Be still my heart

>> Rough, tough times gone by have made a masterful songwriter of WD-40’s Alex Jones

THIS TIME WITH PANACHE: WD-40

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Sitting there sharing a pitcher with Alex Jones, bassist and chief songwriter of Montreal’s WD-40, at a longstanding local watering hole, the thought strikes me that going back 10 years, this scene would’ve been all too familiar. Things have definitely changed in some ways—I can’t help but notice that this accomplished songwriter has mellowed with age, and the grey around his temple is starting to show. Jones and I probably both sat in the exact same seats, shouting over the din of college students a decade ago, but Jones—who is now on the cusp of 34 years of age—has become a songwriter who reaches beyond his years, plugging himself deep into the human condition and evolving into an expert storyteller.

The guy’s weathered mug and calloused hands reveal a hard life, but his perspective as a songwriter shows him making it safely out on the other side. Years ago, Jones, originally from Chicoutimi, wore his small-town upbringing on his sleeve, and was not shy to put up his dukes at the drop of a hat—the souvenirs of these late nights of carousing still hang under his eyes. The metamorphosed Jones who sits in front of me now, though, is a changed man. One only has to listen to WD-40’s new record St-Panache to hear his evolution, from punk-rock beginnings to the rough ’n’ tumble country sounds with lyrics that seem like they were scrawled next to an overflowing ashtray.

“I think it’s only natural that we sound the way we do,” says Jones. “As you get older, your heart rate slows down, and you want to hear music that is more in tune with your heart. When we were in the punk scene, it was always about politics and people fighting. Now, as a songwriter, I only want to dig deeper. In country music, there is an honesty about writing lyrics, and it creates a challenge. After being in a band for 13 years, you look forward to that challenge. Punk rock just got to be always about the same thing, and it just came time for me to do something else. My goal now, more than ever, is to affect people with words.”

You can hear Jones’s geared-down heartbeat in the slow swagger of WD-40’s twang and strum on songs like “La fin ville du monde” and “Les precipices,” and while the country influence is definitely there in spades, Jones and company still manage to come across as provocateurs, with electronic elements and traditional country instruments like slide guitars and violins pushed to a cinematic scope.

The one thing that will hit you in the gut immediately, though, is Jones’s lyrics, which bear the scars and shine through the polished veneer of the production work throughout St-Panache.

“I’m a hard-labour person and spend the days working with my hands. When I write, I get to use my head and my heart, so it’s something I want to do every day. Whether this band becomes popular or not, it’s not like I am ever going to stop, because this is music definitely coming from the heart—more so now than ever.”

With Yesterdays’s Ring and
Camionnette at Café Campus
on Wednesday, May 2, 8:30 p.m., $13.50