Jeff Hardill (centre) and the Fiftymen add " a healthy soupcon of resignation" to the mix photo: Aaron McKenzie Fraser

"Yes, bitterness," he says with a laugh, taking a moment to reflect upon the iconic vision of Johnny Cash sticking it to the man. "With a healthy soupcon of resignation. I've certainly felt my share of that."

The soft-spoken Hardill, not given to Cash-style displays of hostility, appears to be anything but bitter these days, and with good reason: Hockey's back (announcers yammer away on a nearby TV); Fiftymen's sophomore effort Balances and Sums is finally finished; and a three-week western tour beckons (alongside The High Dials, The Sadies and Jon Spencer's Heavy Trash), to be followed by a jaunt back east and throughout southern Ontario.

Still, one had to wonder about frustration in the ranks. It's been well over three years since Fiftymen-Hardill, Mark Michaud (guitar), Todd Gibbon (guitar), Jake Bryce (drums), Keith Snider (banjo/fiddle) and Michael Houston Hanlon (bass)-unleashed a dusty debut, the full-blooded After Darkfall, a period marked by highs (jam-packed headline shows), lows (a handful of near misses jockeying for label support), and everything in between. Hardill insists the band never wavered.

"We have so much fun doing this, and we haven't really pursued it as a business venture," he says, adding the band has plans to change all that, with a strong push behind this new record.

"So the few little ups and downs, the roller coaster of excitement when someone is interested and it just doesn't work out, didn't really weigh on everyone. It's not like Bruce Springsteen between Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. It's not like that for us."

So why the long wait? Multiple factors: minor scheduling issues (Bryce heading the Recoilers, Hanlon spending time with Werbo) and obvious financial considerations were involved. But in the end, Fiftymen-not "the most prolific writers in the world," admits Hardill-simply decided to take some sweet time, making sure "the songs were all we could make them.

"We wanted to concentrate on the arrangements and polish the material before we went into the studio," he explains, noting the songs were "deconstructed and put back together" rather than captured entirely live off the floor and left that way.

"Personally, that's something I'd like to see more of from bands, you know? Taking the time to actually have their shit together, and get it right."

The strategy paid off in the alternately sweet and savage twang of Balances and Sums, a full-blooded roots ride of heart churners ("Can't Walk Away"), lung-shredding gut burners ("Try To Hide"), hazy back porch shuffles ("New Mexico") and hurtin' tunes ("You Blame Me") that say plenty and feel even more.

Though many new traditionalists before them-everyone from Joe Pernice and Jay Farrar to Rhett Miller, Jeff Tweedy and Ryan Adams-felt compelled to dip their feet in pop after several roots-tinged releases, Fiftymen, according to Hardill, never "had that impulse to shed the country skin.

"We don't feel limited by the traditional form because we're not working within the definition of the form," he says, citing the influence of Snider, the band's newest member, for an even more dug-in rustic, sepia-toned sound the six-men have managed to fine-tune.

"But we don't sit down and talk about our direction. I just think that more thought has gone into the arrangements, and it's a little fuller than the verse-chorus-verse type tunes that were on the first record."

Featuring songwriting by nearly every member, the 12-track set recorded last January in Dave Drave's Little Bullhorn Studios marks a shift in perspective for the band. Where After Darkfall was consumed with fresh pain and circumstance, from one-upmanship with "that damn Jimmy Turner" to menacing murder ballads where a conflicted soul weighed "the subtleties of my sin," Balances and Sums deals more with consequence, wandering down "long desert highways," conscious of lost time and how much more remains.

In short, the new record comes across as Fiftymen's collective middle finger to mortality, a Cash-like kick at life's footlights, its cast of fed-up characters either stuck in purgatory or determined to make a move, no longer willing to "go through the motions.

"That seemed to be on everyone's mind, at least subconsciously," says Hardill, reflecting on the thread of impermanence that runs throughout the set. "I know for me personally, I had gone through a couple of experiences in that respect, and those were in the forefront of my mind. I always think of the great mortality record as Bone Machine by Tom Waits. Balances and Sums is a half way to that."

FIFTYMEN CD RELEASE PARTY
W/ CAMP RADIO
FRIDAY OCTOBER 14 AT 9 P.M., $10 ADV
BARRYMORE'S
 
 

		Write your comment on this article! and win tokens

Fiftymen     I have been lucky enough to have had access to a promo copy of Balances+Sums and I can't stop playing it. I know that people say that, but literally it's been on repeat for 13 or so rounds already. I've already had 3 different favourites. Can't wait to see them Friday night!!
Janet Copple		October 13th, 2005

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