Baby Eagle flies, Cons prepare third album

Constantines guitarist Steve Lambke talks about losing himself, playing with identity in his solo project

Steve Lambke’s solo project
Image supplied by: Supplied
Steve Lambke’s solo project

Steve Lambke has trouble with names. Despite this self-professed challenge, he has made one for himself in the world of Canadian music as a vocalist and guitarist for the Constantines. And he’s making headlines again with his solo side-project, an acoustic endeavor that seamlessly skates between blues, folk and rock influences, under the moniker of Baby Eagle.

“I was never good at naming things before, I never got excited about having names, but I like it now. I want to have lots of names. I think names are wonderful,” Lambke said. “Personality is something that involves a lot of self-creation. The more names you have, the more possibility you have for yourself.”

Calling what’s officially a solo project by an ambiguous title has also allowed Lambke to look outside himself and his own experience for inspiration and collaboration on the project.

The first, self-titled record was made in Winnipeg with the help of musicians Christine Fellows and Weakerthans-frontman John K. Samson. For Baby Eagle’s second album, No Blues, Lambke travelled to Sackville, N.S., where Shotgun Jimmie (of Shotgun & Jaybird) had just bought a big, empty farmhouse—the ideal location to record the low-fi album.

“I very much feel when I’ve collaborated with people that it’s been a collaboration—it’s not just my show. I like that Baby Eagle can refer to everybody I work with,” Lambke said.

Though the two records to date were made in very different places, with very different people, Lambke said giving each album a specific concept—like representing different parts of Canada, or finding different sounds—wasn’t his intention.

“Both going to Winnipeg and going to Sackville, they weren’t big conceptual ideas—they happened out of friendships and relationships that already existed. It wasn’t like an envisioned sort of approach; it’s just after the fact that I’ve started to understand why it’s worked for me and why I’d want to do something similar in the future,” he said.

Baby Eagle’s future is being put on the back burner for the next little while, as the harder-rocking Constantines prepare to release their long-awaited third album this spring (a 7-inch preview single is available now), and the band will be busy touring and promoting.

Though the Cons’ two-year recording hiatus gave Lambke the time he needed to write and record the Baby Eagle albums, he said his commitment to the Constantines won’t necessarily interfere with his solo work because the two projects are so different.

“I feel like when the Cons record comes out, I’ll be a little busy touring with that stuff, but I’m feeling kind of ready to start actively writing Baby Eagle stuff again as well. … I’m looking forward to the next year and what’s on the horizon,” he said.

“With Baby Eagle, there’s no pressure—no one waiting around for me to produce some stuff—it’s just me who’s directing it and my schedule to work around. I think there’s going to be time to do both.” Trying to keep a side project going while performing in another, better-known band comes with more complications than just scheduling conflicts.

For interviewers and fans alike, it can be difficult to separate the sometimes-frontman for the Constantines from the nervous harmonica player on Baby Eagle records.

“I think [the projects are] fairly removed. … They are obviously really different things; it only bugs me if someone only comes to check out Baby Eagle because they love the Constantines, and then they hate it. But that’s the sort of the nature of it, and it’s sort of unavoidable,” Lambke said.

“For the most part, I feel really comfortable with the fact that I’m doing both of those things—it’s starting to strike a nice balance for me personally.” Lambke’s been onstage since his high school days, when he played in a hardcore band called Captain Co-Pilot with Cons bandmate Dallas Werhle and music journalist Vish Khanna, but Baby Eagle is his first experience playing solo—something “completely different” for him.

“It’s more frightening, and the intent is just sort of different, the mood I’m trying to create is different, and so it’s a different headspace because I have to remember that the goal is not necessarily to ‘rock out’—the whole concept of what a good or a bad show is becomes really different,” he said.

While listening to his music, you’re not liable to forget that Lambke’s wearing his Baby Eagle hat—he even refers to the band’s name in the song “Baby Come Home.” It’s just another one of the ways Lambke dances around the public identities he plays with.

“I realized it wasn’t really a break-up song about another person, but that he’d lost track of himself, like a break-up with myself,” he said. “Which is an interesting thing to do when you’re going by an alias, and having different names for yourself and having essentially different personalities to go along with those names and what it means to separate all those things, and I think ultimately you don’t want to separate those things, you want to synthesize them all together.

“But it’s also just a rock and roll song.” Baby Eagle plays tonight at the Grad Club (162 Barrie St.) with Jim Bryson. Tickets are available at the venue for $12.

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content