Songsmith Ron Sexsmith Thinks Of Himself More As A Crooner, Not A Rocker

If you’re looking for yet another singer-songwriter who’s going to lay it all bare and pour out all the torment and inner anguish … perhaps you should pass on Ron Sexsmith.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a new-ish but mature talent, a man who’s adept at melancholic song sketches, a creator of evocative, subtle soundscapes, you’re in the right spot.

Sexsmith released his second album, “Other Songs,” this month.

The Canadian songwriter, who picks Dionne Warwick as one of his favorite singers, doesn’t place himself in a rocker’s category. “I’m not as good at doing the rocking stuff,” he says. “I’m more the crooner, I guess.” The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson and the Kinks’ Ray Davies are among those in his songwriter pantheon.

His own fluid, almost ethereal style is similar to that of Chris Isaak. In his early days, he was compared to Jackson Browne - being a sensitive singer-songwriter with acoustic guitar and all that - but it’s not his favorite connection.

“I think of a singer-songwriter as John Lennon or Prince,” says Sexsmith, on the phone from his Toronto home. “What I do is more of a pop thing. People get zoned by an acoustic guitar and they think you’re ‘folk’ and that has very little to do with what I do.”

He’s not about to claim he’s on the cutting edge of musical reinvention. “In a way, my whole approach to songwriting is kind of old school in that it’s about melody. I want the lyrics to go with the melody.”

Sexsmith won a boatload of acclaim his first time around the major league block, touring with Elvis Costello behind his self-titled debut album, which, like the current one, was produced by veteran moodmaster Mitchell Froom. The early acclaim was not just from critics but from Costello and others such as Paul McCartney and John Hiatt.

It’s flattering, but it puts Sexsmith in somewhat of an awkward position. At present, he’s not that well known. Maybe he’s on the verge of something bigger, but he’s wary of Next Big Thing overkill.

“You wonder what people who come to a show expect,” Sexsmith says, “when there’s a lot of hype … if they think I’m gonna come out there and be this real energetic guy … and generally we try and put on a good show with a nice little band. I’m coming more from a Van Morrison or Dylan thing than a Beck thing. I love what he does; it’s just not what I do.”

His songs are modest and moody and so is he.

“I have my friends and everything, but generally when I need to write I need to be by myself,” he says. “When I’m on the road, my favorite thing to do is just sit in my hotel room or just go for a walk by myself. I just have a hard time listening to stuff when you’re getting pummeled; that brings me down even deeper.

“I don’t understand how all these young bands can be so depressed all the time, thinking about suicide. I mean, there’s some harsh realities out there, but Brian Wilson probably had one of the most messed-up childhoods, and he wrote these amazingly beautiful songs with a lot of hope and innocence in them. I mean, I love sad songs - I think there’s really something comforting about them - but when you get to the point where life isn’t worth living anymore, when I hear that it turns me off.”

Some samples from Sexsmith’s songbook: “Strawberry Blonde,” in which he creates a fantasy world for a girl he spies; “Average Joe,” about being a bumpkin duped by a con artist; “Pretty Little Cemetery,” a song of sadness and beauty; “Clown in Broad Daylight,” about a clown whose job it is to lure people into a car wash.

“I’ve always admired Ray Davies for writing these little vignettes,” Sexsmith says. “Life is kind of like that in a way, because you see things flash in front of you all the time. You just try to leave an impression. I’ve always had a problem with songs that had a big message or something I was supposed to get. I feel that someone like Pete Townshend, who I admired, his earlier work was much better than when he started getting into these rock operas and grand-scale things. I think it tends to work better on a smaller scale.”

“For ‘Clown in Broad Daylight,’ Mitchell was very happy I didn’t end the song with ‘You know, aren’t we all clowns.’ I think you get a bit of that sort of preaching from certain artists. I’d rather show somebody than tell somebody.”