This article was originally published on beingtheremag.com, an independent music and film magazine that ran from 2004 to 2007. It is presented here as part of the Being There Magazine archive.
By Adam Anklewicz | Being There Magazine, October 2005
One of the latest entries on the film festival circuit is Michael Mabbott’s directorial debut, The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, the story of a little known 70s country-rock star. Making its premiere at Austin’s famous South-by-Southwest music festival, Guy Terrifico had people wondering if it was a real documentary or not. Terrifico’s life is completely fictional, but dips deep enough into the mythology of that era that it has a familiarity to the audience that rings true. The title character, portrayed by Matt Murphy, is an amalgamation of the heroes of 70s country-rock and takes a large sampling from former Byrd Gram Parsons’ life.
With an upcoming theatrical release of Guy Terrifico coming at the end of this month, Matt Murphy and I spoke over the phone while he was in his hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia promoting the film and performing with one of his many bands, City Field. Murphy has been an integral part of Atlantic Canada’s music scene ever since his band The Super Friendz made a splash with critics and pop fans alike.
One fateful day, Murphy received a call from director Michael Mabbott. “I was really tired,” said Murphy. “I let him talk to me and I told him I’d call him back. I wasn’t sure what it all meant, then I thought about it, talked to him a bit more and it became exciting. He started talking about the music and at the end of the conversation he told me he was also hoping to be able to cast me in the lead if I was interested.”
The colourful character of Guy Terrifico was a northern Albertan who only wanted to make music, hang out with musicians, get stoned and get drunk. His happiest times were sitting around with a bottle of booze, a guitar and singing his heart out with his love, Mary Lou (Natalie Radford). Not long after Terrifico started recording his album, he won the lottery. Terrifico put his album on the back burner to start his own club as an excuse to party with his favourite musicians.
“Michael liked my bands, The Super Friendz and The Flashing Lights. When he went to school in Halifax, he had seen me do country music. He caught my group Little Orton Hoggett and his Ten Cent Wings and I think he realized it would be a good fit.” Little Orton Hoggett and his Ten Cent Wings was a country band that Murphy had started that performed covers of artists such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, “a lot of Johnny Horton, a little bit of Johnny Cash because I can’t sing that low. [Mabbott] wasn’t connected to the musician scene in any way and given his field of vision I stood out. I led a country band and he liked my pop music. He took a bit of a gamble on me. He came to me with five or six songs that he had written. I looked at them and played them myself, and made some comments.”
Murphy had been looking to do something new. He had been working on films doing music and wrote the theme for a CBC television series, The Tournament, which is about kids’ hockey. “It was more of a question of how would I do getting in front of a camera and talking. It was a challenge to begin with, it was a colourful character, that’s for sure, but I didn’t know if that would be good or bad. The script was funny, and I liked the way it weaved the interviews with the action. The thing that attracted me was the music; I wanted to make that kind of music.”
Murphy’s fans would be surprised to find out how long the pop songsmith has been listening to and involved in country music. Though his father listened to a lot of country and bluegrass, Murphy really started when his brother had a radio show on Halifax’s CKDU. “He did this country show and when his co-host left I took over. He was the Coonskin Kid and I was Little Orton Hoggett. We would read the newspaper to each other and make fun of it in the roles of southern guys, ignorant but with a decent vocabulary. When he left, I kept the show going and I started playing shows based on my radio character. He sort of got me into country music, having to play it and pick out songs for the radio show.”
The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico cuts between archival footage (usually shot by Terrifico’s midget friend Reggie, played by Jordan Prentice) and modern-day interviews with his contemporaries such as Ronnie Hawkins, Kris Kristofferson and Levon Helm. Also included is musicologist Rob Bowman helping to give the film an air of believability, and modern day country-rockers Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo.
Among the cast is Phil Kaufman, former manager of Gram Parsons, who plays Terrifico’s manager. Most people know of Kaufman for stealing Parsons’ corpse, driving it to The Joshua Tree National Monument and setting it on fire. In this film, it’s still unsure if Terrifico is actually alive after friend and manager Kaufman stole his corpse. “I didn’t want to be confused with Gram Parsons, the myth is too strong to my contemporaries. We had a lot of other people that we wanted to have influenced it, but it’s kind of hard and irresistible because the music is so fantastic. We were going for, Townes Van Zandt mixed with The Rolling Stones, it was on our minds for sure, and more of a way to play it down rather than play it up. We knew what was in the text, but we wanted to play against it as well.” Murphy even started a list of ways that Terrifico is similar to Parsons, they both wear nudie suits with pot leaves on them, they both brought country together with rock ‘n’ roll and they even appear in a photo together in the film.
Those who have seen Matt Murphy perform live will know that he’s one big ball of energy: guitars are flung into the air, he’ll frequently jump off of the drum kit and do anything that the energy of rock ‘n’ roll will bring him to. “I think it’s just a larger picture of what I do in everyday life, super-exaggerated.” His live act prepared him for this role. Watching Terrifico live on stage is Murphy’s act multiplied by ten. When Murphy started performing, he was basically just like everyone else: “you stare at your feet, cautiously stare at the audience, going up to a microphone, looking at the end of it and basically crossing your eyes. Once I did Little Orton Hoggett and his Ten Cent Wings, that was a real persona, he was very different than me, exaggerating some uglier, nastier side of myself. It allowed me to experiment with performing in a way that I couldn’t if I was performing my own songs or playing guitar on someone else’s.”
Eventually, bits of Little Orton Hoggett came into his act with The Super Friendz and The Flashing Lights. Over time however, Murphy has matured and calmed down, while still being able to channel his old self for the role of Terrifico. “I’m different now, if I’m playing a country song now, it’s all about getting the vocals and connecting with people as opposed to jumping away from the mic and throwing my guitar in the air.”
Murphy enjoyed the experience of The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico so much that he’d jump at the opportunity to do another film. He enjoyed getting to meet some legends such as Donnie Fritts and Stephen Bruton during the production. It wasn’t until he arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival, however, that Murphy got a chance to meet with legend Kris Kristofferson, who plays a large role in the film. The one person he truly wants to meet from the film is Merle Haggard.
Matt Murphy has been a part of the music scene since the mid-90s when with Charles Austin, Drew Yamada and various drummers, The Super Friendz released their debut album Mock Up, Scale Down. Their pop was a fit with the entire Halifax scene of the 90s and with help from Sloan, The Super Friendz found their audience quickly. After the 1997 release of Slide Show the band broke up and Murphy formed The Flashing Lights.
Henri Sangalang, Steve Pitkin and Gaven Dianda became Murphy’s backing band for The Flashing Lights, a high energy, 60s-influenced rock band playing all Murphy originals and making a huge impact on the Toronto pop scene. All tambourines were in danger when The Flashing Lights were in town due to Dianda’s over enthusiastic performance. The abnd releasing their debut Where The Change Is in 1999, and followed up with 2001’s Sweet Release. As Murphy sang on that album, “We’re the kings of the Canadians now”. They broke up before Murphy rejoined The Super Friendz and The Flashing Lights show “no signs of life, it just felt like the music style we were on ran its course for me. It wasn’t really doing it for me any more. I’m pretty proud of it and I would recommend people listen to it.”
The reformed Super Friendz, now joined by Dave Marsh on drums, went on tour with Jet and recorded a new album, Love Energy. “We made a cool raw record last time, and we’ll probably end up making an interesting folk acoustic EP coming up soon. I know Charles [Austin] has been, with Buck 65, playing a lot of acoustic stuff. All of us write our songs acoustic, hopefully we’ll do it. We’re talking about recording in December.”
“The Super Friendz are a group of songwriters basically who get together every two years and make noise. I can’t describe the Super Friendz – it’s like my family, and it’s not going anywhere,” said Murphy, unsure of how to describe something that has been an important part of his life for over 10 years.
Late last year, Murphy released a new EP with Gregg Millman, Mitchell Wiebb, Brent Randall and Dave Ewenson. Authentic City was the debut of City Field, a big departure from everything else Murphy had done before. Self described as “The Fall mixed with The Everly Brothers. They’re really an awesome bunch of people who are real collaborators, we write 90 songs a minute.” City Field just played a couple of shows in Halifax and at the Montreal Pop Festival. “We are split between two cities, it’s kind of hard to get people together. It’s actually a really fun show to play live and I think people get into it. I sometimes worry people expect something from me, because it’s quite different. It’s really catchy but it’s got more discordant elements and more chaos. It takes a little adjustment, but I’m super excited about it.”
The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico will be released theatrically in some markets on October 28, 2005. Check out http://www.cityfield.ca to see upcoming tour dates.