimes angry songs of Broken are quite visceral, especially Broken One or Lucky Strike, in which Doucet manages to capture all the melodramatic emotions and acts of sublimely horrible romantic grief.

“I consider that state of bouncing back from a relationship to be a rogue state,” he says. “The perspective that one has on the world is really unique, so if anything justifies another album about a breakup it would be that — you’ve been so hijacked by your own brain that your perspective and the paradigm through which you see the whole world is so very different and unique.

“I think this record is optimistic too, because my tongue is planted as firmly in my cheek as it can be on about half the songs. I’m taking the piss out of myself as much as wallowing in despair and self-pity,” he continues.

“I think that’s optimistic in that this stuff, everybody’s gone through it. I didn’t invent it, so you have to laugh at yourself, get over it and move on.”

Even if he now reads those songs in that fashion, Doucet admits most of the sad material was based in his own reality.

“When a lot of the songs were actually composed I didn’t have perspective or a sense of humour; I didn’t have the wherewithal to mock myself, which was perhaps what was called for,” he says.

“When I actually went to record the album, I was totally happy so I think — hope — that this record reflects some of that happiness.”

If the album does reflect joy, it does so mostly in its lovingly rendered performances. Doucet produced the recording himself and its many, many guests include the likes of singer Oh Susanna and legendary guitarist Amos Garrett. The core of the musical duties, though, were handled by the band that will tour with him — Doucet’s fiancé, Melissa McClelland, will play guitar and vocals, Rich Levesque plays bass and Paul Brennan handles the kit.

At the moment, Doucet anticipates spending the next 18 to 24 months earnestly touring behind Broken, and the album is on the verge of U.K. and European release. And he repeats that he looks forward to the work.

“At the end of all that time I expect to come out of it needing my brakes fixed and wanting to spend time with my family,” he says.

“I enjoy the artistic challenge of holding my work up against all the other work I’ve ever been a part of. As far as the challenge of feeling like I can start from scratch again, well — yes and no,” he says.

“When I walk into a show and there’s five people there and I’m 2,000 miles from home and my daughter and fiancé I feel like, ‘Holy shit, I’m 15 again and I’m at the Bella Vista, or I’m begging Curtis Riddell for a gig at the Blue Note.’

“I look back at those times fondly because I can look back at them. (Now) there are times when I feel like I’ve been doing this for 15 years or longer and it’s a hard pill to swallow that you’re starting from scratch again. But it’s not all like that, of course.

“I come back to Canada and North America and there are people who know who I am.

“And as far as gigs go, I’d much rather play to 300 people than 10,000. I’ve done both.”