Local musician Bobby Richards is bringing his folk and country brand of music to Sweetwater 905 this weekend, along with promoting his new album, Bobby Richards Avenue.

“Boredom and loneliness,” began Richards, “those are my two main inspirations.”

He explained how his mind is always working out a song, often at the detriment to people trying to talk to him.

“Most of the time when people have conversations with me, I’m not really listening to them. I hear some of the words they say and something will just click, and I’ll be writing a song in my head. It’s unfortunate for people who are actually trying to have a conversation with me,” he chuckled.

“But yeah, just words, when words fit together in a different way, that inspires me.”

Richards is a Dawson Creek native who has had a penchant for words his whole life.

“I used to write a lot of comedy stuff. I still do, but now I do a mixture of comedy and seriousness. It’s folk country music, but I try to have little twists in the words.”

He noted the lyrics in the chorus to his single “Sweet Like Poison,” which say “Your love is sweet like poison, and I think I want to kill myself.”

“You can take it either way. Either you’re saying you don’t want the love, or you want more of it and you want to kill yourself. That’s the way I kinda wrote it, like when you’re in a relationship that’s bad for you, but you don’t want to leave it.”

Growing up in Dawson Creek, Richards dedicated a lot of his time to music.

“When you’re growing up, there’s a few options,” he explained. “You can go out and drink and party and have fun and do all that stuff, or if you’re playing music, you can bury yourself in that, and that’s what I chose to do. I think if I had grown up in a bigger city I might have gotten lost doing other stuff. Living here definitely shaped my writing.”

He went in depth on his writing style, highlighting “Sweet Like Poison” as a song that came together perfectly for him.

“It represents me more than some of the other songs. As a writer, sometimes you write something that’s good and everything, but it’s not as much about your personality. Some songs you write something and are like ‘That’s exactly me, exactly what I wanted to say.’ That one just came out the way I wanted it and everything seemed to click with it.”

He explained how he doesn’t always write from his perspective, but takes characters and situations in his and other people’s lives and mixes them up into a story. He makes music to please himself, which is the most important step to having other people like it, he said.

“My main thing is I just want to make it interesting for me. No matter what I write, if it’s not interesting for me, then it’s not going to be interesting for anybody else. I try not to think about what other people think. I just use myself and think if this is something that I would listen to if it wasn’t me.”

Many of the songs that make up his new album, which is his first solo effort, were songs he had recorded years ago and then lost in time. Positive reaction to “Sweet Like Poison” at a songwriters’ conference in the Peace Region inspired him to go back to these old tracks, which he promptly fell in love with again.

“I just got excited about the songs again,” he said.

Bobby Richards Avenue is more serious than a lot of his previous work.

“It’s a little more putting my heart on my sleeve kind of thing,” he explained, “rather than being the dancing bear making people laugh or whatever. I’m a little more nervous about this one because most people want me to make comedy songs all the time.”

He hopes people come away from the album with good feelings.

“I hope they just remember me as someone they like. I hope that people find interest in the songs most of all.”

Richards is excited about playing at Sweetwater 905 this weekend. He is looking forward to seeing old friends and getting back into playing gigs. His album Bobby Richards Avenue is available on iTunes and will be available hardcopy at the festival.

sburnett@ahnfsj.ca