LUCIDMEDIA

Gentleman Reg: Class Act

Written by Rachel Rain Packota Friday, 24 July 2009 14:52

Reg Vermue knows that things don't always come easy, although they sometimes come in unexpected ways, but as someone christened "Gentleman Reg," Vermue handles it with assured ease and receptiveness.

"I met John Cameron Mitchell (director, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) in New York, and then he came here [to Toronto] and we just hit it off as friends", he explains. With Mitchell working on a script tentatively titled The Sex Film Project, Vermue thought to amuse his friend with a "sexy" film of his own... and ended up in the infamous, celebration-of-carnality film Shortbus in 2006.

"[It] makes sense," allows Vermue about Mitchell's on-the-spot casting, "because when I sent [the music video]...I was like, 'look at my sexy video! 'Cause you're making a sexy film.' And then he wrote me right back and was like, 'Oh my god, you have to be in my movie!' And that was my audition." He laughs affably at the bizarre - but ultimately rewarding - timing.

"I have good company and good friends around me," he explains, relaxing with a hot drink against the mustard yellow cushion of the couches in Arts & Crafts Records' boardroom. "But it's impossible not to want similar things for yourself when you see their successes."

He grew up and developed his musical style and sensibility alongside well-known Canadian names like Leslie Feist, Kevin Drew, Timothy Kingsbury (Arcade Fire), Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy). But unlike many of them he has yet to become a household name, be nominated for a Polaris Prize, or win a Juno. Some days that is a hard mountain to climb, he concedes.

If you do a Google-search on "Reg Vermue", his numerous credits alongside other 'Indie Royalty' will emerge instantly, but rarely any coverage on musical projects and ventures prior to, say, 2000. Often he gets the erroneous label of "new artist", which strikes Vermue as a bit funny: "People think I'm just a member of Broken Social Scene, or Hidden Cameras, and that's fine because I was part of all that, but I was around a lot before those bands were there, before they were even bands."

Behind him on the wall are mounted vinyl copies of albums by The Constantines, Feist, Most Serene Republic, and Still Life Still. Vermue's LP is up there, too, although it was only by his own steam and determination that Jet Black was able to take shape before ever landing a contract with Arts & Crafts. "I don't like to take breaks," he murmurs, fingers lightly resting in thought on his nearly white blonde beard.

While writing and developing a third album under Three Gut Records, the label collapsed. Not a problem really, points out Vermue, but "to get a record deal you need a record." So he kept the studio time (booked before the label folded), and went in with a collection of ideas and Greg Millson, his long-time friend, collaborator, and drummer. After "many months and lots of experimenting," Jet Black was born.

Here we are in July 2009, just five months after the February release of Jet Black, and Vermue is getting antsy. "We're doing a handful of folk festivals", he points out - most notably of which would be Hillside Festival this weekend in Guelph, ON, and the Osheaga Festival in Montreal in August - but he is eager to get back to longer tours. "We still have lots of touring to do. [I want to go to] different places, like Europe, Japan, and things like that, places we've never been with my music, but it's hard to be a Canadian artist and be self-sufficient."

Vermue stands on that infamous cusp of Greater Things and he seems to realize it. Jet Black is an aural study on the act of re-assessing and second-guessing oneself, finding the balance between being responsible and being paranoid, and figuring out when it is okay to trust yourself and your instincts. "To Some It Comes Easy", the second track on the record, hints at this unease and restlessness. Reg is, however, nothing if not a gentleman. His examination of the song is an interesting contrast of the personal and the diplomatic:

"I guess lyrically ["To Some It Comes Easy"] is really poignant and touches a nerve... it's pretty autobiographical, and just personal, and literal, and there's not many [songs] off the record that are that literal, so in that sense it's sort of vulnerable. And it's about a whole mesh of things...it's about art and life, and getting to that place that you want to get to, and maybe not getting there and feeling left behind."

And what of success? Vermue pauses a moment and glances up at the ceiling under his pure white eyelashes. "That always changes, too. You think you know what you want, and you get a little taste [of it] and then you're like, Oh, did I really want this?"