Juno-winning and gold-certified singer/songwriter and, dare we say, Canadian legend Hawksley Workman is set to return to the stage here in Victoria after more than two years away.
“I’m looking forward to getting out there,” says Workman. “We loved that last show [in November 2019]. The place was packed. It was one of the best shows of the tour. There was something about it. The energy was great.”
While they have played some shows here and there, Workman says he and his bandmates can’t wait to get back on the road and really give it.
“During COVID I woodshedded guitar like crazy and I really made inroads,” says Workman. “My goal for this tour is to get to a new level of comfort on guitar and
I’ll have opportunities to stretch out. I put a lot of hours in through COVID. All along I really wanted to be better at my job when this was all over.”
Fans of Workman have learned to expect the unexpected; he suggests that this tour will be no different.
“We didn’t just put together the same old show,” he says. “That drives me crazy. I always need to feel as if I’m putting something new together every time I go on the road. I expect some new tunes, some old stuff, some deep cuts, and we’ll probably play ‘Striptease.’ We haven’t played it in forever. We ran out of love for it but it’s definitely a good rock song. I’d say it’s up there, actually.”
The past two years have been a long, strange trip for everyone; Workman says that COVID definitely changed his perspective on the world, and he’s ready to move on.
“We’re kind of stuck in the hyperbole and the politics of it,” says Workman. “It was just so bleak out there that I had to stop watching the news. After month one and month two of the pandemic, I was like, ‘That’s it,’ and I really haven’t turned the news back on. You can say I’m not holding up my end of the contract of a deeply engaged citizen but I feel like it’s been a much better emotional life without the constant aggressive gnawing of news.”
After making some positive choices in the fall of 2019, Workman says he feels like being at home through the pandemic allowed him to get healthier.
“I quit drinking the September before COVID hit,” he says. “Fast forward two and a half years of being sober and I kind of have a new energy in life. COVID allowed me to stay home and be away from the road, where some of my bad habits were learned.”
Looking through the lens of a culture with alcohol grandfathered in, Workman says that drinking had always seemed normal to him.
“In the past, I liked to have a couple of glasses of wine before the show to get that loose feeling, and the other thing is that I thought it would be hard to get around my fear of flying without alcohol,” he admits. “The wine was really persuasive, but getting up early, having a coffee, and going to the gym is pretty persuasive, too.
Getting older and getting healthy is the new rock star, I’m telling you.”
Workman adds that he’s no different from anyone else and that the past couple years hasn’t been all good.
“Since December, I’ve had the blues to the max, and I think a lot of people have,” he says. “Here in Ontario there was a final lockdown after Christmas with the Omicron wave and everybody having to cancel Christmas plans. It was a bummer and I found it hard to pick up from that. I think that we’re all handling the emotional side of this, swinging from good to bad. I kept making music and more or less made lemonade out of the lemons.”
Hawksley Workman
7 pm Saturday, April 30
$31.70, Upstairs Cabaret
hawksleyworkman.com