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We’re happy to be speaking today with acclaimed singer and songwriter Barry Muir, Greetings and salutations, Barry! Before we dive down the proverbial Q&A rabbit hole, how has 2023 been treating you?
I moved to Toronto from Vancouver at the beginning of the pandemic, and this is my third summer here. Toronto is an amazing city. It’s the 4th largest city in North America behind Mexico City, LA, and New York so there’s lots to see and do. I have a recording studio at home in my basement that keeps me busy. In fact, I’m 3/4 of the way through my next album already. I like to record one album per year for as long as I’m inspired to do so anyway. I must admit, recently I’ve been inspired by the Tour De France series on Netflix, so I’ve been on my bike a lot. I rode 60 kms yesterday to Burlington from Toronto. So, I have to say 2023 has been productive and even inspirational so far.
Congratulations on your latest freshly minted single Windowpane which is off your seventh album! What was the genesis of this beautiful tune? How did it come about?
I grew up in the Canadian prairies where the winters can get brutally cold. We lived in an old house where our living room window would end up with a good six inches of frost along the bottom. I’d sit at that front window as a teenager with my guitar in lap looking west, out towards the vast blue sky that stretched out towards Vancouver dreaming of one day making my way there. I’d make little sketches with my fingernail in the frost. One time my girlfriend and I broke up, so I remember scratching out a broken heart. This last winter I was at a friend’s house that had the same frost built up on their window and it took me back. The next day the song Windowpane was written with help from my long-time co-writer, Lucy LeBlanc.
What was your collaboration process like in writing Windowpane alongside frequent partner Lucy LeBlanc?
Lucy and I have written so many songs together, we’ve both lost track. With Windowpane, I had the basic idea and chorus already written. Lucy’s strengths are tightening the loose ends. She always comes up with a line or two that brings the whole story together, in a way I would never think of. Lucy’s other big strength is booking the co-write sessions and making sure we show up! I’m quite certain I wouldn’t have written a fraction of the songs without Lucy’s tenacity.
In your opinion, what differentiates Windowpane from the Distinguished Competition on the 2023 music scene?
Good question. The production is very organic, and the song has an R&B feel inspired from another era. It’s short at 2:33 minutes with just enough time to sneak in all the elements, a couple of verses, a few choruses, a bridge, and a breakdown coming together to tell us of this unique story.
Windowpane is the latest single off your seventh album In the Meantime. How is In the Meantime like some of your past music such as Home in A New York Minute? How is it different?
I think Windowpane is such a unique story it automatically differs from anything else I’ve written. Both songs have a sense of yearning for something out of reach. However, Windowpane is about heartbreak and Home in A New York Minute is about realizing where your heart truly belongs.
Speaking of collaborations, what was your collaboration like with the producer of In the Meantime.
Rod Lewis, Chip Hardy, and I have recorded 50 songs together. I love these guys; we all grew up in completely different areas, but we’re all cut from the same cloth. Chip and Rod both have an incredible musical vocabulary, sense of rhythm and arrangement. It’s been a real honor working with these guys and I look forward to every meeting we have that always goes way beyond the song.
On the heels of the release of all this beautiful new music, can fans look forward to catching you on the touring/performing circuit in the coming weeks and months?
It’s certainly my goal to have a small, three-piece band ready for any type of gig by the fall. We’re working on it.
Who inspires you musically?
Currently, I’m simply in awe of Brandi Carlile. I’ve been listening to Leon Bridges, Vance Joy, The Lumineers, Ray LaMontagne and other great new artists. Going back to my musical roots, I was certainly inspired by everything that came from Elton John, Paul McCartney, and David Bowie.
Can you introduce our ever-inquisitive readers to some of the other talented musicians that lent their musical alchemy to the making of Windowpane and the In the Meantime LP?
Besides Chip and Rod, I couldn’t imagine recording without Dane Bryant and Britt Savage. Dane was the keyboardist and director of Olivia Newton John’s band. Britt has sung with such artists as Tony Bennett and Garth Brooks.
You hail from the beautiful country of Canada. How do those roots inform you as an artist and as a person.
I’ve never lived anywhere else so it’s all I know. Canada is a very large, diverse country. All our parents, or at least our parents’ parents, are from somewhere else. Its wide-open spaces give you room to breathe. We’re a very forgiving, helpful nation without any real enemies. From Newfoundland on the east coast to Vancouver Island on the west coast there is a unity that tightly bonds all 40 million of us. I’m not sure if that answers your question but like I say, it’s all I know.
At the end of the day, what do you hope listeners walk away with after giving Windowpane many-a spin on their respective turn-tables?
Wow, I would love to think some of them will go back into other albums I’ve released and search out songs they would also give many-a spin to. Spotify recently put out a playlist called This Is Barry Muir with a few cuts from each album. I listened to it the other day and they certainly picked the tunes I would have chosen as well.
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