Exile in Sensitive Guyville

Ron Sexsmith’s dark hair drapes across his forehead, more reminiscent of Moe in the Three Stooges than anything you’re likely to see on today’s fashion pages. It’s not as eye-catching as Lyle Lovett’s old high-rise spectacular, but his hair definitely stamps Sexsmith as a man who doesn’t worry about fitting in.

“Actually, it’s not a ‘style,’ ” the soft-spoken singer-songwriter says good-naturedly. “It’s more like surrender on my part. No matter how I cut it or comb it, it just does what it wants.”

As a writer, Sexsmith, too, is willing to stand apart. He’s a throwback in a welcome way to the ‘60s and ‘70s, when the folk-based singer-songwriter movement was at its commercial and creative height.

One reason the Canadian’s understated, richly melodic tales work so well is that they are built around the quiet, everyday moments in life--moments we all know to be true.

In “Pretty Little Cemetery,” Sexsmith uses a graveyard stroll with his son to reflect on mortality and grief. “Summer Blowin’ Town” speaks of renewal and regret, making them seem as inevitable as the changing of seasons. In “Wastin’ Time,” we are reminded that life’s most precious moments are often its simplest.

This has left Sexsmith something of a man out of time commercially in an age of hard-rock and hip-hop, forcing him and Interscope Records to rely on live shows and word of mouth to build a following.

Sexsmith’s most important ally has been Elvis Costello, who appeared on the cover of England’s influential Mojo magazine holding a copy of Sexsmith’s self-titled 1995 debut album, which he called his favorite of that year.

Critics, too, are rallying behind Sexsmith. Reviewing his new Interscope album, “Other Songs,” Musician magazine points to him this month as a sign that “human hearts remain at work beneath the increasingly dehumanized facade of the music business.”

Sexsmith is flattered by the attention, but he worries about all the emphasis being placed on him as Mr. Sensitive and Mr. Folk.

“I hate to be put in that sensitive songwriter thing because it may give people the wrong impression,” Sexsmith says during an interview in his Westwood hotel room.

“People might think I’m pretending to be this Alan Alda or something, this guy who understands your pain. When I think of singer-songwriters, I think of John Lennon and Prince and Billy Corgan. The important thing is having something unique to say, not whether you play acoustic guitar.”

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It’s not surprising that Sexsmith, 33, has found a champion in Costello, another classic singer-songwriter who appeared out of place during the late-’70s punk uprising in his nerdish glasses and odd-fitting suits.

But Costello had the advantage of a blistering rock band in the Attractions and a combative personality that gave his live shows an electrical charge.

Sexsmith, by contrast, is so retiring on stage that you get the feeling that he’d just say, “Oh, OK,” if someone from the audience jumped up next to him and asked to take over the microphone for the rest of the night.

It’s not until he begins singing that he loses the deadpan, baby-face expression and you feel him begin to assert authority.

Sitting in the hotel room the day before his local headline debut at the Troubadour, Sexsmith is as low-key as he is between songs. He’s 6 feet, 170 pounds, but he appears smaller as he slouches on the sofa.

For all his reserve, however, Sexsmith has a tough survival instinct that enabled him to withstand nearly a decade of disappointment in his native Canada before getting a record contract.

He also had the strength to resist when his record label suggested the album might have more of a chance in the marketplace if the arrangements weren’t quite so sparse. Sexsmith finally persuaded the company to stick with the understated sound he designed with producer Mitchell Froom, whose credits also include albums by Costello and Los Lobos.

“Well, it was hard all around,” Sexsmith says softly, referring to the years he and his wife, Jocelyne, spent trying to get his career going. “There was a lot of pressure on us financially and I couldn’t get any gigs so I worked as a courier. I was getting near 30 and wondering whether anyone would ever want to hear the songs. But you keep going because it’s the only thing you are good at. You keep thinking, let’s just try a little longer.”

Sexsmith describes his childhood in smallish St. Catharines, Ontario, as complicated, which one senses translates in his laid-back way to a touch traumatic.

His parents divorced when he was young, and he and his two brothers were raised by his mother in a government housing project. When he was around 10, his mom remarried and his stepfather brought along four other children, creating some fierce sibling rivalries.

Though he loved English literature, especially anything by Charles Dickens, Sexsmith didn’t enjoy high school and barely graduated. His comfort throughout this period was music, finding inspiration in everything from the voice of Buddy Holly to the melodies of Elton John to the energy of the Beatles. But his special hero was the Kinks’ Ray Davies.

“To me, Ray had the melodic gift of McCartney, the wit and bite of Lennon,” he says, his eyes brightening, the reserve giving way to a fan’s enthusiasm. “Plus, his music had all these sad overtones that somehow gave you strength.”

After high school, Sexsmith got a job in a St. Catharines tavern, keeping the customers satisfied by singing everything from Neil Young to Simon & Garfunkel. He was a big hit and he delighted in the attention.

Sexsmith stayed at the tavern, doing four shows a night on weekends, for four years. Eventually, however, he tired of being a human jukebox. He was writing his own songs and he wanted to sing them. He moved to Toronto where he spent almost seven years before he couldfind anyone else who believed in his music. (He still lives in Toronto with his wife and their son and daughter, ages 12 and 7, respectively.)

Sexsmith’s break was a publishing deal in 1994 with Interscope Music. That eventually led to an audition with Interscope Records’ co-owner Jimmy Iovine, who signed him on the spot.

“I love his music, just love it,” says Iovine, whose production-engineering credits include John Lennon, Tom Petty and U2. “In some ways, you don’t hear writers like this anymore.”

You feel the buzz in the Troubadour the next night as Sexsmith stands nervously in the spotlight, tugging at his hair. The word about him is getting out--in the industry, at least--and Sexsmith rewards the crowd with a captivating 90-minute set of songs filled with warmth and grace.

Bonnie Raitt is among those who have stopped by and you can imagine her singing his songs just as she once sang songs by John Prine, the writer from the ‘70s whose music Sexsmith’s most resembles.

The comparison may not be comforting to Interscope because Prine, despite enormous industry respect, has never been a massive seller. One reason is that Prine’s records have always depended strictly on the songs for impact rather than flashy technology and trends.

With Sexsmith, too, there’s no darkness or mystery in the arrangements to make the recordings more acceptable to college radio, no slick, sunny lining for the mainstream stations.

“You know that it’s going to be a tough road getting radio and television exposure, but you’re thrilled to work with someone as talented as this,” says Tom Whalley, president of Interscope.

“The bottom line is that you have to have a lot of patience. You just go market by market, trying to build on the enthusiasm created by the shows.”

Sexsmith’s debut album sold only 40,000 copies in the U.S., though the worldwide total was an encouraging 100,000.

“It’d probably be easier for people to [market] me if I went for a fuller sound or if the [themes] had a more definite stamp . . . either something more consistently pessimistic or optimistic because that seems to work. But that’s not me,” Sexsmith says off-stage.

“I don’t like people who say life isn’t worth living because it is. At the same time, too much optimism can bring out what cynicism there is in me. I like to see the whole picture at once, the balance that you find in real life. That’s the kind of music that always meant something to me: music that you feel you can trust.”

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Robert Hilburn is The Times’ pop music critic. He can be reached by e-mail at robert.hilburn@latimes.com