Theo Fleury goes country with upcoming music album
Theo Fleury’s life is one of tragedy. It’s one of struggle, heartbreak and redemption.
From Manitoba where he grew up to the mountains of Calgary with the Flames and the urban jungle of New York City with the Rangers, Fleury is a well-traveled -- and emotional -- man. This is why he believes his life, which included a 1,084-game NHL career, mirrors that of country music and hence his new country single “My Life Is A Country Song” part of his “I am who I am” album, which is slated to come out Oct. 23.
“If you look at my life, I grew up in small-town Canada with a dream of being an NHL hockey player and I never forgot where I came from,” Fleury said in a phone interview with Puck Daddy. “That hard work, that sort of country mentality has always been a part of my life.”
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Fleury’s move into country music isn’t a gimmick. It’s an outlet for the man, who had a long battle with addiction, to display his feelings and emotions and broadcast them on a wider scale.
Fleury got his first understanding about the power of his personal message after the release of his 2011 book “Playing with Fire” which discussed his demons.
Along with the addiction problems, he was sexually abused as a teenager by junior coach Graham James.
“What I learned from writing my book was my experience, which I felt was uncommon, is actually the most common experience people have in their lives,” Fleury said. “Whether that’s writing a book, speaking or singing about these experiences, I know about one-third of the population has felt this at one point or gone through the same thing I’ve experienced in my life, which inspires them to know that you don’t have to live in your trauma anymore, you don’t have to wallow around in your [crap]. You can actually get up off the ground, dust yourself off and move forward in life regardless of what experience you’ve had, whether that’s been good, bad or indifferent.”
Fleury said his musical influences are mostly his family. His grandfather was a fiddle player and his father and uncle both had singing voices.
“Some of the stuff they would sing was Buck Owens and Charlie Pride and Willie Nelson, Johnny Horton, guys like that,” Fleury said. “I like to say I was country when country wasn’t cool.”
His move to country music doesn’t really surprise his hockey family. Fleury sang at the 2013 Calgary Stampede – which he described as a “nerve wracking” experience.
The official release on his album calls his voice “Cash deep” though he also sounds a bit like Darius Rucker.
“It’s something he’s loved all along,” said Terry Crisp, Fleury’s former coach with Calgary. “He talked to me about a year-and-a-half ago when we met, about coming down to Nashville and it’s something he’s dreamt about doing and was dabbling in it.”
Like most music artists, Fleury has a method when he feels a creative impulse. The second something inspires him, he jots it down in a notebook, or puts it in the notes segment of his iPhone.
“Whenever I get inspired by a word or a phrase or I see something I’ll make sure to put it in my notes,” he said. “Just words or phrases or something that sort of will jog my memory when we sit down to write a song.”
In “My Life is a Country Song” Fleury often harkens back to imagery of rivers, which carries a special significance to him. He talks about being in New York, walking along the Hudson River and staring at the Statue of Liberty at one of his lowest points in his life.
That reminded him of the Assiniboine Valley in Manitoba – a memory that brought him peace and comfort in a time of great strife.
Fleury first heard his grandfather playing the fiddle when he was a child, overlooking the valley back home.
“My last year of New York I was probably at the darkest point in my life and struggling to find meaning, struggling to find peace and happiness in my life and when I was walking down by the Hudson River and staring at Lady Liberty, the river has always been sort of a symbolism for me to just continue to keep forward,” Fleury said. “There was this incredible, and beautiful scene of this river winding in between this valley and I’m at the top of it sitting beside my grandfather listening to the fiddle play, so that last verse is me remembering when life was good and feeling good was also possible regardless of where my life took me at any point.”
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
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