Jim Jablowski is a small-town Prairie kid who dreams of becoming a country-rock troubadour. Under the stage name Guy Terrifico, he finds the audience he craves -- only they're not loving him for his music.
Instead, the crowd wants to experience his outlandish on- and off-stage antics, which include near-death experiences and a sexual act with a drum kit.
The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, opening on Friday, unfolds mockumentary-style, with fake testimonials from real-life music legends including Kris Kristofferson, Levon Helm, Merle Haggard and Ronnie Hawkins.
Writer-director Michael Mabbott says the fictional character is a composite sketch of some of the people that appear in the film.
"A lot of the stories that happen to Guy were stories that happened to them or their friends," Mabbott said in September during the Toronto International Film Festival, where Guy Terrifico earned the award for best Canadian first feature film.
The movie draws heavily from the experiences of Phil Kaufman, the famous music manager who counted country-rock icon Gram Parsons among his clients. He plays Terrifico's manager in the film.
"I was pretty fascinated with that particular time in music, . . . the post-hippie thing," said Mabbott, adding that Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline and the Rolling Stones's Exile on Main Street were also big influences for the film.
Shot in Toronto, The Life and Times of Guy Terrifico takes all the ludicrous stereotypes of stardom and rolls them into one pill-popping, whisky-drinking character with a penchant for three-chord country tunes.
Mabbott's first feature-length film takes place 30 years after Terrifico's supposed death. His musical cohorts and other industry experts, including real-life musicologist Rob Bowman, a professor at Toronto's York University, piece together Terrifico's combustible career with archival footage illustrating the singer's wild behaviour.
In one hilarious scene, a heavily intoxicated Terrifico falls off a stool in the recording studio while attempting to lay down a track for his debut album. In another, he wins a lottery jackpot of $8-million using numbers based on Dolly Parton's measurements.
Matt Murphy, who makes his film debut playing the title character, admits he initially found the script a bit far-fetched.
"On first reading, I thought [Mabbott]was making this crap up. It was ridiculous," said Murphy, an indie musician raised in Halifax and now based in Toronto.
He quickly changed his mind after spending time with some of the musicians. "They've been through a lot of the lifestyle that's shown in the film. Those guys really opened my eyes about how life was lived."
Originally brought into the project to help compose the film's soundtrack, Murphy was also able to bring some of his own touring experience to the role from his time as frontman of now-defunct rock outfit Super Friendz.
"I know what it's like on a small-potatoes tour of Canada. . . . Play to 100 people or less and people come up and say 'Great show.' It's positive affirmation of you and it does make you feel better and it can go to your head," said Murphy.
A major theme of the film is the mythologizing of pop-culture figures and their extreme ups and downs. "We want them to screw up. We want to see them destroy themselves," said Murphy.
For Mabbott, who was born in Edmonton, that goes back to legends like Dylan -- where the misbehaving sometimes overshadowed the music.
"We're enamoured. People were going to shows to see these guys act like freaks," he said. "We pick up on it so much. We love the scandal. . . . It's a funny thing to ask from these musicians."
But Mabbott admits he enjoys living off the fruits of outlandish myths himself.
While developing the film's script, he used to pretend he lived next door to Guy Terrifico and would repeat the tall tale to friends as he ironed out the details.
"I dated a girl for about a year before she went, 'He's not real?' "