Paul Cargnello's passion for fatherhood

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Paul Cargnello, right, got help from his brother, Chris, on his latest album, Papa Paul, which was recorded while Cargnello was caring for his then infant son.

Photograph by: Dave Sidaway , THE GAZETTE

MONTREAL - One is the loneliest number, or so the song goes, but for Montreal singer/songwriter Paul Cargnello ? who has just released his latest solo album, Papa Paul, on independent hip-hop label Silence d?Or ? it may also be the luckiest.

?Heh-heh, I?m the one non-hip-hop artist on the entire label,? he says, smiling broadly from a couch in his N.D.G. home. For Cargnello, whose writing habitually tracks wide paths through blues-rock and reggae, with regular forays into agit-folk and soul, it?s an incongruity in appearances only, and may well have the makings of a blessing.

?Hip-hop labels are used to, for one thing, not selling records and having to work their way around this industry and survive despite the fact they?re never the main focus. It?s a little bit like my career,? he laughs.

?I think my sensibility and my approach to music has always been more hip-hop and punk than anything else. Maybe not sound-wise. People have always called me a punk rocker, yet I don?t think that I display much in the way of punk musically. I think I rip off The Clash, but I don?t know about punk, per se.?

There are few who would question Cargnello?s punk-rock credentials, recent father and homeowner that he is notwithstanding. Former frontman for self-described ?rock reggae revolutionaries? The Vendettas during the mid-?90s, the now 33-year-old career musician and committed socialist has never strayed from the core anti-conformist, activist impulses that power punk rock the ideology, and not the haircut.

?I?ve never worried about selling out,? Cargnello says, ?but I?ve always been afraid of the accusations of selling out. The second you have a house and you?re making a little money off what you?re doing and you have a kid and a career, you start thinking that it?s very possible that you have sold out.

?But honestly, you know when people say that if you?re not a socialist when you?re young then you have no heart, and if you?re not a conservative when you?re old you?ve got no head? Well, it?s the exact opposite for me. My political values have not changed ? I?m still very, very implicated in certain causes. And especially having a kid, it gives you one more really, really big reason to take things very seriously and to care about what?s happening for the next generation. Now when I vote, I vote with a vengeance.?

Indeed, Cargnello?s passion for fatherhood ? all the songs on Papa Paul were recorded while Cargnello was a stay-at-home dad, caring for his then infant son Declan, an experience he claims as a great source of inspiration ? is at the creative heart of the 13-track album. That being said, he denies having any apprehension that Papa Paul might be perceived as some kind of sticky daddy-centric ode to the joys of parenthood.

?No, I never had that concern because I think the proof is in this recording, and that just because we get older and have kids doesn?t mean we have to become lame. And this isn?t a lame record.?

Sharon, Lois and Bram it ain?t.

?No,? he says emphatically, ?and I want everybody to understand that, because when it came out people were like: ?Is this going to be for your kid? That?s kind of cheesy.? And it?s not.

?I decided I was going to call it Papa because that?s what I am now. That?s what?s changed. I think in the old days I would have called myself an activist first or a musician or whatever. But now I?m a father first, and before all of the things you can list under ?Paul Cargnello,? I?m a father. And that?s all I?m saying with this.?

Bruising blues tunes, danceable diatribes, whimsical vignettes and heavy-hearted acoustic compositions all reside amicably side-by-side on the, again, predominantly French-language Papa Paul.

It?s Cargnello?s ninth solo release since his 2002 debut, Lightweight Romeo, and the follow-up to 2010?s Les courses des loups.

Profiting from a light production touch, Papa Paul breathes easily. It?s refreshingly, stylistically freewheeling, from the dirty shredded blues of the album-opening All My Heroes, to the horn-hung soul pop of first single L?Effet que tu me fais, to the relaxed reggae bounce of Politicien. And in part because the final recording is founded on first takes, it wears its warts openly and unapologetically.

?Well, it?s an album of demos first of all,? Cargnello says chuckling, ?And the thing is, a lot of bands, when they?re doing records, will tell you that the demos were better. And it?s true ? the demos are always better. There?s an energy the first time you perform something, and there?s always some crappy sound in the background ? Man, on (the song) Ayiti kimb? the phone is ringing through the whole thing. Someone was trying to call me non-stop, and I couldn?t get it out, so I decided to leave it because these are the sounds of my house and these are what make recordings beautiful.?

Cargnello recorded and played all instruments on Papa Paul save for keyboards (courtesy of long-serving co-conspirator Sandy Belfort) and horns, which are a key feature of the release.

?My brother Chris, who?s a graduate of the McGill jazz program, did all the horn arrangements,? Cargnello explains.

?Chris is a musical genius ? it?s disturbing working with him because he can do anything. But when he originally sent me the demos of his tracks, he sent me these little keyboard parts that he wrote with these stupid Casio-sounding, piece-of-s**t horn tones, and I was like: ?I don?t know ? this is not good, this sounds really bad,? and he was like, ?No! Trust me!? And I said, ?Okay, I?ll trust you, but this really sounds bad.? And then we got the horn guys in and, oh, what a difference.?

Cargnello has always been unusually adept at wringing worthy results from an imperfect process, in large part because he doesn?t strive for musical perfection as a matter of principle, but also because he finds perfection, in a word, boring.

?Exactly,? he says. ?I?m in no way a perfectionist ? perfectionism is a form of narcissism because you actually think you can do something perfectly. And if you think that, you?re an idiot. Even The Beatles would probably look at The White Album and say: ?What a piece of s**t Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is,? or whatever. Everyone looks at their own albums saying: ?Oh my God, what did I do??

?Records are like photographs of your bad haircuts from your high school years.?

Papa Paul is on sale now. Paul Cargnello, with Les Tireux d?Roches, Guillaume Arsenault, Francis d?Octobre and more, performs Oct. 5 at Cabaret du Mile-End, 5240 Parc Ave. For more information visit www.lemileend.org.

? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

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Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Paul+Cargnello+passion+fatherhood/7290675/story.html

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