Cam Penner spent time working with the homeless in detox and 12-step centres.
Local songwriter Cam Penner comes home to his music
Despite having an absolute passion for his job Calgary’s Cam Penner began to burn out after working with the homeless population in detox and 12-step centres for 15 years. With the ghosts of the thousands of people he has interacted with resonating within him he picked up his guitar and took his stories on the road. “I needed to be with that subculture” says Penner. “That was the foundation to who I am and it comes out in my music.” At 31 he packed it all in and moved to London England got a booking agent and toured between London and California for almost a year only stopping to record his 2006 release It Felt Like a Sunday Night. The recording of the album brought Penner and his London sweetheart back to Calgary where he picked up what work he could find in order to buy a van which they used to tour for seven months in 2007. They made their way through the country down to the Midwest and ended up in New Orleans playing every house show or bar they could; they hit 29 dates in 30 days during the last leg of the tour. The tour brought forth a plethora of new songs which found their way onto 2009’s Trouble and Mercy. Penner used the months it took to record the album as an opportunity to lay low and recoup before he went back on the road touring in Europe and Canada. After opening a few doors while on the tour Penner came into possession of a Gretsch drum kit from the ’70s which he couldn’t keep his hands off of. “I got tired of playing guitar” says Penner. “People usually switch to piano to write songs but I couldn’t get enough of this drum kit. I got really into Motown R&B and underground hip hop. I was really intrigued with the beats and couldn’t stop playing my drums to this stuff.” Penner took his new influences his drum kit and all the money he could scrape together to an old ranch he had always wanted to record an album in. With wolves howling outside at night no cellphones and no interruptions a new album started to form. He invited musicians over to soak in the culture of the ranch and play on the record. “We were just being a part of it day and night” says Penner. “We were living and breathing the album. No music was allowed to be played except the music on the album. It was two weeks of recording from song one to song 11. We even mixed everything in order. I was a bit neurotic about it.” The result was Penner’s newest offering Gypsy Summer which with numerous influences and contributors is a highly accessible album. “I’m 36 years old and I don’t know what cool is anymore” says Penner. “But I think this album is cool. It’s a timeless album. Twenty years from now you can put it on and think ‘Fuck that’s good.’”
