Paying tribute to ‘boundary pushers’
Cory Churko sang some familiar lyrics on a stage at School of Rock Regina on Saturday afternoon.
“Hit me with your best shot, and fire away!”
The girls sitting in the front row sang along with him: They had performed the same Pat Benatar song in concert last year.
Churko sang it on a Telemiracle stage in 1979, a nine-year-old from Moose Jaw performing with his parents and siblings. But for this weekend’s impromptu rendition, the guitarist was working with some different bandmates.
Todd Kerns, who grew up in Lanigan, was to Churko’s left on a borrowed guitar. Brent Fitz, originally from Winnipeg, was to his left on a borrowed bass. And Shane Gaalaas, hometown Innisfail, Alta., was in the back on the School of Rock drums.
They had never played this song together. Toque’s modus operandi is to cover Canadian classic rock songs, and Benatar is American.
“Pulled that one right out of our hat,” Kerns said afterward.
The song was sandwiched in a three-song set that also included April Wine’s Roller and Alanis Morissette’s Ironic.
Recognizing his audience — a room of music students ages 12- to 17 plus their parents and teachers — Kerns told them Alanis Morissette is “a very successful artist from the ’90s. You might know her music.”
The changing times was a theme of the afternoon, as the band members referred to cassette tape answering machines, a $35 weekly wage for bar gigs, finding bandmates through message boards in music stores, now-defunct club venues, and knowing each other “longer than most of you have been alive.”
Toque came to Regina from their Los Angeles and Las Vegas homes to be part of Telemiracle this weekend. Visiting School of Rock was a bonus.
“Our hearts are still here and our careers are all based on being from the Prairies,” said Fitz, who said he sees himself in the young musicians.
The members of Toque have performed with big-name artists including Shania Twain and Kelly Clarkson (Churko), Yngwie Malmsteen and Japanese superstars B’z (Gaalaas), and Slash (Fitz and Kerns). But in the 90 minutes they spent at School of Rock, the guys from Toque didn’t focus much on their careers.
They mostly talked about what got them hooked on music in the first place.
For Gaalaas, it was hearing his cousin’s Kiss record as a six-yearold, then seeing the band live in 1977.
Aside from Churko, who spent much of his youth touring across Canada with his family band, Toque’s members found other musically inclined kids and jammed together.
“This kind of thing (School of Rock) didn’t exist when we were kids,” said Kerns, who also fronted ’90s rock band The Age of Electric. “When I was growing up playing rock and roll, it was still kind of like this weird, almost rebellious sort of scary thing, especially for smalltown Canadian people.”
“It’s nice to talk to the kids, because we all know what it’s like growing up in a small town in Saskatchewan, which seems like a million miles away from anything,” said Churko. “And coming to talk to these kids, you can tell them they can dream as big as they want.”
“It really comes down to the passion,” added Gaalaas, who has played huge gigs as a professional musician.
But, mostly, “we just want to play, still.” he said.
“We’re like these kids, still. We’re going to go play tonight (on Telemiracle) and it’s going to be awesome.”
“I think it was really cool to get to hear what they had to say,” said 15-year-old singer Jade Russell, a School of Rock student.
The big take-away for fellow 15-year-old singer Maddy Birns was “probably that people come from a lot of different backgrounds and their start in music is very different. And the fact that people can come together through music is kind of amazing.”
Toque recently played during the Heritage Classic hockey game.
“Awesome, for Prairie guys,” said Fitz.
They’re slated to perform on May 27 at a Martensville Kinsmen fundraiser at Outlaws. And they’ll play the Craven Country Thunder beer garden in July.