Nothing describes childhood quite like girl guides, broken hearts, family and little league fields.
Pat LePoidevin explores those memories through lyricized fictional tales of 10 American small towns in his fourth album, American Fiction. He is spending his fall touring the country he calls home and will be in Fredericton Oct.3.
“We had this idea to write about small American towns based on the fact that I’m half-American,” LePoidevin said. “I wanted to show that identity because I’ve never really felt that American and I wanted to write about something that was removed from the Canadian landscape.”
A British Columbia native with equal parts New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and the Yukon, LePoidevin teamed up with a childhood best friend Lewis Smith to tell the tales that better explore his American background.
“A lot of parts of the songs have to do with mine and Lewis’ childhood in Princeton, B.C.,” said LePoidevin. “We grew up in this tiny little town and we bring that to the table on this record. It has reference in there only we would know about, there’s a lot of nostalgia in there.”
LePoidevin’s Canadian experiences like attending school in Sackville, and growing up in rural B.C., helped him create the tales of small towns like, Hanna, WY, Hayden Lake, ID, or Winter Park, CO and Centralia, PA.
For some tracks LePoidevin drew inspiration from real events. Centralia, PA sparked a story of a little girl who comes across her birthplace after several years of being away. The town has since become a desolate place after a mysterious tragedy.
“I wrote about Centralia mainly because of the story, not a personal connection to it. There was a mine fire in the 50s and the fire hasn’t stopped burning underneath the ground and no one really knows what happening.”
Even the artwork portrays an extensive string of colourful small towns that finds its inspiration from some of the album tracks. LePoidevin stumbled upon on the artist from Philadelphia on Reddit.
“The whole piece looks like one town and parts of the town have to do with the stories and the songs. We gave [Valeriya Volkova] a bunch of songs and stories and gave them to her and she made one really cool piece.”
What began as a series of stories among friends two years ago is now told not only through the album, but also through a book compiled by Smith.
“The original idea was to have Lewis write short stories and I would play the songs, he had no intention of playing with me. So, now there are five short stories that go with the songs on the album,” he said.
LePoidevin describes his fictional journey as a more intense portrayal of what he’s used to writing and recording. American Fiction allowed him to collaborate with people from both countries he identifies with as well as a close friend.
“American Fiction, I think is kind of like music turned on. For this one I wanted to experiment and make it a lot more greater sounding with horns and a lot of talented musicians and artists.”
LePoidevin will be in Fredericton at the Capital Complex on Oct. 3, 10:30 with Banded Stilts and Josh Bravener.
