A lot of songwriters like to think of themselves as storytellers. But Andy Shauf is someone who truly deserves the title.
Over the past half-dozen years, the Saskatchewan-raised, Toronto-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has made a name for himself with narrative concept albums like 2016’s The Party and 2020’s Neon Skyline. With his eighth studio album Norm, Shauf raises the bar again with a beautifully creepy tale of romance, obsession and misguided faith influenced by the pandemic, true crime TV and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, among other things. For my money, it’s the more compelling work of his career so far — which is saying something if you’ve heard his other albums, and even more impressive for a disc that wasn’t supposed to be a concept album in the first place. A couple of weeks before the album arrived, Shauf Zoomed in to talk about his literary aspirations, taking Norm on the road, whether everything’s OK and plenty more. Enjoy. Oh, and spoiler alert: While we don’t give everything away during our discussion, we do talk about some of the album’s plot points and themes. So govern yourself accordingly.
