What: Aidan Knight with Laura Sauvage
When: Saturday, 7 p.m.
Where: Lucky Bar, 517 Yates St.
Tickets: Sold out
The urge to create something fit for the public that is unabashedly personal is never easy — just ask Victoria singer-songwriter Aidan Knight.
Sometimes, Knight said, the path to making art is clear of obstacles.
“But sometimes the path is marked with my most human tendencies,” Knight said from a tour stop in Edmonton.
“I want to be liked by other people, that’s just human nature, but I also want to share something of myself that can be at times difficult to hear, or that is very personal to me. Not everyone is going to like it or get where I’m coming from, but that’s the way it is.”
Knight, 29, is touring the world in support of his third and latest record, Each Other, which has been winning raves worldwide, particularly in the U.K. That the record even made it to stores is something of an accomplishment, Knight admitted, given the struggles he overcame in making it.
Each Other currently has a 75 score on review aggregator Metacritic, based upon glowing reviews from overseas publications Q and Uncut and U.S. magazine Paste. Knight is thankful for such praise, but having critics celebrate his work is nothing compared with the feelings he experienced when his sour situation turned sweet last year.
“There was a time when no one, and I mean no one, could have convinced me that what we had made was good and worthy of release.”
During a two-week window in which Knight recorded his vocals and Mathieu Parisian did the final mixes, trepidation set in. Knight was certain that he wouldn’t release the record. Even his wife, Julia, who is a member of Knight’s band and plays flugelhorn and piano on Each Other, couldn’t get Knight to change his mind.
Other factors were afoot. At various stages of the year-long recording period, two of Knight’s bandmates, bassist Colin Nealis and drummer David Barry, left the group. Barry returned to university and Nealis left due to ear problems. The loss of two friends (Nealis and Knight had been playing together since their teens) sent the core of Knight, Julia Knight and keyboardist Olivier Clements, who have been together seven years, sideways.
The darkness bled daylight when Knight listened to Each Other one final time, in a Montreal studio, with Parisian. Finally, his mind was clear.
“I felt like if we didn’t release it, it would be this huge letdown to myself and everyone who worked so hard on the record.” The decision to release the album came down to preserving a moment in time that included the contributions of Nealis and Barry, Knight said.
“It was the last document of the five of us playing together. If nothing else, that was the final thing.”
Knight can now pinpoint the root of his greater insecurities. A big fan of artists such as Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno and David Bowie, “guys who seem so supremely confident in their powers,” Knight must face the fact he is more vulnerable and prone to second-guessing. There is no shame in that, Knight said. He knows there is a place between those two worlds for him.
“I need to embrace the things that I’m comfortable with, but never lose sight of the more fragile, f---ed-up parts of what I do. I want to be able to say the things that really mean something to me.”
Due to the overseas response to the record, Knight and his wife — both based in Berlin for the time being — have not been home this year. The band will return to Victoria for a rare performance at Lucky Bar on Saturday, which has sold out. After two days of respite with friends and family, Knight and Co. will head back on the road for another string of dates in Europe.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Knight is a big fan of being on the road. Among his recent highlights was playing to an emotional and energized crowd at 7th St. Entry, the Minneapolis club where Prince got his start, on the day Prince was reported dead. Following their set, the band joined thousands amassed outside the building who were mourning the rocker.
It’s moments like this that help ease the pain of being away from Victoria, Knight said.
“You get into a rhythm. I’m realizing that, for musicians who do this as their life and livelihood, this is sort of how it’s done. I love it. It’s not exactly Zen, but there is an element of peacefulness to it.”
