ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, FEB. 21, 1991
By Steve Newton
I wasn’t expecting such a cheery tone from Tragically Hip lead guitarist Bobby Baker when he called recently from the band’s hometown of Kingston, Ontario. When the band played Vancouver last—at the Trade & Convention Centre’s New Year’s Eve bash—the crowd pelted the band with beer cans and at one point doused singer Gordon Downie with a jugful of orange liquid. The fact that the band played a relatively short set and didn’t return for an encore led led some observers to the opinion that they were ticked off, to say the least. But Baker begs to differ.
“It was a good crowd,” says the 28-year-old string-bender. “It got a little hairy a couple of times, but that’s okay. We don’t really encourage people to throw things at us, but we don’t take it personally when they do.”
Those over-zealous New Year’s partyers might be forgiven for their rowdiness anyway, considering that the Tragically Hip’s raucous, steamroller sound incites such frenzy. And Baker’s claims that he’s seen crowds a lot worse during the band’s frequent trips around the country.
“The last time across Canada we had a few bad incidents—two in Calgary and one in Edmonton. Someone broke their neck at one of our gigs. Mostly it’s stage jumping, but somebody climbed up into the scaffolding and fell off. And the last time in Ottawa was pretty bad too—we had about 30 people taken out on stretchers. But I don’t know what you can do about people jumpin’ off the stage. They want to show their enthusiasm, and we don’t want to put a damper on ’em.”
Fortunately for local Hip fanatics, the stage they’ll be performing on next Friday (March 1) at the Town Pump doesn’t leave much of a fall to the dance floor. It’s actually the first venue the band ever played in Vancouver and a personal fave of Baker.
“I think it’s one of the best rock ’n’ roll clubs in Canada,” he enthuses. “It’s not the biggest, or the most beautiful, but it’s a great club to see a band in. That’s why we’re there as opposed to someplace else.”
Ticketless Tragically Hip fans needn’t fret too much about not getting in to Friday’s sold-out show, though, since the band is planning another swing through Vancouver early this summer. The group wants to take the tunes from its new album, Road Apples, to every nook and cranny of the country. And tough tracks like “Little Bones”, “Born in the Water”, “Three Pistols”, and “The Luxury” are bound to be crowd-pleasers.
“The songs were much more of a collective effort,” says Baker, “which is something we’ve been working toward since the beginning. We’re probably better players and better songwriters than on the last album, and we knew our way around the studio a little bit better.”
Forgoing the Memphis studio that they used on the previous Up to Here album—which sold 200,000 copies in Canada—the band recorded Road Apples inside a big old house in New Orleans. But they didn’t mess with the basic songwriting process much.
“Often what happens is Gord just sits with a book in front of him, a little sketch-pad basically, and he’s writing down things as they come to him—little snippets of conversation, or a road sign, or whatever may inspire a line or two. So he ends up with these pads full of lyrics, and we’ll just start jamming, and Gord’ll flip through his book until he finds something that feels appropriate, rhythmically. And if we can get a good groove happening, then he just starts singing.”
Having made an impressive mark on the Canadian music scene in a relatively short time (winning a Juno for most promising band, and taking home no less than four 1990 Casby awards), Baker admits that the Tragically Hip are a bit like hometown heroes in their native city. But it’s still not Beatlemania on the streets of Kingston.
“We don’t get mobbed or any such thing, but every once in awhile someone’ll stop and ask for an autograph. And whenever something’s going on, like a Juno nomination or something, there’ll definitely be a big headline in the local paper.
“And when a band gets out of Kingston and starts to play around—has a video on TV or whatever—then it gives other musicians from the town hope. The music scene here went through sort of a slow time, where there was just live music in a Mexican restaurant one night a week or something, but now it seems to be really turning around. I can’t claim that we’re responsible for it, but right now there’s a lot of bands playing around in Kingston.”
As well as being proud of the burg his band began in, Baker is also somewhat of a patriot when it comes to his country. That pride showed through when it came time to find a title for the new album.
“It’s actually a funny story,” he says. “We had several names for the record, and the American label—we’re signed directly to MCA USA—felt that all of our titles were too much inside jokes, or that they sounded too Canadian. And they’re really giving us this, ‘Oh no, Americans won’t understand it.’
“So we said, ‘Oh, how about Road Apples,’ ” Baker says, recalling the old slang for horseshit. “And of course they had no idea what road apples were in Los Angeles. They said, ‘Oh yeah! Songs that you wrote on the road! We love it!’
“At that point everyone was a little pissed off that we were encountering so much resistance from the American label about the name of the record, and the fact that we’re Canadian…and proud of it, I guess.”
To hear the audio of my other interview with Baker–from 1997, when he was known as Rob Baker–subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can also eavesdrop on my uncut, one-on-one conversations with:
Dave Martone, 2020
Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, 2006
Joss Stone, 2012
Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest, 2005
Jack Blades of Night Ranger, 1984
Vivian Campbell of Def Leppard, 1992
Colin James, 1995
Kim Simmonds of Savoy Brown, 1998
Tom Cochrane of Red Rider, 1983
Ed Roland of Collective Soul, 1995
Taj Mahal, 2001
Tom Wilson of Junkhouse, 1995
Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, 2003
David Lindley, 2002
Marty Friedman of Megadeth, 1991
John Hiatt, 2010
Nancy Wilson of Heart, 2006
Jeff Golub, 1989
Moe Berg of the Pursuit of Happiness, 1990
Todd Rundgren, 2006
Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, 2001
Steve Earle, 1987
Gabby Gaborno of the Cadillac Tramps, 1991
Terry Bozzio, 2003
Roger Glover, 1985
Matthew Sweet, 1995
Jim McCarty of the Yardbirds, 2003
Luther Dickinson of North Mississippi Allstars, 2001
John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls, 1995
Steve Hackett from Genesis, 1993
Grace Potter, 2008
Buddy Guy, 1993
Steve Lynch of Autograph, 1985
Don Wilson of the Ventures, 1997
Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar, 1998
Trevor Rabin of Yes, 1984
Albert Lee, 1986
Yngwie Malmsteen, 1985
Robert Cray, 1996
Tony Carey, 1984
Ian Hunter, 1988
Kate Bush, 1985
David Gilmour from Pink Floyd, 1984
Jeff Healey, 1988
Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip, 1996
Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi, 1993
Colin Linden, 1993
Kenny Wayne Shepherd, 1995
Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, 1986
Elliot Easton from the Cars, 1996
Wayne Kramer from the MC5, 2004
Bob Rock, 1992
Nick Gilder, 1985
Klaus Meine of Scorpions, 1988
Jason Bonham, 1989
Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers, 1991
Joey Spampinato of NRBQ, 1985
Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers, 2003
Andy Powell of Wishbone Ash, 2003
Steve Kilbey of the Church, 1990
Edgar Winter, 2005
Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, 1990
Randy Hansen, 2001
Dan McCafferty of Nazareth, 1984
Davy Knowles of Back Door Slam, 2007
Jimmy Barnes from Cold Chisel, 1986
Steve Stevens of Atomic Playboys, 1989
Billy Idol, 1984
Stuart Adamson of Big Country, 1993
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, 1992
Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule, 1998
John Bell of Widespread Panic, 1992
Robben Ford, 1993
Barry Hay of Golden Earring, 1984
Jason Isbell, 2007
Joey Belladonna of Anthrax, 1991
Joe Satriani, 1990
Vernon Reid of Living Colour, 1988
Brad Delp of Boston, 1988
Zakk Wylde of Pride & Glory, 1994
John Sykes of Blue Murder, 1989
Alice Cooper, 1986
Lars Ulrich of Metallica, 1985
John Doe, 1990
Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon, 1992
Myles Goodwyn of April Wine, 2001
John Mellencamp, 1999
Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1999
Kenny Aronoff, 1999
…with hundreds more to come