With his latest album Scarlet and Sparks dropping even as you read this, it is the perfect time to sit down and find out more about the intriguing man behind it, Paul Cafcae.
Can we start with a bit of your backstory? How did you get into making music, and what has the journey been that has brought you to where you are today?
I think I have been fascinated with music since I was a child. I remember listening to the bootleg tapes of The Beatles as a child in the USSR and being absolutely fascinated with them. I think I was 3 or 4 years old when I first heard them. My parents put me into the specialist music school a few short years later, where my primary instrument was the accordion. But I always wanted to play guitar, so I taught myself when I was attending high school in Maryland.
Then I returned to Russia, and I played in rockabilly and blues cover bands in Europe and then in Canada. Eventually I became a band leader myself: I ran a band called 20 Flight Rockers – named after the first rock and roll song to be shown on American national television in 1956, and also the song that was responsible for John Lennon and Paul McCartney deciding to be in a band together.
We had one EP released, it’s probably still available on some streaming services. Some of the songs on that album were my first attempts at writing rock and roll songs. Then, I got into writing songs for therapeutic purposes to help me through some difficult personal times. Those songs were not really rockabilly or rock and roll; they were darker and more intimate, and I decided to release them as my solo project.
My first album was called Sophisticated, and it came out in January 2019. And from there on, I knew I couldn’t stop. Music is a drug, a habit that you cannot kick.
What have been your influences and inspirations along the way, both musically and otherwise?
In the beginning, it was The Beatles, and because I discovered that a lot of their songs were covers, it led me to some other artists like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins. I also really enjoyed some of the work that the Beatles did after the band was done. Especially John Lennon’s “Imagine” and George Harrison’s “Cloud Nine.” These days, I listen to a lot of different music, from The Ink Spots to Creedence, to Slayer, but my preference is the art that compromises as little as possible. I think Lennon, Cash, and Morrison taught me to be honest.
Your latest album, Scarlet and Sparks, is an interesting mix of styles. Do you intentionally mix the sound and styles up, or do the songs dictate what works best for them?
It’s a little bit of both. The art of producing captivating, engaging albums is fascinating to me. A lot of LPs these days sound the same from the first song to the last, sonically. And most music today is released in short form – as singles, and that’s what everybody recommends artists to do these days. But I always wanted to paint big pictures, and I don’t feel like a single song is enough. I feel that if you want to influence people, you must use the song’s relationships with its neighboring tracks. If you pardon the bland analogy, think about it as a season of a TV series, where you have story arcs existing alongside the “monster of the week” episodes. And each song is somewhat unique and that uniqueness dictates how you treat it, how you arrange it, how you record it, and how you mix it.
And, like all your music, these songs have plenty to say. Can you talk me through some common themes and recurring messages in this album and your music in general?
The two main themes on this record are love and rebellion. And if you think about those two things, you may find that they have one common denominator: passion. Given the state of the world right now, both of those themes are somewhat nostalgic to me, and that is why the treatment of all songs is also somewhat vintage. As far as messages, I may be putting down something that’s important to me, but once a song is released into the world, the listeners tend to find their own meaning and message in it. I’ve had that happen to “Silver of My Sons.” That’s why I like Michael Nesmith’s “Topioca Tundra” so much: it’s a great song about letting go of your art, poignant lyrics set to ragtime music.
You turned Prince’s “Purple Rain” into a bit of a punk workout. Do you feel responsible for others’ music, or are you happy to bend it into whatever new shape pleases you?
Great question; there are many artists out there who stayed purists and almost never included any covers in their live performances or on their records. I always included many covers in my life performances because, to me, thinking that my art is better than EVERYTHING that has been written over the centuries is incredibly insolent. but I also have my own opinions about songs that have been recorded in the past, and I believe that I can do them better.
I know this is subjective, but that’s why I take some covers and play them differently: the way I think I would have written them. I understand that there is a fun challenge to the musicianship in playing a sophisticated piece exactly as it was recorded by the original artist (have you heard Travis’s cover of “Killer Queen”?), but I feel that by simply mimicking others, one stops being an artist and becomes an impersonator.
And “Devil’s Right Hand” alludes heavily to Steve Earle’s song of the same name. It’s not exactly a cover, but why did you feel the need to rework that message?
I don’t think I reworked the message per se, it’s still the same old mockery of the gun culture. I’ve discovered that sometimes the only way to get a song out of your head is to record it. In this particular case, I just couldn’t relate to the story in Steve Earle’s song, so I decided to tell my own. It’s based on actual events that happened to me. I did the same with “Banks of Marble.”
There is even a bonus track in a Russian folk song. Can you tell me more about that?
A few years ago, I read a story about a truck driver who froze to death in Northern Quebec, and it reminded me of this old Russian folk song about a teamster who is freezing to death in a wintery steppe. I translated the song and updated it as if it’s about a French Canadian truck driver, and I sometimes sing it at my shows. I decided to honor the original Russian version so that the listener could focus on the beauty of the melody. Who knows, maybe I’ll put the English version with the full band on my next record.
The album was recorded in a really old building. Does the atmosphere of such places add anything to the process? Can you tell me about the process in general and who was involved?
Yes, the entire album was tracked in a 19th-century schoolhouse converted into a recording studio. I love ancient houses, and it definitely gave me a creative boost and contributed to the atmosphere of the album in more ways than one. For example, when we arrived there for one of the sessions, we discovered that the night before, a skunk passed away under the building – probably mortally wounded by coyotes or eagles and crawled under there to die. The stench was thick. My guitar smelled for a couple of weeks. If I recall correctly, that’s when we were cutting “You Cannot Get to Heaven” and “Purple Rain” – maybe that’s why these songs came out so fierce and fast – we wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
Any plans to tour the album, and if so, where are you looking forward to playing – new locations and old haunts alike?
For sure! We have some festivals, radio appearances and club dates to play in Ontario. The booking season is just beginning, so more dates will be added soon (shameless plug: follow me on BandsInTown or see my website). As far as touring outside of the province – as much as I love playing in new communities and meeting people (that’s exactly how the verses in “Banks of Marble” were written), as an indie artist, some years I have to make a financial decision between producing an album and going on a cross-country tour. This year, it’s the album.
And finally, what’s next for you, both in the music world and perhaps away from it too?
This year, I am working on a new format for my live program. I can’t reveal all the details yet, but I am going to attempt to demonstrate that American/Canadian and Russian/Eastern European cultures are very similar. I am working on mapping the staples of traditional Americana music to historic Eastern European folk music, both of which I consider the roots of my art. I guess you can hear little bits of that on Scarlet and Sparks, with songs like “Devil’s Right Hand,” lyrical, and a couple of others. So that will occupy me for a little bit :)
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me and best of luck with the new albums release.
