‘We’re reanimating him’: Adam Cohen marks 10 years since Leonard Cohen’s death on ‘the most important date’

Leonard Cohen died 10 years ago today and tonight (Nov. 7), his son Adam will take the stage at Toronto’s Meridian Hall, alongside his own son, Cassius, and what he calls “a colourful bouquet of Leonard Cohen faithfuls,” that is special guests Feist, Rufus Wainwright and Serena Ryder, for Everybody Knows Leonard Cohen: The Official 10th Anniversary Concert Celebration.

Adam, an accomplished recording artist in his own right, is taking the family-produced show across Europe next year — Jan. 29 in Dublin to Feb. 15 in Warsaw — and has already performed in Quebec City and his dad’s hometown of Montreal this past week, but tonight’s show is “the most important date,” he tells NOW.

A few tickets remain for the show, available here.

“First of all, thank you for wanting to speak to me,” Cohen says. “Any help that you can be in spreading the word in Toronto is important to me because it literally corresponds to the actual anniversary date. So that’s a special date for me.”

Nine years ago, almost to the day, Cohen put together an ambitious memorial concert at Montreal’s Bell Centre that included Sting, Elvis Costello, Lana Del Rey, The Lumineers, Feist, Courtney Love, Ron Sexsmith and many others. The show was filmed for later broadcast on CBC.

Speaking to NOW from Montreal, before his “big night in the hometown,” he recalls his dad’s words about shows being “an opportunity for humiliation.” But the YouTube clips suggest the performances are touching, powerful communal experiences celebrating one of the world’s most sensual, wry and philosophical poets and songwriters.

The Toronto show is going to be really extra special because it is the actual anniversary of your dad’s passing. 

“It’s insane, actually, to me. But touching and a powerful moment to mark, and now that I’ve actually had the audacity and bravery and tomfoolery to accept the mission, I do have a sense of pride and an honour and responsibility. A lot of inspiration went into the show. And what started as a notion is actually finally upon us, which is very peculiar when you have just an idea sitting around somewhere at a cafe. And then suddenly, there’s all this infrastructure around you and promoters and venues and gear rentals and bands and rehearsals. It’s a crazy thing from a notion to actually selling tickets and actually getting on stage. It’s pretty crazy.

When did you start thinking of doing a show or tour to commemorate the 10th anniversary of your dad’s passing?

When my son dropped out of college, when he announced to me that he was dropping out of college. And he told me, just like I told my dad when I dropped out of college, that he was going to go into music. I immediately started scrambling and thinking, “OK, well, he’s got to dedicate himself to music with the same ferocity that I expected him to dedicate towards academics.”

And then I thought, “Oh, I know what I should do. I should hire him to be the bass player in a Leonard Cohen tribute, and we’ll celebrate the 10th anniversary of my dad’s passing,” which I couldn’t allow to go without dotting the world with some shows. And as you know, with the background of the Estate being largely unmanned and being a shitshow, I had to be the person who would spearhead doing shows and making sure that they were official and that they were actually a representation of the Cohen family. And so, what better way to do it with my son on stage, having three generations of Cohens?

And maybe when it’s over, he’ll say, “Dad, I’m going to medical school.”

I would embrace anything that he wanted to do with passion, like any parent: medical school, anything that he can do can be helpful. It reminds me of so many years ago when my car was broken into and they took the car seat and they left 25 CDs in the passenger seat; I was more upset that they’d left the music in the car than broken in because it was such a sign of the lesser value of music in society. And, as much as the music industry took a cataclysmic hit and had less pertinence, people still needed a doctor and a lawyer.

I have lost my parents, and every year on the anniversary of their passing or their birthdays, I commemorate them by going to their favourite restaurant or ordering in their favourite food. I envy you that you can do something big for the rock star that was your dad.

First of all, my condolences to you losing your parents. I have a glimpse into how much grief and sadness and how destabilizing that is. And you’re right to be able to actually commune with the person I lost by tapping into a frequency, by literally just picking up an instrument and studying lyrics and, in this case, learning chords and lyrics that people would think I would know by heart, but I actually don’t. There’s a kind of incantation and spell that is performed by playing his songs, learning them, even in the living room, much less on stage.

And on top of it, I’m literally wearing his suit, and I put my son in one of my dad’s suits. So, it’s like we’re reanimating him in a way that’s really, really beautiful.

When you’re home in Montreal, you’re staying his house, but do you also visit the places that he visited in the neighborhood, like I do with my parents?

Of course, but it’s much more profound than that. I’m literally in my father’s house, in the same line of work, with this funny little face that I consult in the mirror that makes me think of my dad. With my son, he’s got the same kind of body type as my father, with this voice that I have that comes out of me that just really reminds me of my old man involuntarily.

And a giant mural of him.

And a giant mural. But also, remember I spend half the year in Greece, where he has that famous presence there, too. Everywhere I go, of course, I’m suffering from a kind of Leonard Cohen myopia. But everywhere I go is Leonard Cohen for me.

You are taking this show overseas. Are there certain cities that resonate more because they particularly loved your dad?

Well, Montreal is a particularly intimidating place to play because it’s his hometown, and there are all these murals in the city. He’s just kind of patron saint here. I think that all of the venues that we’ve chosen for Europe are ones in which there’s an appetite for him. And I’m extremely intimidated.

As I told you at the top of the conversation, my dad would always say, “A show is such an opportunity for humiliation.” And you only have humiliation with people when there’s something at stake. And, in this case, what’s at stake is that he does have a beautiful reputation across the world. It’s incredible that he was so modest. He himself just was not in tune with the public that way. He was so insular and so preoccupied with blackening pages and just being a true artist that his motivation was never really existing in society. It was to exist in the pantheon of writers and artists like those who touched him. And we’re going to places where, lo and behold, that’s precisely what he did. He did exist like the Greats, and every city that we’re going to is really what you’re describing.

How do you normally honour his memory on the day of his birthday or his passing?

It’s just a little bit more sadness and communion, that’s all.

So, like me, you don’t go, “I’m going to order this food from his favourite restaurants”?

As I say, it’s a bit embarrassing for me because I live in a world that is so dense with traces of Leonard Cohen all the time. Unlike people who lose their parents or their parents are not world famous, there’s a French expression that says, “inopportune consolation can sometimes deepen the wound,” and I remember when my father passed away, what was shocking was that I literally must have gotten ten thousand messages from people. And it lasted for—I’m not kidding—it lasted for years.

Sometimes, just when I was feeling chipper or having some delicious meal in some far-flung place, people would approach me, and they would throw me back into a kind of grief that I was surviving and that was diminishing. So, as I say, I don’t need any special commemoration. I’m just feeling I’m constantly in contact and celebrating my dad. He’s everywhere for me.