Saying goodnight to nobody: This debut album has been a long time coming

In the title track on his debut album, Goodnight Nobody, Dicky sings, "We're in the eye of the storm, things are a little bit muddy."

As he talks about the process of making the album, it becomes clear that his personal storms may have provided the conditions he needed to bring his original songs into the world.

"I'm famous for never finishing things," he said.

After decades of performing, Andrew Strickland, known on stage and to his friends as Dicky, says he had been planning to create a solo album for at least 15 years.

"I started so many albums that I didn't finish," he said.

The 37-year-old from Carbonear is no stranger to the stage, beginning with award-winning piano performances as a child and later moving on to guitar and bass. He has played with Newfoundland bands like Sonny Tripp and the Long Distance Runners and also plays guitar on Natasha Blackwood's debut album, Ease Back.

A rock album grounded in country influences

The songs on Goodnight Nobody evoke moods reminiscent of REM and Beck, but Strickland says he took his primary inspiration from "a lot of old country music that I was listening to around the fire on camping trips in the summers."

He identifies John Prine, Colter Wall, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris and Kacey Musgraves as his driving influences while writing his material.

The 10 songs on the album were chosen from a group of 15 original songs written in 2020 and recorded in 2021.

Strickland said they deal with "themes of loss, whether it be the loss of a relationship, a loss through death or the loss of a sense of self."

A crisis of identity

The path forward wasn't easy. 

"Putting a band together is so much harder in your 30s than in your 20s because everyone has lives now, some people have kids, some people have demanding jobs, people are just busy," Strickland said.

Although his early life was defined by musical performance, Strickland has shifted into a way of life more conducive to his current role as a single father of three children.

"I can't be in a position where I'm doing something and not making money. That's where my life is now," he said.

He confesses the transition to parenthood gave him a crisis of identity.

"I didn't know who I was anymore," he said. 

Strickland believes this album was his way of addressing concerns about the changes his life has taken.

"I wasn't Dicky the guitarist, Dicky the performer, Dicky the musician. I was Andrew the father."

Remote collaboration

The second wave of COVID-19 in the province thwarted Strickland's initial plan to record Goodnight Nobody with a group of St. John's musicians.

Faced with the second pandemic lockdown, he set up a small basement studio and reached out to musicians with remote recording capabilities, including Kim Deschamps and Andrew McCarthy, who sent tracks from outside the province.

Other musicians on the album include Sandy Morris, Chris Kirby and Rozalind McPhail.

The musicians recorded multiple takes of their respective parts, and Strickland opted to use the first take from each musician to simulate the organic feel of live shows.

"I wasn't in a room with a band, that's how I've always recorded albums, and I wanted to have those not-very-perfect performances," he said.

Strickland says he's currently focusing his creative efforts on screenwriting and doesn't foresee performing Goodnight Nobody on tour any time soon.

"Putting the record out was a way for me to be like, 'Hey I'm still here, I still do this stuff, I just don't do it at the Rock House anymore.'"

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