By choosing Fire It Up as the title for his latest record, Johnny Reid has never been more direct about what he wants to communicate to his audience. “My intent for this record was to say, ‘It’s a beautiful morning, so let’s get up, get out there and help someone. Let’s make a difference.”
Throughout his life and career, that conviction has guided Reid’s every move. He brings it to his songwriting, he brings to the stage night after night, and on Fire It Up, he brings it to life with more energy than ever before. “I’ve said this many times. The world is only what you make it, and even in the deepest of darkness, you have to find the light.”
That’s a sentiment Reid’s songs have often expressed, but never with more joy and clarity than on this, his second release on JMAC/EMI Records Canada, and follow up to 2010’s double platinum selling A Place Called Love.
Recorded at Studios in Nashville and Toronto, Fire It Up is an unwaveringly positive blend of soul, R&B, rock and country; a call to his fans to take the nearest stranger by the hand and throw a party in life’s honour that’s inspired in large part by his massively successful A Place Called Love tour.
That’s exactly where the idea for ‘Fire It Up’, the album’s title track and lead single came from, Reid says: “If there was any doubt in my mind about the strength of the human spirit, it was gone by the end of that tour. When I came off the road people said, ‘You must be exhausted’, but it was the exact opposite. I felt like I was just getting started, like I’d just got the kindling going.”
Making Fire It Up was a bit of a party in itself, Reid explains; one he invited some of his closest musical friends in the business to help him throw. “They say you’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with and I was very fortunate to be able to surround myself with some wonderful people.” Among them, co-writers and close friends Thom Hardwell (Natalie Grant, George Canyon), Nick Trevisick (Martina McBride, Tom Jones, The Stellas) and engineer/mixer, Kevin Killen (U2, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello).
On Fire It Up, Reid expands dramatically on his signature brand of R&B fuelled music – ramping up the rock with the express purpose of taking his already high-energy concerts to the next level. Not that Reid’s live show needs beefing up in the least. Since the release of his 2004 debut, Born To Roll, the Scottish born, Canadian bred singer/songwriter has shown repeatedly he’s willing to give his all and then some on stage. He is now one of Canada’s most in demand performers, with a capacity for selling out some of the nation’s largest venues, right to the rafters, and often for several nights running – that continues to grow.
At a time when many artists are struggling to sell records, Reid’s album sales have consistently increased – scanning more than 1 million units (total) to date and garnering him multiple JUNO Awards and nominations; including a 2012 Juno Award nomination for Single of the Year. Reid has also picked up several, Canadian Country Music Awards; including the Slaight Music Humanitarian Award, at the 2011 CCMA’s and the coveted CCMA Fan’s Choice Award for the past three years running.
With his latest release, Reid is only adding fuel to that fire – Offering up all out rockers like ‘Let’s Have A Party’ and ‘Yeah It’s All Right’; true blue country tracks such as ‘You Got Me’ and ‘Baby I Know It’ (featuring Canadian country icon, Carolyn Dawn Johnson), and a gospel tinged, rock and roll duet with fellow EMI Recording artist, Serena Ryder that’s sure to bring the house down on his next tour.
Reid knew exactly what he wanted to achieve sonically and lyrically well before he walked into the studio to record Fire It Up. “I really wanted to have a rejuvenation take place in the music; to beef up the bottom end on the drums and get a bigger sound. By the time we recorded – how we wanted these songs to sound, the solos, the instrumentation – that was all very clearly defined.”
“These are the songs I felt were missing on my last tour,” he says, adding that this is the first time he’s written a record with his live show so firmly in mind. More importantly, this is also the first time he’s taken on the role of producer for an entire record; a choice based largely on the fact that his vision for Fire It Up was so clear.
Fittingly, Reid wrote many of the songs for this record while touring; passing work tapes back and forth with Trevisick and Hardwell as he traveled in an effort to better hone in on the feel and emotional tone he wanted to capture on record.
In doing so, Reid has written and recorded an album with more sonic depth than any of his past efforts, featuring not only heavier drum sounds, but a decidedly more electric feel characterized by a steady, celebratory pulse that underscores even the most delicate of songs.
While he’s broadened his musical palette substantially, he’s also taken care to ensure Fire It Up maintains the integrity and honesty of his previous records, and depended heavily on the musical elements that are a hallmark of his sound. The blazing Hammonds, punchy horn arrangements and rich orchestral textures are all still there. In addition, on standout ballads like ‘Dedicated To You’, Reid picks up the thread of past hits such as ‘Thank You’ by offering his gratitude to his wife and family, as well as to everyone who has given him their unceasing love and support over time.
“Even though we’ve touched a lot of people’s hearts and made a lot of friends across the country, there’s people we haven’t reached yet. I wanted to make sure that if this was the record that they picked up there was a strong sense of who I am on the record and that it told my story.”
To do so Reid makes a nod to his Scottish heritage with album closer, ‘Till We Meet Again’, which features the Toronto, Ontario Police Pipe Band. However, it’s the track ‘Right Where I Belong’ that lays out his personal story in the most detail. “For Fire It Up I wanted to write a song that tells my story, that talks about the day that I left Scotland for Canada and landed on a maple leaf, the day that I met my wife in Lennoxville and the life and love she’s given me.” Although clearly autobiographical, as so many of his songs have done before, ‘Right Where We Belong’ also encourages listeners to find their own experiences between the lines and to celebrate them without reservation.
All that said, there have been dark times for Reid – professionally and personally. A Place Called Love was very much about beginnings and ending, hope and heartache, and was inspired as much by his joy at the impending birth of his fourth child as by the hole in his life left by the passing of his beloved grandmother.
The intensity of those emotions and the contrast between them prompted Reid to give more thought to his own legacy while writing Fire It Up, he says. “The one thing that we know for sure is that we’re going to leave this world, so the question is, what are you going to leave behind? I know for sure that I want to leave the best of me behind.”
That, more than anything is the ethic Johnny Reid took to writing and recording Fire It Up. “By the end of the record I want people to have a positive feeling about life and the world we live in – to say, ‘If it is love that makes the world go round then let’s make it go faster? Let’s have a party. Let’s Fire It Up.”
Sheila Lewis
Johnny Reid is just SIMPLY AMAZING.
Dale Anne Potter
TICKETS bought, hotel booked – ROAD TRIP & CONCERT going to be AWESOME!!!