Luke Doucet Loves His Guitar And Songs About The Road

Luke Doucet's blood may be "too rich for subway cars," as he sings on the title cut of his new Blood's Too Rich album, but characters who ride the rocket and travel the highways and side streets of life present a recurring theme on his seventh record.

The Toronto-based roots singer/songwriter and guitar slinger is fine with that. Doucet puts a new spin on these tried and true tales of life on the road with ruminations on the Buckeye State ("Cleveland"), barstool revelations in upstate New York ("The Day Rick Danko Died") and his kinship with truck drivers ("Long Haul Driver").

"I often try to figure out how or why I'm so fixated on travelling and the road," says Doucet. "To be a singer/songwriter with a history in roots music, singing about the road could quite easily be dismissed as those themes have been mined to death.

"But I don't have the alternative option, which is being creative enough to come up with something original. So I'm forced to find ways to tell stories that have been told before… I'm OK with that."

Blood's Too Rich — which topped ChartAttack's campus/community radio chart in January — is also an extended ode to Doucet's prized guitar: the Gretsch White Falcon. It exudes majesty and excess, but sounds and looks gorgeous. He even names his band (the core of which is wife Melissa McClelland on guitar and vocals and Rich Levesque on bass) after this revered instrument. Neil Young played this same model guitar on "Winterlong" during his three-night stand at Massey Hall this past November. Doucet attended one of the shows and was mesmerized by Shakey's connection to his axe.

"One of the things I was trying to encourage with this record was the love affair with an instrument," he says. "I think that kind of relationship has largely been lost over the last 15 to 20 years.

"It fell out of favour because the '80s were so destructive to guitars… Kurt Cobain almost single-handedly destroyed the instrument… even though I love him… he was so deconstructive."

The guitar love-in is evident throughout the disc's dozen songs, especially the soaring solo that ends the seven-minute opus "Cleveland," where Doucet dares to take his Gretsch to new heights. "The Day Rick Danko Died," which also showcases Doucet's passion for his guitar, was inspired by a barfly who Doucet befriended in Woodstock, New York in 1999.

"I was down there working on a record and I went into a local pub every night for a pint before I went to bed," he says. "I met this old guy and we got to be friends. He came in one day really upset telling me that Danko had died… I didn't even know they were friends."

Doucet estimates he's on the road 320 days a year, so home is wherever the next gig is. As we chat and he sips his tea, you can tell he has cabin fever and is itching for a stage and an audience to show off his new batch of songs and his beloved White Falcon.

"This record was definitely constructed with the idea that I wanted to go and play these songs with my friends, have fun and turn the amps up loud," he concludes.

Doucet can be seen here:

March 27 Montreal, QC @ Club Lambi
March 28 Ottawa, ON @ Barrymore's
March 29 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern