She’s toured with David Bowie, Ron Sexsmith is a fan, she’s only 27 and has seven albums under her belt, but Emm Gryner’s still excited at the prospect of hauling her guitar across the country just as the temperature is starting to drop.
“This is my first tour across Canada with my band, so I’m pretty pumped,” Gryner said from Los Angeles. “This tour we get to cross Canada in a tour bus, so no Honda Civic this time!”
That’s the type of positive attitude that has steered the Forrest, Ontario-raised singer-songwriter through nearly a decade in the capricious music industry. Realizing the power of the do-it-yourself ethic early on, Gryner studied recording and music production before trying her luck on Toronto’s coffeehouse circuit. A deal with Mercury Records saw many of Gryner’s musical ambitions realized on 1998’s Public, a lushly-produced affair that featured the London Session Orchestra on several tracks. Good critical response and several high-profile gigs didn’t keep the deal from going sour, and Gryner parted ways with the label following its merger with Polygram.
Gryner’s never been one to play the industry game, anyhow. Fiercely independent, she values creative control of her craft above all else, and maintains a grassroots approach to the music business. But that’s a slow, tough way to build a career, especially since Gryner should be a household name by now, at least in Canada. She had a big radio hit with “Summerlong” in 1999, toured as a backup singer with David Bowie in 2000, and has appeared on Mike Bullard’s show three times in as many years. And yet she still drives from city to city, playing small “living-room shows” at fans’ homes from time to time.
“My career has been ultra-joyous,” Gryner said. “I feel lucky that every step I make seems to make sense and come at the right time. There is something totally euphoric about doing this full-time and keeping a foot in what I guess you would call a real existence. I like it that way right now. As long as I can continue what I do, and people keep buying the albums and coming to shows, I feel blessed.”
Gryner relocated to New York during the Bowie tour, and then shifted to Los Angeles to work with producer Wally Gagel (Eels, Folk Implosion) on her new album, Asianblue. Gryner remained in the States to tour after the record was completed and has built a solid fan base in places like New York, Boston, D.C. and Philadelphia, but says she’s ready to return home.
“I’m looking forward to moving back later this year. Hurray!” she said. “It’s too hot to write in L.A. anyway. I like the weather and seasons and thunderstorms (and blizzards) of Canada.”
She’ll get to watch the seasons change over a 14-city tour of Canada in support of Asianblue that stopped in T.O. last week. Released this past August, Asianblue is the perfect pop album Gryner has been threatening to write throughout her career, a collection of melodic confections with bittersweet centres. Gryner has always played with the pop music convention of setting dark lyrics to upbeat tunes, but achieves just the right balance on this record.
“I grew up in the eighties listening to the radio, so like it or not, all of that pop stuff has seeped into my veins,” Gryner explains. “Since I started writing songs, I’ve noticed that the only real time I want to write is when I have a trial in my life, or when there’s something I really need to express. So put these two things together, and you have ‘up’ songs with ‘not-so-up’ lyrics.”
The incredibly prolific Gryner has just finished producing the debut album for Winnipeg newcomer Andrew Spice, which will be released on her Dead Daisy label this winter, and collaborated on music for a short by filmmaker Duncan Jones, David Bowie’s son. Is there anything she hasn’t done?
“I’m still dying to tour Europe,” Gryner replies. “I heard you can get big in Germany pretty easy—a la David Hasselhoff—so I’m looking into it!”
Photograph by Simon Turnbull
