NDP MP Charlie Angus performs at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern. Through his two decades in Parliament, Angus continued to perform with the band the Grievous Angels.Raul Rincon/Supplied
Because singer-songwriter Charlie Angus has been the New Democratic Party MP for the Timmins-James Bay riding in Ontario for 20 years, his long-running alt-country band has often been on hiatus. No more: Angus has announced his political retirement and the Grievous Angels just released Last Call for Cinderella, its first album in three years. He spoke to The Globe from Ottawa, in advance of a concert at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern on Sunday.
You announced your retirement as an MP around the same time you announced the new Grievous Angels’ album. Was the timing coincidental?
We were planning to do the record for some time. The Grievous Angels have always been there during my political career – sometimes more, sometimes less. In the last four years we’ve begun to do more. With the new lineup of the band, it’s exciting. It was serendipitous.
I’ve read that one of the reasons you’re retiring is the redrawing of your riding’s boundaries, which added 20,000 square kilometres. True?
I think I came to realize, having given 20 years, living almost entirely on Highway 11 and with all those little towns I was representing, that it was a long time to serve in politics. It meant I wasn’t able to do other things that were always an important part of my life. Music has always been there. The Grievous Angels have played more than 30 years together. But I felt with the bigger riding I would have to make a choice, because there would be weekends I couldn’t play at the Horseshoe Tavern. Music is crucial to what I am. Songs can take you in a direction a political speech can’t.
Your music is political. Are protest songs received differently today than when you began your political career?
There is a huge level of uncertainty today. Artists need to be the ones who are trying to make sense of that. The folk music tradition has been a means of telling stories, so that we can reflect on the situation we’re in and how we can get out of it. Today, I guess I’m writing songs for the dystopian age.
There’s a line in the song This is How the City Falls about trust being a fragile thread. Is trust in the media and institutions and politicians fragile, or is it broken?
I’ve always believed what made us different from the United States was a sense of reasonableness. But what really struck me over the last few years is how much toxic disinformation and rage politics have made a home in Canada. That song is parable of our times. If things fall apart, it’s not going to be from some outside force. It’s going to be because we let it fall apart. The song is a plea to remember that what we have is really precious, but also very fragile.
Is the song’s doo-wop setting a sign of optimism?
[Laughs] I’ve been listening to a lot of 1950s music. I just felt there was a better way to present the song than an angry protest song or a hurtful protest song. The chord progression is a different way to hear the lyrics, and to reflect on them.
You’ve re-recorded an old song, Friday Night, with a line about a new world waiting and a brand new day. Are you confident about that these days?
I’m a big believer in it. That optimism keeps me going. I wrote Friday Night many years ago when I was in my 20s and working on the streets of Toronto with people with addictions. That line came to me when I was talking with a working class neighbour. She told me she and her honey were going to stay home on a Friday night. It was their second Friday night sober and she was proud of herself. I thought it was a beautiful image.
Why re-record it though?
I actually thought we did a pretty good version back in 1993. But as I get older I realize how hard it is to keep love going. It’s a song of hope and hard times.
Aren’t all your songs?
Absolutely. One of the great things about the Grievous Angels is that I can take people to a place that sometimes I can’t with politics. In politics today, words are devalued. But there’s something about a song and putting a show together and the banter and engagement and watching people get up and dance. You can create an atmosphere of hope, which is something the Grievous Angels have always done.
And the band has survived. Is that what The Last Wedding Band is about?
We’ve never made any money. Why are we still doing it? Because for us the audience is sometimes the show and we’re the audience. When we were in a country bar in Northern Ontario, we were witnessing how they spend their weekend after a week at work. We’re celebrating people and their struggles. And I’m much more interested writing about their struggles than talking about mine.
This interview has been edited and condensed.