Born Out Of Time

It took a long time for Nashville-based Canadian country artist Lindi Ortega to finally show her wares in Australia, but not so long for her to return. Her music career kicked off in her native Toronto around the turn of the millennium but only as a part-time concern, and it’s only been in the last few years that she’s really made people around the world sit up and take notice of her retro country stylings.

Since 2011, Ortega has released three increasingly accomplished albums — the last of which, 2013’s Tin Star, resonated so well that she was recently named Roots Artist Of The Year at the 2014 Canadian Country Music Association Awards — and having won over crowds at The Gum Ball Festival, The National Folk Festival and Boogie Festival (as well as a couple of headline shows) last Easter on her inaugural Australian sojourn, she’s now winging back Down Under to play Out On The Weekend Festival in Melbourne as well as a string of shows alongside regular visitor Justin Townes Earle.

“I loved it, it was one of the best trips of my life,” she gushes of the first visit. “Who would have thought I’d be returning so soon? It was like my first time ever coming in April and I was just so pleased that my music was giving me the opportunity to go to places like Australia, places that I’d always wanted to go to but would never get the opportunity if it wasn’t for music, so to get the chance to go twice in one year is blowing my mind just thinking about it.

“[And]I love Justin Townes Earle! I opened for him once about one hundred years ago — back when I was only eighty-six years old — and I opened for him in Toronto at this place called the Horseshoe Tavern, and I thought he was amazing even back then so I’m so stoked to be playing with him again in Australia.”

Not surprisingly, given that she doesn’t really get the chance to watch herself perform, Ortega is unable to shed light on whether her music is enjoyed best onstage or on record.

"I tour like a maniac! Sometimes I forget that I have legs and think that I just have wheels for a bottom half."

“I leave that up to other people to make that assessment, because everyone interprets things in different ways” she smiles. “Some people are really into my live show and love the different aspects of that, while some love the recorded stuff more — so I don’t know. I guess it’s different for everybody. Of course my favourite thing in the world to do is perform live so I prefer that — out of all the music things that I do, whether it be writing songs or recording or any of that other stuff that you do, the performance aspect and the live show is my favourite thing.

“[Back home], I tour like a maniac! Sometimes I forget that I have legs and think that I just have wheels for a bottom half. It’s kinda crazy. Sometimes I complain about the early mornings, because I am not a morning person — I’m like a zombie, just terrible in the morning and usually when you tour there’s morning obligations like catching flights or radio or television performances — so I complain a little bit in the mornings and need like an intravenous drip of coffee to function, but I love going to places and I love performing so touring is really a lot of fun. It’s great. It’s like really living — getting out there and seeing the world and doing what you love; who wouldn’t want to do that?”

It seems from a distance that Ortega’s rise has been meteoric, but as is so often the case these recent successes are the result of years and years of hard work and creativity behind the scenes.

“It feels like eternities, that’s why I joke that I’m a hundred-and-eighty-six years old!” she giggles. “It’s been a while. In Toronto when I was living there I spent like a decade — literally a decade, I’m not even making that bit up — just playing the circuit, doing the coffee house shows and the writers in the round kind of thing and open stages. I did that forever, and I almost gave up. But then thanks to good old MySpace, that was a little story for me where a producer found my music because I had some stuff up on MySpace — I just realised that the kids won’t know what you’re talking about when you say MySpace, they’ll be completely lost! MyWhat? Just say through the internet — but then I met the producer guy and he introduced me to all of these really great mover and shakers in the Toronto music industry who felt that it was a wise idea to try and take my music outside of Canada. Of course we still played Canada, but we wanted to try and make things happen in some other places as well, so we branched out and released three albums in a row in three years in succession, and it’s been crazy. It’s just been building and building and building — I love it! I’m putting out another record next year, I just don’t quit.”

"It’s all old-school still and it derives from country legends — I’m not writing about tailgate parties and beer and trucks.”

Is the tone of the new music she’s been working on much of a deviation from that which served her so well on Tin Star?

“I don’t think I’d ever veer crazy off-course from what I do, because it’s gotten me to where I am so I don’t want to alienate the fans that I’ve accrued,” she ponders, “but I think I grow with everything I do, so I feel like maybe there’s more of a soulful, blues-y thing happening in some songs. Maybe some songs might happen into different eras of country than what I’ve been doing, but I think it all makes sense. It’s all old-school still and it derives from country legends — I’m not writing about tailgate parties and beer and trucks.”

Of course the creative process must be slightly different this time around, knowing that there’s a ravenous crowd out there now waiting for her next instalment of material.

“I always did try to divorce myself from it, but this time around I kinda do feel like I owe it to people to really put something great out on record and really give it my all,” she admits. “Not that I didn’t give it my all before, but it’s just a more well thought out process I think this time because I am thinking of them, and I’ve grown with the people who’ve been listening to my music. We’ve grown together, so know I actually do think about them when I’m writing songs. It’s been a big thing for me — I’ve basically taken off all of September pretty much just to write, so I’ve really been paying attention to songwriting and trying not to suck basically.”

Does this creative process get easier with experience?

“Yes and no,” Ortega muses. “I’m always discovering things that make me want to raise the bar for myself — I love Townes Van Zandt and Leonard Cohen, and I listen to their lyrics and I’m, like, ‘Oh man, I’d kill to be a songwriter like that!’ And I may never be a songwriter like that, but it’s always something to aspire to or strive towards. But I feel like with anything you refine your skills the more you do it, and I guess I’m so full on as a musician — always touring and releasing albums all the time — so I feel that I am honing in on my craft a bit. At least I hope so!”

Ortega’s penchant for the country sounds of yesteryear can be traced back to her parents, especially her mother’s country music collection.

“Yeah, she’s like this crazy Irish woman who you wouldn’t expect to be a huge country lover, but she loved country. She loved all things Southern — I remember growing up with her and watching Gone With The Wind and wanting to be Scarlett O’Hara and have to choose between two Southern gentlemen. She had a crush on Kris Kristofferson when I was growing up and that’s sort of stayed in the back of my head, so every time I go looking at men I always want them to be Kris Kristofferson,” she guffaws. “But I guess I felt like I related to the lyrics of old country. Primarily Hank Williams was one of the first that I got into — I was an only child of two immigrant parents, and I was kind of like this weirdo kid that was a loner and didn’t have a whole lot of friends and I was bullied in school, so I felt like the lonesome songs that Hank would write really struck a chord with me. That’s sort of what made me veer towards country, and I still love country to this day.

“But as I discovered old country I just discovered old music in general — old blues, I love; I like old soul and surf and rockabilly and all of that sort of stuff. I think it really just harkens to a love for the way that old music was recorded — I love old analogue tape recordings and I love how everything was kind of live off the floor. There was none of that AutoTune business or that crazy dubstep going on — I thought dubstep was a dance! But, yeah, all that stuff’s not my thing — I mean, kudos to the people who love it — but I’m a fan of the classics, what can I say?”

With this background in country classics, it’s no wonder that Ortega found herself decamping to Nashville to immerse herself in the culture of the music which is so important to her.

“There’s a lot of history in Nashville,” she tells. “I love reading biographies — I read the Hank Williams biography, and the Johnny Cash biography and the Patsy Kline one, all of these country stars who seemed to all have an affiliation with Nashville in some way — so I came down to Nashville and lived out of a hotel for three months, and that sparked my interest in moving here. It was just so rich with history and so much music being made and so much inspiration all around, so I thought, ‘You know what? I’m just going to bite the bullet and do it’. I never did anything crazy like that in my life — to me, that was crazy to leave my country and my family and everything, and I didn’t know anybody and I was kinda like a loner, and I was just, like, ’What am I doing?’ — but I did it and I don’t regret it all. I think it’s a fabulous city — I love the fact that it’s a city with a small town feel, and it’s laidback. You can stroll along the streets here. And there’s so much great music — you can see everything! On any given night something amazing is playing, so it’s definitely a world of inspiration.”

That musical variety seems to have rubbed off on Ortega who’s become somewhat of a musical chameleon, happily playing alongside everyone from Social Distortion through to k.d. lang and even bands like Noah & The Whale.

"The Social Distortion fans are wonderful — I did two tours with them and the fans actually came out to a lot of the shows that I did on my own when I was headlining across the States and Canada ... it was great to have all of these tattooed dudes showing up that my shows."

“I love it!” she gushes of this diversity. “I think it’s so great that I’m able to do that. It’s challenging too because you’re switching your audience up — you can get used to playing for a certain kind of audience, but heck you go play in front of a punk crowd and it’s a whole different thing! You’ve got all of these burly men with tattoos and beards — it’s crazy! But it’s amazing, and when you play for them and win them over with your music you feel accomplished, you’re like, ‘Wow, it’s amazing that my music is diverse enough to be able to do that,’ and I love it. In terms of a marketing thing where people want to put you in a little box and say, ‘You belong here,’ and, ‘You belong there,’ maybe it’s a little bit more difficult and frustrating for them, but me? I love it!

“[The Social Distortion fans] were amazing, they were the best crowd ever. You wouldn’t think so, right? Lucky for me I have this amazing guitar player — who I’m bringing to Australia, by the way — and he knows how to rock out, and we have some songs from my record that are definitely a bit more upbeat and rockabilly and sort of fit in that world, so we just did all our fast crazy songs and maybe one slow song for the night. I just went up with a ‘give her hell’ attitude — I walked up on that stage and I gave her hell and it was great. And the Social Distortion fans are wonderful — I did two tours with them and the fans actually came out to a lot of the shows that I did on my own when I was headlining across the States and Canada. They came out and supported, and it was great to have all of these tattooed dudes showing up that my shows, and I was doing more of my slower songs and they still dug it.”

Is this perhaps due to Ortega’s long-forgotten punk background by any chance?

“I was in a ska-punk band for one year-and-a-half,” she reminisces with a giggle. “My hair was fire engine red and I was scantily clad dancing around the stage and that was that. But it came in handy later!”