smooth operetta

SMOOTH OPERETTA

Author: Rob WILLIAMS
Source: JAM Showbiz/Winnipeg Sun
URL: www.canoe.ca/JamMusic/feb26_usher-sun.html
Date: February 26, 2002

Don't expect David Usher to burst into an Italian aria when he performs in Winnipeg tomorrow.

Despite using an opera sample in his latest single Black Black Heart, there won't be any big-boned, viking-helmeted sopranos on the tour, Usher promises.

"I'm not a huge opera buff myself, the sample just seemed to fit the mood of the song," he says. "It fit the 4/4 time signature."

The use of the sample of The Flower Duet written by Leo Delibes in 1883 probably wouldn't be used by Moist, the rock band Usher has fronted since 1992.

"The nice thing about making records on your own is you get to pretty much do what you want and see how it's going to work, and if it all doesn't work out then it doesn't work out, but you get to try to do whatever you feel like doing," Usher says.

"That's what I find interesting about music -- trying to take things from all sorts of places and putting them together to see if it works."

Usher, 35, has released three albums with Moist and two solo albums during breaks in the band's schedule.

Right now the band is on "hiatus," but they haven't broken up, Usher says.

"We're still together as a band, we're just not making music right now," he says. "I don't know what we're going to do. We're going to see how things roll out and decide what we want to do. We're not really feeling much pressure right now and we're all sort of having a good time doing what we want to do."

Two of Usher's Moist bandmates -- keyboardist Kevin Young and bassist Jeff Pearce --- are touring with Usher, while guitarist Mark Makoway is working as a producer.

There are no hard feelings between members of the band and no jealousy over the success of Usher's solo career, which sees him nominated for a Juno in the best pop album category for his latest album Morning Orbit.

"I was quite pleased to be nominated in the same category as Leonard Cohen, that's what I got out of it," says Usher.

Usher doesn't have a problem deciding what songs to use for his solo albums or the band because his first solo album was written and recorded quickly while the band was on a break, while his latest album was recorded after the band's last tour, he says.

Usher is happily married and comfortable with his life, which lead his new songs in different directions from those lean days when he first started, he says.

"Maybe when I was younger ... it was probably a little more angry, but it was probably a little bit more surface. Now I'm thinking things through a little bit and trying to write from a more internal place," he says.

His current cross-country tour finds Usher playing in bars to smaller crowds than Moist was used too, something which suits him just fine, he says.

"I love it. You get to play a really intimate show and the whole point of this record was to do something different that what I've been doing. It just makes it all fresh again.

"It's a different experience for sure, but there are things you get when you're right in front of people you don't get when you're 50 feet away from them, or 1,000 feet away from them.

"It's a little intense, but it's good."

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