“Dave Celia is one of the best talents to hit Merseyside from North America.  He’s welcome at the Cavern Club anytime…” – Alex McKechnie, Cavern Club, Liverpool. 

David Celia is something of an enigma when it comes to singer/songwriters.  The Mississauga, Ontario based performer, who cut his teeth with Toronto rock band Invisible Inc., plays music that is both pop-oriented and introspective.  In a perfect world this would lead to mainstream radio play and widespread appeal.  After all, he is singing songs about relationships with friends and lovers and life itself; things we can all relate to.  But today’s mainstream is no longer concerned with all that is down to earth.  Superficiality and pessimism have taken over.  For that reason, the songs of David Celia are a breath of fresh air, with vocals and guitar playing that are as strong as his songwriting: some of the best out of Canada since Ron Sexsmith.

For those who have heard Organica, his debut album, or seen him perform, Celia is as relevant as the singer-songwriters of the classic era.  He pays tribute to a classic brand of singer-songwriter, while avoiding the regurgitation of what has already been overdone in music, and remains original.  Over in England, he has been hailed as something new and spectacular.  His trips to the United Kingdom - with Invisible Inc and as a solo artist - have landed him headlining shows at Liverpool’s legendary Cavern Club and London’s 12-Bar, a well as radio play on BBC2’s Bob Harris Show.

Even in the United States, he has received compliments from the legends like Hilly Krystal, who founded the New York City classic punk-rock venue CBGBs.  With friend and keyboardist Michael Holt, Celia has played the acoustic room at CB’s Gallery twice.   But it is England where Celia has felt the most appreciated, headlining shows where the audience hangs on to every word and every guitar solo.

While visiting a relative with savvy musical taste and experience, I was exposed to the music of David Celia for the first time.  The album was Organica, David Celia’s debut solo recording.  I was immediately impressed by the strong sense of songwriting and musicianship, with production that was both earthy and slick at the same time.  The songs were positive without being too corny, with harmonies that were wonderfully reminiscent of a lot of the music that has always appealed to me.

I first met David in August at a show he did at Toronto’s C’est What.  The venue was small and filled with mostly friends, but the music filled the room and plastered a smile on everyone’s face.  I truly feel that I witnessed something special that night, as David played from the heart, on his own and with friends such as Michael Holt (a talented singer/songwriter in his own right) on keyboards and Steve Zsirai on bass, along with Peter Murray, who would go on to perform his own material later in the evening.

It was several weeks later that I caught up with David again, a few hours before he was to play Toronto’s historic Distillery district on a cool, August night.  We sat outside and shared stories, discussing songwriting and Organica, as well as touring and the mystery that is the audience.



Being There:  It seems like most of your songs are very optimistic, something that is hard to find in today’s songwriting.  Why do you think a lot of songwriters tend to be so pessimistic?  Why aren’t you?

David Celia:  I guess I used to be.  I used to write lots of dark songs.  I don’t write a lot of tunes, so when they do come out it’s almost like a sensor.  It could just be a period of my life.  It’s exciting, the optimism.  It’s more fun right now.  

BT: You recorded Organica at home on a Macintosh G4 as opposed to a recording studio.  What was the process like?  Did it make things easier?

David:  It actually made it harder, because there were more options.  But I learned to limit myself to four tracks at a time.  That’s what I grew up on, an analog four track.  And I would just whip through stuff.  But then in the end, it wasn’t stuff that I would necessarily be able to put out on the radio … and you know, I want my stuff to make it to the mainstream even though it doesn’t sound like its possible.

BT:  How much material did you have in consideration for the album?  Did you know what songs you wanted to include from the beginning?

David:  I didn’t know I was making an album.  I was about six songs into it, and it was basically songs that I’d written to do with my last band that I was in, Invisible Inc.  And I just kept plowing through them, and I thought ‘okay, this could be on another album at some point,’ but then that didn’t really happen.  Then I thought, ‘Hey, six more and I got a record!’  And I knew I had songs that were b-side stuff, but when I released them it almost didn’t matter.

BT:  So in a sense, for your personal interests, it was demo recording.

David: Yeah.  I was learning to use the computer.  “Faker Baker” is my first try at using it.  I literally got the computer - I watched someone else engineer an album on the same system.  So this is my computer in my house for the first time, and I’m like “Hmm… how should I learn how to do this thing?”  And I just went for it.  I was really anal about the drums, the quality of it.  I think a big part of it is technique, and really knowing what you want to hear back.

BT:  At what point did you decide that what you had was an album and that you wanted to release it as one?

David:  Well I had it out as a six song EP, and I went to England with that.

BT:  And what time period are we talking about?

David:  That was 2001, I guess.  Early 2001.  I can’t even remember, though.

BT:  Well I know the album itself came out in 2002.

David:  Yeah, so about a year before that.  About nine months before that I continued plugging away at it, and I was in England.  After that, the next stage was that it was going to be an album, and in the process I thought it was going to be a ten or eleven song album.  And then “Fill My Empty Cup” came out at the last minute, and it was nice how it filled up.  I like to have twelve songs, you know?  Like ten or twelve, anyway.

BT:  As far as the personnel on the album, I know you play a lot of the instruments yourself, and invited a few friends here and there to pitch in.  What kind of environment was that?  Did you invite people over, or were you simply utilizing whoever was around while you were recording?

David:  Well it started out with that EP with Geoff Hen, the drummer from Invisible Inc, and he was so into sitting down and spending the whole day, and not even getting anything!  Just getting sounds.  That’s how I learned what sounds I liked.  And it was about him getting into my mind, and seeing what I was trying to go for.  And he’s really good at that.  And then following that, I met Adam Warner, who already knew and liked the Invisible Inc. stuff, and he knew where I was coming from.  When he came in – and he’s just such a good drummer - he picked it up instantly; he picked up the vibe I was going for.  And we’re friends, you know?  It’s just because we’re friends, really.  Like, they came over, and it’s obvious, he likes what I’m going for, he’s into the rootsy sound.

BT:  Organica seems to explore the same musical territory as albums like The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Neil Young’s Harvest.  Would you say those are albums that were in your consciousness growing up?

David:  Later.  Like early Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour when I was really young, but Abba.  Weird stuff.  But I guess, production wise, when I started four tracking, I automatically gravitated towards the way - you know, I’ve only been realizing this lately, but I think Rubber Soul and Revolver.  And I know, it’s so common too.

BT:  I know the bass line and chord structure of a track like “Faker Baker”, for instance, is very reminiscent of what Paul McCartney was doing at the time.  I definitely notice a shift to more rootsy material with Organica in comparison to your Invisible Inc material.  Is that a fair assumption to make?

David:  Yeah, it’s gentler stuff, more personal.  When I first showed them “Faker Baker,” Mark [Stewartson, Invisible Inc’s other songwriting guitar/vocalist] didn’t really want to do it.  He thought it was too mushy or something.  So I was like, “wait, maybe I have a mushy side, and I gotta let it out.”

BT:  The album opens with a track called “Don’t Be Afraid To Change.”  It’s one of the few recent pop/rock songs I’ve heard that contains a kazoo on the chorus.  How did that come about?

David:  By accident.  I had a kazoo.  I was totally messing around with that song.  I had no idea that I was writing a song.  It was just like “this’ll be a quirky number that I show my friends”, and that’s it.

BT:  There are a few instrumentals on the album, differentiating it from a lot of records in the singer/songwriter genre.  What inspires you to compose these pieces?

David:  Writing lyrics is very difficult for me.  If I could just get away with writing instrumental music I would have never started writing lyrics.  All I had were instrumental songs for a long time.  And it happened by default, cause I wanted to appeal to people who, you know, like poetry.  Some people in the industry have complained, “Oh, you shouldn’t have an instrumental.  That doesn’t make any sense.”  It makes sense musically to me, but that’s why I did it.  I was scared to put them on because I thought instrumentals might not go over well.  But then I got all this strength to thinking maybe I’ll keep adding more and more each album, and they’ll all be instrumentals someday, and people will acknowledge that more.

BT:  In your listening to music growing up, were there any instrumentals that really struck you?  Maybe particular groups that were instrumental?

David:  Right around the same time somebody introduced me to Pat Metheny and Pink Floyd.  And they both struck me right away.  I could relate to that because I was mostly just a guitar player and I wasn’t singing a lot.  I was just soloing.  I was listening to the blues, like Clapton, Hendrix.

BT:  It’s interesting that you mention people like Pat Metheny and Pink Floyd, who are known for their extended, long pieces.  You’re songs, as you said, are very direct, short, sweet.

David:  Yeah, somebody influenced me that way.  I used to have epic songs and epic albums with my old band before Invisible Inc., Tarnished Galahad, *laughs*.  Mark Stewartson from Invisible Inc. was the guy that just like - when I wrote something, he was like, “it’s so obvious… take this outta here, take this outta here,” and I was just like… light bulb in my head.  And from then on, it just made so much sense.  I learned a lot from that guy, just from seeing how he works.

BT:  Beyond the title Organica itself, there seems to be a lot of nature motifs through the album.  On “Procrastination” you sing “I am a tree/I live outside.”  Did you think about that as you recorded the album?   It almost parallels the earthiness of the music itself.

David:  No, but that’s where the name came from, and so did the artwork.  I love tomatoes, and I garden.  Those are my tomatoes on the cover.

BT: Would you say you feel the most at home playing live?

David:  Yeah, that’s where the inspiration comes from.  I write my best songs the day after a good gig.  If it was a really good gig, it’s so easy to write a song.

BT: In a live setting, you sometimes play solo with an acoustic guitar, while other times you’re backed by a full band playing electric.  Would you say you prefer one type of performance over the other?

David:  No, I’m loving them both because the challenges are totally different.  Some of the songs don’t work as well solo, so I’ve also started writing songs for the next recording that aren’t going to be band-oriented at all, and it’s kind of weird for me, but I’m just going to go with it.

BT: You’ve played Liverpool’s legendary Cavern Club.  How did it feel to play at a venue so closely associated with the early days of the Beatles?

David:  It came a surprise, because the first time I went over was with Invisible Inc., and we were just visiting.  We had a few days off on the tour, and we just drove there.  And we got up and it was like… wow.

BT: So you were just checking it out as fans of The Beatles?

David: Yeah, and Alex McKechnie, the guy who runs the whole place, let us get up for a couple, and he ended up letting us get up for about an hour.  And then we went across to the Cavern Pub, where there were hardly any tourists because of the time of day or something; it was all locals, and there was a band playing, and we got up for two whole sets.  It was fantastic.  And they were really responding to originals, and you know, we rarely get that kind of reception here.

BT:  You had already played the UK in 2001 with Invisible Inc.  How would you compare audiences in the UK & Ireland audiences in North America?

David:  It feels like they’re listening more closely.  They’re definitely more receptive, and more literate; hanging on every word you say.  I feel like every word I’m singing is actually being analyzed, which is nice, because here it’s maybe more that people just want to dance, or they’re listening to the beat first.  Whereas in England, I think that they’re listening to the lyrics first.  And that’s kinda cool.

BT: You also toured Ireland opening for Stewart Agnew, and England opening for The Divine Comedy, how did that come about?

David: I met Stewart through Peter Murray, who was on tour with Ron (Sexsmith)’s band, and Stewart was supporting Ron.  Stewart came over here to do his album at the Gas Station, and I met him.  Peter was like, “you gotta meet this guy.  Cause I know you’ll probably want to go to Ireland.”  And we just hit it off, and he said “We gotta get you over to Ireland, Dave”, and the rest is history.  I went over on one of my tours.  I was already going to England, so I flew over for a gig with him, and his manager and I got along right away.  We lived together on the road.

BT: While in England you also headlined the 12-Bar Club in London, yet another legendary club.

David:  That was the first gig I booked.  I just e-mailed Andy Lowe who books it.  He’s a great guy, very supportive of anything that he likes.  I just e-mailed him, and he went to my website, and he phoned me.  I e-mailed about ten gigs, and he was the only one that phoned me, and said “Anytime you want, the doors open.”  They’re very welcoming there.

BT: And from what I’ve heard from reactionary articles is that the show went very well.

David:  Yeah, the shows there have always just gone really, really well.

BT:  You play a lot of shows in and around Toronto.  Your band Invisible Inc. was a regular billing at C’est What and the Horseshoe Tavern.  How would you differentiate the experience of playing at home and abroad?

David:  I think at this point, whenever I play in Toronto, even though it’s often to pretty decent crowds, you know, smaller venue type crowds, it feels like it’s a lot of my friends.  It feels like the Canadian music scene supports me, and it’s a healthy sized group of people, but I think maybe now I’m starting to meet people that I don’t know that are hearing about me and coming out.  But in England, I don’t know anyone!  And the word of mouth is spreading faster.  I love going there.

BT: When I last saw you perform, you played a handful of new tracks and spoke briefly of a new album.  When can we expect it?

David: I don’t want to put the pressure on myself.  It’s constantly growing, and continently getting itself together.  I have about four songs that I’m ready to do the vocal on.

BT: How different is it from Organica so far?

David:  I’m noticing some patterns, but it’s definitely an evolution.  There’s some solo stuff on it.  There are things being said on it that I’ve never said before.  But the production so far seems to be very similar.

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