Andy Shauf grew up in Saskatchewan playing church music with his family. And he’s had a hard time shaking the Prairie label despite a recent move to the gritty Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto. No matter, the sad songster has quietly established himself as one of country’s finest songwriters.
Shauf’s latest album is The Party. A concept album of sorts about friends hanging out at a house party and all the characters one might expect representing insecurities and anxieties and generally coming of age. It’s like a John Hughes movie written by Paul Simon.
“The theme developed more while I was writing,” says Shauf.
“A few songs had the theme of going to a party or hanging out late at night, and I decided to continue writing with that scene in mind.”
And what brilliant writing it is.
Shauf is a songwriter’s songwriter who grew up on a steady diet of the giants of the game such as Paul Simon and Randy Newman.
Yes, it is haunting and delicate and a lovingly sparse. And, sorry Andy, kinda like the Prairies.
“I mean, I’m not sure. I don’t really think of my music as Prairie music,” says Shauf. “The place that you live and the place you were brought up in has an effect on you as a person. Maybe I have a bit of a Prairie sensibility. I’m in Toronto at the moment. I don’t know if that’s making my songs, I don’t know, Parkdale?”
Shauf plays all of the instruments other than the strings on the new album, tirelessly arranging and rearranging his songs until they are tiny perfect pop gems.
“It’s a bunch of little pieces,” he says. “I play the songs, put things on top of it, take them away again and try to figure out how to place everything together. I never really know when it’s finished.”
Shauf got his start in church bands, before moving on to playing drums in punk rock bands at school. Soon after, he learned to play guitar and started writing songs.
In 2009 he released his debut album, Darker Days, followed by two EPs. He recorded his breakthrough album, The Bearer of Bad News, in his parents’ basement. NPR called it “2015’s most breathtaking album.”
For The Party, Shauf hit a studio in Regina and got a nomination to the Polaris Prize short list for his effort.
Shauf headlines two nights at the Virgin Mod Club in Toronto this month on Nov. 22 and 25.
