Ray LaMontagne performs at Strathmore Thursday and at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Friday. Both shows are sold out. (Handout / October 14, 2009) |
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Big crowds don't scare singer/songwriter Ray LaMontagne. It's the little spaces that really unsettle him.
For LaMontagne, performing live is such a painfully intimate process, he prefers to play larger venues where he is more removed from the crowd.
"I don't like it when my audience is right on top of me," he said. "It's just too close. I need to have some distance from them. I need some space, that's all."
LaMontagne will have all the space he needs when he performs with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra today at Strathmore and Friday at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The two sold-out shows launch LaMontagne's fall tour, which takes him into theaters and auditoriums across the country.
In the five years since LaMontagne released his debut album, "Trouble," his audience and the size of the venues he plays have steadily grown. He has released three albums, which have sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Yet, as his star has risen, LaMontagne has remained one of the indie music scene's more reclusive, enigmatic artists. He reveals few details about his personal life and his uneasy upbringing. And when he does discuss his life and music, he often takes deep breaths between words. Even talking about his music seems laborious for LaMontagne. Sharing it with those closest to him is almost impossible, he said.
"I don't play songs for family," he said. "I've never sat down and played a song for my wife. Ever."
One of six children raised by a single mother, LaMontagne moved with his family around the country. After graduating high school, he settled in Maine, where he worked at a shoe factory. Early one morning, he heard Stephen Stills' "Tree Top Flyer" on his clock radio. The song, about Vietnam war veterans who smuggle goods on low-flying planes, sparked an immediate interest in music.
Looking back, LaMontagne said, discovering music was a lot like finding God.
"I was really missing something for a long time," he said. "That's probably very similar to what people feel like when they find religion or faith. ... It really changed my life in a major way."
At first, LaMontagne wrote songs in his head, until it got to the point where he knew he had to get them out. A song isn't realized in LaMontagne's mind until he has played it live. Recording an album is all well and good, he said, but the true test is performing it for an audience.
"If the songs only live in your head, they have no life," he said. "You have to put them out there and see if they'll stand on their own feet. ... If you're honest with yourself, you'll know pretty quick if it's just some kind of fantasy or if you really have something to share with people."
It took some time for LaMontagne to come to terms with his sandpapery singing voice, he said. But LaMontagne's adept songwriting caught on quickly with adult alternative radio stations. Every time he would come back to the East Coast for a show, he said, the venue and the audience would be noticeably bigger.
As he has become more well-regarded, he has struggled with the best way to handle fame. For example, though he appreciates his fans, he refuses to sign autographs after shows.
"I try to keep my distance because that just gets weird," he said. "There are a fringe, strange group of people who hang around for you after a show. Not all of them but some of them. It's turned ugly a couple times."
With three albums to his name, LaMontagne feels as though he's come to a turning point in his career. He wants his next albums to be less personal and, as a result, less melancholy.
"From here on, I hope it feels like it's coming from a place of joy more than a place of pain," he said. "I feel excited to get to work on the next batch of stuff."
For LaMontagne, performing live is such a painfully intimate process, he prefers to play larger venues where he is more removed from the crowd.
"I don't like it when my audience is right on top of me," he said. "It's just too close. I need to have some distance from them. I need some space, that's all."
LaMontagne will have all the space he needs when he performs with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra today at Strathmore and Friday at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The two sold-out shows launch LaMontagne's fall tour, which takes him into theaters and auditoriums across the country.
In the five years since LaMontagne released his debut album, "Trouble," his audience and the size of the venues he plays have steadily grown. He has released three albums, which have sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Yet, as his star has risen, LaMontagne has remained one of the indie music scene's more reclusive, enigmatic artists. He reveals few details about his personal life and his uneasy upbringing. And when he does discuss his life and music, he often takes deep breaths between words. Even talking about his music seems laborious for LaMontagne. Sharing it with those closest to him is almost impossible, he said.
"I don't play songs for family," he said. "I've never sat down and played a song for my wife. Ever."
One of six children raised by a single mother, LaMontagne moved with his family around the country. After graduating high school, he settled in Maine, where he worked at a shoe factory. Early one morning, he heard Stephen Stills' "Tree Top Flyer" on his clock radio. The song, about Vietnam war veterans who smuggle goods on low-flying planes, sparked an immediate interest in music.
Looking back, LaMontagne said, discovering music was a lot like finding God.
"I was really missing something for a long time," he said. "That's probably very similar to what people feel like when they find religion or faith. ... It really changed my life in a major way."
At first, LaMontagne wrote songs in his head, until it got to the point where he knew he had to get them out. A song isn't realized in LaMontagne's mind until he has played it live. Recording an album is all well and good, he said, but the true test is performing it for an audience.
"If the songs only live in your head, they have no life," he said. "You have to put them out there and see if they'll stand on their own feet. ... If you're honest with yourself, you'll know pretty quick if it's just some kind of fantasy or if you really have something to share with people."
It took some time for LaMontagne to come to terms with his sandpapery singing voice, he said. But LaMontagne's adept songwriting caught on quickly with adult alternative radio stations. Every time he would come back to the East Coast for a show, he said, the venue and the audience would be noticeably bigger.
As he has become more well-regarded, he has struggled with the best way to handle fame. For example, though he appreciates his fans, he refuses to sign autographs after shows.
"I try to keep my distance because that just gets weird," he said. "There are a fringe, strange group of people who hang around for you after a show. Not all of them but some of them. It's turned ugly a couple times."
With three albums to his name, LaMontagne feels as though he's come to a turning point in his career. He wants his next albums to be less personal and, as a result, less melancholy.
"From here on, I hope it feels like it's coming from a place of joy more than a place of pain," he said. "I feel excited to get to work on the next batch of stuff."
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