P.E.I. songwriter Nathan Wiley gets help in producing 3rd record

Friday, Jun 1, 2007  |  Steve Macleod, Canadian Press

HALIFAX (CP) - After producing his first two albums on his own, Nathan Wiley figured the time had come for a fresh set of ears and ideas.

So the singer-songerwriter from Summerside, P.E.I., enlisted the help of Steve Berlin, multi-instrumentalist for the L.A. Latino band Los Lobos, for his newest CD, "The City Destroyed Me," released nationally this week.

"The first time around was out of necessity," Wiley explained recently by phone from his Island home. "I did the first record on my own, between me and the engineer, without really know what I was doing.

"The second time around Steve expressed an interest but the scheduling just didn't work out. But this time I was really ready. It felt right to bring a producer on board and I'm really glad I did.

"I really, really like everything about this album."

It's Wiley's most musically ambitious and adventurous release to date - a collection of diverse and often dark observances about life and love.

While he waited for a hole in Berlin's busy schedule, Wiley penned between 40 and 50 songs that were eventually pared to the 13 that were laid down during a whirlwind two-week session at Halifax's Sonic Temple studio last fall.

The 30-year-old Islander said he felt comfortable after years of doing everything on his own to hand over a lot of the creative decisions to Berlin, whose production credits include works by The Tragically Hip and Rickie Lee Jones.

"It was kind of back and forth, though," said Wiley. "We each made a wish list of 15 songs that we had whittled down, and right away some of the same songs popped up on each list.

"I really thought, and he did too, that there were a lot of different records in that pile. But he had a pretty clear vision of something that was a little edgier and a little weirder and lyrically darker. And I was ready for that."

One of the darkest songs is the title track, which was inspired by a year Wiley spent busking in Vancouver as a 19 year old.

For a kid from the bucolic streets of small-town P.E.I., life amid the junkies and hookers of Vancouver's notorious Downtown East Side was eye-opening in the extreme.

So did it destroy him?

"A little, yeah," he conceded. "When I moved out there I was pretty young and it was pretty overwhelming. There was a lot thrown at me at once and I felt eaten up by the size of it, which is where a lot of that song came from."

Wiley eventually returned home and began work on the material that became his 2002 debut "Bottom Dollar," a release that earned him widespread critical praise and an East Coast Music Award for alternative album of the year.

He followed it up two years later with "High Low."

The early critical response the new album has been good.

But then, Wiley's uncle, Tom, could have told him that.

After hearing rough mixes of the album earlier this year, Tom left a humorous and expletive-filled review on his nephew's answering machine after a few too many pops one night.

"The thing I like about this CD is the way it bounces around to different styles - it never gets boring," Tom slurred in his rambling early-morning ode. "But I'm probably prejudiced. And plus I'm drunk. You've got to take that into account."

Tom's review, which was recorded over five calls because the answering machine kept cutting him off, was posted for a while on Wiley's website www.nathanwiley.com.

"He's pretty hard to embarrass," Wiley said with a laugh about his decision to let the world hear his uncle's rant.

"He's the type of guy to let you know if he likes something, but it was little out of character to call in the middle of the night after having a few."

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