Alfie Smith has anchored the blues scene in Hamilton for many years. He hasn’t released a recording in several years but now he’s roared back with a new album entitled Every Rome Needs A Nero. Alfie is a master of both acoustic and slide guitar and his new album features some in-depth lyrics that often reflect his hometown of Hamilton.
Ken Wallis interviewed Alfie Smith for the radio show BluesSource Canada. The following are excerpts from that interview, edited and amended for brevity and clarity.
Ken Wallis
Alfie Smith has just released his eighth album. It's entitled Every Rome Needs A Nero and let me tell you one thing, Alfie is not fiddling around on this album. It is a terrific album. Joining us is Alfie, good to see you again.
Alfie Smith
Nice to see you too.
Ken Wallis
So tell us about the title, it is quite unique.
Alfie Smith
Just the political landscape of things, the way it is, it's kind of parallel and you know, Nero trying to burn Rome. Everything old is new again sort of thing.
Ken Wallis
And it's been almost 10 years, a decade since you released an album. Why now? What got your creative juices going?
Alfie Smith
I happened to be asked to record some slide for Monster Truck on their acoustic album. So I went into their studio and it was such a comfortable environment. After that I asked if they would mind if I recorded some of the stuff there. And we started recording and then Covid hit and we took 2 1/2 years to record it. It's the first time I've really had time to take as much time to do everything I wanted.
Ken Wallis
The one unique aspect about the album for me is the horn edition, and that really added another dimension.
Alfie Smith
Yeah, I love Troy’s playing on. He's such a great player and I've always loved trumpet and he just added so much.
Ken Wallis
And there are a couple of songs that I really want you to tell us a little bit about, East End Girl. What’s that all about?
Alfie Smith
Well, it actually came out of Covid too. It was a lot of the places me and my family went on hikes. I like always making touchstones of things that make a song three dimensional, being able to put a place in a picture in your mind when you're when you're doing. It's a very Hamilton song. My wife's favourite act is Counting Crows and they always put a place in most of their songs. They have a name of a town or a place, and just even mentioning something like that it invokes certain things. For instance, he was offered a key to the city of Omaha in Nebraska (for the song Omaha), and he's like, I've never been there. I just thought it sounded good.
Ken Wallis
Great story. How do you go about writing your material?
Alfie Smith
For the most part, it'll come out of a line or the way something is said runs around in my head for a while, and it kind of starts with that. Or it could start with a guitar riff. Pre children, I used to write in the middle of the night. I'd sit there and I do it on guitar for hours and it would come to me. But the middle of the night is more for sleeping now, because, you know, they wake you up rather early.
So I don't write the same way that I used to. Now every time anything comes to me, even when I'm at a gig. Just the other day I was playing the Cat And Fiddle and a song came to me. It was quiet enough and I was able to just play it and I record on my phone and I could capture that moment and I'll go back to it and expand upon it.
Ken Wallis
You feature a song from one of my favourite artists, Leonard Cohen on the album, Bird On A Wire. Why did you choose that song?
Alfie Smith
Not to be self-aggrandizing, but I mean that's what you're supposed to do when you put out a record. I really, honestly like my version of it, I like the slide that I added to it. Makes it a little different and I've always loved that song. It's a great song and I just thought that it would be fun to put on.
Ken Wallis
You are as comfortable on acoustic as you are on electric slide. Do you have a favourite? Which do you prefer playing or does it really matter to you?
Alfie Smith
If I could only have one, it would definitely be acoustic. But luckily, we don't have to choose that way. I like being more aggressive when I have to be and playing electric and I really do enjoy it. It's easier to sound scary with electric, if that makes any sense, and if you can sound semi scary on an acoustic that makes it much more work, but it's much more impressive. So the goal is to be able to do that with either.
Ken Wallis
So tell us who who plays on the album with you.
Alfie Smith
Troy Dowding plays on trumpet. I have Jesse O'Brien on on piano and keyboards. He did an amazing job. I was so happy with him. Everyone did an amazing job. Brandon Bliss, he recorded and did some B3 on it. Melissa Marchese, she did some background vocals, and she brought a friend, Jenni Pleau and I never met her before.
They came in one day just to record background vocals and she showed up with her friend so she joined in too. Justine (The Bass Machine) Fischer on bass and Dave Gould was playing drums. And funny enough, I was running the Hamilton Guitar Players Show and I was such in guitar mode, like running the show. Justine came up to me and said, Oh I'd like to buy a record and I'm like oh well, you're a friend. I'll give you a discount. And I'm about to charge her and it's like hold on a second, you're on the record. Here you go.
Ken Wallis
And I understand you have quite the guitar collection.
Alfie Smith
I'm very lucky. I was able to buy some really nice guitars. I've always loved guitars and I knew at a young age I was going to be addicted to it and if I didn't learn how to buy smart and flip guitars that I was going to be a very poor man for the rest of my life. And I still am a poor man but I have nice guitars.
Ken Wallis
Well you’re rich with the music that you play. Again, the album is Every Rome Needs A Nero, and where can fans get the album?
Alfie Smith
The album will be on all the streaming sites. Unfortunately, that's the way the world is. You know, they're kind of like a double-edged sword. Your music gets heard more by more people, but you're don't make any money off them. So they're available there. It's best to buy physical copies off me or I'm more than happy to mail them and you can go to alfiesmith.org.
And, I'm more than happy to take Interact or whatever. I can mail them out to you or contact Gilded Tooth Records. They're the bread and butter and Brandon Bliss Press is starting a record company with us and I'm the first Guinea pig artist.
Ken Wallis
Well, we certainly encourage everybody to go out and buy rather than stream. It's much more important to the artist. It's interesting, I've been reading an awful lot that CDs's are making a big comeback all of a sudden.
Alfie Smith
I hope so. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the medium. They sound better than Mp3s. They sound better than streaming. Everyone talks about how records made a big comeback, but the problem with records is they cost so much to produce and you’ve got to charge so much for them and it doesn't make any sense financially.
The reality of it is we're all playing our records and CD's and MP3's on these little crappy stereos. I think of myself as having good ears for listening and I don't really notice the difference that much when you're talking about that size system. Now, if you go to someone who has a good record set up with huge speakers and good amplifiers and whatnot, yes, I notice a difference, but I don't really notice that much difference. It's just more about having a quality system.
Ken Wallis
I remember the good old days when I would buy tons of LP's, and in no time they had clicks on them because we wore the groove right down. At least you don't do that with CD's. Anyways, Alfie, it's really been great chatting with you again and I hope to see you live soon.
Alfie Smith
Yeah. Nice talking with you, Ken.
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