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| Photo by Matt Barnes |
Other artists in recent memory (Ray LaMontagne’s “Meg White” comes to mind) have gone cowboy on us, but no one so blatantly states his Wild West ambitions like Jason Collett: he wants to rob a bank.
Yup, this Canadian outlaw aspires to be like Jesse James, seconding that emotion made so popular by Cher in 1988. To answer Miss Bono’s pertinent question, hell yes, Jason Collett is lookin’ for some trouble tonight.
Collett, who does sunny optimism as well as profound sadness equally well (and sometimes intertwines the two so tightly that it’s hard to tell them apart), is having some fun here despite the song’s, and new album’s rather tragic influences.
He explains, “I’ve seen
first hand the kind of devastation this [economic] crisis has wrecked upon much of
the world I’ve toured these last few years. The shut-down-shops and [foreclosed] homes on the suburban fringes as I’ve made my way to and from cities I’ve played. This record is a personal reflection of the crisis we’ve all witnessed and read about every day in the paper. Calling it Reckon is an acknowledgement of loss … lost jobs, lost homes, loss of faith in our political and financial institutions and in turn, loss of illusion.”
The new album, Reckon, is out September 25th on Arts and Crafts. Essential Cuts will be released as a companion, featuring eleven career-spanning tracks, hand picked by Collett himself.