Jeffrey Straker is witty, charming, and ridiculously talented. If you haven’t heard of him yet, you will. The openly gay singer-songwriter has literally busted his ass to build his reputation in Canadian music and it is paying off.
“Well thank you. My ass is sore,” he said, laughing over the phone from Toronto. In all seriousness, it has been a road filled with tough work but a lot of perks. His song Hypnotized was recently #6 on the MuchMoreMusic top ten.
“It just came up in a conversation today with a friend of mine in Toronto who asked, what do you do all day when you are not doing a show? People generally don’t get how much work goes into trying toget yourself out there. It is astounding. You would be a fool to get into this business for any other reason than if you love it. It has been a tremendous amount of work. I have been playing music since I was six. I have always loved it and I dabbled in it as a hobby for the longest time. I saw some interesting return on investment mucking around in the Toronto singer songwriter scene. I decided to turn my full time job to three days a week because I wanted to see, if I put more time into it, …what would happen, which got more results. Finally the big hurdle was, what if I quit my job altogether and put all my time into music, what would happen? I had a few big life altering events that made me take the leap. I put every ounce into this and it is getting some semblance of return. I am not delusional, it is in no way major rock stardom but that is not my intent. My intent is to make a living off of this and have people hear my songs, and that is what is happening.”
Straker is constantly on the road, playing major hubs like Biggar, Saskatchewan, Rossland, BC and Greenwater Provincial Park.
“I am 125% honest when I say I can get just as much enjoyment out of doing a show for 20 people who are listening, to the biggest show I ever did playing for 10,000 people as an opener in Toronto. My motivation is to communicate songs. I think if someone’s motivation was applause, you would probably quit really fast if you were doing all this work. I am really content playing a song at Greenwater Provincial Park - it is funny you would pick that one out. The park booked it for the people camping there, and there were a couple of hundred people sitting on the beach watching the show and a lot of them bought CD’s. You could go to New York City and book yourself into a small club and not get 200 people. I am really grateful for those opportunities, as bizarre as they may seem.”
He admits playing small town Saskatchewan doesn’t really seem like the right fit for an openly gay piano player.
“It is the thing that enters my head the most often in terms of ‘the performance.’ I am actually fairly out on stage, even in Saskatchewan. It happens through a few of the songs I introduce because they are story based, and some are really gay songs. You can see a few people have a shocked look on their face but others are like, this guy is putting himself out there. It almost builds a better relationship with the crowd. I have never been gay bashed at a show or had a scary experience. The weirdest was at the Western Canadian Music Awards in Brandon, Manitoba a few months ago. We did a couple of showcases, one was a very good venue for me and the other was in a country bar. I had never played in one before. We walked in and there were all these cowboys in their humongous belt buckles and cowboy hats. I thought it would go over like a lead balloon, and I was going to be drawn and quartered and thrown out of there. It actually somewhat worked. A couple of big burly cowboys came up after, and I wasn’t disappointed with that. They said they wanted to shake my hand and I was like, oh god they are going to kill me. He said, I really liked your music. It’s fucking weird but I really liked it.”
He feels more comfortable playing to LGBT audiences, however. He has played at many Pride events across Canada and will be at the ARGRA dinner this December 12th at the Alexandra Centre.
“I have played almost every Pride festival except Calgary and Montreal. It is more comfortable, there is zero anxiety about if they will get the gay thing. I can be really campy on stage and you can pull out all the stops at Pride events - even the ARGRA show which will be an acoustic set during dinner. There is quite a bit of banter in my shows and I find that banter with a crowd that is gay is so much more genuine and honest. It is not that I edit it when it is not a gay crowd, I can just be way more me. The ARGRA group can expect a pretty gay night.”
It is important to support Canadian music, and especially for the GLBT community to support our own artists. While you shouldn’t support someone based solely on their orientation, the fact that Straker has the talent to go places makes it that much more important.
“If they are really ambitious they would buy the songs on iTunes. If you like it and it peaks your curiosity, tell a friend. That is huge for me. If they are bloggers they can blog. But tell a friend, it would be wicked.”
For those unable to make the ARGRA dinner, Straker is working on a Calgary date in the new year, so that we can all experience his unique humor and music firsthand and live.
