The album art for Ben Rogers’ latest LP, Wildfire, testifies to the record’s origin story as it depicts a piano engulfed in flame. The fire gulps air, spreading out of the frame, white hot against a cool blue background. “After the last record, I just felt a natural shift, just steered away from that genre,” Rogers begins, explaining how he burned down the foundations of his burgeoning success to lean into a new sound. “I had more to offer and the songs [I was writing] were just changing organically.”
The tattered folky, country-streaked sound Rogers puts forth on Wildfire sees him embracing new influences: “I started to become afraid I was restricting myself. I’m not just cosmic country or The Flying Burrito Brothers,” he explains. “I love Otis Redding, I grew up on grunge and that still has a huge affect on me.” The album’s crunching, Peal Jam-indebted guitars back him up.
Rogers rose to indie prominence in the early part of the decade, doling out twangy songs with a Merle Haggard or Kris Kristofferson vibe. Ears piqued almost instantly, with both 2013’s Lost Stories: Volume One and 2015’s The Bloodred Yonder winning critical favour for their smoky songs heavy on the pedal steel guitar.
But, after a close personal loss hit Rogers, making another record just like what came before felt too akin to audio leftovers: His life was changing, why wouldn’t his music? Wildfire was “a new approach in terms of not only genre but lyrics. It felt like a rebirth. You can’t do the same thing forever—like Bob Dylan said, ‘as long as you’re in a state of becoming, you’ll be ok.’”
Tonight, Rogers shares snippets from the new record as he opens for City and Colour. When speaking by phone in days leading up to the show, Rogers was quick to share how much Dallas Green inspired not only Wildfire (Green produced the album) but his career as a whole: “I was 21 and working as a line cook at some shitty bar the first time I heard ‘Save Your Scissors.’ You gotta remember, at that time the default on the radio was, like, Nickleback,” Rogers says, almost audibly smiling at the memory of City and Colour’s breakthrough hit. “I was like oh shit, it can be done.”
See City and Colour with Ben Rogers at the Scotiabank Centre, 1800 Argyle Street, Fri Nov 29, 7pm, with tickets starting at $45.50.
This article appears in Nov 28 – Dec 4, 2019.
