GRAPES OF WRATH RETAIN DIY ATTITUDE
Trio revisits deep cuts but non-committal about recording again
Just over a month ago, The Grapes of Wrath played a show in Edmonton that found the act reaching back to one of the deepest of its deep cuts.
In fact, they had not played it since the mid-1980s.
“We didn’t even get a chance to rehearse it,” says Grapes guitaristsinger Kevin Kane. “We just went up there and played it for the first time, I think, since 1986 or 1987.” And?
“We nailed it,” he says with a laugh.
The song was Realistic Birds, a leisurely paced and jangly instrumental from the band’s 1985 debut September Bowl of Green. At the time, the Grapes hadn’t quite evolved into the assured guitarpop trio that would emerge a few years later with 1987’s sophomore release Treehouse and 1989’s Anton Fier-produced Now and Again, albums that yielded sturdy classics such as Peace of Mind and All the Things I Wasn’t. Like many acts of the day, the sound on that debut had a certain Cure-like chill that the Grapes would eventually grow out of.
But revisiting the deep cuts, if not the hairdos, is all part of the fun, Kane says.
“When I go out to see a band that I liked years ago, the hits are great but I also want to hear a few album tracks and a few surprises, things where I’d say ‘ Wow, I didn’t expect that,” Kane says, in an interview from his home in Toronto. “This time around, we’ve been digging a little deeper.”
There have been many times around for the Grapes of Wrath, a band that began in Kelowna when its founding members — Kane and brothers Chris and Tom Hooper, on drums and bass/vocals respectively — were still in elementary school. After dabbling in punkrock under the regrettable moniker Kill Pigs, the Grapes officially formed in 1983. They would go on to be one of Canada’s most reliable hitmakers in the late 1980s, offering radio-friendly fare without ever abandoning its college-rock roots. But by 1992, the band had acrimoniously dissolved. Kane went his own way, while the Hooper brothers rechristened themselves as Ginger.
Which would have regulated them to the CanCon history books had the trio, like so many bands before them, not made peace and decided they were better off together than apart. So, since 2010, they have been performing offand-on to increasingly receptive audiences made up of both old fans and new recruits. In 2013, they recorded the album High Road, which featured the band’s first batch of new songs in 22 years. This round of touring is at least partially in support of Brave New Waves session, a 2017 collection compiled from the band’s appearances in the late 1980s and early 1990s on the CBC radio series. They will also be inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame later this month in their hometown of Kelowna. with the Hooper brothers 26 years ago seemed rather rancorous, at least by Canadian standards, Kane jokes about it now and acknowledges the three share a long, complex history. Kane actually met Chris Hooper when they were both eight years old.
“We were trying to be like a British band,” Kane says. “We were influenced by British music, even with our breakup.”
Still, he says that the band’s modest roots actually make them wellsuited for today ’s music scene, one that is completely different than what they entered in the mid1980s. For now, the Grapes have no record label and no management.
“There just aren’t the record labels and the whole support staff the way they used to be,” Kane says. “It’s different in absolutely every respect. For the Grapes, we were punk-rock kids and we came along with the attitude that we were going to have to do this all ourselves. I know the Pikes are the same. They self-financed their early records and figured it out for themselves. There were a lot of bands of that time that were on major labels and were basically just plucked from the club scene and that was that. But we already had that DIY mindset.”
We were trying to be like aBritishband.Wewere influenced by British music, even with our breakup.