A Dirty Dozen with RICHARD MOODY from TOBACCO & ROSE – May 2025

Photo credit: Stasia Garraway

According to a recent press release: “Victoria, British Columbia-based folk/Americana singer-songwriter Richard Moody is set to release a solo project – Tobacco & Rose – on April 25, 2025. A 30-year veteran of the Canadian music scene, Moody has toured the world with such luminaries as Deva Premal, Miten, The Wailin’ Jennys, Steven Fearing, and The Bills. Tobacco & Rose – both the band name and the album name – is a collection of songs inspired in part by experience with psychedelic and medicinal plants from the Amazon and the Pacific Northwest. Moody imbues the music he makes as Tobacco & Rose with meaning that uplifts and inspires. The lyrics speak of a spirituality grounded in the natural world, in the body, and in authentic practice. At the same time, the musical aspect draws from more traditional western influences, ranging from the counterpoint of J. S. Bach to the chord progressions of a golden age of popular song. They feature Moody’s sophisticated finger-style acoustic guitar approach and owe a debt to the lineage of ’60s and ’70s greats like Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell.” We get Richard to discuss new music, influences, and more…

1. Tell us a little about your latest release. What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through? Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Hey there! Well, these songs all have a kind of folky / spiritual angle, relating to love of nature, rewilding, embodied spiritually. I hope there’s something authentic, healing, and hopeful about them. At the same time, I think there’s a lyrical and harmonic sophistication to them that will keep listeners interested over several listens. A lot of the songs are inspired by the use of ayahuasca and the use of plants as medicine. The listener may or may not perceive that some of the songs are inspired directly by, and in reverence of, a specific individual plant.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

Well, my mom was a music teacher, and she got me started on piano. In fifth grade I joined a violin program and later studied viola at a classical conservatory in France. My mom bought me my first guitar for my sixteenth birthday. I was humming and singing from my early years, and I was pretty sure I wanted to be a string-player as a teen, but when, as a young adult, I wrote my first song and played it for folks, I felt a certain kind of elation, and I was hooked.

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

So many. My taste is varied. I grew up on Bach, and he influenced my sense of harmony. But in terms of songwriting, I guess it’s kind of clichéd, but I am probably most influenced by the greats of the 60’s and 70’s. Dylan, in particular, has a kind of shamanic ability to transcend and transport. And Joni Mitchell was really sophisticated in her composition. Hejira, and even later albums like Turbulent Indigo, really turned me on.

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

Madison Cunningham rocks, and I think she would probably like my writing if I could ever get it to her ears. She’s just an incredible instrumentalist and singer.

5. What is your favorite activity when out of the studio and/or not on tour? What do you like to do to unwind?

I actually like to meditate and do yoga and awareness practices. I spent a few years studying yoga in India. I follow various Buddhist teachers: Robina Courtin, Reggie Ray. And I love tennis: love to play it, love to watch it.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?

I get compared to Nick Drake a lot, and I don’t completely disagree. I got compared to Sting once, and I mostly disagreed.

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Well, I play mostly solo, so I guess the answer is me on all counts, lol.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

I was completely alone backstage with Bob Weir at Hardly Strictly in San Francisco, and I couldn’t bring myself to say hi, or to get a selfie to show my avid Deadhead friends. Joni Mitchell came out to a show I was playing with her ex once, and I did talk to her for a bit, but I was still starstruck.

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

Self-expression. However I might sometimes tire of the self-promotion of it all, I love creating, composing, improvising. If I were to choose another career, it would be something where I was of service to people’s healing/awareness journey, like a meditation teacher or the like.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

This is a new project, so I’m not tired of answering questions yet. I’d be touched if any interviewer or listener asked about the heart of the songs, and how they are actually hopefully leading to heart. Heart-opening, I might hope.

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

There’s probably a hundred instances, but what’s the point? I think we have to accept where we are and start from there.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

Hard question, and I’m not really a history buff in that sense, but the early Django Reinhardt recordings. They were all around one or two mics, and it just goes to show that advanced technology is not required to capture magic on recording. Or Kind of Blue. Or Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle. Or Nina Simone. Or Blonde on Blonde.

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Category: Interviews