Maybe he's a lover, not a fighter. Maybe he's just not the type to brawl and tell. Or maybe -- and this one's the most likely -- he wasn't even there.
Whatever the case, folk-popster Jeremy Fisher has no response to stories of tourmate Tomi Swick's recent involvement in a pre-Juno weekend barfight in Hamilton. "Well, I think they've been blown out of proportion, but I'll let the Tomi Swick camp handle that one," laughs Fisher prior to a co-headlining show with Swick in Vancouver. The duo embarked on the cross-Canada venture earlier this week, after Swick took home best new artist honours at the Junos April 1.
The two rockers met only recently, despite sharing a hometown. "We're both from Hamilton, born and raised, and we have a lot of the same friends, but we didn't get to know each other until we met through music." At one point a busker, Fisher has been playing to significantly larger crowds since scoring a bit of Internet success with the stop-motion videos for three of his tunes: Cigarette (sample lyric: "Light me up and get on with it"), Scar That Never Heals and Jolene.
Fisher directed the clips, after finding himself with spare time between the completion and release of his latest album, Goodbye Blue Monday. "It's something I'd always wanted to do, but didn't know how, so basically these three videos are me learning stop-motion as I go along," he says. "I'm certainly not displeased with the fact they've done so well, but it is funny to see that happen.
I've made the $40,000 video with the major label money, and haven't had nearly as much success. I think it probably says a lot about what messing around can bring you." Fisher's videos are a big hit with the YouTube crowd, a phenomenon made possible in part by a renewed interest in DIY production values -- one that wouldn't have been likely a decade ago, when commercial video stations still trafficked in big-budget clips, Fisher agrees.
"It's like Alanis Morissette with My Humps," he says, referring to the singer's sad-piano spoof of the Black Eyed Peas hit. "She never would have done that to release to TV. It's a totally different medium, one that allows you to do anything, and then the public votes on it .
.. I think we're richer for it.
" Another experience Fisher is no doubt richer for was the view of the country he had while touring Canada by bicycle a few years back. He says he saved energy for shows by pacing himself, and insists the normally yawn-inducing stretch through Manitoba and Saskatchewan is actually quite lovely when seen from the seat of a bike. "What's tough about Manitoba is the mosquitoes," he quips.
"It's the only province in the country where the mosquitoes can catch you, even on a bike." And what of the new album? Recorded with fellow troubadour Hawksley Workman (who also knows a thing or two about cigarettes as sexual metaphors), the disc was a real joy to make, Fisher says.
"It went by too fast, even," he says. "The two of us played everything on there except the gang vocals and the handclaps, and when it was over, we both just wanted to make another record. But the fun we were having, that playful energy, really made it on to this one.
" Fisher and Swick share a bill at the Garrick Saturday, along with indie songstress Simon Wilcox.
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