Amy Millan
Sept. 27, West End Cultural Centre, w/ Mayor McCa
John Kendle

She’s a full member of Montreal-based Stars, she’s part of Toronto’s Broken Social Scene collective, and she’s appeared on at least seven different recordings with her bands and friends such as fellow Scenester Jason Collett.

Yet Amy Millan is adamant that her recent solo release, an aching, dirty country album called Honey From the Tombs, is really her first record.

“It really is. These are songs I’ve had for years, and I knew that if I didn’t give these songs a life I would never move forward with my own music,” Millan, 32, says of the dozen tunes on the disc. “I’m definitely not going to take eight years to make another.”

Recorded with old friend and veteran Toronto producer Ian Blurton (helmsman of the last two Weakerthans albums), the material on Honey… dates back to Millan’s pre-Stars/BSS days. While her persona with the two bands is urbane and modern, the Amy Millan of her solo record is full of matter-of-fact wit, emotional longings and boozy resignation. The music, she says, is informed by the likes of Loretta Lynn and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

“The reason I was drawn to this music was the juxtaposition between the sorrow of the lyric and the beauty of the music. You listen to old bluegrass or country songs like Nine Pound Hammer, 16 Tons or Will the Circle Be Unbroken and you feel the high, lonesome sadness.

“I mean, Circle is about a person’s mother’s funeral, y’know?”

Thus it is that Honey... is populated by lovably flawed characters offset by gently sparkling accompaniments and Millan’s plaintive, stripped-bare mezzo-soprano. The singer/songwriter called on friends from all parts of her musical life to help out on the album, including BSSers Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, Stars members Chris Seligman and Evan Cranley, and roots/bluegrass players Dan and Jenny Whiteley.

The Whiteleys are part of Millan’s seven-piece touring band, which also features Ryan Driver, Doug Tielli (younger brother of Rheostatic Martin), Darcy Yates, Sean Digman and Christine Bougie,

“It’s big, I’ve been spoiled by Broken and Stars and the big throngs of people that play together in those bands,” she says. “But my hope is that they will represent the record in a way that will help people enjoy it.”

Following a summer that included solo gigs, BSS and Stars shows, Millan is pleased to focus on one thing for a while but realizes it’s in her nature to flit from project to project.

“I’ve always been an antsy person. I’m not very still for long but I would definitely call (my life) stimulating. The only time it can be a problem is when I show up for a gig with the wrong guitar, which can happen.”