Western Standard - WESTROCK： Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar on All Hell for a Basement and what's next for the band

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

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00:04:00.000 Good evening. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. You're on a special

00:04:12.180 edition, West Rock edition of the Western Standard. In fact, our very first edition

00:04:16.540 of West Rock. I'm joined today by Gordie Johnson, frontman of Big Sugar, Grady, and a number

00:04:23.340 of other uh great uh other bands he's involved with as well as a solo career how you doing gordy

00:04:31.740 um i can't we can hear you it sounds like you're a oh praying mantis again okay

00:04:40.540 we had a minute i think it's gonna yeah we had this issue earlier uh oh you're back now

00:04:45.900 no praying mantis okay well we'll have gordy johnson in a second as soon as gordy can hear me

00:04:51.020 he will queue in uh remember if you're not already western standard member

00:04:55.420 please uh go online and uh sign up as uh remember westerncenteredonline.com

00:05:02.300 stop it's horrifying did you really do sound like a pixar animation

00:05:09.660 i think it's just last time you laughed or something and it kind of

00:05:13.100 your laughter was good gordy i think i think it might be just you

00:05:16.700 uh we haven't had this issue before i can hear you loud and clear hopefully it clicks back in

00:05:23.820 are you uh well can you not hear me very well nope um you sounded perfect in sound check

00:05:35.020 how many times in my career can i say that yeah

00:05:40.140 um you want to text me the question

00:05:42.220 we've been dealing with this just for the folks at home everybody in the entertainment industry

00:05:49.300 when in a lot of industries this is what we're doing all day if you don't know that's if you're

00:05:54.720 going to get to still go to your job everyone else is doing this going i can see you but i can't hear

00:05:59.720 you we had the host earlier we could hear him talking like a cartoon prank madness couldn't

00:06:05.440 see him so you can hear me now I'll listen to your voice it's a beautiful

00:06:12.100 voice manly matches the beard make well thank you thank you very much okay well

00:06:17.620 that's great I didn't say much interesting I just kind of introduced

00:06:20.860 you that was a good little that was great filler as we would say great save

00:06:25.880 for tech trouble it was horrifying on my end I think everyone else could hear

00:06:32.120 because we heard in the comments

00:06:34.060 they could. It was just you hearing the clicking

00:06:35.740 praying mantis. Can you do the

00:06:37.880 impression of that clicking praying mantis that you did?

00:06:43.640 Oh.

00:06:45.900 Terrifying.

00:06:46.680 That's like an alien of some kind.

00:06:48.400 That's good.

00:06:49.420 I got my head off, man.

00:06:51.660 I got you now.

00:06:54.700 We've got Gordy Johnson

00:06:55.980 of Big Sugar

00:06:58.260 and Grady and a bunch

00:07:00.160 of other great bands that he's with.

00:07:02.120 think I first heard I want you now when I was in high school I was living in

00:07:07.740 Brighton Ontario and it came on my alarm clock and that song you know I was

00:07:13.760 going through like my first bad teenage breakup woe is me and that's all really

00:07:18.680 spoke to me and that's kind of the first time I heard it I was the Ben I don't

00:07:23.240 know probably late 90s maybe maybe early 2001 that would be 2001 that works out

00:07:30.140 perfectly that hey that's that's what you broke my heart that's perfect okay so

00:07:34.520 that's what I first started on it came on my alarm clock radio and that song

00:07:39.500 spoke to me and I and I've been a I've been a fan since I guess I know I've

00:07:44.420 got a pretty good library of your stuff not all of it but big fan I mean you

00:07:51.980 guys I didn't you guys are going guys go back all in 1991 right no actually we

00:07:58.520 started calling a band big sugar in 1988 88 on the streets of toronto you know you're making yourself

00:08:06.520 sound older than you need to we were a backup band for all the different roots music artists

00:08:13.240 that would come through toronto we would play calypso with guys who came from trinidad we play

00:08:19.000 reggae with artists that came from jamaica we play you know mardi gras music with cats who came from

00:08:25.640 from new orleans or if you came from chicago we'd play the blues whatever was going we backed

00:08:29.640 rockabilliard they would bring in those days especially touring artists would come through

00:08:34.560 and they would just have to play with the local band so we'd get super rehearsed and all the

00:08:38.780 backup vocals everything we got to play with some great uh legendary performers you know

00:08:44.260 lowell fultzen being one of them one of the first electric guitar players lowell fultzen slim

00:08:48.720 gillard we got uh kelly elizabeth uh she's just saying for you maybe get a little closer to mike

00:08:53.640 can hear you but it's a little quiet a little bit closer how's that I'm sure

00:09:00.400 it's not the first time you've been told to fix your mic but nothing for it it

00:09:03.960 would be the first time I've been told to turn it up yeah you guys are you're a

00:09:09.540 loud band for the most part I look pretty harmless from here but I kind of

00:09:15.060 scary but nothing says nothing says they six feet back like this haircut I tell

00:09:22.020 what man amen walk i walk through the grocery store i've been rocking this since covet hit

00:09:27.060 because i mean you're stuck at home you just really just trying to get a laugh out of your

00:09:30.820 kids it's a good time to experiment with uh different haircuts and whatnot i went back to

00:09:35.540 my 1985 hair and uh gotta say you know i'm starting to feel old and that's the year i was born it's

00:09:43.700 It's highly effective though, this it keeps people back.

00:09:50.400 So my apologies to everyone.

00:09:52.240 This is a, so this is our first broadcast of West rock.

00:09:56.040 Our West rock columnist that we just brought on the Western

00:09:58.360 standard is Ernest Skinner.

00:09:59.940 He's he is an experienced rock columnist runs.

00:10:04.760 He writes with Montreal rocks, some, some music outlets in Ontario.

00:10:10.740 And I'm, we're really trying to expand the reach of the Western standard.

00:10:13.340 You know, we're focused on Western Canada, Western Canadians, and we've, you know, our daily grind tends to be what's happened in politics, what's the latest dumb thing government is doing, and, you know, that kind of daily grind of news.

00:10:25.800 We're trying to broaden ourselves a bit.

00:10:27.740 Sorry, go ahead, Corey.

00:10:28.800 That must keep you pretty busy.

00:10:30.780 Oh, it's incredibly busy.

00:10:33.360 We just passed 800,000 readers this month.

00:10:35.760 We might be on track for our first million reader month.

00:10:38.380 Oh, for real.

00:10:39.580 Yeah, yeah, it's huge for us.

00:10:41.380 We're very new.

00:10:42.220 We've only been around a little over a year.

00:10:44.420 This is our 13th month.

00:10:46.480 And we're knock on wood.

00:10:48.400 We're on track right now to hit our first million reader month.

00:10:51.060 So we're pretty damn happy about that.

00:10:53.940 We're proud of you, Alberta.

00:10:55.680 That's nice, man.

00:10:57.560 I'm an old guy.

00:10:58.600 So, yeah, man.

00:10:59.600 I like this.

00:11:00.340 I see you in the background.

00:11:03.360 So this is the West Rock column and spot show is supposed to be Ernest Skinner,

00:11:09.060 who I was just saying.

00:11:10.660 We just had some technical problems.

00:11:12.420 He couldn't make it on tonight.

00:11:13.760 He's got a new computer, and I guess there's some bugs to work out.

00:11:16.420 But Ernest Skinner set this up.

00:11:18.180 So big shout-out to Ernest Skinner.

00:11:19.620 Thank you so much for making this happen.

00:11:23.380 Ernest, it was funny.

00:11:24.820 When I was interviewing him for the job, he was talking about he's got access

00:11:28.180 to a lot of these great artists.

00:11:30.020 And I said, I'll make you a deal.

00:11:31.060 If you can get Gordie Johnson on the Western Standard, you're hired.

00:11:37.020 And he made it happen.

00:11:38.160 I said, okay, you got the job.

00:11:39.380 But now he's not here.

00:11:41.120 Some subterfuge going on, maybe?

00:11:43.060 I may have wanted you all for myself.

00:11:46.260 So Susie Anderson says, COVID hair.

00:11:49.960 Why not?

00:11:51.120 Embrace it.

00:11:52.200 I've got to beared out even longer than usual.

00:11:54.660 I know.

00:11:55.040 Susan works for us, so that's a plant.

00:11:58.360 She's infamous for already criticizing.

00:12:01.820 So I want to get a little about you.

00:12:04.460 I'm going to save one of my all-time favorite songs

00:12:08.440 being an Albertan you might take a wild guess at what it is so I'm here I swear

00:12:14.400 Ernest was supposed to be here and so he's gonna do most of the question so

00:12:16.960 pretty much all of my questions for almost about that this one but I try and

00:12:20.980 cover it off but also we'll save some for for that a bit but well tell us a

00:12:26.080 bit about yourself I know you've been hugely successful platinum artists out

00:12:30.680 of Canada it's you know I think you're you're now in Austin but you said you're

00:12:35.760 you're still up in uh alberta around the red deer edmonton area a lot yeah we still have a farm in

00:12:40.240 alberta family farm so we spend quite a bit of time there whereabouts you don't have to let us

00:12:44.800 know so crazy people go but whereabouts central alberta i know where the good coffee is in red

00:12:50.720 deer let's put it that way so is good people i love them yeah red deer's got some great uh it's

00:12:58.800 it's perfectly located like i get to edmonton airport calgary airport everything i need my

00:13:04.320 Italian shopping center things you know all that stuff keeps yeah oh this is

00:13:11.160 great Ernest is messaging me he's gonna save my buddy's giving he's planting me

00:13:14.820 some questions I don't have an earpiece in but he's planting me questions so

00:13:19.640 we'll just talk a bit about you and then we're gonna go to some of Ernest's

00:13:23.000 questions here he'll save my he'll save my ass so you know how did you I was

00:13:30.900 of before i got distracted here you know you've had a huge career uh what is it you're working

00:13:35.780 on now what's uh i know you maybe talk about the albums that you just released two this year

00:13:41.140 what a year to release an album uh now you didn't you did two of them well yeah i mean

00:13:46.420 that seems like a lifetime ago um you know we had we had about a two-year delay making the record

00:13:53.780 because you know well this is how life goes you know a bunch of tragedies uh fell in our path

00:14:01.560 guys quit the band guys left the band um our longtime bass player gary low passed away

00:14:09.480 unexpectedly and that was uh that was a sad moment there's a lot of things that took the

00:14:14.300 wind out of our sails you know and uh so it really took us a minute to regroup and we had

00:14:21.420 make the record twice as a result by the time we got it got it ready to go on the launch pad

00:14:26.700 uh universal music canada was super stoked about it we meetings in january getting ready for that

00:14:32.460 march release yeah baby march release so then we put it out in march i had coveted in february

00:14:41.180 pretty sure it's man six six six six sick and then when the whole you know the pandemic started

00:14:49.980 and then we started reading about it and realizing what it was it all started to sort of come clear

00:14:54.140 like oh yeah that sounds familiar i got some of that going on so um we we get it and we've taken

00:15:02.860 it very seriously so really really locked down from the very get-go and i've just had to basically

00:15:09.020 run a our our war campaign from headquarters here luckily i've got a full a full audio

00:15:19.180 production studio and a full video production studio on my property we had been gearing up for

00:15:25.580 being more self-sufficient anyway it just made me have to dive right into

00:15:31.500 doing our own photography our own art and layout our own videos our own everything

00:15:38.140 so i took that opportunity while everyone's sitting around in their pajamas

00:15:42.700 to not only put out eternity now which is a new big sugar record made a bunch of videos for that

00:15:47.820 record here at our at our place um we had a great uh re-release of hemi vision from 1996.

00:15:59.100 yeah one of the one of our biggest records which had never because it was the 90s and they didn't

00:16:03.660 put out things on vinyl in the 90s it was all on cd so that one just kind of fell through the cracks

00:16:08.060 of ever coming out on vinyl so for people who like vinyl records we put that out it's available

00:16:13.100 through our website and through universal music and music vaults is their site for that stuff um

00:16:19.020 and universal just did a fantastic job i gotta say they the dudes would deal with their obviously

00:16:26.300 love the music like hardcore fans not just um as a business you know they they genuinely love

00:16:37.020 the music so you can really tell by the the whole thing the packaging the way they put the music

00:16:43.080 together we found a bunch of hidden tracks they went through the archives i was able to remix

00:16:47.160 them here at the studio and put them on the uh double album set colored vinyl it's a beautiful

00:16:52.360 package they did just an amazing job on it so that was exciting you're taking the whole covid

00:16:58.760 new skills uh self-sufficiency thing to a whole new level most people are learning to cut their

00:17:04.920 hair and uh you know picking up a new hobby you're doing the art and stuff of your own albums

00:17:10.760 yeah well it goes from there to um to where you know with no place to tour and no venues to play

00:17:20.200 we our only way of reaching people is through social media so i took it upon myself to start

00:17:26.440 creating content for youtube and all the other platforms i put out a little you know 10 minute

00:17:32.760 15 minute tutorial once a week called gj in the sound shack tell people about the guitars

00:17:38.840 how to play certain songs recording techniques a guitar collection drums all this stuff stories and

00:17:46.760 history of the band and you know how long it took me i'm not a good guitar player

00:17:50.920 you know how long it took me to figure out all hell for a basement

00:17:55.080 it's a pretty simple song uh but to make it pardon it seems like a pretty simple song uh

00:18:00.920 uh well i play it simply but that we did 25 episodes of sound shack on youtube uh then took

00:18:10.400 a break from that so those are in reruns and started putting out a thing called uh blues day

00:18:16.980 tuesday and uh just got friends on the phone who are from california new york wherever they are

00:18:27.100 and getting guys to play a blues song with me i'd record a track of blues i'd film myself doing it

00:18:35.480 all the instruments capture all the video mix the audio send it to a buddy they would film and

00:18:42.580 record their stuff send it to me and i'd put it in a in a video in premiere pro and and post that

00:18:48.640 on the internet so we did a dozen of those um which was amazing because i wasn't you know on

00:18:54.160 a tuesday afternoon i wasn't going to be jamming with joe satriani but i got to you know through

00:19:00.040 the magic of digital you know applications and computers and all this wonderful stuff i've been

00:19:07.220 able to you know still make music with my with my good musical friends out here so that's uh you

00:19:14.340 know that's just been an ongoing thing of course we can't wait to get back out and and play live

00:19:19.640 But in the meantime, we've been able to do. It's going to be close to half a dozen more charity events, you know, because imagine, you know, how the food banks and homeless shelters and places like that.

00:19:34.460 i mean look i'm i'm an out of work rock star at the moment i'm gonna be okay you know what i mean

00:19:40.540 like if i don't get to if i don't get to go to a sound check uh sound check and uh and eat some

00:19:46.140 after show pizza i'll be okay for a minute i'll i'll survive but i'm looking at people running

00:19:51.500 charities and it's i can't even fathom you know animal shelters all these places they're getting

00:19:58.140 really hit hard so we have definitely uh taken upon ourselves to film a lot of content and record

00:20:05.660 new versions of old songs and new versions of new songs and create these little mini concerts

00:20:11.180 uh with a pretty high standard for video and audio and sending them out to these

00:20:15.420 charity events not the least of which is tonight oh what's that if you're a fan of keith richards

00:20:22.540 and who isn't it's keith's birthday today keith on many occasions never spent a birthday with him

00:20:29.820 but uh a mortally uh frightful occasion a bunch of punk rockers in vancouver decided they would

00:20:37.980 celebrate keith's birthday with a big boozy rock and roll show at the rickshaw theater it's been

00:20:43.820 going on for years and they raised money for the greater vancouver food bank and this year they

00:20:50.300 can't do it live obviously so they're doing it virtual and it's able to go international and

00:20:55.500 they asked me what's the part and i immediately set up the cameras and the microphones and film

00:21:00.460 well where where can we find that i might i might watch it when we're done here uh

00:21:03.900 where can we find that where can our viewers it's on it's going live at 7 p.m pacific time from

00:21:09.580 vancouver um google it keith miss it's a bit of a stretch it's like keith richards christmas keith

00:21:20.300 well if you're watching don't go watch it because 7 p.m uh pacific is 6 p.m uh mountain so don't

00:21:26.700 leave us no you're backwards dude the sun goes the other way oh geez i do that all the time

00:21:33.100 i get it ass backwards all the time you know yeah i'm doing manatoba time sorry

00:21:38.460 yeah you're going to i'm on my way to vancouver so keith the key show is having tonight there's

00:21:42.780 a bunch of great bands on there and dudes from other bands playing together uh everyone doing

00:21:47.980 and keith richard songs either from the stones catalog or from his solo catalog and it's it's

00:21:53.100 always a great night anyway and to be able to take part from texas and still be a part of it so i i

00:21:59.820 filmed uh too rude and take it so hard as soon as they asked me how like i put my hand up with like

00:22:06.300 no these two songs or i'm out i'm not i'm not messing these are my songs yeah it was a good

00:22:12.300 kick to do it man it's a real challenge well you got you know you and big sugar well you've got all

00:22:17.420 these I don't know for the appropriate term side project but you know other

00:22:20.660 bands that are probably that you if you're the leader of but that are

00:22:25.100 probably less prominent than Big Sugar you've got quite a lot of influences

00:22:31.660 you know you got heavy metal you've got reggae it's like a lot of different

00:22:37.100 influences where did that come from like what made you know I at least I would

00:22:41.920 identify your primary genre as as rock but you know where did these different

00:22:46.280 influences come from and how big of an influence was was low in in kind of

00:22:54.140 bringing other genres to it well music's just a language I speak you know I mean

00:22:59.420 I speak all of the dialects of it you could look at it that way to make make a

00:23:04.820 comparison so I don't really I mean I hear I hear funk in my heavy metal I

00:23:10.820 i hear rock and roll when i listen to reggae i hear reggae rhythms when i listen to rhythm and

00:23:17.980 blues i mean to me i i interpret it all the same way so to me it's it's just a free open space

00:23:24.120 music is just a way to entertain people and if i can shock and surprise people and get their

00:23:29.760 attention and hip them to stuff maybe they don't know yeah another comparison i like to make it's

00:23:34.400 like if you came to my house to hang we'd have a little beverage and we'd go in the den and put

00:23:40.300 on some records and i you do this with your friends you go oh dude you gotta hear this did

00:23:45.200 you ever hear this jimmy hendrix record oh have you ever heard this alton ellis record have you

00:23:51.380 ever heard this you know sunny terry brian mcgee record you pull out records and wow and amaze your

00:23:57.640 your record collector friends that's kind of what any big sugar show is like if you're really hip

00:24:02.920 to a lot of music you won't believe the complexity and and and the various influence that go into it

00:24:08.860 and even if you don't know anything about any of that it's still just music it

00:24:14.440 just makes you move and hopefully makes you feel good you know so that's being

00:24:18.620 able to serve it up two ways I think that's what that diversity is has done

00:24:24.400 for us and been able to to reach people from all from all corners in the music

00:24:30.620 spectrum you know so I got a couple guitar questions for you I'll start off

00:24:35.380 when I think a lot the question you got a lot is why do you use the double neck

00:24:40.960 guitar I mean I've seen it from time to time but there's very few people I see

00:24:43.960 who do just entire concerts with a double neck guitar it's it's very much

00:24:49.300 iconic to you that picture again look at that picture put up that picture well

00:24:54.580 geez any damn picture of you there's look at that beautiful and then our

00:25:01.600 promo and it hurts you and Julian this is thanks to our our West Rock columnist

00:25:09.900 Ernest Skinner he thinks that you bear a striking resemblance to a king of the

00:25:15.160 trailer park it's funny you mentioned that cuz I took a little break in the

00:25:19.120 middle of the day to watch some some trailer park boys Ricky isms and it was

00:25:24.880 just as I was watching that video he gave me a call and interrupted it and

00:25:28.480 he's like hey I want to put this up on the things fine he's the most handsome

00:25:36.240 minute trailer park tell Ernest I'm gonna kick his ass after school I like

00:25:42.800 it I like trailer park boys most of the next guy but that's it that was not the

00:25:46.460 intention even though when that picture was taken I was kind of living like a

00:25:51.100 a trailer park boy so their days are done this is might look a bit scary just exchange the guitar

00:25:59.420 for uh rum and coke and there you go yeah i there was probably an open bottle of cazador's tequila

00:26:05.260 at the photo that's not happening anymore either so yeah i'm a lot more productive as it turned out

00:26:12.700 yeah i'll probably live a little longer so why the double neck guitar i know it's uh it's very

00:26:17.900 much iconic to you i mean it's if nothing else it's kind of your brand but uh what got you to

00:26:24.060 use it as a as a mainstay of like the entire concerts the uh the ability to make so many

00:26:30.300 different sounds on one instrument to you know when you're in the studio you can overdub you

00:26:35.340 can put more than one guitar part on a thing um you have one guitar sound for the verse and a

00:26:41.260 different sound for the chorus and a different sound for the solo in a musical arrangement

00:26:46.140 the studio makes that very simple to do when you're playing live and you're the only guitar

00:26:50.620 player in the band then that you've created challenges for yourself that are hard to

00:26:55.180 replicate artists just use the pedal right to kind of flip their settings well you can do that but

00:27:00.700 the the fact that one neck is a 12 string and the other is a six string they sound inherently

00:27:06.700 different no pedal can do that for you yeah they're just they're two instruments on your neck

00:27:12.540 at the same time and so i started to explore the possibilities of that and of course man i just

00:27:20.540 i just got deeply immersed in it and some of my heroes have played those guitars too you know

00:27:26.060 believe me over the years i there was a huge rush fan alex life's and of course jimmy page but

00:27:31.580 more alex you know the use of the double neck guitar john mclaughlin was another big influence

00:27:36.780 tell me a double neck guitar so badass well it's badass but here's the thing it's a it's a big

00:27:45.300 commitment to badassness I just made a board it's a commitment because if you ever picked one up for

00:27:51.660 more than 10 minutes you realize if you're not really going to use it you're gonna park it man

00:27:59.580 because it's like trying to it's like trying to park a truck with a trailer on it it's there's

00:28:05.220 there's no easy way to do it it's hard to play it's hard to manipulate it and

00:28:10.440 remember which switches you've engaged in what you're doing what tuning is this

00:28:14.940 one in and oh my god in it yeah there's there's a commitment level which makes

00:28:21.220 them available for resale quite often because they want it and then they can't

00:28:29.640 park it man selling it so it's a it works six or seven of them and I've

00:28:34.740 I've picked them up at reasonable prices

00:28:38.540 because like I say, they usually gather dust

00:28:40.980 under someone's bed because

00:28:42.720 this drummer takes it out to the gig

00:28:44.460 and goes, we're gonna play Hotel California

00:28:45.940 and then, oh hell no, I've put this down.

00:28:49.420 Yeah, everyone wants to learn that as their first song.

00:28:51.240 I'm like, I don't think so, I don't think so.

00:28:54.920 I started on Sex Pistols

00:28:56.060 because you can sound like the Sex Pistols

00:28:57.900 and still be crap.

00:29:01.760 I got a question from, sorry, go ahead.

00:29:04.620 about to take issue with that because i've i've seen steve jones up close and i saw the sex pistols

00:29:10.220 and hung out with steve and well i'm not accusing them i'm saying there's simple power chords that

00:29:15.580 even uh amateur like me can handle and sound somewhat decent somewhat yeah but how come

00:29:20.700 you're not the sex pistol then there's the reason why because it sounds just it sounds dead simple

00:29:26.140 and like nfg you know what i mean like no they just don't care but they actually care quite

00:29:34.060 deeply and you when you stand close to that you understand the the force and the fury of it i was

00:29:40.620 frankly gobsmacked when i stood in front of steve's amp and heard what he does it's like pete

00:29:46.860 townsend you know i mean like you think of the who and sex was completely different things in

00:29:52.540 different eras but there was a majesty and power in the guys playing i'm like oh my god yeah no

00:29:59.740 wonder that shook uh modern music when it came out it's it's a bomb it wasn't just their

00:30:06.940 technical style it was it was the raw anger in it that it was well and there's some there it's

00:30:14.300 actually there's an ability they they distilled it down to just what mattered you know so it's

00:30:21.020 it's deceptive people get don't give punk rockets do there's a lot of punk rock out there that you

00:30:26.860 know without pro tools would sound like complete garbage you know the pro the you know the tech

00:30:31.260 pistols didn't have pro tools they didn't have multiple takes they had an afternoon to make a

00:30:36.300 record that shook the world so consider that before you pick up your axe and think you're

00:30:40.940 gonna oh no i meant it as a compliment i mean i meant it very much as a compliment um and that

00:30:46.540 simplicity of it like i've got just like a simple little fender ramp uh keep my office i gotta fix

00:30:52.220 and it's broken uh but it's it's simple and i can with very little i can play and the settings

00:30:58.300 sound similar i i meant it very much as a compliment to the six pistols that it was simple

00:31:02.140 simple i i'm a fan of simplicity especially when i can do it and love love me some clash too which

00:31:09.100 again it's you know those are guys who are bringing that's an early version for me of realizing

00:31:17.020 that just because they were punk rockers didn't mean that they were drawing in all these musical

00:31:21.340 influences dub reggae and dance hall and rockabilly and punk rock and all they said it was uh it was

00:31:29.020 reggae for white people um i didn't think of it like that i mean it's i i take issue with that

00:31:36.620 that whole notion it's like oh well white guys can't play funky music and reggae by white guy

00:31:43.260 reggae is like i'm white guy black guy i didn't hire i didn't start playing with gary lo because

00:31:49.100 he was a black guy because his playing amazed me and he brought culture with it and it's culture

00:31:57.100 you know what i mean it has less to do with race it has because there's some unfunky black people

00:32:01.660 out there just as there are some unfunky white people you know what i mean it's like that's not

00:32:06.860 that really is it had nothing to do with it yeah oh well when people said that about the clash at

00:32:12.380 the time i don't think they meant it in a racial sense i think they meant it in a cultural sense

00:32:16.220 that it was taking a lot of reggae influences and bringing it into for lack of a better term

00:32:21.660 no i think a lot i think a lot of people are some ignorant and they say some ignorant stuff

00:32:26.060 and believe me we heard a lot of it in the early days we even heard it from our record company

00:32:30.940 who shall be named but back in the day we had nearly a decade of being held back at radio

00:32:37.180 because we had black guys in the band we're talking about canada here so before we get on

00:32:42.060 our high horse and i live in the american south right now in the southwest yeah say what you want

00:32:46.540 but man racism is not it's not exclusive to any place it exists everywhere and we fight against

00:32:52.700 that stuff and i raise my voice about it because i've been subjected to it a long time not only

00:33:00.060 being a white guy in a reggae dance hall situation or having a black guy at a rock radio station and

00:33:06.860 we've heard some really ignorant stuff said and to me it's just i mean there but for the grace of

00:33:13.180 god i just i'm with a bunch of like-minded individuals who scratch their heads and go

00:33:17.660 what's the difference we make good music i don't i don't care if you're man or woman or what you

00:33:22.940 are it just you got to play really well to play with me so i have some questions i i wanted to

00:33:28.780 ask you about gary low um but i i think maybe this is a good segue into it like uh

00:33:35.740 he um you know he was a i i will i'm gonna want to ask you like his loss what did that do to the

00:33:43.820 band how has that changed your music going forward but what you brought up i guess maybe i want to

00:33:49.260 get to first is as i think a really important segue i think a lot of people you know with

00:33:55.340 some very notable exceptions uh they do racialize music in that uh rock is white people rap is black

00:34:01.900 people and when people do cross over uh people don't necessarily not accept it but they do raise

00:34:07.900 you know they raise an eyebrow um you know and some of the greatest guitarists and rock artists

00:34:13.180 of all time have been jimmy hendrix and um you know so you want to talk about so maybe go into

00:34:21.180 like how did it affect you guys you said it held you back tell us about that and and what did

00:34:27.580 people consider it strange to have a black guy in a mostly rock group well yeah even that a mostly

00:34:37.900 rock group i didn't i didn't come from rock and roll background necessarily anyway you know when

00:34:43.900 i started playing music i wasn't i didn't play rock music until the 90s yeah i had been in music

00:34:50.060 since the 70s not to age myself here but i started quite young before i started high

00:34:55.900 school i was getting paid to play you know but the summer before i started high school

00:35:00.540 i was doing paid gigs with a jazz band playing some funky bass jazz bass my first year of high

00:35:08.460 school i was playing weddings and nightclubs every weekend and man i you know my background is

00:35:16.220 polkas and marzucas and tarantellas and wedding music you know i mean we could play gosh shut up

00:35:23.740 of your face and the bird dance and to play ymca yeah you you to play every kind of music

00:35:31.580 you guys should do like a rock polka i'm uh i mean i'm a huge ramstein fan i do octoberfest

00:35:37.260 every year so if you guys put out a rock polka i'm all in well here's the thing man now i'm

00:35:42.060 living in central texas we're close to the border and it turns out man that the you know i mean

00:35:49.740 people think of texas as guitar austin texas guitar town you know all the great guitar

00:35:55.420 slingers come from texas i'll tell you what the instrument that's king here is the accordion you

00:35:59.660 want to hear some dude start screaming and throwing beer in the air get the accordion going down here

00:36:05.260 man dudes start screaming man the people start dancing oh yeah so uh i never i never regretted

00:36:18.300 having a really diverse musical background i guess i somehow realized as in my early teens that

00:36:24.620 you know if you want to do this for a living you really need to be able to address music on

00:36:30.780 on a level playing field no matter what it is and see some you know see some value in styles of

00:36:38.600 music that you may not be a fan of i mean it was easy for me to sit and listen to black sabbath

00:36:42.560 and learn the bass parts on black sabbath records i loved black sabbath when i was a kid that wasn't

00:36:46.600 gonna make me any money and that wasn't gonna enable me to keep playing the bass as i started

00:36:52.440 as a bass player so i learned all all manner of music and man by the time i got to play in rock

00:36:57.600 and roll it just seemed to me like why don't I bring all this stuff with me

00:37:01.260 because otherwise it's just boring mm-hmm does that answer your question

00:37:06.480 yeah well so I would go to go to the second part about Gary low I mean you

00:37:11.400 know he passed away maybe a little less than two years ago roughly I mean he

00:37:18.240 was obviously a pretty key part of your band how how was his loss changed you

00:37:24.620 guys going forward did it sound more or less the same because he died mid-recording so he must have

00:37:29.820 been there maybe for a lot of the writing and whatnot so how was his impact how has his loss

00:37:34.440 affected you guys and and how has it changed well okay devastating first of all and there was no

00:37:44.740 getting over it because it's in the past now. I can't change it. He's gone. And just even on a

00:37:55.360 friendship level, I mean, you know, I know his kids, it's, it, it affects all of us. I get, I'm

00:38:00.220 never, I'm never not reminded of it. Put it that way. Now I could just curl up in a ball and be sad

00:38:08.740 about it all the time, but Gary wouldn't have wanted that. And I can't make somebody play like

00:38:15.920 Gary because only Gary can play like that. So I really just had to stop thinking about that in

00:38:24.800 terms of how that defined Big Sugar. It did define Big Sugar and what we were because that was a

00:38:31.640 collaborative thing. You know, the guys who were playing with me at the time all contributed and

00:38:37.400 their personalities made it what it is so rather than hiring one approach would be to hire guys now

00:38:43.660 to come in and play like the old guys right but i don't have those people with me where al cross

00:38:51.100 is not playing with me mr chill is not in the band um gary lowe has passed away at least no one can

00:38:58.220 play like them so i got over the notion that i need to make guys learn how to play no you're

00:39:05.740 to play just the way al played it you gotta play just the way gary played it no nope forget about

00:39:11.280 it now i play with guys who have their own strong musical personalities and they bring that with

00:39:18.760 them and i ask them to bring it big ben who's the bass player and grady has been playing with big

00:39:24.320 sugar because we've been making music together for 30 some years and we have a musical conversation

00:39:31.260 that already existed now the first time he got up on a big sugar gig and wanted you know try to play

00:39:38.080 it like gary i was like oh stop that's not that's not what we're here to do that's not we're here to

00:39:44.880 do you need to play like big band and that will sound like rock and roll because that's then that's

00:39:50.740 us having a conversation we're not just talking about the good old days i don't really want to

00:39:55.020 play Dig in a Hole because it was popular in 1996. I only play it because I still feel it.

00:40:01.680 It still means something to me. I still want to express that musical feeling to people.

00:40:07.300 So it really is a of the here and now kind of a thing, you know, and that's a very important

00:40:14.340 mindset for a musician to be in because otherwise you just relive in glory days. And then,

00:40:19.080 you know, your old clothes don't fit you. You grow up, you know, you get some silver hairs in here and

00:40:24.700 you you have to start having a responsible haircut you know some of us apparently think that's

00:40:31.720 important um you know like you got to be having fun in the moment and making what you're making

00:40:37.400 now now for fans they can always put on the old records and i'll still play those old songs but

00:40:42.980 man i can't play them exactly the way i played them back in the day because who cares you get

00:40:48.060 the record for that you can have both you can listen to the old one and come and see us do

00:40:52.660 something new with it hey you know if you don't breathe life into these things i i can't ask

00:40:58.020 people to hand me their money and buy a ticket if i'm gonna just do what you could watch at home

00:41:04.100 yeah that's great uh so i want to turn this now towards my all-time favorite song i got a lot you

00:41:14.420 know you're talking to an alberta guy uh where the western standard the the biggest base of our

00:41:20.100 audience is uh is in alberta uh you're um you know so i think it was was all hell for a basement

00:41:28.180 duke was 2001 i think yeah yeah so this song if if if people haven't heard it

00:41:37.220 we'll get out from under a rock but uh you absolutely must listen it's um you know you've

00:41:44.020 You've named it after the famous quote

00:41:45.400 from Rudyard Kipling, you know,

00:41:48.160 as he toured around writing about the British Empire

00:41:51.760 and the great, this is before oil was discovered in Alberta,

00:41:56.200 but he, you know, he said,

00:41:57.940 because Medicine Hat had a lot of proven

00:41:59.720 natural gas reserves and he said,

00:42:01.020 it has all hell for a basement.

00:42:03.460 Yeah, they used to, the Downtown Medicine Hat,

00:42:05.720 the lore is that you just take a pipe in the ground

00:42:08.000 and light it, light it up for a street light.

00:42:11.520 There's no, we just stuck it down the ground

00:42:13.620 lit it and yeah so that's that was dangerous that impression that yeah

00:42:19.380 they're all hell for a basement right that would you know I grew up with that

00:42:22.620 expression I just thought man I'm I would just want to held in my back pocket I

00:42:26.760 thought man that's that's some powerful stuff and I'm gonna do something at some

00:42:31.920 point so I found remarkably little about this song online it's it's legendary in

00:42:39.300 alberta it's legendary for anyone in the oil field in western canada um you know where it's

00:42:44.340 legendary you don't know it's not even like alberta newfoundland alberta props alberta it's the

00:42:50.900 provincial anthem go to newfoundland yeah and that's insane i was in a and i was in an irish

00:42:59.140 bar in newfoundland three sheets though and the group of people my wife were all having a great

00:43:04.260 time and these traditional you know irish mandolins and penny whistles boring those

00:43:11.220 high drum and they're singing all hell oh hell for our basement like um the navigators and whatnot

00:43:18.820 like you know they're atlantic bands that cover this yeah there are lots of bands and musicians

00:43:22.820 that covered it the greatest compliment i ever got that i was producing an artist and he had

00:43:28.020 worked with a lot of older traditional musicians in newfoundland and uh they were on the bandstand

00:43:33.780 one night he told me the young guy in his 20s and he said you know the old guys they they called

00:43:39.300 heaven and albert that's we're gonna do all heaven's probation and they went into the song

00:43:45.460 and he couldn't believe it it's like gordy man i started playing all hell's probation i told him

00:43:49.780 you know i've worked with big sugar and they said big sugar did not write that song my son

00:43:55.780 that's a traditional old newfoundland song

00:43:58.180 oh my god this slash compliment i could ever it couldn't it couldn't have been you

00:44:10.380 it's too good to have been big sugar that's awesome well so the song really speaks to me

00:44:16.280 you know i'm a former uh eastern bastard as they used to say and uh you know i came from ontario

00:44:21.660 small towns you're kind of poor little army and Air Force towns and you know I

00:44:28.320 drove across the country with a u-haul pulled my car behind me and I pretty

00:44:32.340 much played that the whole damn way as I went it was kind of my anthem well it's

00:44:36.440 a song about it's about displaced people it's about yeah Newfoundlanders you know

00:44:41.780 when the cod fishing crisis happened you know they banned all cod fishing and all

00:44:48.420 sudden you did that was the whole economy like they had nothing going on there um so thousands

00:44:55.700 of newfoundlanders left and migrated to alberta i mean you couldn't have a more different place

00:45:02.020 than landlocked northern alberta and an island that's closer to ireland than it is to toronto

00:45:09.380 you know i mean it's a shorter flight to gatwick than it is to to pearson so um i just thought that

00:45:18.020 was an amazing cultural phenomenon that was happening in canada and nobody was talking about

00:45:24.340 it nobody was singing about it you didn't have a lot of acknowledgement of that i was a good friend

00:45:29.860 of ron heinz the famous newfoundland folklorist and folk musician great songwriter and um

00:45:39.140 he was one of the only people i knew that had really written about uh newfoundlanders living

00:45:44.340 in alberta going from fishing to cowboy country you know so we really saw eye to eye on that i

00:45:51.940 think that's a song that really introduced me to a lot of great uh traditional musicians who had a

00:45:57.940 they have a respect for that when they think when they see you can write a song about that they

00:46:02.260 you can feel the humanity in it and it's not you know you don't have to be a new finlander to

00:46:06.340 understand it because it's it's universal as well i mean i've been a stranger in a strange town

00:46:12.500 myself you know so i identified with him yeah i really wrote it about a a young fellow just

00:46:18.740 guy in his 20s who was working in an oil field who left newfoundland with his family and he was

00:46:25.300 a young guy and he couldn't have been farther from home but he was trying to make a new life

00:46:29.620 for himself and we were in uh fort mcmurray alberta and met there's no one more albertan

00:46:36.260 than the new fee albertans because like you know there's this weird phenomenon here um you know

00:46:43.540 old school albertans don't have a problem with us it's actually kind of more

00:46:46.900 you know i won't i won't get into this being too political uh because i don't i want to keep it

00:46:50.820 away from there but um people who choose alberta albertans by choice not by birth are often the

00:46:56.740 most uh extreme you know alberta patriots for lack of a better term i i get accused of falling into

00:47:03.540 of that camp it's probably correct uh but you know newfoundlanders come here they're still proud

00:47:08.340 newbies but they are some of those radical albertans because they're here for a reason

00:47:11.940 and they understand that there's something special about the place um i don't know if you know but

00:47:16.260 you know before i did the western standard i was unfortunately a politician and i was uh yeah i

00:47:22.260 was a member of the legislature for the wild rose party and i remember uh when i saw i i served one

00:47:27.700 term uh got beaten after that but uh i you know i represented strathmore and brooks and i go around

00:47:34.180 knocking on doors and if i saw someone had newfoundland flag flying once i got used to it

00:47:39.780 if i saw a newfie flag i said i'd tell whoever's with me i said i said 10 bucks this guy's voting

00:47:45.120 for me like they were they were like the most hardcore wild rose raw raw albertian types you

00:47:50.580 get uh you know people who some albertans say ah you know guys coming from the east they're

00:47:56.760 watering alberta down getting rid of our old values i think it's actually very different i

00:48:00.360 think the people who come to alberta uh choose alberta are much more likely to be the most

00:48:05.000 fanatical alberta lovers because we have the fervor of the convert uh we weren't born into

00:48:11.960 this religion we're converts so we're much more radical albertans hey there are newfoundlanders

00:48:16.200 who were born in alberta now they're they're ethnically newfoundlanders but they're born

00:48:22.360 in Alberta and now they're old enough to be they've lived their whole life in

00:48:26.800 Alberta yeah but we just loves them absolutely so I I want to get into a bit

00:48:34.360 it's um you know so this has become you know it's kind of up there with four

00:48:38.980 strong winds and Alberta bound as like somebody's dream yeah so we did um we

00:48:47.020 did a feature probably six or eight months ago or so the search for

00:48:51.340 Alberta's unofficial anthem and we went through all these things I know I was robbed come on man

00:48:57.700 that should have been me no no we picked you huh we picked you guys did I win well we didn't really

00:49:04.300 have a winner but I said that was the best we profiled a couple of these songs four strong

00:49:09.300 wins Alberta bound and all hell for a basement and uh your hands it was hands down my favorite

00:49:15.500 But it's you know, it's become an anthem and it's yeah, it's an Alberta anthem

00:49:21.160 It's in particular about you know, the displaced person out of work

00:49:25.500 But who yearns for the dignity of earning their own living and being self-sufficient and going west

00:49:31.780 But here am I telling you about the song you wrote?

00:49:35.400 Typical politician, but

00:49:37.400 So more or less for our viewers, but that's the Alberta story of virtually anyone who's

00:49:45.560 not First Nations moved to Alberta, normally westward from the east, looking for opportunity.

00:49:52.860 How do you take that it's kind of an anthem for Alberta?

00:49:57.460 I put it on when I'm having a bonfire and my Alberta flag is waving over my yard.

00:50:03.220 I'll tell you the truth.

00:50:04.660 Listen, true confession.

00:50:05.700 to this day i can't even pick up an acoustic guitar and play the song without having that

00:50:12.520 moment in the song while trying to remember the lyrics going

00:50:15.380 i get that and the first time i sang it that happened to me i couldn't get through it i'm

00:50:22.980 like okay stop i when we got to the course i'm like this is too this is just hitting me too hard

00:50:27.600 how can you say this out loud but eventually you know you'll rehearse it and perform it at

00:50:33.380 sound checks and you'll do it in gigs and then it just becomes part no it never went away that

00:50:38.060 feeling of that song never went away I always get up sometimes and I'm not a teary guy I don't do

00:50:46.860 that but it it really touches my soul you know I play it late at night bonfire roaring and it's

00:50:52.320 like nothing like a burly man shed in the tear no I order everyone to stand up like it's the

00:50:59.000 national anthem okay guys on your feet so how does it make so how do you take

00:51:06.820 that it's become an anthem for many in Alberta I want to get I don't want to

00:51:10.400 get into the Alberta independence discussion unless you decide to go down

00:51:13.880 that road but it's it's just a kind of an anthem for Alberta pride yeah that's

00:51:22.100 great I'm all for it I'm not much for like separatism not for yeah from line

00:51:28.160 not for quebec not for alberta not for texas believe me i'm driving around here uc license

00:51:33.120 place let's say secede you know like no no don't know if you're you're talking about a whole other

00:51:40.640 kind of succession in texas well it would even be legal unfortunately but it's not gonna happen

00:51:46.880 and it's and i'd like to see it not happen in north america i'd like to see you know

00:51:52.800 people work it out because come on now the differences are what makes it cool you know like

00:51:58.720 yeah you should have a different opinion of yourself and your culture and you should be

00:52:02.000 proud of it and go on rock on man they they speak french in louisiana nobody got a problem with it

00:52:08.480 speak french you speak french in canada speak it sing it eat it great we love it that's fantastic

00:52:15.520 don't be don't be flipping me the finger because i got ontario plates and i'm driving

00:52:20.720 through quebec city you know what i mean like don't get all aggro on me i'm different than you

00:52:25.520 are just be be who you are we'll come and see you do it yeah i mean like in new orleans people

00:52:31.920 travel there to see people act all french i was like good it's okay make that appealing

00:52:39.200 it's okay we don't have a problem with it until you have a problem with it so

00:52:43.680 uh we're getting all political here i i didn't mean to it's kind of inevitable with me because

00:52:48.720 that's what i write about what not we know this was supposed to be mostly uh earnest skinner

00:52:53.280 leading it and i was going to restrict myself but i was going to restrict myself to this section

00:52:57.200 anyway so maybe it would have happened regardless uh or as it's now in the dictionary irregardless

00:53:04.080 they need to burn the dictionary that's not a real word uh so it's uh so the all hell

00:53:13.920 for a basement was released in 2001 um the uh but at the time you know the oil field the oil industry

00:53:21.760 was i think much less controversial uh at least in canada probably around north america i mean

00:53:27.120 it's always had its critics and whatnot uh but it was probably not the burning political issue that

00:53:32.720 it is today um do you do you think if you released that song today that you'd get in any trouble for

00:53:41.200 it that you'd be uh you know people maybe try to cancel here or something we got we got in trouble

00:53:47.280 back in 2001 we got in trouble for it tell me about that we put that song out you know that

00:53:53.120 song was never a radio single i know no it's the greatest song in my why they wouldn't release it

00:53:59.280 as a single because the record company is based in toronto and you get 12 guys who live in toronto

00:54:05.040 sitting around a boardroom table talking about your next single well we can't put that out

00:54:10.480 because well they're not going to play it anywhere else really they won't play a song

00:54:18.160 in manitoba because it says alberta in it now how come on now they won't hey we get it it goes extra

00:54:26.480 innings at the end of that song in vancouver to saint john's yeah people want to sing it everywhere

00:54:32.800 we go as no record company execs ever been as wrong as Shelby Nameless there's

00:54:40.960 no music video for it you go to YouTube and look where it's the video is a

00:54:44.620 homemade thing of a guy in an oil field who like took his crappy camera and he

00:54:48.740 set it to the song I'm probably half the listens to it on YouTube but I'm kind of

00:54:54.920 proud of if I look it up on YouTube yeah there's two dozen guys with their

00:54:58.900 acoustic guitar in their den singing it now that's that's a video that that's

00:55:03.400 something you should be proud of so you know we yeah man we took the heat for it

00:55:08.080 back in the day it was like what do you mean well we're gonna put the national

00:55:11.060 anthem on our record too that's another hot topic we put the national anthem on

00:55:14.740 that same record yeah that was the death knell for Big Sugar because the

00:55:18.940 arguing in the and the frantic heated discussions about we played it on a TV

00:55:25.900 show and they freaked on us i'm like it's a national goddamn anthem what's right they played

00:55:30.140 at every hockey game you have trouble with it we played at our rock show oh yeah you know you're

00:55:35.180 gonna make some people mad like i'm not here to make people mad but if they get mad go home i'm

00:55:41.900 not i don't do it for everybody just for the people that like it so what do i care i mean

00:55:46.380 it's like i play the song because i'm proud of it if you're not proud of it then it's fine go start

00:55:51.420 your own band so that's fascinating so I know a good number of Alberta

00:56:01.180 sovereignists around there's probably a lot more of them today than there were

00:56:04.540 in 2001 but you know one of them was telling me about this we were talking

00:56:09.600 about this song a couple years ago I don't know if this story is public but

00:56:13.860 he seemed to know something about this but I had never seen it verified

00:56:17.220 anywhere else uh tell me a bit more like this this is just you don't have to be an alberta

00:56:23.060 patriot to love this song it's just a great piece of music um played in texas people love it yeah

00:56:29.220 this is a good song so like tell me a bit about you know how uh unnamed executives uh

00:56:37.060 you know uh emi we have our emi moment here we can um they weren't bad people they just yeah

00:56:43.940 misguided they were doing their job but they were overdoing it i mean you can overthink this

00:56:48.660 business like no other business man trust me but i couldn't if i grew my hair to my shoulders and

00:56:54.180 then cut it to my ears there was a board meeting about it and i just that's part of why we bailed

00:56:58.980 you know after that after brothers and sisters are you ready in 2001 2002 we toured the whole

00:57:04.900 year and just kind of went you know what they've just taken all the fun out of this we're only

00:57:10.340 going to do what we do and we're not changing so if they don't want to play ball with us

00:57:15.380 we'll take our ball and go home y'all can have the court to yourself and then we just left for

00:57:19.460 a while i went to texas big ben richardson chris layton started the band grady and just got down

00:57:26.500 and dirty and it was punk rock and we had no crew we loaded our own van and did our own driving and

00:57:33.140 drank our own beer and you know i mean cleaned up our own messes and it was just a real humbling

00:57:40.340 reaffirmation of a commitment to to playing music rock and roll blues whatever you want to call it

00:57:46.580 we just had to make a commit i just had to read recommit myself to doing this without all the

00:57:51.740 creature comforts and all the spoiling of being a well-known and the show is sold out near the

00:57:56.920 headliner we went out and we opened for three days grace we opened for nashville pussy we opened for

00:58:02.720 uh you know we we'd go and do any we played a little punk rock clubs all over austin texas

00:58:09.620 like every night of the week we'd go play in front of 300 you know rabid you know punk metal

00:58:16.760 whatever fans and music there are down there didn't matter to us we just really needed to

00:58:21.960 recommit ourselves to it and of course they never had the commercial success that big sugar had but

00:58:28.420 that is a band that man they were they were flying us to scandinavia to do one night gigs they wanted

00:58:35.160 this so bad we'd fly from go from montreal fly to uh to oslo and then fly back then do a gig fly

00:58:45.480 back the next morning and go to nebraska for a gig like it just it was a pretty crazy schedule

00:58:52.600 with grady for a while and people loved that music and it wasn't for everybody and we really

00:58:58.560 enjoyed making it and we still do it once in a while but you know at a certain point we wanted

00:59:03.480 do big sugar again so you know around 2010 we started to kind of scratch your heads been think

00:59:10.200 oh i mean you feel like playing digging a hole again like yeah i actually do feel like playing

00:59:14.920 it again only on our own terms so really since then big sugar only exists because we say so

00:59:22.200 only on our own terms i mean we're happy to work with the record company people we work with because

00:59:26.840 they let us do what we do they do their job we do our job we have great understanding

00:59:33.480 really but between my wife and i we just it's us against the world you know we just sat down

00:59:39.580 one day and went do you even want to do this like after gary passed believe me there was a there was

00:59:44.300 a moment where we had seen so much pain and heartache till we just sat down and went why

00:59:50.500 bother why do it do you even want to do it look me in the eye and tell me if we do it under what

00:59:56.580 conditions why do you want to do it we had to have that just foreheads touching you know just

01:00:03.020 really close contact conversation what husband and wives can do and uh yeah really had to lay

01:00:10.840 down some parameters for how we would do this going forward creatively and business wise and

01:00:15.880 and she's just been an amazing like a force of nature just in terms of calling it like get right

01:00:24.600 down to the dirt let's just call it what it is there's no there's no sexiness there's no

01:00:30.460 glamour of rock and roll let's just look at as bad as it's going to get are you willing to go

01:00:34.760 there because as good as it gets anybody wants that you know all the good stuff that comes with

01:00:39.040 this business everybody wants some of that the parts you don't see are you willing to get down

01:00:45.700 and and do the work and we both were so which we did and we made uh eternity now made a new record

01:00:52.880 built a studio to do it and just double down on and bet on ourselves you know and and we've had

01:00:59.340 an incredible year i mean so there are a lot of bands that are really hurting and knock on wood

01:01:03.580 man we've had one of our best years without leaving the house just between all of our

01:01:09.560 our social media numbers are through the roof which that didn't mean anything to me in the

01:01:14.660 old days that's just the advertising thing isn't it i don't know and now it's kind of just become

01:01:20.420 another outlet for expression like you know I make something I put it out and

01:01:25.520 wow I've seen more people are seeing that than any night of the week I could

01:01:28.880 go out and play a concert even sold out show anywhere more people are seeing it

01:01:32.480 in one I want to ask you about eternity now before before we're done but I want

01:01:38.520 to just a couple more things you're just a funny question I guess I can answer

01:01:44.000 this one says if all hell for a basement comes the national anthem for an

01:01:47.600 independent Alberta will you have to pay royalties question is yes so Gordy your

01:01:53.720 opinion on Alberta independence but you know any I don't think you have to worry

01:01:58.520 about selling another home for the rest of your life if it becomes a national

01:02:01.520 anthem every damn hockey game and Legion event you'll be making make it a killer

01:02:07.100 tens of dollars literally tens of dollars well so hey I don't believe in this part too much but

01:02:17.920 you know one of the best versions of this song I think it rivals the the studio version is when

01:02:26.340 you did this with I'll help for the base offer help help help for a basement live with the

01:02:31.860 truths on Texas radio station well if you look on YouTube it's up there it's

01:02:37.620 huge that I think is just as good even though it's recorded live and that's

01:02:41.580 actually kind of adds to it I think it makes it better than mine otherwise be

01:02:44.740 in the studio and it's it's even more emotive like I like I have it on my

01:02:53.160 country list you know it's not really country it kind of jives with it a

01:02:56.520 little bit it's kind of that flavor how can we never release that as a single

01:03:01.800 like I know I guess the original was not released as a single but you're a huge version of it I'm

01:03:07.240 not a music business manager I'm the first thing about the business but that's a good point I mean

01:03:12.040 these songs don't get old to me you know I mean I because I invented it I mean I I still love to

01:03:19.440 perform the song so perhaps at one point I'll just pick up an acoustic guitar and do it you know full

01:03:25.800 on absolute party floor stomping I will invest in it contact me I will invest

01:03:34.560 everything I own in that I know I'm gonna do well on it do you know the

01:03:38.340 lengths I had to go to to get a version of that I could put in my iTunes get

01:03:44.640 what I did but I spent like a day doing it it was it was not healthy I'm guessing

01:03:50.040 you're a fan of the song I'll help her base you might have picked that up okay

01:03:55.080 so i want to turn to your new stuff uh focus on that in a second uh you can say no but uh we talked

01:04:01.560 to your uh i guess your representative when we were setting this up is it possible for you to

01:04:06.840 maybe strum out a little bit of the of all help for a basement for us it isn't because i'm in my

01:04:13.320 studio but i'm actually on a session where i'm mixing i'm mixing a bunch of reggae music with

01:04:19.560 doing a bunch of collaborating with some artists right now and i i spend most of my year i mean as

01:04:24.840 much as now we make stuff for social media um and online stuff i also am very busy as a producer

01:04:31.800 um they got nominated for a grammy and mixing records for artists and collaborating with

01:04:39.160 with different people and really delving pretty deep into reggae at the moment next year is going

01:04:43.560 to be a big year for us for uh for reggae releases so i'm the entire place is you know i had to do a

01:04:50.840 a little bit of housekeeping because it was a it's getting kind of zany in here

01:04:54.780 it's it's it's full-on session time so it's oh geez yeah it's a bit of it's

01:05:02.220 very beautiful yellow I'm sure she told you that I wasn't able to do that no I

01:05:07.340 didn't hear that but I wasn't I was expecting to be very much a bystander of

01:05:13.040 this uh of this interview uh okay well um i want to ask you about um so you've released two albums

01:05:22.720 this year uh one of them was just the re-release of hemi or uh yeah a re-release of hemi vision uh

01:05:29.120 two uh two album vinyl colored vinyl uh wonderful booklet there's an essay by uh alex life's in a

01:05:36.160 brush wrote a little piece for us about the record uh the first time the lyrics have ever been

01:05:41.360 printed and put in one place but pretty funny looking up the lyrics on the internet pretty

01:05:46.880 funny so corrected all those put them on there uh the record label was able to find a lot of uh

01:05:54.720 hidden gems in the vaults just stuff from the session that was never released there's different

01:05:59.500 versions of songs and uh there's a there's a beatles cover in there there's all there's all

01:06:05.980 kinds of wonderful stuff that was uh in the vault that we were able to put on a full side of the

01:06:10.800 record so uh yeah it's it's a wonderful package for fans of the record and gold school big sugar

01:06:16.440 fans and people who like collector vinyl it's um simon evers in toronto did the the artwork and

01:06:24.520 design and it's just it's a beautiful package i'm so really really proud of it so uh tell me a bit

01:06:31.380 about uh tell us all a bit about uh more about eternity now uh it's uh well i guess that's not

01:06:38.160 the cover of it but that but you get the point yeah so um yeah that color is called eternity

01:06:47.120 blue oh there you i i would have just said teal and that's as uh fancy as i get um tell us a bit

01:06:54.960 about the album uh is this i i guess i kind of we were kind of into this earlier we were talking

01:07:00.800 about the passing gary low uh is this uh you know you said you wanted someone your them to be

01:07:08.080 themselves on it how is this different from uh how is new big sugar different from old big sugar

01:07:14.000 on eternity now are we gonna hear changing your sound yeah to me it's sort of like

01:07:22.880 it's big sugar version 3.0 you know i mean that's dot to me eternity now is record number one

01:07:30.800 of a new era of big sugar i think a big sugar having you know our first couple of records

01:07:37.420 big sugar 500 pounds to mr fantasy uh hemivision and heated and brothers are you ready and then

01:07:45.220 we went away then we came back we made revolution per minute eliminate ya um yard style you know

01:07:55.120 we made a couple records as that band which was you know friendliness and mr chill and we had a

01:08:01.760 we actually had wide mouth mason as part of big sugar for a while we had 12 people on stage some

01:08:07.640 nights and that was you had wide mouth mason as a like essentially a part of the band yeah

01:08:13.180 because i didn't know because it's up to us i didn't know that they're good humored lads and

01:08:20.360 we just love them and so yeah everybody you know babylon by bus we just everyone piled on and

01:08:26.080 we went and toured that giant rolling uh you know rolling review of of craziness um

01:08:35.100 but then when you know when that was all said and done and same thing you know after gary passed

01:08:40.720 we had to stop and reassess and come out with something that was kind of free from the past

01:08:49.120 you know i mean it wasn't there's no harmonica on the record gary's not playing bass on the record

01:08:56.720 if no harmonica on a big sugar album no we don't have a harmonica player

01:09:02.720 so what are you gonna do about it i'm not going to hire someone to play like mr chill because

01:09:06.800 there's only one of those guys and it had less to do with the harmonica as an instrument not a fan

01:09:13.600 of the harmonica i'm a fan of the way that dude played it he played he could have been

01:09:18.720 playing any instrument frankly if he played it that way i would have that instrument if he could

01:09:23.280 if you could make me feel what he made me feel on the xylophone we would have had xylophone in the

01:09:28.320 band talking about that you know so i don't get hung up on that kind of thing you know so instead

01:09:34.240 of having harmonica we had congas i had afro-cuban um musician that i play with here in austin ray

01:09:42.480 artiaga so there's a lot of latin rhythms and traditional uh latin percussion on the record

01:09:50.000 that just occupied a different space there's not a lot of keyboards on the record the you know we

01:09:55.280 had two keyboard players before now there's none so the you know we we took the instrumentation

01:10:00.400 that we had to work with the five people that we had those are the five voices on the record

01:10:05.760 those are the five instruments on the record we made it here in one room and one at one time so

01:10:11.280 it sounds like a moment in time it's a real snapshot of what we sounded like the day we

01:10:16.000 decided to keep being big sugar so to me it's a great little portrait of wow wow i'm gonna look

01:10:22.400 back at that someday and go yeah man that's the day we decided you know what we're gonna we're

01:10:29.280 gonna be big sugar that's let's start the clock over again right now and pretty great uh i couldn't

01:10:36.800 be more proud to say that the only guest musician on the record is alex lifestone of rush

01:10:44.640 so having al send me guitar parts overdubs a solo to play on the title track was like oh okay if

01:10:54.320 i mean if that dude thinks it's worth it i guess i'll carry on another day i think i'll carry on

01:11:01.760 so ernest skinner uh well he's uh spamming me with uh texts on my other screen here

01:11:07.520 uh he keeps on saying ask him about alex leifson uh you know the rush influence on him keep on

01:11:12.880 asking about that so i've done told you about it yeah man i've been a rush fan since i was a kid

01:11:17.760 i mean a little kid i just turned a teenager 13 years old i must have bothered my parents

01:11:23.280 till they were sick of it to let me go to a rock concert i wanted to go see kiss i want to go see

01:11:28.240 zeppelin i want to go see bob dylan all these concerts ellis cooper come on please please

01:11:34.560 when rush came to town i was like no uh that this we're not discussing this i'm going

01:11:39.840 i'm 13 years old i damn well am going my dad was like okay all right you know so there's my dad

01:11:46.720 he's like ex-air force auto executive standing in for the kobo arena in detroit with these three

01:11:55.520 little teenage dudes freaking out you know uh 1978 man my dad took us to see rush at cobra arena in

01:12:03.840 detroit and that that was like a blasting cap that went off in my head i thought that's it man

01:12:09.280 i've rocked the lights the smoke the the double neck guitar double neck bass and bass pedals and

01:12:16.080 huge drum kit and the songs are 20 minutes long i'm in i'm doing this that's it education will

01:12:22.480 have no place in my future every parent likes to hear that level of commitment

01:12:29.740 from their child you know well you know most parents are probably terrified when

01:12:35.260 their kids say they want to be a rock star because it doesn't work out for

01:12:38.080 most but your parents must have breathed breathe a sigh of release relief when

01:12:42.400 when I did forget yeah but there's there's almost two decades before before

01:12:51.040 sigh of relief.

01:12:51.920 Yeah, I will say I was supposed to talk to a teenage rock star success, but you guys

01:12:58.080 built it for a very long time.

01:13:00.120 I want to be respectful of your time, so I just got two questions.

01:13:03.480 One, I think, is short.

01:13:05.240 One, I think, more full length.

01:13:07.980 Well, then stop me.

01:13:08.940 Does it have anything to do with all hell for a face?

01:13:11.460 No, no.

01:13:12.200 Okay, good.

01:13:12.840 Then, yes, you may proceed.

01:13:13.780 My wife, this is the way, it's not just that I'm obsessed with the song, and I am truly

01:13:18.220 obsessed with the song.

01:13:18.880 my wife's always telling me to skip she does she likes the song but I have it on

01:13:22.540 all the time I'm probably a good thing I didn't all right no I want to bring it

01:13:33.220 back so you mentioned like without without Gary you don't have harmonica

01:13:39.580 but it's pretty intrinsic to some of your songs like open up baby I can't

01:13:44.140 imagine you guys i don't know how you would play that without it it's an intrinsic let me let me

01:13:50.540 demonstrate go on youtube and look up hemivision live we did a live stream concert of the hemi

01:13:56.780 we did the entire record every song on the record with a different guest artist on every song

01:14:02.540 colin james and i play open up baby harmonica about it me and that dude you don't miss it

01:14:10.620 okay do that we put those two dudes together playing the song colin's a good buddy of mine

01:14:17.580 man we've made some great music over the years and just having his enthusiasm for it he's so

01:14:23.660 stoked about it like uh you know these songs are malleable things you know what i mean it's a that's

01:14:28.780 not the entire we've been playing digging a hole without a harmonica for five years you know it's

01:14:34.140 ain't no thing it's not gonna make me stop playing the song so before i let you go i gotta ask uh

01:14:40.540 you know what are some of you know what is the the one big Western Canadian

01:14:48.420 group or artists that you think is either woefully unappreciated not yet

01:14:54.040 broken to the mainstream or that is most deserving of of really making it

01:15:01.840 making a breakup anyone from Victoria to to Sault Ste. Marie damn well you see

01:15:13.060 you've caught you've caught me at a bit of a disadvantage here because I I tend

01:15:16.840 to not think of music and geographic term you know to be not about a

01:15:22.720 geographic so I could even even I even have our time with someone says who's

01:15:26.440 favorite canadian artist i mean i i wasn't asking for passports i was just digging records you know

01:15:33.000 what i mean i i love all kinds of people um that's a tough one man i don't and i haven't really been

01:15:40.280 on the haven't been in the scene so i don't want to do a disservice to anybody by by by missing

01:15:46.920 somebody because i don't really know who's out there to tell you the truth i mean i let me look

01:15:53.720 around the studio i mean here i am not deep in the heart of texas i'm a guy who looks like me

01:15:59.560 who listens to reggae music all day you know i mean i don't know what's going on i do i do love

01:16:07.960 uh vancouver i love the music scene in vancouver i've always had a soft spot i met my wife in

01:16:13.960 vancouver you know what i mean there's a lot of there's a lot of uh family connection there

01:16:20.520 and some of my best musical buddies are in vancouver and one of my favorite musicians

01:16:27.960 just anywhere happens to live in vancouver is uh rich hope rich hope and uh and his evildoers

01:16:36.280 uh they used to have a band called john ford and they toured with us a bunch and i produced

01:16:39.880 a record for them guys and i continue to write songs with the principal members of that band

01:16:45.240 for years um but rich has always had a soft spot in my heart for for richie hope because

01:16:51.580 man he just embodies rock and roll i mean he's a guy my age who still shreds on a skateboard

01:16:57.360 he'd give you the deadly rockabilly haircut and beard trim he's covered in tattoos i mean dude

01:17:04.200 rides a skateboard to work you know and he plays a big black les paul it just thrashes it and i

01:17:09.800 just man he's embodies rock and roll for me and i just he's an inspiration and i'm lucky to say

01:17:16.280 he's a friend too but but i can't limit it to that because man i every so many great musicians i've

01:17:23.220 encountered over the years jay sparrow is another one great cat from edmonton man his his music is

01:17:28.780 always just right from the heart you know i mean it's something i hate to limit it to who's my

01:17:33.780 favorite. Wow. I thought I was the one giving a politician's answer. I named names. I named names.

01:17:45.860 Gordy, we've taken twice as much time as we predicted. I've enjoyed it. I'm really grateful

01:17:54.900 for your time. Again, I apologize for the technical difficulties. Ernest Skinner, our

01:18:01.460 Westbrook columnist want to be with us here. It's kind of his debut on the video side, but

01:18:07.780 He'll certainly be writing about this

01:18:10.820 I've immensely enjoyed myself

01:18:14.820 Really thankful really grateful for you to join us. Thanks, man. So best of luck

01:18:21.700 Keep doing what you're doing and I'm looking forward to you releasing my favorite song on acoustic as a single

01:18:28.240 In fact, you need to put out the electric on a single.

01:18:31.020 It's well overdue.

01:18:33.580 Yeah, it's funny, isn't it?

01:18:34.680 Well, okay.

01:18:36.360 Yeah, something.

01:18:37.420 Yeah, we'll figure it out.

01:18:39.140 We'll get something going on there for you.

01:18:41.120 Business advisor, we got you.

01:18:42.320 There's nothing about the music business.

01:18:45.600 All right.

01:18:46.220 Well, thank you, Gordy.

01:18:48.700 And thank you all for joining us.

01:18:50.460 Members, if you're not already a member, go to westernstandardonline.com.

01:18:54.260 Go to the membership section.

01:18:55.380 join us for one of the only

01:18:57.140 support, one of the only media outlets in Canada

01:18:59.420 that don't accept government bailouts

01:19:01.620 for media outlets.

01:19:04.720 But thank you all

01:19:05.500 very much for joining us. It's been a wonderful evening.

01:19:07.960 Have a great weekend and a Merry Christmas.

01:19:10.520 Cheers.

01:19:11.500 Cheers.

Western Standard - December 19, 2020

WESTROCK： Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar on All Hell for a Basement and what's next for the band

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