More than 30 years into his musical jour-
ney, Stephen Fearing shows no signs of
slowing down. And that’s a good thing.
With no roots, but rather one foot al-
ways on the move, the songwriter recently
relocated from one coast of Canada to an-
other. After living in Halifax, NS for a while,
it was time for a change, and so he packed
his bags and he and his wife moved to
Victoria, BC, where they bought a fixer-
upper, circa 1910; shortly thereafter, his
creativity was awakened. It was time to
write another solo record to follow up
2013’s Between Hurricanes.
“We bought [the house], closed the
front door, and said, ‘That’s enough for
now,’” Fearing recalls. “There were boxes
everywhere and there was nowhere to
write. I had a couple of bits, but nothing.
So I ended up at the Banff Centre [for Arts
and Creativity] for one week and ended
up talking my way into being there for an
extra week with no responsibilities … that
Stephen Fearing
is what started the writing process.”
Then, in March of last year, Peter
North, a long-time DJ at Edmonton’s CKUA
and now the artistic director at the Salmon
Arm Roots Festival, offered Fearing his
cabin in Wells, BC – a small mining town
in the middle of the province. During this
fortnight in the woods is when the magic
started, and it was all fuelled by his electric
guitar.
The result is his ninth solo offering,
Every Soul’s a Sailor, released this past Janu-
ary. I met Fearing in between a cross-coun-
try tour with Blackie & The Rodeo Kings.
C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N • 55