Lennie Gallant is no stranger to pondering and being inspired by the larger questions in life, and that includes the paranormal.
From selkies to ghosts to haunted ships, Gallant has and continues to write and sing about them all, with a plan to perform some of his spookier songs for his Halloween night performance in Nanoose Bay on Wednesday, Oct. 31.
Taking place at the Nanoose Library Hall (2489 Nanoose Rd.), Gallant will perform many songs from his new album released this August called Time Travel — his first studio album in nine years.
It’s appropriately titled, given the variety of coincidences that helped to make the album what it is today.
“It seemed to be an album full of coincidences in many ways,” said Gallant.
Inspired by science and political news to write and sing about things like the universe and our place in it, or the environment or time, Gallant found that news headlines would often offer up stories relating to the song he was working on that day.
Another coincidence was the release of Gallant’s song, Selkie (feat. Mary Jane Lamond), as a single.
The story of the song takes place during a blood moon, said Gallant, and the day he happened to release the song (with no prior knowledge of his own, he said), happened to be the day of the longest blood moon this century.
It also happened that, while recording that song, Gallant remembers a band he had met four years ago: The Fretless. “I was thinking, God it would be great to have The Fretless play on this song,” he said. Looking them up, Gallant found that not only were they touring in Nova Scotia that day, but that they had the next day off.
“So they came by and played on the album. It was amazing. It was beautiful what they added to it,” he said.
“Things like that were happening all the time with this album. I felt that we were definitely in the right place at the right time, and everything that was happening was meant to be.”
Some coincidences are not so fortuitous.
Gallant noted a song called Tales of the Phantom Ship from his first album, which, while popular, has been causing him problems for years.
“It was a song about a ghost ship that supposedly sails the waters between Prince Edward Island and the mainland,” said Gallant. “I’d heard stories about this fire ship for years, and of course I just thought it was a fanciful tale, but it was such a colourful story that I decided to write a song about it.”
Since then, Gallant has heard 91 accounts from different people saying they’ve seen this ship.
“They describe it in great detail, and some of their accounts are really quite amazing, quite engaging,” he said.
But what actually concerned Gallant was the various incidents that would occur while he played the song.
“For years when we played it, bizarre things would happen,” he said, ranging from thunderstorms, windstorms and rainstorms kicking up during the song, to power outages, dropped lights and more. It got to the point where Gallant would only ever finish a performance with the song, for fear of what it might do to the rest of the set if he played it any earlier.
While Gallant attributes much of this paranormal activity as being channelled by a violin player that he used to perform with, he said odd things do still occur when he plays it.
He intends to perform the song, and many more of his spookier tunes, at the Oct. 31 concert in Nanoose Bay. He’ll also feature much of his new album, which, a bit more than in previous albums, has Gallant pondering some of life’s bigger questions.
Some about humanity’s time on the planet, our place in the universe and others.
“In this particular climate that we’re, both real and political, I think a lot of people are suddenly thinking about how fragile our existence is here,” Gallant said. “ I think it’s kind of a scary time at the moment where many people are bent on being rather myopic in their view of the world, and myopic in their view of how we treat the place.”
“I think a lot of people are really opening up to how much more care we need to take with the planet, and yet… there’s leaders that are heading in totally the opposite direction.
“It’s a very bizarre situation that’s happening right now, and so I think some of those larger questions about what exactly are we doing here anyway are coming to the forefront, especially when you’re writing about things or trying to create something artistically.”
But some ideas are kicked off by much simpler things, like a quiet walk in Cathedral Grove which got Gallant thinking of the Sequoia trees in California, leading to his new song Sequoia.
Tickets to Gallants Oct. 31 concert are $35 and can be purchased at Cranky Dog Music in Parksville, Rufus’ Island Guitar Shop in Parksville, and Arbutus Music in Nanaimo. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Gallant will also be performing in Campbell River on Oct. 30. For more info, go to lenniegallant.com/tour.