Shuyler Jansen interview: near-death and Elton John's piano

Shuyler Jansen standing in front of a tree — (Image credit: Antonio La Fauci - Cinderbloc Studios)

Shuyler Jansen doesn’t come across as a man in a rush. But despite having only just released his fantastic solo album, the fuzzy, spectral Dim=Sum, the Canadian already has two more records ready to go. The reason for this urgency is partly down to the fact that Jansen nearly died last year after suffering a heart attack.

“I was just lying in bed, and my wife came in and said I was blue,” he says. “I had no idea. I was just gone. Her and her dad gave me CPR. He’s a huge guy, he busted a bunch of my ribs. But they saved my life.”

It turns out the cardiac issues were hereditary rather than lifestyle-related – Shuyler (it rhymes with ‘Tyler’) quit smoking, drinking and drugs long ago. All the same, that near-death experience made him re-frame his life.

“I was in hospital for six months and I recorded Dim=Sum right after that,” he says. “Before, I was so wrapped up in things like ‘Why am I not more famous?’ or ‘Why am I not getting more shows?’ After what happened, I’m just overjoyed to be able to play.”

While Dim=Sim (his fifth album under his own name) doesn’t directly address that traumatic experience, it does possess a nocturnal, otherworldly quality. Songs such as Fisherman’s Daughter and the 12-minute To The Depths resemble a haunted Neil Young – a big influence on Jansen, along with the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Nick Drake and drone-metal pioneers Earth.

Shuyler Jansen - Enemy Lines - Radio Edit (Official Video) - YouTube

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“I wanted to make an album that sounded really live, with the mistakes left in,” he says. “People aren’t willing to show any kind of human error.”

Before embarking on his solo career 20 years ago, Jansen put in the hours recording and gigging as a member of 90s indie rockers the Naked And The Dead and then with alt.country outfit Old Reliable. He’s Canada-famous rather than globally famous.

“The last time I was in Britain, I ended up playing a showcase at Canada House [the Canadian embassy] for the Canadian High Commissioner to London,” he says. “He said to me: ‘Can you come play my daughter’s wedding party?’ I end up playing to a room full of people on this piano that Elton John has given him. That was surreal.”

Jansen has been easing himself back into touring after his medical issues last year. He plans to release the first of the two other albums he’s sitting on later this year, with the other one following in early 2026.

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” he says of everything he’s gone through recently. “When you come out of any kind of sickness, you’re just happy to still be here. You can’t help looking at life differently.”

Dim=Sum is available via Bandcamp.

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

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