By Steve Newton
The current wave of Canadian patriotism brought on by American threats of annexation and economic destruction got me thinking of all the classic Canuck-rock bands I’ve written about since becoming a freelance scribbler back in ’82.
Here’s some of the first interviews that came to mind.
RUSH Geddy Lee, 1997
Although I’m usually too lazy to bother fiddling with LPs these days, those old black beauties sure do come in handy when I’m preparing to interview a band that’s been around as long as Rush.
Shuffling through my prized rows of plastic-enclosed 12-inchers, I come across a copy of the band’s self-titled ’74 debut, and long-forgotten song titles such as “Finding My Way” and “Working Man” soon have me drifting back to the halcyon high-school days of mag wheels and lemon gin.
Just as I’m reliving the air-guitar stance I took upon first hearing “In the Mood” in all its cowbell glory, Rush vocalist-bassist Geddy Lee calls from Toronto, so I wonder aloud whether he has fond recollections of that time as well.
“Fond recollections?” he ponders. “Umm, yeah…I guess they’re fond. Some of them are kinda tough recollections because, you know, we were struggling and doing a lot of bars, and we recorded that album in the middle of the night. After we’d finish with the bars we’d load up and go over to the studio, load in, record all night, then load back out in the morning. So I wasn’t gettin’ too much sleep back then, but…I didn’t seem to need much either.”
After 23 years, 17 studio albums, and more gigs than Gretzky has goals, Rush has proven itself to be far from a ’70s relic, but its prog-rock stylings have kept it representative of the dinosaur/disco decade—and, as such, a target for cynical types who can’t forgive the era for spawning Styx or Saturday Night Fever. Lee has his own ideas about why ’70s rock takes more heat than it deserves.
“Purists prefer a simple, basic kind of rock ’n’ roll,” he says, “and most critics are purists. But there is a large number of musicians out there who are not satisfied to play that kind of rock, which leads to the inevitable contradictions and opinions. Sure, some music of the ’70s was a little pretentious, and some of it was bombastic, but some of it was highly creative. And some of it will endure, as in any decade.”
Naysayers notwithstanding, Rush’s music is the kind that will last for some time—and as if to demonstrate that, the band’s first seven albums will soon be released in newly remastered form.
“I’ve been just checking through all of them over the past two months,” explains Lee, “and I’m amazed what a fresh coat of paint’ll do for some of those tracks. It’s still hard to listen to some of them—because they’re pretty old—but certainly from a sonic point of view they’re cleaned up and toughened up, and ready for the CD world.”
Rush fans have come to expect their fix of new Rush music every year or two, but the band’s current release, Test for Echo, is its first since the Counterparts disc of ’93. In the interim, the band members took almost two years off from each other, which Lee points out was something they pretty well had to do.
“Rush is a very full-time job for me,” he says, “and when I’m not actually playing, there’s other aspects of the job that I really enjoy doing—like preparing the production and coordinating rear-screen projection—so as a result it takes up a lot of my time. I was getting to a point where I was just a bit burnt-out on the whole process, and I think everybody needed some time to question whether they wished to continue, and whether this was still a fun thing for all of us to do.”
From the sound of things, the most revered of Canadian hard-rock institutions was pondering the unspeakable: halting its illustrious career just short of its silver anniversary. But if there were any actual rumblings of a potential breakup within the Rush camp, they never got leaked to the music press.
“Well, we never, never talk in those terms,” confirms Lee, “we just quietly consider whether we want to continue, and we leave it at that. I don’t think we’ve ever verbalized those words—‘Do you guys want to break up?’ You know, after any bad night any one of us quits, but we’re still there the next day.”
During their time apart, the various Rush members got to indulge in some rewarding side projects. Drummer Neil Peart produced a big-band album, Lee produced a baby daughter, and guitarist Alex Lifeson produced a solo album, Victor.
“That was a really healthy thing for him to be involved in,” says Lee. “He got to express himself unadulterated and unbullied by Neil and myself, and I think that was great for him. I was really proud of him for doing it all himself the way he did it. You know, he engineered it, he produced it, he got all the musicians together, and he recorded it in his house, so…well done, I say.”
In January of ’96 Rush regrouped and entered New York’s Bearsville Studios with producer Peter Collins, coming out with what Lee interprets as a much more universal record, lyrically, than the previous, highly personal Counterparts. The title track includes lyrics by longtime Max Webster/Kim Mitchell wordsmith Pye Dubois, whose previous Rush collaborations include the 1981 radio staple and concert standard “Tom Sawyer”.
“Every couple of years he makes a brief appearance,” says Lee, “and we were happy to continue that tradition with this album.”
Both “Test for Echo” and “Tom Sawyer” will likely make the setlist when Rush puts on a two-and-a-half-hour show at General Motors Place on Friday (May 16). An Evening with Rush starts at 7:30 p.m. precisely, and there’s no opening act. That’s a first for the band.
“We’ve got 4,000 albums,” quips Lee, “and we want to play songs to keep ourselves happy and to keep our crowd happy, so we decided, ‘Let’s give it a shot.’ And it’s worked out very well. We’re able to indulge ourselves by playing a lot of new material, but we’re also able to indulge our fans by playing a tremendous amount of old material, such as 2112 and things like that.”
With a new album on the shelves and a new tour on the go, it’s business as usual for Rush, which was recognized for its considerable achievements last February by being inducted into the Order of Canada. That formal event definitely wasn’t business as usual for Sir Geddy, though.
“To hobnob with the Governor-General in Ottawa and just check that whole scene out was pretty interesting,” he relates, “ ’cause that pomp and ceremony is not something that’s a regular part of my daily life. I don’t get to wear a tux very often, you know.”
THE TRAGICALLY HIP Gord Downie, 1989
What’s the most important element in a new band as far as making it in rock goes? Some might say financial backing, although when you look at groups like Kiss or the Sex Pistols it’s pretty clear that image and/or hype are as effective as big bucks. And the latter two bands are a good example that talent isn’t a prerequisite of rock glory.
When it comes right down to it, a band is just a group of people making music and getting along, and in that respect friendship is the key. Just ask the Tragically Hip, five good pals from Kingston, Ontario, who’ll be hitting town October 20 and 21 at 86 Street.
“If we weren’t in this band, some of us wouldn’t be playing at all,” says Gordon Downie, the band’s lead singer/lyricist. “You have tiffs with someone when he has smelly feet in the touring van, but we all respect each other as friends first.”
Downie has known Tragically Hip guitarist/vocalist Paul Langlois for nine years; guitarist Bobby Baker and bassist Gord Sinclair have been friends since they were three. Along with drummer Johnny Fay, the Hipsters are a closely knit unit whose “all for one and one for all” credo has put them in good stead since the quintet emerged from Kingston in 1984.
Four years later, the band was handed a worldwide recording deal by heavyweight MCA Records, but the signing–which would be a dream come true for most musicians–did not come as a big surprise to Downie.
“If you’re aiming for a hole in one, and you get one, you feel lucky–but at the same time you can justifiably say, ‘Well, I was aiming for the hole anyway.’ This is what we were shooting for, so we were very much involved in the step-by-step process of trying to get a worldwide deal. It’s something that we were consciously chasing.”
After securing the sought-after signing, Downie and his mates had to find a producer and a studio in which to record their first full-length album (they’d released a seven-song mini-album through RCA in early ’88). They chose Don Smith, who had recently worked with Tom Petty, the Traveling Wilburys, Keith Richards, and Roy Orbison. And the studio of choice was Ardent, in Memphis, Tennessee.
“The Replacements recorded Pleased to Meet Me there,” says Downie, “and Steve Earle did Copperhead Road there. And ‘The Immigrant Song’ by Led Zeppelin was recorded there, too. But you mainly just go by other people’s opinions, and we certainly trusted Don. We wanted to be in a place where we’d be comfortable.”
Close friends and a comfy atmosphere helped the Tragically Hip put a winning shine on Up to Here, the 11-song LP that resulted from their Memphis stay. It’s an incredibly mature-sounding collection of thoroughly rockin’ tunes that belies the band’s average age of 25. Guitarists Langlois and Baker prove worthy graduates of both the Keith Richards School of Choppy Rhythms and Billy Gibbons Academy of Liquid Leads.
And with Fay and Sinclair channeling the flow, Downie’s distinctive, quavering vocals spin out lyrics that are poignant and incisive (even if titles like “Blow at High Dough” are difficult to decipher). One particularly striking tune, “38 Years Old”, was inspired by an event that occurred in 1973 at the Millhaven Penitentiary near Kingston.
“One summer there was this huge jailbreak,” says Downie, “which threw the whole outlying area into a real panic. And I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is scary,’ but at the same time it made that summer very memorable. So I just thought it would be good to pretend, and take the actual jailbreak on a personal level.”
Downie met Baker and Sinclair while studying at Kingston’s Queens University, where he dabbled in political science and whatever else interested him at the time.
“I did quite a tour of the various faculties,” he admits, “but I didn’t go to enough classes for any of it to rub off on this album.”
When it came time to pick a name for the new-found band, Downie and Co. looked to Elephant Parts, a video compilation by former Monkee Mike Nesmith.
“There’s one skit in there that is sort like a TV plea: ‘Send some money to the Foundation for the Tragically Hip.’ And that phrase has also appeared in an Elvis Costello song. It crops up every now and again, and it’s just a name that we like.”
As for people that like the Tragically Hip, Downie says that he hasn’t bothered to try and figure out the kind of crowd his group attracts.
“When I’m in front of a crowd, I don’t think ‘Oh, there’s some hard-core metalheads and some alternative fringe types, so we should be okay.’ When we finish a track in the studio, we might say, ‘That was great; that gave me a good feeling,’ but it’s not like [he switches to a radio announcer’s voice] ‘This will appeal to the under-16-female-white-audience.’ I mean, you leave that to the deejays and the people who write bios.”
THE GUESS WHO Randy Bachman, 2001
Most red-blooded Canuck-rock fans over 40 have memories of their favourite Guess Who tune. Some prefer the riff-driven bluesiness and sneering attitude of “American Woman”; others are more drawn to the celebratory, peace-and-togetherness vibe of “Share the Land”.
There may even be a few sad sacks out there who rate the band’s final Top 10 hit, “Clap for the Wolfman”, as number one.
But I’ll take “Undun” any day. To me, that 1969 gem—with its jazz-inflected chords, percolating bass runs, and tasty flute solo—is the Guess Who’s shining moment.
When I reach original guitarist Randy Bachman by phone at his home near Victoria, he explains that he feels that way sometimes himself.
“A lotta times people ask me what my favourite song is,” he relates, “and when I’m in the mood I’ll say ‘Undun’, because it’s so different than anything else. It’s not a standard pop song; it doesn’t have a big chorus that you’d sing along with. And in its day it was even more weird. I remember the joy of hearing that on the radio, figuring ‘Wow, a song with more than three chords,’ you know, ‘with lyrics that don’t rhyme.’ ”
The lyrical seed for “Undun”—which was originally released as the B-side of the single “Laughing”—was planted at a Vancouver party that the band attended in 1967. Bachman, who was soon to embrace the Mormon faith, wasn’t too impressed when the era’s drug of choice made an appearance at the bash.
“I was very frightened at this party when the acid came out,” he recalls, “so I just left.”
But one unfortunate young woman took the drug, freaked out, and was taken away in an ambulance. When Bachman heard that she wound up in a coma, he had the inspiration for “Undun”, but it took a lyrical nudge from Bob Dylan for the song to reach full bloom. Bachman recalls that he was staying at the Sands Hotel on Davie in ’67, listening to the Flower Power Hour on the then-new CKLG-FM, when Dylan’s “Ballad in Plain D” came on the air. The verse-heavy number seemed to go on forever.
“I got sick of it,” he says, “and was just about to lean over and turn the radio off when I heard Dylan say ‘She’s come undone.’ I went ‘Wow!’, ’cause for years I had had this light little melody and a chord progression, but neither Burton [Cummings] nor I could think of any lyrics.
“So I scribbled down ‘She’s come undone,’ and then just wrote the whole song out. I ran next door to show Burton, and he said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve written this song alone; I can’t add anything to it. It’s weird, but it’s perfect.’ ”
After cowriting several Guess Who hits with Cummings—including “These Eyes”, “No Time”, “Laughing”, and “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature”—Bachman left the band in 1970, at the peak of its popularity. Of course, he went on to create a few more perfect tunes in Bachman Turner Overdrive, some of which—like “Takin’ Care of Business” and “Let It Ride”—will be heard among the Guess Who tunes when the band plays on a bill with Joe Cocker at the Coliseum on Tuesday (August 7).
At first, Bachman wasn’t expecting any BTO tunes to make it into the set, but Cummings had other ideas.
“Burton said to me, ‘You know, I’m singing 30 songs, and I’m really trying hard to hit every note, so it would be great if you sang a song or two to give me a break.’ And just last weekend we added ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’, so I’m singin’ four songs in there now.”
Along with Bachman and Cummings, today’s Guess Who includes original drummer Garry Peterson plus rhythm guitarist Donnie McDougall and bassist Bill Wallace. The reunion tour came together after former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon sent a letter asking the band to perform at the closing ceremonies of the 1999 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg.
“It was just different than some person saying, ‘Why don’t you guys play together?’ ” relates Bachman. “You know, you’ve got the premier of Manitoba saying: ‘The Pan-Am Games, four songs, with the Winnipeg arena filled, and two to three hundred million people watching on TV.’ And I flashed back to 1967, when the Guess Who played in the mess hall at the Pan-Am Games in Winnipeg! I have a picture of this, with nobody paying attention to us! So to go back to the same place 30-something years later, and play pretty much the same songs, and get paid a huge fortune for it, and get all the accolades… I said to my manager, ‘I want to change my schedule.’
“So we went to Winnipeg, and it was like ‘Let’s leave all the baggage behind, this is a celebration of four or five songs that we wrote, which are like soundtracks to people’s lives.’ So we rehearsed for a coupla days and did it, and when it was over I said to Burton, ‘That feeling I had—I felt like I was 30 years old. If we could bottle this feeling, we’d make millions.’ And he said, ‘We don’t need to bottle it, we know how to get it. Let’s get together and play again.’”
TRIUMPH Rik Emmett, 1985
Canadian power trio Triumph will be headlining at the Pacific Coliseum tomorrow (Saturday) night with Australia’s Angel City, in what promises to be an evening of intense, thundering rock and roll.
Mssrs. Rik Emmett (guitar), Mike Levine (bass), and Gil Moore (drums) are touring behind their latest album, Thunder Seven, which was produced by Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin) and features the singles “Spellbound” and “Follow Your Heart”.
Emmett called me from his home in Toronto last week, and talked about the current tour, his views on heavy metal, and life in a hard rock trio.
I’ve been seeing you on TV a lot lately, in your Pepsi commercial. What sort of promotional deal do you have with Pepsi?
Well, we’re now on a 17-date tour across Canada, and because we did the commercial for them, and the jingle that accompanies it, they get to be associated with the tour. We haven’t really toured Canada at all for about four years, so we’re a little bit behind the eight ball in the sense of having this huge production–probably one of the biggest on the road presently–but not really having the kind of groundswell, across-the-board popularity that might justify its cost. So Pepsi made it possible to do it properly.
Do you drink Pepsi in your vodka?
[Chuckles]. I don’t drink vodka, but I do drink Pepsi.
I see in your “Spellbound” video that you’re wearing a Guitar Player magazine t-shirt. Are you still a regular contributor to Guitar Player?
Oh yeah, I write a monthly column for them called “Back to Basics”. I also do a column now for Music Express magazine here in Canada, which is also guitar-related.
Do you like the role of instructor.?
I think it’s important, yeah, and I enjoy it. I used to teach privately in the early days, then once the band became fairly successful I didn’t really have the time anymore so it’s still a way to keep my hand in. I also sit on the advisory board for Canadian Musician magazine, and Humber College’s music program here in Toronto.
There’s two really nice instrumentals on your new album Thunder Seven, “Little Boy Blues” and the classically-tinged “Midsummer’s Daydream”. Because you can play different styles of music, and seem very knowledgeable about it, do you sometimes find it hard getting inspired to play the hard rock, which is probably easier stuff to play?
Well I think it’s a little bit of a misconception that the hard rock is easier to play. Hard rock may be a more basic music form, but…look at blues–it’s probably one of the most basic forms of music of all. And on certain levels it can be incredibly emotional and, in that sense, a very demanding form of music to play. So as far as hard rock goes, I like it! And I don’t have to make any excuses for that fact.
I mean, I’m very much a product of the ’60s and ’70s, bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton in the Cream days–and even back to John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers–that’s the kind of stuff I cut my teeth on. And then I more or less evolved with the British progressive bands like Yes and Genesis, and the American ones like Return to Forever. So with all of those elements being important to me, I try and bring them into what Triumph does. The hard rock thing is always at the core of it.
What do you think of heavy metal?
As it’s generally understood, I don’t really have much use for it. When I think heavy metal I think, you know, studs and leather and lyrics that deal with the subjugation of women or biting the heads off bats, or devil worship, or whatever. To me that’s a lot of posturing; it’s image-oriented, it’s novelty, it’s very shallow. Those kind of things exist in the music business because the music business is show business.
But there are some heavy metal bands that are really good, and I’ll give you an example. We did a big outdoor show in England several years ago, and it was Motorhead and us and Ozzy Osbourne. Now Motorhead, to me, are an example of a terrible, terrible band. I thought they were just nothing but noise. Disgusting.
But when Ozzy’s band came out they had Randy Rhoads on guitar, Tommy Aldridge on drums, and Rudy Sarzo on bass. It was one of the best rock bands I ever saw in terms of tightness and ensemble work between the players. The only weak point, really, was Ozzy’s singing. He’s a bit of a showman and he’s naturally got a huge following from his Black Sabbath days, so the kids were there to see Ozzy go through his schtick. But the band itself was very very good.
So in the same way that heavy metal can be very shallow and terrible and lousy and can stand for a lot of the worse things that commercial music can be about, it can also be a really wonderful thing.
Being in a power trio for so many years, do you ever yearn for the interaction of another guitarist?
Oh yeah, sure. We have regular discussions [laughs]. But the other guys don’t want to go for it–they figure that a trio is a trio, and you don’t spoil the chemistry or the intrinsic balance. And as far as that goes, I have to agree with them. In the early days it was the least way to have to split money and still have a band! But now it’s like your family, and you don’t just go out and add somebody to your family without a lot of thought and discussion.
l’ve even suggested to the guys we could maybe do a thing like the Who used to do, where the band is still just four guys, but when you go out on tour you hire a keyboard player or guitar player or something, just to supplement it and make it musically a little bit more diverse and interesting.
I understand that Triumph are using some of the Jacksons’ stage equipment on their current tour.
Well, we have the same laser company out with us that they had on their tour but of course we have our own programs written into the computers. And we’re using some computer graphics and animation, so we’ve taken it a little step further than they did.
I’ve got just one more question for you Rik. Does Mike ever get bugged to cut his hair or trim his moustache?
[Laughs loudly]. No, not that I know of. I don’t think his mom minds.
It’s just that his grooming doesn’t really fit in with the “eighties image” most bands try to put across.
Oh shit. We’ve never really been concerned with that stuff–image or whatever. Maybe to our own detriment. I mean we realize that you’ve gotta have pictures taken and you’ve gotta kind of look nice and so maybe you’ve got to put a little makeup on so that your nose isn’t shiny or whatever, but… I mean I’m supposed to play guitar and people are supposed to listen to the music, and it’s whether or not they like the music and whether or not I played well that’s important. That’s all I worry about.
STREETHEART Kenny Shields, 1983
Touring to promote their latest album Dancing with Danger, prairie-rockers Streetheart will headline this Monday’s (February 21) triple-threat rock showcase at the Pacific Coliseum. Kilowatt and Vancouver’s own Headpins will also perform at the event.
Last year Streetheart earned a Canadian platinum award for their self-titled sixth album, and their newest release looks like it may do just as well. Dancing with Danger is currently No. 17 after only five weeks on the Georgia Straight Top 50.
Headlining major venues in the west and opening for April Wine in the east kept Streetheart busy through much of 1982, and last year also saw the band sign a U.S. recording contract with Pasha Records. It was Pasha’s owner, Spencer Proffer, who produced the new LP.
The members of Streetheart are drummer Billy Carmassi (brother of former Montrose and Sammy Hagar drummer Denny Carmassi), keyboardist Daryl Gutheil, guitarist Jeff Neill, bassist “Spider”, and singer Kenny Shields. I talked to Shields by phone from Arizona.
When did you first get interested in music and songwriting?
I was singing in public amateur shows when I was about six years old. I used to run around the house and pretend that I had a microphone, singing to all the records I could get my hands on. Plus I would listen to the radio 25 hours a day.
I guess I was hooked from the very beginning. I knew I could sing when I started screaming when I was born. I love music, and as long as I can remember music was always in the house. I had a transistor radio given to me when I was very very young, and that was always glued to my ear when I went to bed at night. I knew every word of every song on the Top 30.
Who were the singers that had the biggest effect on you when you were younger?
What really turned my head and made me decide to get into this business in a very professional way and drop everything else was the British Invasion. Mister Lennon was my biggest idol, and still is.
British bands have always been at the forefront of the hard rock scene. Do you think there’s anything about the country itself that makes it such a great producer of successful bands?
Yes. All that movement is made by middle-class to poor people who are very heavily unemployed. There’s no work tomorrow, let alone today, and they’re screamin’ and trying to get out. And I believe that affects young musicians and makes them want to rant and rave and scream to get out of there.
Which singers do you admire these days?
I like Petty, and I like Sting. And Judas Priest. Those are top singers.
Why the cover version of the Stones’ “Under My Thumb” on the Under Heaven Over Hell album?
Well, when we went on the road in January of 1977 we didn’t have a complete repertoire of totally original material, and we were just brand new at it, so we picked and chose favorite songs of each and every one of us. That happened to be my particular choice. I’m a bit of a Stones fan, and I was affected by Aftermath in 1965.
After two years of playing that song two or three times a night, and having it work effectively in the bars as an encore for opening night, it developed into a Streetheart label and fan song, and we didn’t really think of it as not being original the way we ended up doing it.
It was put to us by some people in the record company who said, “Lookit, why don’t you put this thing on wax because it would do all right.” So we recorded it the way we did it, the extended middle instrumental version of six-and-a-half minutes and it went Top 5. Not a bad choice.
“Comin’ True” is one of my favorite cuts on Dancing with Danger. Are your dreams or fantasies “coming true” as the frontman for Streetheart?
[Laughter]. Well, I would like to think that maybe they are, man. That’s the type of song that makes a positive little statement–I just hope that it’s not too corny for the industry. But I think there is a place for a statement like that. Hopefully it’s just something that you might want to hear again.
What’s the title track of Dancing With Danger about?
Well it’s got three different verses of ideas. I think we might have been writing an autobiographical song, as far as the ideas and concepts and experiences of Streetheart are concerned. It always seemed that we were dancing with danger, on the edge of something. We just stuck some concepts together that we thought people at our concerts could relate to, things like drugs and sleazy pushers, fast cars and easy lovers.
The producer on Dancing With Danger, Spencer Proffer, co-wrote several of the songs on the album. Does he normally contribute to the songwriting of those he works with?
Yes, he’s got around 200 songs through his past years’ experience writing and collaborating with writers and artists that he’s worked with and produced. He’s a very knowledgeable and creative person, and anytime he put together an idea that sold the rest of us we gave him credit for it. This is the first time we’ve actually used a producer and given him total reign and said, “Okay, you’re the boss. Correct us, right us, make us go.”
The production on the new album is very bare.
It’s got a new sound to it, a raw edge. Spencer came up from L.A. to see us in Vancouver last April, and that was the first time he’d seen the band. He really liked what he saw live, and he really wanted to be able to duplicate and create the same buzz that he saw live, on record. Well of course that’s what Streetheart has been trying to do for many years too, and we maybe never really quite captured it because our objectivity wasn’t there. It took somebody from the outside to come in and do it for us.
Is there any such thing as “prairie-sounding” rock band?
About two hours ago I was trying to answer that same question. I have to agree that there is a “prairie sound” or that there is a midwestern sound. I mean we used to be labeled prairie rock, but then you take Loverboy. That’s not exactly prairie rock, but then in a sense it is, because those guys have had the same experiences and played in the same clubs. I think that there is something there, and I believe that it is tangible, but I don’t believe I can put it in words.
But, I’ll tell ya, I know how it feels.
THE PAYOLA$ Paul Hyde, 1984
On the strength of their third album, Hammer on a Drum, Vancouver’s Payola$ have been nominated in nine categories of 1984’s CARAS -sponsored Tribute to West Coast Music.
As well as Group of the Year and Album of the Year, the group has two tunes in the Song of the Year category, “Never Said I Loved You” and “Where Is This Love”. Guitarist Bob Rock has been nominated in the Producer, Engineer, and Guitarist categories, drummer Chris Taylor in the Percussionist section, and singer Paul Hyde, and Rock, are together in the running for Songwriter. Hyde has also been nominated in the Male Vocalist category.
I met with singer-songwriter Paul Hyde in the Vancouver offices of A&M Records recently, just prior to tomorrow’s (Saturday) concert with Darkroom at the P.N.E. Gardens. I asked the British-born artist about the Payola$’ development, their producer Mick Ronson, and idols Ian Hunter and Alex Harvey.
How are the Payola$ different now from what they were in the beginning?
Well, when we first started we were a bit ignorant of things like how to control volume and how to get melody into a song easily. So we were classed as a punk band by a lot of the radio stations because we just went out there and were so scared of performing in front of people. Absolutely terrified. We’d just put everything on 10 and scream and panic. And a lot of people went, ‘Awgh, these guys are an awful punk band, just terrible.”
Your second album, No Stranger to Danger, was dedicated to Alex Harvey. Is that the Sensational Alex Harvey?
Oh yeah, Bob and I are real big fans of his. He’s one of the best performers I’ve ever seen live in my life. I saw him about four or five times, and the first time was the only time I’ve ever gone absolutely out of my way to get backstage and meet somebody. I lied, and tried to fake a Scotch accent. I got right to the door of the dressing room and they asked me for ID, so I never actually did meet the guy.
He was backing up Slade at the time, around ’72. He just floored me, the guy was so magnetic and dynamic and completely in control. And it was a Slade audience–they were throwing stuff at Alex and booing–but he just stood there and delivered. I just thought it was fantastic.
About the new album, Hammer on a Drum. You recorded it in two stretches, with several months off in the middle.
Yeah, that’s just the way it happened. But as it happened, it was a good idea, because it’s easy to burn out if you take a month and a half and never see daylight. It becomes a bit hard on the system.
So breaking it up in two allowed us the leisure of listening to the first half for a while in the middle, and deciding if it needed changing. Also, when we went into the second half we had enough energy left to give it to the mix.
There was one song, “I’ll Find Another”, that you did a lot differently when you came back to it.
Yeah, it used to be called “Dancing With Another”. We did it for a year, and it just got so boring that the lyrics meant nothing to me anymore. I just couldn’t sing it with any sort of conviction. So when we found out that Ian Hunter was coming up we just changed it round completely, so that it was sort of a tribute to Mott the Hoople.
Hunter sang background on that song. You must have been excited about working with him.
Oh yeah, I’ve always wanted to meet the guy. And I’ve probably picked up more than I care to admit, vocally, from him. Because there was one period way back when I didn’t listen to anything else but Ian Hunter for a long, long time.
His vocal style just went straight to my central nervous system, and I couldn’t help it. I probably wouldn’t do that with anybody else. It’s just that he sang the way that felt best to me, and I think my body said, “Take a little lesson from this guy”.
I see that on No Stranger to Danger you’ve got a song titled “Rose”. Ian has an old song called “Rose” as well.
He certainly does, and I think it’s one of the Top 10 rock and roll songs ever written. That’s why I called mine “Rose”, ’cause it’s about the same chick.
Mick Ronson produced the new Hammer on a Drum as well as No Stranger to Danger. Were his production techniques any different than on the previous album?
Mick tends to work through a sort of free-flow, grabbing-at-anything attitude–there’s no set plans for doing things. He goes by just whatever his heart feels is right.
Does that jibe well with the band?
Yeah. On the first album it was a bit of a problem because it’s hard to make a decision sometimes when you’ve got conflicting ideas. Like if Mick wanted to go one way, and Bob wanted to go the other way, and I didn’t know which way to go, then you’re stuck.
So we decided before the most recent album that the three of us have a voting system, and that the majority would rule. But we never actually disagreed to the point that we had to take a vote.
Do you intend on working with Mick on the next album as well?
No. We’re going to use somebody else. We’re in contact with about five people, but I can’t say who it’ll be yet.
How did you find Alex Boynton, alias A-Train, you’re new bassist?
When Barry Muir left the band we had auditions and tried out quite a few people, but nobody seemed to fit . And a friend fo mine suggested A-Train. As soon as he plugged in and started playing we thought, “This is the guy.”
Has he played in any other bands around town?
He’s done a lot of freelance stuff. And he plays with Downchild Blues Band when they come to town. He does a lot of jazz as well.
“Where Is This Love” on Hammer is concerned with child abuse. Were you at all hesitant about tackling that subject?
No. The only thing I won’t tackle in the lyrics is suicide. I’ll never write something about suicide because I wouldn’t want to be taken the wrong way by anybody.
As well as child abuse, there’s a couple of tunes about nuclear war on the album. It’s a pretty heavy record.
Well, we had to lighten it up a bit. That’s why the songs are interspersed–there’s a heavy one and then a light one. We tried to make it sweet and sour all the way across, and hopefully at the end you get a good cross-section.
How do you feel about the Payola$ being added to the roster of the Bruce Allen Talent Agency?
Feels fine to me.
Has that signing been a long time in the works?
No, I think it was a case of us needing Bruce, and he wanting to see what he could do with us. And we’re happy about it, because quite frankly it’s the only way to go if you’re going to break out of the stagnation that can set in in Canadian music.
ODDS Craig Northey, 1997
What better place to interview Odds singer-guitarist Craig Northey than at the Roxy Cabaret on Granville? Not only do they have beer there, but it’s also the old haunt of Dawn Patrol, the Odds’ alter ego house band, which played there from 1988 to ’91, delivering classic rock—and comical asides—to the venue’s party-hearty college crowd.
In an era when such venerable music venues as the nearby Commodore Ballroom have closed down, the Top 40–driven Roxy just keeps packing them in.
“I think this place had an angle,” offers Northey, hunched over a table in a dark corner of the Roxy’s back room. “Original venues rely on promoters and people taking a risk on something new, and this is a different idea altogether. In ’87, when we [Dawn Patrol] started, there was nothing really happening—the Savoy had shut down, and the Town Pump was about the only thing happening, so the most you could pray to play was once every couple of weeks, maybe. And if you were gonna develop as an original band you had to have a plan to play as much as you could, ’cause that’s the only way to work out the kinks.
“But I’m especially sad about the Commodore,” he adds, “because that was a place that I dreamed of playing. At the first gig I played there, my parents showed up in tuxedo and formal wear, ’cause that’s how they remember it. They aren’t that out of touch—they wanted to do it anyway—but it was just a really cool thing. And as we eventually had records out there and people knew us more, to have the place fill up was just an amazing thing. I don’t know what’ll happen [with the Commodore], but I know it’ll be back.”
Northey’s faith in the rebirth of Vancouver’s best rock stage is typical of musicians who honed their chops on the local club scene; many of them also have hazy, beer-clouded recollections of gigs at such defunct venues as the Savoy. That old Gastown joint holds particularly keen memories for Northey because the original Odds lineup had its first gig there, on November 25, 1987.
The date is ingrained in Northey’s mind because it’s also the day that his longtime pal, local concert photographer–accountant Liam Regan, became a dad.
“So the band has a son!” quips Northey. “It’s not biologically ours, but he represents how old we are, and when you look at him it just freaks you out.”
Also near and dear to Northey were the Savoy’s stage setup and its loyal clientele (“It was like Cheers for dysfunctional musicians”), but when the club closed down he and fellow Oddsballs Steven Drake and Doug Elliott continued to thrive at the Roxy.
Dawn Patrol played five nights a week and used the proceeds from its lucrative house gig to pay for the recording of original material during the day. Before long, the Odds had released their debut Neapolitan CD on Zoo/BMG, and when the band switched to the Warner label in ’95 and delivered Good Weird Feeling, it had a platinum success on its hands—much to its surprise.
“I think we’re always surprised,” says Northey, “because we’re operating on the basis of writing songs that we like, and just hoping that there’s enough people out there that like ’em. The record-label change was probably good, because they [Warner] really worked hard to make sure people knew who we were. And a lot of it had to do with the fact that we’d been around all those years and had songs on the radio—although nobody knew we played them still. After some gigs you’d be walking out and people would say, ‘Those last couple of songs you played were exactly like the record to me. Who originally did those?’
“But then we started that whole album off with the tour with the Hip—which is about the biggest thing that you can probably do in Canada—and you could see the Pop-Rocks in people’s brains exploding as they added up the math: ‘Oh, they did that song.’ ”
“Heterosexual Man”, “Eat My Brain”, and “It Falls Apart” are some of the catchy Odds tunes that have latched their hooks into people’s pop sensibilities over the years, and last October the band—with former Bryan Adams drummer Pat Steward replacing current Big Sugar drummer Paul Brennan in the lineup—unleashed 11 more irresistible tracks on its Nest CD.
That disc was immaculately recorded by co–lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Drake, whose other behind-the-scenes credits include coproducing 54•40’s Trusted by Millions and mixing the Tragically Hip’s Trouble at the Henhouse.
“Our philosophy in the beginning was really do-it-yourself,” says Northey, “and when we went in the studio with the money we made from Dawn Patrol we hired ourselves—we were like our own little Trebas Institute. And Steven was really enthusiastic and on the board early. He’s really into the tech things, and he’s also of course really musical, which gives him a sense for mixing and engineering.”
Highlights of Nest are plentiful, but songs such as “Hurt Me”, “Nothing Beautiful”, “Make You Mad”, and the first single, “Someone Who’s Cool”, show the band to be taking a punchier tack than before.
“There are a few more beats per minute,” agrees Northey, whose band plays the Rage next Sunday (March 23). “Maybe we’ve just been medium-tempo rockers for such a long time that we needed a new pair of pants.”
Chatting with Northey, you get the impression that he takes the Odds’ platinum status with a grain of salt; he comes off as a misfit-outsider who hasn’t yet accepted the fact that there are thousands of people who are nuts about his band. That self-deprecating attitude is at the core of “Someone Who’s Cool”: “It was the suit that got me the gig/it was the tear that got me the girl/I’m a sheep in this wolf clothing/I’m a picture that I’m holding of someone who is cool.”
“The whole idea is we’re not very cool,” he says. “We’ve always had a problem with that, you know. We can’t put on the Billy Joel leather jacket and glasses and then sell albums. We are what we are.”
Northey may be convinced that he and his mates are firmly rooted in Squaresville, but one listen to Nest is all the proof of inherent coolness that this scribbler needs. Forget about Billy Joel—these guys rock, and the addition of skin-slammer Steward helps a lot in that respect. Northey admits that it doesn’t take much to get the ’70s-rock maniac in a serious boogie mood.
“Pat is a major Foghat fan,” quips Northey, “so you can play on his tenderest, most sentimental pleasures by saying, ‘Pat, at the end of this can you run those Roger Earl crashes, like bang, bang?’ A big smile comes to his face and his back straightens up, and all of a sudden he doesn’t need coffee.”
SAGA Steve Negus, 1983
“Actually, I never really sat in a room and practiced,” claims Saga’s highly-touted drummer Steve Negus. “I always thought that the best way to learn how to play was to go out and play. So in my early days, all through high school, I used to play local dance halls and things like that–often three nights a week.”
Negus’s early, hands-on drumming experience has paid off in spades for the Toronto-born percussionist, as one listen to the new Saga album, Heads or Tales, indicates. His inventive, deadly accurate drumwork is a crucial ingredient of Saga’s heavily-textured, keyboard-based sound. And, as Negus revealed in a recent telephone interview from Toronto, his playing is something that evolved naturally, do-it-by-the-book music teachers notwithstanding.
“I took two private lessons from a music teacher at school,” he recalls, “and the first lesson I took he handed me this piece of paper with some notes on it. And I played left-handed, but the first thing he wanted me to do was play right-handed, and read these notes on a snare drum that go ‘left, left, right, right, left, right, left, left.’ And I thought, ‘This is a complete bore!’ You know, I’m already playing cymbals and tom-tom fills, bass drums and hi-hats–and this guy’s got me playing this stupid snare drum. I was already doing gigs!”
Thankfully, his old teacher’s methodical approach was not enough to curb the young skin-banger’s unique, left-handed playing style. Like Hendrix on guitar and McCartney on bass, Negus wasn’t about to let convention override personal preference. And the result is a percussional setup that causes fellow drummers no small measure of dismay.
“If you look at my drum kit,” explains Negus, “it’s actually a mirror image of what most drum kits are in that everything’s set up completely backwards. I play my main bass drum with my left foot, whereas most players play it with their right. So the hi-hat is on my right foot, my snare drums I play with my right hand instead of my left, and I play my cymbals with my left hand. And I roll from right to left, whereas most players go from left to right.”
Considering Steve’s creative approach to acoustic drumming, it isn’t surprising that experiments with electronic percussion have followed suit. “The Vendetta” and “Scratching the Surface” are the two main cuts on Heads or Tales that utilize electronic drum sounds–“Scratching” being totally synthetic, and “The Vendetta” employing the acoustic kit about halfway through.
“I really got into it at the beginning of Saga,” says Negus of the electronic percussion. “On the very first album there’s a song called ‘How Long’, which was using the Moog drum. I was basically the first person to use the Moog drum way back then [in ’77], and since then it’s become a little obsolete–although I still use it. And then the Syndrums came out and I really wasn’t happy with what I was hearing from them. I think about the time that Linda Ronstadt released a song with them on it sort of killed them for me.
“So I decided to wait, but I always had my eyes and ears open for anything new. We moved to England for eight months after the third album, Silent Knight, to write material for the fourth album, and we discovered an ad in a local trade magazine for these things called Simmons Electronic Drums. So I called them up and had them send me a tape. And I liked what I heard, so I went to see them.
“They were a very small company actually, just making a few kits at a time, and I got quite involved with the development of them and used them on Worlds Apart, particularly on cuts like ‘Time’s Up’ and ‘Wind ‘Em Up’.”
Negus has been using the Simmons drums in concert for three years now, and is still very much involved with the company. He tests all their new products, makes criticisms, and even helps design some of the equipment. But the 31-year-old percussionist admits that, at first, his embracing of the new technology confused some of his fellow players.
“When I discovered them and brought them back to North America it was quite an odd situation trying to explain to people what they were and what they did. Talking to my drummer friends, if they had a 20-year-old Gretsch snare drum or something that they just loved, there’s just no way they could comprehend what I was talking about. But now of course they’ve become quite the rage.”
And Saga itself has become quite the rage of late. Last year’s live album, In Transit, went platinum in Canada, and the new LP is showing similar signs.
And it’s not just in Canada that the band has won an enthusiastic following. Last year the band played the Roberto Clemente Sports Centre in Puerto Rico, and the result was frightening. Negus describes what happened.
“We were getting these calls to go play in Puerto Rico and no one had done it before–everyone was a bit skeptical because it’s a pretty corrupt place, a pretty crazy place to do business. But we decided to give it a shot.
“The first time was about four years ago, and that was a successful show. And the time after that, when all the riots happened, we did a 10,000-seater–and about 15,000 kids showed up. So there were 5,000 kids outside trying to get in, one way or another.
“And I remember sitting in the dressing room and this SWAT team comes in and disappears through another door. They come back about ten minutes later with a dozen people in handcuffs covered in concrete dust, like a prison break. What they had done was taken a sledgehammer and bashed their way through a concrete wall to get into the concert.
“And there was another guy who came in through the roof. I mean, this was a really high roof–like the Vancouver hockey arena–and some guy came through the roof with an ax, dropped a rope right down into the middle of the concert floor and climbed down. Aw, it was just incredible! A very crazy evening.”
And just as crazy is the fact that, with all this pandemonium going on, Saga continued to do their show. But as Steve points out, it would have been even crazier not to.
“It’s funny,” he recalls, “one of the guys from the record company panicked just before the show and said, ‘You can’t go on!’ And we told him, ‘Listen, we don’t have any choice. If we dont’ go on there’s gonna be nothing left of this place.”
So Saga did go on, and they even had the audacity to come back to Puerto Rico the following year. But that time they played a baseball stadium, so, says Negus, “There was lots of room for everybody. And it was a little more mellow.”
Another country where Saga have found a strong following is Germany. Their last five albums went Top 5 there, and the band received the German Gold Concert Award for outstanding ticket sales during 1981.
“They’re probably one of the most vocal audiences you’ll ever hear,” says Negus. “They understand quite a bit of English, so they sing through the whole show. they know all the words!
“On the live album there’s a thing called ‘The Briefcase’ which is a drum solo Michael [Sadler, Saga’s vocalist] and I do with the Simmons. And the audience actually sings all these different chants through a drum solo–it’s on the record if you listen to it. First time ever in my life that I can think of that anyone has sung through a drum solo. And in Europe they do it every night!”
Saga’s first three albums were produced by Paul Gross at Phase One Studio in Toronto, but for Worlds Apart the band acquired the services of Rupert Hine (The Spoons, Fixx, Robert Palmer). They had heard his first solo album, Immunity, and were impressed by what he was doing with keyboards.
Out of Hine’s production work on Worlds Apart grew a strong relationship between him and Negus, who played on his next solo album, Waving Not Drowning, and also did all the drumming on Chris de Burgh’s Getaway, another Hine production.
The musical relationship between Rupert Hine and Saga was continued on the new Heads or Tales, an album which Negus feels the new drum technology had a big hand in shaping.
“Everybody in the band now has a drum machine of some sort or another,” he says. “What they used to do was just write on keyboards, and now they have a drum machine to go with it, which immediately gives them a groove or a pulse that makes my life a lot easier. And drum machines have a tendency to make you write a little bit funky, which suits me fine–I’ve always had a soft spot for R&B anyway.”
QUEEN CITY KIDS Jeff Germain, 1983
Canada’s prairies are most famous for producing one thing: wheat.
But recently a sound has been heard emanating from the nether regions of Canada’s hinterland–the sound of crashing drums and furious guitars. The ‘breadbasket’ of the country is no longer a place where whirling combines and John Deeres make the only noise worth listening to.
The Queen City Kids are a young, determined rock band from Regina, Saskatchewan, a group whose debut album last year went gold in Canada, selling over 50,000 copies. Now based in Winnipeg, the band is made up of singer Alex Chuaqui, guitarist Ken “California” Fyhn, bassist John Donnelly, and drummer Jeff Germain.
The Kids were in town last week, not playing, but making a promotional tour. I talked to Jeff Germain about the band, their influences, and their new album Black Box.
Having grown up together in Regina and knowing each other for so long, is the Queen City Kids sort of a ‘rock and roll family’?
Well, we just went to the same schools together. We started in grade seven and the band’s been together since then. We put the group together in December of 1969 when we were twelve years old, and we’re 24 now. When we got out of high school we decided to make a career out of it.
Being together that much, do problems and irritations often arise between band members?
I think we’ve got those things worked out, you know. We’ve matured together and grown up together. Certainly the bickering and all that–we just don’t have time for it anymore. We’re just older and know better.
What were the band’s main influences during the formative years?
It had to be the Beatles, and the pop stuff that was out at the time. Being in Regina, kind of isolated from the rest of the world, what we had was the AM radio sound, and that was where our first influences were. Pop was basically our first influence, and then we got into an English, sort of heavy, sound.
How would you classify your music? Would you call it heavy metal?
No. It’s heavier than most AM stuff you hear these days, but it certainly isn’t Motorhead. It’s got some redeeming features, I think.
What do you think of Motorhead?
Well, I sure admire their dedication to what they do. I think they go for the throat all the time, and I’ve got to give them credit for that. But I think our band does that too. We put on a show and go for the entertainment thing. I think that’s a worthwhile part of what Motorhead do, but the music itself, I wouldn’t even want to comment on.
Black Box was not recorded in the conventional manner. What was the purpose of recording it in an old, abandoned bank building?
We wanted a theatre type–a live type of sound–so we went to different places trying to find the right kind of acoustic ambience for our music. After quite a search we found this one certain building that was the building. We all knew as soon as we walked in. It had sixty-foot ceiling that we could really use to give the music some air instead of just pouring on the effects like reverb and all that garbage that you can only use so much of anyway.
What’s the title track of your new album about anyway?
The lyrics themselves are about a sniper-assassin-photographer who goes around taking pieces of people that he takes photos of. It’s really quite an eerie song.
What sort of music do you and the other guys n the band listen to in your spare time?
Quite a wide variety, actually. Kevin’s into jazz guitar–he likes Al Di Meola and B.B. King. I Iike some of the newer stuff–I used to be quite a heavy fan of the Sex Pistols. But I think our roots are in the sixties, so we still like the Rolling Stones and that sort of loose feel to songs.
Do bands from the prairies like your group and Streetheart, have anything about them that sets them apart from, say, big city bands?
Well, I know one thing is that we’ve had to work twice as hard as a lot of the big city bands to get recognition in the big cities. We’ve had to go out there and really prove ourselves every night. If you say you’re from Regina, you really have to blow minds to make an impression on people.
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS Moe Berg, 1990
When Moe Berg left Edmonton for Toronto five years ago, the city of the Oilers didn’t exactly react like it was losing The Great One. There wasn’t a big hullabaloo in the press, nor were there many tears shed, either by Berg himself or the gaggle of Edmonton fans he was leaving behind.
But great things have happened for the bespectacled blond rocker since that big move east. In ’86 he formed the Pursuit of Happiness, and two years later was in the studio with his biggest idol, Todd Rundgren. The resultant album, Love Junk, went on to sell more than 100,000 copies in Canada alone—that’s what they call “going platinum”—and another 125,000 in the States.
Now the band has a second album under its belt and is touring with Canuck rock hero Kim Mitchell; it will be at the PNE’s Exhibition Bowl this Monday (July 16).
One wonders where the 30-year-old Berg might be today if he’d decided to make the move to greener pastures a few years earlier.
“I probably should have left Edmonton sooner than I did,” says Berg, calling from T.O. “It was real difficult for me to make something for myself in Edmonton, unfortunately, just the way the music scene is there. ’Cause I was in this all-original band, and there weren’t any real venues to play. So a lot of bands were just floundering, playing gigs whenever they could. There wasn’t a real cohesive scene, like there is in Vancouver or Toronto.
“But it’s not like I harbour any bad feelings towards the city,” he adds. “I mean, it was a great place to grow up.”
When Chrysalis Records heard TPOH’s independent single, “I’m an Adult Now”, and became convinced of Berg’s keen ear for witty and infectious pop-rock tunes, the label signed the band, and Berg was basically free to choose whichever producer he wanted for the debut album. His only serious choice was Rundgren, and it wasn’t because he’d heard a song or two that he liked by the Runt.
“Maybe I should clarify what a Todd Rundgren fan is,” he says. “I mean I know you meet a lot of people who say they’re a Todd Rundgren fan, but I’m a Todd Rundgren fan—like I bought every single thing that he’s ever done. I have all kinds of cassettes of his live shows, and 20 or 30 hours of Todd bootleg video. So I’m a serious Todd fan—it’s like being a Deadhead.”
The Berg/Rundgren pairing has resulted in two albums chock full of off-colour lyrics driven by an excitable rock noise that sounds very basic yet is very distinct from anything else you hear on the radio these days. It’s a match made in boogie heaven.
“What generally happens is that I send Todd demos of all the songs that are candidates for the record, and he sort of goes through them and does these elaborate critiques of them and says what he likes about them, and what he doesn’t like. And then I go back and address his complaints, sort of rewrite and rearrange the songs until they meet with his approval.
“It’s not like he actually changes the songs; more like he tells me what I’ve done wrong and to go back and do it again. So it’s sort of like proof-reading, almost.”
Once the TPOH tunes are Rundgren-ready, it’s just a matter of slapping them down on tape. One Sided Story was recorded in only two-and-a-half weeks, just slightly faster than the first album, but a lot quicker than most LPs come nowadays.
“Once we got in the studio the arrangements of the songs were basically there, all we had to do was give a good performance. And when we record with Todd we record live off the floor, basically—we all sit in the room at the same time and play, and then we just do a minimal amount of overdubs—usually just the lead and back-up vocals and the guitar solos. So Todd’s whole idea is to try to capture the performance instead of just mechanically going through everything piece by piece.”
Since the recording of One Sided Story, bassist Johnny Sinclair and vocalist Leslie Stanwyck have left the band, to be replaced by Brad Baker and Susan Murumets. But Berg doesn’t think the new members have changed the sound of TPOH much. Not yet, anyway.
One thing that will probably never change as long as Berg is the leader of TPOH is his unique approach to songwriting. With a keen eye, Berg sees through the typical macho messages inherent in so much rock ’n’ roll, and churns out fresh observations of the human condition—especially about love junkies and young folks on the make. And sometimes he surprises himself with what he comes up with.
“I don’t express myself very well in normal everyday life. I think my songwriting in a lotta ways is sort of an exorcism for me, almost a therapy kind of thing. Sometimes when I finish writing these songs I think, ‘Wow, where did that come from?’
Berg doesn’t mind using sex—or skewed references to it—to get his thoughts across. Tunes like the first album’s “Down on Him” and “Looking for Girls” proved that he wasn’t afraid to be cheeky. He continues his explicit approach on One Sided Story.
“There’s some references to sex in the music,” admits Berg, “but I think the overall thematic thing is more about relationships. I think sex is just a part of relationships, and I don’t mind speaking about it in less euphemistic words than maybe other bands do.”
Berg doesn’t plan on changing his no-beatin’-round-the-bush approach to lyricism any time soon, but he is aware of the recent push toward censorship that has musical proponents of free speech on the defensive. He doesn’t think it too wild to believe that his group could one day become a target of the goody-two-shoers who want to bleep out bands.
“Well that’s the fear; that’s why it’s important to watch out for it. I mean that’s how things like that start—they start initially with a band like 2 Live Crew and then the next thing is TPOH. The thing that’s frustrating about it is that it just started out with a few people who have a lot of opinions and a lot of time on their hands—and rich husbands. I mean they’re really no different than some lunatic who walks down the street, you know, talking about Armageddon, except that suddenly they’ve been given a lot of credibility.
“So that’s the thing to worry about with censorship. Once it gets started it gets like a perpetual motion machine and it’d be hard to shut it off.”
So does Moe Berg think that anything should be fair game for musical expression?
“Well, yeah, ultimately. The problem with prohibitionary attitudes is that they tend to encourage the very thing they’re trying to discourage. That’s certainly true with alcohol, and I think it’s true with drugs. And I think it’s gonna be true with this.
“Apparently, since this 2 Live Crew controversy started they’ve sold something like two million records; I mean I didn’t even know or care who 2 Live Crew was until this whole thing started. And I think if people just ignored things like this they’d probably go away.”
To hear the full audio of my archival interviews with members of Rush, the Tragically Hip, Triumph, Saga, the Payola$, and the Pursuit of Happiness subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with rockers since 1982.
Nice – but no Grapes of Wrath? 🙁