The Rheostatics make their return
Ten years ago, The Rheostatics supposedly played their final show. The emotional send-off at Toronto’s Massey Hall was a fitting end to one of Canada’s most beloved bands.
Except, it wasn’t. Like so many other bands that said goodbye, The Rheos couldn’t quit each other. Sporadic reunion shows became regular reunion shows, putting retirement talk to rest. Two of the band’s upcoming seven shows are in Niagara — Friday at the In the Soil festival in St. Catharines, and Aug. 12 at Jackson-Triggs Winery in Niagaraon-the-Lake.
That wasn’t the plan, insists guitarist Dave Bidini. He really did think it was over a decade ago.
“We did think that was it, based on the poetry of it,” he says. “Then you end up saying, ‘To hell with poetry!’
“You find yourself in this life, and as you get a bit on the other side of it, you realize that art is finite in a way. Certainly the creativity is finite in one’s life, and if you get an opportunity to do that with the people you love doing it with, you’ve kinda got to seize it.”
Cynical? He gets it. But The Rheos don’t plan on being a nostalgic act. Now that the creativity is flowing again, new music is happening. A show at Massey Hall last year debuted 12 new songs.
“We’re really conscious of not simplydoingagreatesthits,CCR-stylerevival type thing,” he says. “We wanted to do music that could live today.
“Our fans have always been really great that way, and want us to be unpredictable in that way. It’s a very accepting and elastic kind of crowd. It allows us to walk out on a tightrope and they kind of come right there with us.”
Virtually since they began in 1980, The Rheostatics have had a small but extremely devoted fan base. While the band was critically adored, they were never superstars, recalls Bidini. It’s part of their lore.
“As a band, we were never too close to the industry,” he says. “Our life was always measured club to club. It wasn’t really supported by record company advances or money earned on royalties. In fact, we were mostly poor during our lives (together).
“We had to settle to make sure our lives could motor along at a certain level, in terms of income. Being resolved to be content, being allowed to do what we wanted to do. That’s where the audience came in — they were able to float us through a lot of those times.”
Two of the band’s early ’90s classics, Melville and Whale Music, are routinely ranked high in lists of Canada’s best albums. The Tragically Hip were among their biggest fans, with guitarist Bobby Baker once describing them as “a little too good for their own good.”
It’s a legacy Bidini is proud of, even
as he tries extending it.
“We were there as one sort of (musical) wave was starting,” he says. “It’s nice to look back and see a sense of accomplishment in that.
“But we want to continue. We want young bands and young musicians to look at us and know that it’s possible to make that the focus of one’s life. The band is also a celebration of friendship and all of the complications that’s part of that.
“It’s nice to be symbolic of that. If we could be that crooked wooden arrow on the sign post that says ‘This way to Rheostatics’ for people embarking on their musical lives, that’s a great thing.”
Bidini has been a prolific writer for decades, penning numerous magazine and newspaper columns, two plays and 12 books. His next book, about working for a Yellowknife newspaper, will be published soon.
“I think part of the trick of being a Canadian artist is being able to do a lot of things, and to embrace a lot of things,” he says. “To not be super rigid.
“Bands will always play, songs will always be written. Maybe the audience changes more than the band does.”