Mr Missy Discusses Time Away From Music, Why He’s Back, and Keeping it Simple

Vancouver Island-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Mr Missy, the alter ego of Marc Robichaud, recently released a new album, Looking For You, his first album following a 15-year hiatus from music.

Looking For You fuses elements of Americana, blues, folk, rock, and country western swing, along with an organic approach imbuing the album with vibrant rawness and fluidity. Crafted as a story, the songs on the album form a cohesive whole, telling the universal human tale of finding oneself.

To quote The Tubes, “This record you are now playing is another example of the completion backward principle; if you can possibly manage the time, please play both sides at one meeting.”

V13 spoke with Mr Missy to learn more about his journey, how he got started in music, his lengthy hiatus, and what brought him back to music.

What inspired your latest album, Looking For You?

Mr Missy: “I had a few songs kicking around and was courting Missy on weekends from another town. I had started sending her a song a week recorded on my phone with an old beach guitar starting with ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and I realized that I had found the joy of music again. I lived about a hundred miles away so driving from town to town I started writing songs inspired by Missy.

“And I quickly realized that the album really was about my journey to finding Missy, who had been a music buyer at our home base The Queen’s Hotel in Nanaimo BC. back in the day. Turns out she was what I was searching for all along. I had about 14 songs but pared it down to nine because I always liked J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories and these nine songs were the story.”

Walk us through your mindset as you recorded the album.

“Everybody that played on this album had worked or known Missy for a long time. I hadn’t seen some of these folks in forever, but we had all played together in different bands and worked together in studio sessions in the past. I wanted a sense of family that can’t be forced. They weren’t only performing for themselves or for me.

“Having done a lot of pre-production and demos, I knew the urgency I wanted to convey on the recording would be helped by the tension of never having played the songs together. So no rehearsals. Oh, and real drums!”

How did you get started in music?

“Like most folks of my vintage, I started in high school in a friend’s attic, ‘Tony’s bar and grill’ his dad used to say, weeks after getting my first electric guitar, playing punk music from the original wave like early Clash, Sex Pistols, and Black Flag. Eventually, I started learning all the wrong Beatles chords from some book and then found Jimi Hendrix. A few years later I went on the only audition of my career for a band called The Revolvers that was successful regionally. Soon after I joined the band we recorded a half dozen songs at the famed Mushroom Studios in Vancouver, BC. My first recording experience! That band eventually fizzled out and so I went to college for a few years to study jazz and music theory.”

Mr Missy ‘Looking For You’ album artwork

You took a 15-year hiatus from music. Why?

“After ten years of being a guitarist for hire and playing in show bands and blues and jazz festivals all the bread-and-butter gigs started drying up with the advent of DJs. After a few years of playing the cruise ships, I lost the joy. It had become a job. I believed in the power of music, but this wasn’t it and I knew I could have a more stable life with just about any other job. You’ve heard this before but I’m back now because like most musicians I play because I have to. The difference is that now it’s coming from a joyful place.”

What stimulated your return to making music?

“I always kept one beat-up acoustic guitar if I felt like writing or playing blues. I don’t think most musicians can ever fully stop playing. An old friend was managing a pub/bistro that he was turning into a musician hang-out and encouraged us to do our thing. So I got a few sets together and played my first gig in a very long time. That’s when I reconnected with Missy. I told her I loved her right then and there!

“I started taking it seriously when Canadian singer-songwriter Ryan McMahon hired me to play at the Northern Lights Festival in Canada a few years ago. Getting back on the boards felt great so here we are. In reality, without Missy as my muse, Mr Missy wouldn’t exist. She freed me to find my voice.”

Let’s talk gear for a moment. Which guitars, amps, and pedals are you currently using and why?

“I’ve never been a big gearhead. I subscribe to what Tom Waits said about instruments: ‘Just shake hands with them and see what comes out.’ Let the instrument have a say. Having said that, I do keep the action high on my guitars and big strings. I like the sound of the struggle on electric guitar. Acoustic guitars I try to make play a little easier. I have a Taylor that records very well that I used for the album. It’s a great ‘gentle’ guitar.

“For my electric guitar, I have a Gretsch Brian Setzer model from the 2000s that I paired with a MusicMan 212/75 from the ’80s, I believe. I strictly played that guitar and amp because it had a raw sound and the material switched through genres so that guitar was the thread holding the album together. Live I play acoustic through a Grace Designs Alix preamp/DI to an AER acoustic amp along with the Gretsch and MusicMan and a handful of analogue pedals.”

Are there any special recording techniques you use in the studio?

“You would have to ask engineer and co-producer Rick Salt about any technical aspects of recording but as far as special techniques my job was to allow the musicians to shine. Almost every song on the album is performed with at least two people at a time. I tracked the beds with Robert Grant on drums and Todd Sacerty on bass. Ken Ermter and I sang together throughout as if we were live.

“On ‘Porch Light,’ Rick played baritone guitar and I played the Gretsch together over the bed tracks. I think we got a take pretty quickly, but we were having so much fun we kept playing for a dozen takes or so. Trusting my fellow musicians and capturing actual performances was the key to this recording. Trusting that Rick would get the sounds so I could concentrate on casting the characters in the songs.”

How do you keep your sound consistent on stage?

“I’ve been playing mostly solo acoustic these days, so I find keeping things simple is best. Your stage sound is the only thing you can control from the outset. I send a signal to the front of the house from a Grace Designs DI and to an amp on stage. I don’t want guitar in my monitor or in my ears because now I’ve lost control of the EQ on stage. And when I have the opportunity to play in a band situation, I tend to surround myself with musicians more talented than myself.”

What inspires your writing? Do you draw inspiration from poems, music, or other media?

“Write what you know they say. I’m a confessional singer-songwriter for sure. Most of my songs are from real life or from real-life situations. Songs need to be true. Not necessarily factual because facts can be boring and too personal. As far as other inspiration I’d have to say the music of Texas and Louisiana and the rest of the American South and authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Bukovsky, and Mark Twain.”

What can you share about your writing process?

“Well, on this album I had one rule. I wouldn’t write anything down on paper or record myself until I could perform a song all the way through with voice and guitar. I wouldn’t recommend it; some songs took months to get to where I wanted them.

“The exception to that rule was ‘Your Way or The Highway.’ I had written the music and had the chorus, but I was stuck on the verses. I enlisted my friend Lindsey Martell to co-write the song and we decided to write it as if the great Dolly Parton was leaving you and singing about it. We wrote a lot of verses and found that there is a lot more nuance in writing lyrics in that voice than just changing out him for her and he for she.”

Which artists in your opinion are killing it right now?

“I’m a sucker for girls and guitars. Women and rock music. I don’t know anybody who rocks harder than Larkin Poe. The Beaches from Canada are great. H.E.R. blows me away. The young bluegrass groups like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle. Paramore’s last album is brilliant. I don’t think there’s ever been so much great music at one time, but it seems to have to overcome a tidal wave of mediocrity to be heard. I’m also very much looking forward to hearing the masterful Lucinda Williams’ new record.”

What can your fans look forward to over the next six months? Music videos? Live gigs?

“We’re going to put out a performance video of the band playing ‘The Story’ live later this summer and play around Vancouver Island. In the fall I’m hoping to do a tour of Western Canada. I’m about finished writing the next album and will be recording later this year. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do after such a long break, but the joy is back.”