Corb Lund will be one of the headliners at this weekend’s Folk Festival.
Are you looking forward to performing at Folk Fest this year?
I am, yeah, a lot … Playing Calgary is always special and it’s especially fun at the Folk Fest.
You have some pretty interesting lyrics in a lot of your songs. What is your songwriting process like?
It’s just a big psychological mess basically. I don’t know, I just muck around and wallow around in it. I don’t really come up with songs in a day or an afternoon or whatever. I usually have six or eight on the go and I sort of chip away at them over time. They’re kinda like bananas — if they’re too green they need to be ripened. I’m not very good at writing a song and having it done. You know, some people can sit down and bang one off in an afternoon. That’s happened before but it’s very rare for me. Usually, it’s a very slow process full of emotional pitfalls.
Some people have compared you to Ian Tyson — what’s it going to be like putting on a workshop with him Saturday?
It will be fun. We’re old friends so we’ve played together lots. Tom Russell is going to be there, too … that’s gonna be a fun workshop actually. It will be fun. More than anything to me, when I was a kid, when I was younger I was quite a big fan and now it’s mostly been the last five or six years (that) it’s just become a friendship.
Are you sticking around for the whole weekend?
I’ve got to take off early Sunday morning so I’m gonna try not to drink too much Saturday night.
Speaking of — do you think it’s going to be a beer or a whisky kind of weekend?
Well I had to drink a bunch of whisky just to get to sleep last night, so I’m probably gonna stick to beer. The last week I’ve been having inexplicable insomnia so I had to knock myself out last night. I think I might actually drink wine this weekend; I think red wine might be the one. Gin, maybe gin. Gin is a good summer drink, gin and tonic, a little lime in it, that’s a good way to go. As long as it’s not f—ing lime beer or whatever it is.
