Interview with Brian Gladstone – By: Kenita Vanderslice
Reprinted from Country Interviews Online, December 2002.
Talking to Brian was an exciting adventure discussing music before it included much electronic music. His music is very "back to the dirt" real country folk music. The music of today is real. The songs discuss real problems and dealing with everyday life. Some of Brian's music is no nonsense, some of it is political, and some of it is just real good music.
Kenita: Brian, is making music something that you have always wanted to do?
Brian: Absolutely music has always been a part of my life. Music has been there for as long as I can remember. The music of the sixties has helped me to become who I am today. I have always played or written poems that could be set to music. Within the last five years, I have decided to record a CD. Music is something I have always enjoyed folk, rock, country, swing, blues, and just a little bit of real life down to earth music. When I write it comes from the soul, from the bottom of my heart, try to be true to myself.
Kenita: On your CD, Psychedelic Pholk Psongs, there is a song called Asphalt Cowboy. Are you the Asphalt Cowboy?
Brian: Yes, this song is about me. It is my life. It is a dream of all musicians who want to make a record.
Kenita: What can you tell me about Save the Wolverines?
Brian: I wrote this song for the Predator's Conservation Alliance. I choose the Wolverine. It is a song about endangered species. Every species is very important to the world. All animals are here for a reason.
Kenita: Tell me about Flashing Before My Eyes.
Brian: I wrote Flashing Before My Eyes on my lunch hour. It is one of my favorite songs on this CD. It has many different interpretations. Everyone has his or her own idea of what it is saying. For me, it covers a lot of territory. This song combines my thoughts as a combination of being a scientist and an engineer. People talk about back in time or leaping into the future while time is standing still. Flashing Before My Eyes cannot understand time. It is full of many vivid dreams, too much detail. Really, most of us do not understand it. Albert Einstein tried to improve life. He did an excellent job but he is also the one who created the atomic bomb. Law of physics and the rules of life so carefully intertwined their dreams to build a better world were clearly undermined. Keep dreaming those vivid dreams for I have a vision.
Kenita: In I Like Me, have you ever had Coke (Coca-Cola) with Captain Crunch (cereal)?
Brian: I am a Coca-Cola addict! No drugs and no alcohol for me, I prefer my Coke in the morning and then my coffee. I really liked this line, and it fit my tune, after I jotted it down.
Kenita: How did you come up with the title for the Orange Juice Song?
Brian: This title I really do not know where it came from. The original title was The Life in a Day. My daughter, Lindsey, named it Orange Juice Song. Too many people in the white-collar tradition meet their demise under a garbage truck, figuratively speaking. Never know where their life has gone. This song just "popped out!" of my head one day.
Kenita: Can you talk about A Father's Lullaby?
Brian: I have three children. Father's Lullaby is a song for them. This is an interesting song about a father's love for his children. My son, Jeremy, is 27. I started this song the day he was born. I worked on A Father's Lullaby some more when my son, Michael, was born. It took me 25 years to write this song. I finally finished it three years ago. I sit down, was strumming my guitar, and this tune just finished itself. I believe there is a special attachment between a father and his children. Fathers know what they have inside of them but do not know how to make it come out. Father's Lullaby is just so that the father can tell his children how much he loves them.
Kenita: Where did the song Norm's Living Room come from?
Brian: When I wrote this song, I could picture Norm with his long beard. He was a great songwriter himself. It was a wonderful place at Norm's Living Room, something really wonderful! Norm's Living Room is about a song writing club here in Toronto, Canada. We had a weekly song writing night, usually just 50 or 60 people at Norm's Living Room. You could go in there and it was magic! The young musicians would come into Norm's Living Room and there would be a wild exchange of energy in the air, and synergy of creativity. This happened once a week in Norm's. This wonderful, magical place was coming to the end.
Kenita: Brian, how do you feel about your music being classified as Country Music?
Brian: Believe me, it is wonderful! When I first started playing my music, I never believed the acceptance that I would receive from the Country Music Family. I thought it was excellent! Country music is one big happy family!
Kenita: I read someplace that you attended Woodstock in August 1969. What was that like?
Brian: I did attend Woodstock. It was a very enlightening enchanted place. I remember it as a very vivid place for a weekend festival, in New York. It was not until after I got home that I realized that I had attended a concert event that was history in the making. With all the smoke around and the wonderful music, people enacted with one another. Another fun weekend festival! Wow! That was part of history.
Kenita: Give me an idea of what you do in your spare time?
Brian: I do not have much spare time. I do enjoy taking a bike ride through the woods; I can think and then I can come home and write it down. Also, I enjoy roller bladeing. Playing guitar is very relaxing for me.
Kenita: What is something that you can tell me about yourself that is unusual?
Brian: I can do everything my way. I get to review myself musically, jot it down, and play it the way it comes across in my head. Life in the sixties was very free spirited, I can do it my way. If it is not fun, I do not do it. That is the bottom line." I could have been very happy with just my CD. Psychedelic Pholk Psongs is climbing up the World Wide Main Stream Charts. You don't have to live here (USA) to want to make country music.
Kenita: What is the strangest place you have ever played?
Brian: I really do not have one. I have played for as few as three people. They were wonderful, excellent people. Also, outdoor festivals in the rain. It is part of the concert festival world.
The music of today is changing. It is changing with a reason. We need to have crises so that our music can be inspired by something, that we can understand what is going on.
Kenita: Look at the music of the sixties with Peter Paul and Mary and Bob Dylan – most of it tells the story of that period in time. Being the dedicated musician who Brian is, I believe he will travel around rainbows with his music.
