Owen Riegling comes home to Mildmay before big Clinton Spring Fair show
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
It was just another night at Harley’s. The only bar in town was packed to the exact maximum capacity allowed by law. Every single person there was all lit up with an identical anticipation - a communal understanding that this was a place where something was about to happen; something real and rare. The energy in the air was thick with familiarity but also crackling with the involuntary awkwardness that happens when you can sense celebrity at the periphery of your vision. Practically every porch within a 10-block radius had somebody’s uncle on it, giddy with the pride of partial ownership. The tiniest stage in the world crouched, indifferent, in a far-flung corner of the bar, surrounded by a crush of ladies of various ages all wearing the same thing. Even the ticketless knew not to go home - instead they hovered like mayflies around the big blue bus in the parking lot. Because being outside the thing is almost the same as being inside the thing, and years from now, whenever this night comes up in conversations (and it will) they will say, with the confidence that only comes from honesty, that they were there that night, when musician Owen Riegling came home to Mildmay.
The day before the big event, Riegling announced on social media that he would be doing a meet-and-greet and performing a few songs in the Harley’s parking lot for all the fans that weren’t able to score one of the coveted golden wristbands to the indoor show. As it turns out, “all the fans” is a whole lot of people! The crowd was so large it could barely be contained in the parking lot with many people spilling out onto the sidewalk, or across the street to watch from a grassy hill. When Riegling took the stage and saw all the people gathered there, he exclaimed, “There’s so many of you guys!... I’m going to play a few songs about growing up in Mildmay, and then I want to meet all of you guys!” He took a few song requests from the audience, finished off his mini-set with “Old Dirt Roads”, and, true to his word, spent the next couple of hours meeting, greeting and signing autographs before heading into Harley’s.
The show was, ostensibly, a release party for the young troubadour’s latest EP, Bruce County, but if there were any physical copies of the record in Harley’s that night, they were lost in the crowd. However, that day I had repeatedly streamed the EP’s opening track “Moonshines” enough times to realize that it is excellent. Like, really excellent. And, as we waited for the show to start, I thought about how cool it was to have interviewed him on Zoom the previous day.
Riegling had just returned home from the penultimate stop of his “Buckle Up” tour, and was in the middle of doing the first thing he likes to do when he comes home. “I’m laying on some grass in my backyard. I’m in a field and there’s not a whole lot going on.”
Was he excited for the Mildmay show? “I’m super pumped to get back to Harley’s specifically, just because that’s where it all started for me in the corner of the room with my guitar and my favourite people. It’s going to be kind of a mini homecoming for me.”
Is he excited to open for Sloan and 54-40 at the Clinton Spring Fair on June 1? “I’m a fan of their music, and it’s going to be fun to go to Clinton - it’s not a hometown show, but it kind of feels like it is. It’s so close to Mildmay. And I’ve got lots of family coming out to it.”
Why does he like playing in rural communities and small towns? “My overall experience with this tour... I wouldn’t say we played all rural areas, but we played a lot of small communities, and places that artists don’t typically tour through. I think there’s a different vibe and energy in the room when it’s a bunch of small-town, hard-working folks that don’t get touring acts that much. Especially me and the songs that I sing - they’re definitely geared towards those types of people. So it feels super fitting to get into those rooms. It’s just a different vibe when you get into small towns and rural communities. Everybody shows up with a passion.”
Is Riegling able to venture a guess as to why his music is really resonating with people right now? “I just try to write about honest things, things that I’ve experienced in my life, and I just try to speak through the things that I’ve lived through. So if somebody hears a line in one of my songs and it's honest and it's true, then that's what connects the most. Anybody from a small town or who knows somebody from a small town can sort of relate to the things that I sing about.”
How does he feel about his song “Old Dirt Roads” really blowing up? “It’s crazy! I try not to look at the numbers, but, every once in a while, I’ll ask my managers where it’s at. I think we’re at almost 50 million streams on this song, which is, like, insane. And it hit number two on country radio in Canada. And I think I got a text this morning that said it was now platinum in Canada. I wrote it from a really honest place. I wrote it in my college dorm room, by myself, just missing home one day. I wouldn't have thought when I was whatever age I was in 2019, that five years later I’d be having a conversation about ‘Old Dirt Roads’ going platinum. But it's pretty cool to think about - I'm just thankful for everything that's happening with that.”
How is he handling the increase in media attention? “Like anything, it’s a learning curve - when I first started doing interviews a few years ago I would get nervous, like, really nervous just logging on to a Zoom call and having to talk about myself. But now I have a little more experience, and I’m a little more comfortable speaking about the things I have going on.”
What does he like to eat on the road? “I feel like it’s easy to eat bad on the road, because that’s what’s always available, and it’s easy. I try to eat my greens when I can, but I will say there’s been a lot of pizza consumed on this tour. There’s always a pizza on the bus when we get off the stage, and it’s hard to say ‘no’ to a slice of pizza. A lot of pizza, a lot of chicken wings and hopefully a salad here and there. If I can.”
What does he like to eat when he’s home? “My favourite thing to eat of all time is just a good steak and potatoes, but the price of steak is just insane, so it’s not the easiest thing to do. But if I could, I’d eat steak every night.”
What effect has all the activity of the past year had on the ascendant young star? “It has been a whirlwind. I just think, me, as a person, hasn't changed, everything around me has sort of been changing. I’ve just been on the road for most of the year, it feels like - just been busy, that’s all. Same dude, just busier.”
The night that Owen Riegling returned to the stage in Mildmay where it all began, he didn’t step out from backstage, he walked on over through the adoring crowd and stepped on up, just like he always had.