FULL CIRCLE AT JAZZ FEST
Men Without Hats return home
Ivan Doroschuk thinks it’s particularly appropriate that his band Men Without Hats will be playing their jazz festival gig at Club Soda.
The Hats, who burst out of the Montreal new-wave scene way back in the early ’80s with a little electro-pop ditty/smash hit called The Safety Dance, are in the midst of quite the revival, touring regularly as part of a slew of ’80s package tours.
And this late-career revival came about thanks to Rubin Fogel, the seasoned Montreal concert promoter who co-founded and coowns Club Soda.
“I’m going to tell this story the night of the show,” Doroschuk said on the phone from his home in Victoria, where he has lived for 14 years.
“When it all started, like six or seven years ago, I get a phone call and the guy at the other end of the line says, ‘Ivan, how’s it going? I’ve got a friend who’s going to phone you in 10 minutes. His name is Rick Shoor. He’s got a good idea.’ He hangs up. Ten minutes later Rick calls, and he’s the agent for all of these ’80s (tours). First thing he did was put me on the road opening up for the Human League and the B-52s. We tour America and I’ve been on the road ever since, doing shows all over the world.
“So I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that first phone call. And you know who made that first phone call? It was Rubin Fogel. He called me out of the blue. I was a stay-athome dad in Victoria. For me, my career was over. So I want to thank Rubin.”
In the ’80s, Club Soda — which was at its original location back then, at Fairmount and Parc Aves. — was one of the key concert venues in town, often hosting the newwave acts that were dominating the pop world in those days.
“That was a pivotal moment in our career; that’s when we knew we had made it,” said Doroschuk, “when we did two sold-out shows at Club Soda on Parc Ave. in ’83. So to play Soda now, we’ve come full circle.”
Men Without Hats actually began in the tiny underground punk scene ici in the late ’70s, playing places like the Hotel Nelson, but they became huge in 1983 when the impossibly catchy synth anthem The Safety Dance hit the top of the charts around the globe. There were other hits in the following years, most notably Pop Goes the World, but, like Doroschuk underlines, The Safety Dance still has astonishing resonance over three decades later, regularly turning up in movies, TV shows and commercials.
The band always had a rotating cast of members, with the core in the ’80s built around Doroschuk and his brother Stefan. The group split up in 1993 after the criminally underrated 1991 album Sideways flopped. That was mainly because their record label at the time, PolyGram, didn’t understand this brilliant collection of songs that tapped into the growing alt-punkpop movement and slyly mixed that with Doroschuk’s melodic pop sensibility.
Doroschuk is the only original member in the current lineup, which includes keyboard players Louise Porter and Rachel Ashmore and guitarist Sho Murray. They participated in an ’80s-themed Caribbean cruise in February, along with fellow newwave-era stars Howard Jones,
Berlin, Cheap Trick, Colin Hay from Men at Work, Morris Day and the Time, Belinda Carlisle and Tiffany.
“I had a blast,” said Doroschuk. “I took my son and my ex-wife, and it was great. The fans were extremely respectful, because we were expected to mingle, to walk around and have our pictures taken.”
And the ’80s nostalgia shows no sign of waning, according to Doroschuk.
“The audience is growing,” he said. “It’s that demographic. Touring and rock shows, it’s a baby boomer thing. We’ve been doing these tours and going to places we never went the first time around. We’ve been to South Africa and Peru and Scandinavia twice. We never left the continent the first time around. We were just going around America in circles.
“It’s a good time now. The demographic is good. Plus, the kids are into it, too. There’s a resurgence of old-school electronic music, and so there’s an awareness amongst the kids today of where the whole thing came from. Then there’s the demographic of our original fans. Their kids have grown up and they have some free time on their hands and they have some disposable cash.”
It sounds like it’s more fun now for Doroschuk compared to Men Without Hats’ heyday.
“It’s a lot more fun — there’s no pressure,” he agreed. “I’m not pushing a single. Nothing ’s on the line. The story’s been told. I’m just blessed to be here and be able to do it. I’m just lucky that the people are still listening to my music, and I see it in their faces. That’s the biggest payback I’ve been getting: the reaction of the people. And knowing that I’m on a lot of these people’s bucket lists. Everybody is just really happy to be there.
“The song Safety Dance is so big now, I feel like I’m just a custodian of the song. I just travel around the world presenting it to the audience. I’m sort of the curator. It’s been a really fun trip.”
And he’s looking forward to the Quebec tour that includes Club Soda on July 2, plus an appearance at the jazz fest’s big free outdoor Discothèque bash on July 1, and shows in Dolbeau, Chicoutimi, Gatineau, Rouyn-Noranda, Lachute and Quebec City. His brother Colin, who has occasionally played with the Hats, will join them for the Quebec gigs.
For Doroschuk, it feels like the good old days when they were touring the province back in the early ’80s. So the band really is coming full circle.