Edmonton singer/songwriter Corb Lund makes his own brand of 100 per cent genuine country music — stuff so authentic and rootsy, it’s a bit of a miracle that he’s managed to conquer the slick airwaves of country radio, not to mention winning an armful of Canadian Country Music Awards and a Juno. His current album, Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!, is split about evenly between horse songs and soldiering songs. The horse element is inevitable for this former rodeo competitor, but the war element is something of a surprise. Lund tells spooky tales of Contras in El Salvador with murky, murderous agendas (“Student Visas”), horse soldiers throughout history (the title track), the appeal of a call to arms (“I Wanna Be in the Cavalry,” which opens the album) and the horrific reality of war (the slow reprise of “Cavalry,” which closes the album.)

Was this album informed by the fact of war in Iraq and Afghanistan? If it was, it would have been only subconsciously. It wasn’t supposed to be a political statement, really. There’s a theme running through it, but I don’t really want to bang people over the head with my ideas, or my views. Like with the title track, I didn’t really sit down and research it; I mostly knew that stuff. Most of it is stuff that’s been rattling around in my head for a long time, and it interests me.

You don’t take sides; the two versions of “Cavalry” show both the appeal and the horror of war. Yeah, that’s an old story. We’ve all seen a lot of movies like that, right? Kid goes off to war thinkin’ it’s going to be a lot of fun and in the end, it isn’t. I think the album explores the topic from a number of different angles.

I SUPPOSE in terms of where you get your war stories, it’s a combination of what you read, and imagining a story inside of that. Yeah. I’ve got lots of horse in my background, but very little soldier. That mostly just comes from interest. I’m lucky: so far I’ve been able to make a career out of writing whatever I feel like writing. There’s no overarching motivation except entertaining myself, really.

“Student Visas” sounds like someone told you the story.
That’s what happened. It was a true story from a guy I met in Alabama a few years ago. He was an ex-Special Forces guy who’d been in Nicaragua, training and helping the Contras, and his back was all broken ‘cause he’d been in the wreck of a helicopter. I was touring in the States and this guy saw our show and liked it, I started drinking beer with him, and he started telling me this stuff. It really piqued my interest right away, and I ended up writing down some notes later that night.

YOUR band sounds tighter than a hawk’s ass. That probably comes from touring more than 200 dates a year. They’re all really fantastic players, and they’re all really versatile — they can play whatever I throw at them. More importantly, they’re all really unique on their instruments. Recording in Nashville — which we’ve done the last few records — so many people go down there and use session guys. I just don’t get it. You can always find some session guy who can play faster, or cleaner, but it’s not about that, it’s about personality. If you’ve got a band vibe that you’ve developed live over the years, you’d be foolish not to use it, I think. I’ve never been that enthralled by making records. I like it, but for me it’s always been about playing live.