54-40 NEGOTIATES BALANCE BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT
Thirty six years into its career, Vancouver’s 54-40 is faced with the conundrum facing all veteran rock bands: should they wallow in the past or forge boldly forward?
On one hand, their commercial heyday in the ‘80s and ‘90s produced a string of memorable Can-rock hits: “Baby Ran,” “One Day In Your Life,” “Baby Have Some Faith,” “She La,” “I Go Blind” (later covered by Hootie & the Blowfish).
But as a working band who thrive on live gigs, there’s little appeal in being a musical jukebox for crotchety old timers.
“The desire to create doesn’t really go away,” notes lead singer Neil Osborne, on the phone from his Vancouver home.
“Admittedly, we don’t release new material thinking were gonna strike it rich. Radio stations won’t play it . . . (laughs) . . . well, maybe in a feature at Tuesday night at 2 a.m.
“But we still like to release new material. It keeps us interested and fresh.”
As a music fan himself, he’s not naïve about audience expectations for veteran acts decades past their commercial prime.
Nor is he going to leap offstage to strangle some obsessed codger screaming for “One Gun” or “Ocean Pearl.”
“I get that,” he concedes personably. “I go to see Neil Young, I don’t want to hear his new record. I want to hear ‘Cinnamon Girl.’”
He laughs. “I saw Elton John a couple of months ago. He snuck in two or three new songs that weren’t pretty much No. 1 hits in two hours . . . (comic beat) . . . that was enough!”
But that’s speaking as a fan, he says. “Speaking as an artist, I want everybody to hear every new song we’ve just released, because we spent a lot of time crafting them and recording them.”
The question, of course, is how to negotiate this delicate balance with the people who pay your bills, some of whom will head to the bathroom at the first unfamiliar musical note.
“When you have a catalogue of radio songs and then go out and insert a new one or two, they have to hold up, you know what I mean?” poses Osborne.
“The songs around them are established. These new ones have to carry their weight.”
He’s not pompous about it. It’s one of the advantages of having kicked around the industry for four decades.
“You shed a lot of your ego as you go along,” he agrees modestly.
“I remember we did one of those ‘90s festivals and Our Lady Peace was breaking and The Tea Party was happening and there was a lot of posturing. We were friends with some of them. Some were pulling a big attitude.
“But you go fast forward, and we did one of these classic rock things with Boston. And (guitarist/founder) Tom Scholz comes right up to our trailer and goes ‘Hey, I’m making hot dogs out here! You guys want to have a hot dog and a beer and hang out?’ We’re like ‘Sure!’ It was like a big picnic.’”
He sighs. “But we’ve all gone through that: ‘I’m gonna make my mark and plant my flag!’”
In these days of narrow internet playlists with a thousand entertainment options jockeying for position, he’s less interested in beating his chest on principle than finding a groove and making a connection.
“With the internet, there’s so much noise out there, so many new artists,” he insists.
“At least if you’re playing Maxwell’s (in Waterloo) or wherever on that particular night, you’re the only band.
“There’s still something about the personal touch, about being alive and live. It’s probably more critical than it ever was.”
It’s been 54-40’s mandate since the early days.
“Believe it or not, we really get off on the collective experience,” he notes.
“It’s like taking the boat out for a spin or riding a wave or whatever. Even though we’ve done this a million times before, it’s always a little bit different. We have to go out there and earn it a little bit. It’s kind of a neat thing.”
When this newspaper talked to him 30 years ago, Osborne — a young up-and-comer with convictions of steel — lamented music’s obsession with the past (specifically, ‘60s jangly guitar sounds) and expressed concern about the role of technology in then current electro-pop.
Three decades later, in a world of roundthe-clock nostalgia and autotuned, penned-by-committee pop songs, his comments seem to have accurately predicted the future.
“We have this joke about some of the acts,’’ he notes, unwilling to take credit.
“The producer goes to the pop acts and says ‘What are these things in the studio?’ ‘They’re instruments!’ ‘I don’t want to see any instruments. I want you to put them in a van and get them 20 miles from the studio!’”
Another laugh. “It’s all programs and samples, which are fine.” It’s just not what 54-40 does. “We consider ourselves creators of music and when we sign our contracts they say ‘artist,’” notes Osborne, comfortable in his role. “So it’s important to us to do a reflection of where we’re at in conjunction with where the world is at.”
“We have a pocket when we play and we love playing so we can get right into the subtlety of the groove of a particular night or song. It’s still quite interesting and fun for us.
“And obviously when you interact with the environment and people around you, it creates another thing.”
If it doesn’t lead to the mega-fame that once seemed theirs for the taking, well, you can’t put a price on happiness.
“We feel quite lucky,” insists the 50something vocalist. “Maybe we didn’t get to the stratosphere like a U2 or something like that, but hey, we’re still paying the bills, making records, having a heck of a lot of fun.
“And people still pay come see us play, so I can’t complain about that.”