‘Saskadelphia’ only the beginning for the Hip
Surviving band members share their thoughts on the loss of Gord Downie
The healing continues.
With the release Friday of “Saskadelphia,” a six-song album of previously unheard material, plus an upcoming performance at the Juno Awards on June 6 with Leslie Feist, the surviving members of the Tragically Hip say they are reconnecting again after the heartbreaking death of their iconic singer Gord Downie three and a half years ago.
“We were all kind of in a fog of grieving, not knowing what to do, not enthusiastic about really doing anything,” said guitarist Paul Langlois during a Zoom interview Wednesday that included guitarist Rob Baker, adding that the band hasn’t played together since their final nationally televised concert in Kingston on Aug. 20, 2016.
“It’s only been in the last year where we started being mentally healthy enough to start talking again and deciding what should we do.
“So it feels good. We feel connected again.”
Connected enough to move forward with a special onstage reunion at the Juno Awards’ commemorative 50th ceremony with Feist … one that they needed a bit of convincing to do.
“I don’t think we really had any intention of doing this,” said Baker.
“It kept getting suggested and people were throwing out names of people who could sing. We really weren’t that interested until Leslie Feist’s name came up and I think all of us in the same moment sort of thought, ‘Oh, Gord would have liked that. He would have wholeheartedly approved of that.’
“It felt natural and we all know Leslie, she’s a good friend and a great performer, great artist and, yeah it’s going to be fun and interesting … and a little terrifying.”
Less nerve-racking is the release of “Saskadelphia,” a sixsong set of five outtakes from the 1990s “Road Apples” sessions that were recorded in New Orleans, and a live recording of the song “Montreal” that the band — which also includes bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay — wasn’t able to find the master for.
Both Baker and Langlois said “Saskadelphia” rekindled some forgotten memories — even about the music they recorded.
“It’s like going to a therapist and recovering memories you didn’t know you had,” says Baker.
“Some of these songs we hadn’t heard in 30 years. There are a couple that I don’t even remember doing.”
Langlois says he was equally surprised.
“I wasn’t expecting much,” he said. “We got sent them — maybe four of them out of the six — the end of last summer. I was very hesitant. I waited a couple of days to play it, to be honest. I just thought, well, I haven’t heard these songs in a long time, they didn’t make the record. How good could they be?
“So I was more than surprised; it just flew out of the speakers and I was like, ‘Wow, how did this not get on “Road Apples”?’ It was way more rocking than I was expecting. It was a great feeling. It sounded like a band. It sounded like the young us.”
The lapse of retention surrounding the sessions can be forgiven: the duo says life at the time was very much a blur due to incessant touring in Canada and the U.S., as the Hip promoted its successful Canadian debut album “Up to Here” with energetic gigs and wrote “Road Apples” whenever they could spare a minute.
Baker says the band would often write songs and perform them later that night, such was the pace as they worked to ensure that they didn’t fall into the worrisome “sophomore album jinx.”
“We were all very conscious of the sophomore curse and so we spent a lot of time writing. We’d write a song in the dressing room or at sound check, and then we’d play it that night.
“We’d see how it went and what needed to be done to it to fire up the audience.”
They were also trying to impress producer Don Smith (known for his work with Keith Richards), who worked with them on “Up to Here.”
“Don was rock royalty for us and, like rock royalty, he’s a weird, strange-feathered beast who is an idiosyncratic weird dude,” Baker said. “I thought he was going to come in and push us around in the studio: ‘Do this, don’t play that, change the sound of your amp,’ and it was none of that.
“He said, ‘I just love you guys. I love these songs and I love the way you sound. I love the way you play in this band and my job is to capture that and make it sound as real and as authentic as I can.’ He never tried to change us.”
Smith’s encouragement was an important factor in the band’s young life: Downie was coming into his own as a lyricist and a performer, and fans, largely via radio, MuchMusic and club shows, were discovering such unique classics as “Blow at High Dough,” “New Orleans Is Sinking” and “38 Years Old.”
By the time “Road Apples” was released, Hip fever was beginning to really take hold in Canada, adding such faves as “Little Bones,” “Twist My Arm” and “Cordelia” to their ascent, establishing them as a must-see concert act as both albums pulled in multi-platinum sales and eventually surpassed one million each in Canada.
Downie’s unusual performance style not only thrilled fans but also kept the band on its toes.
“He was awesome from the get-go,” Baker said. “We were in competing bands in high school and from the first time I saw him it was like, ‘Oh my God, this guy’s got it! He’s got something interesting.’
“And playing with him onstage, you didn’t know what was going to happen. He might just take a left turn or sing new lyrics or start a new story, and you’d just play intuitively off of each other and we became very good at that.
“So you could anticipate what someone else in the band was going to do. We just started to operate as a single mind when we were playing together jamming, backing him up.
“We had to be tight, but you also had to be loose and prepared for anything.”
Langlois said Downie always gave “110 per cent.”
“Gord worked hard,” Langlois said.
“He was as into it as any of us. He had just taken over the lyrics — he was leaving us in the dust, lyric-wise — and it was obvious and a reasonable thing that he wanted to sing his own words. He’d look at some words that he hadn’t written and he’d be like, ‘What?’
“And we were more than occupied with trying to come up with good riffs to try and impress the rest of the guys.”
Throughout their career, the band released 13 albums and sold over 10 million albums and was a source of Canadian pride.
Then Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2015 and the clock was ticking.
Although there were future plans made — such as the continued existence of the Bathhouse, the Hip’s recording studio just west of Kingston — Downie was upset over things that were beyond his control.
“He was upset and really bothered by the fact that the band was going to kind of stop along with him,” Langlois said. “But his brother Pat represents his interests so we always keep Gord in mind. We were a fivepiece, together all the time, so of course we honour him whenever and however we can.”
In the meantime, “Saskadelphia” is only the beginning of a number of Tragically Hip projects in the works.
“There’s a lot of stuff in the vaults and we have stuff in the works, but we’re still working on it,” Baker said.
“Johnny’s still looking and there are multiple places to find Hip tapes, apparently. He’s doggedly determined — he’s been leading the charge on finding this stuff and getting it all transferred and consolidated in one place.”
As for Downie, both Langlois and Baker said they’re aware of the singer’s impact, but keep it in perspective.
“On some level, I think we’re all aware of that, but it’s not something I focus on or think about too much,” Baker said.
“For me it’s much more personal: the loss of a friend. It’s the loss of your career. To some extent, it was the loss of self-identity. For more than half my life I’ve been a member of a fivepiece. It’s not a five-piece, so things have fundamentally changed. There was a lot of stuff to sort through and I’m still working on it — it’s a work in progress.”
And Langlois says Downie will be remembered for his kindness.
“With the public, Gord had a great reputation of being kind. That’s not a surprise. We saw it all the way through: talking to fans and making them feel more important by listening to them. He did that, but we did it too.
“I think that’s what he cared about most: how you made other people feel. He certainly made them feel good.”