Business still good for Bachman

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/05/2010 (5621 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Those of you who caught the Randy Bachman concert during the big homecoming social at the Manitoba Room (a.k.a. The Molson Canadian Hockey House) this past weekend were treated to an outstanding show. When it comes to getting a crowd fired up with his legendary anthemic guitar riffs, he can still take care of business.

Some may say that line smells about as bad as a sweaty game worn jersey but as everybody is still caught up in Memorial Cup and Stanley Cup fever, I thought I’d stick along the lines of hockey.

Besides why not go with a line that’s about as big a cliché as any answer you’ll get from a hockey player during a between period interview. You have to agree it fits the bill nicely when you’re talking about his show that rocked a joint dubbed "The Molson Canadian Hockey House!"

The week prior to his concert I had the pleasure of chatting with Bachman via phone from inside his Saltspring Island home on the West Coast. I caught up with the legendary fret master while he was in his Rammed Earth Barn Studio putting the finishing touches on his next album that features old band mate Fred Turner. He spoke about his new music with a distinct sense of fervour and youthful intonation of excitement sprang from his voice as he described the upcoming tour to support it. Among the many things we discussed were: his guitar collection, touring, recording, his radio show, rock ‘n’ roll and the current state of the music business. The following is a portion of our lengthy conversation …

 

FM: You have a busy summer coming up, how many shows will you end up playing?

RB: They keep coming in. I’m just now finishing up my own gigs then I rehearse the rest of May with Turner and we go play Sweden Rock and the High Voltage festival in London which is fantastic because we’re playing with all our old friends you know, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, ELP, Peter Frampton Foreigner and others so it’s just fantastic. It’s going to be a great summer! Then we’ve got gigs all over the Prairies and Manitoba and here there and everywhere.

 

FM: How is Fred doing by the way? I heard he lost 100 pounds for this upcoming tour.

RB: He’s doing fabulously well! He’s happy to be playing … we’re both happy to be playing and bouncing off each other again. You know, him doing a song and me doing a song. It seemed to be a natural evolution for me you know when the year 2000 came and I hooked up with the Guess Who again and that evolved into me touring with Burton Cummings and then that had its course, then I started to work on a solo thing that evolved into having Fred sing on one song and that ended up being so exciting for him and me that I said hey I’ll flip my solo album to be a Bachman Turner album. Do you want to give me a few more songs and I’ll send you a few more of mine? So we did some recording in Winnipeg just before Christmas and the singles are going out to radio right away. Then the album comes out in September. Once people heard we were back together, bang, the phone started to ring and we’re getting an incredible amount of gigs all over the world.

 

FM: What is a typical day on the road like?

RB: Well, everything depends on the schedule. But I can tell you it’s a lot different than the old days. In those days for example, we would drive to Brandon and play. We set up our own gear, play the gig, take down our gear, then get in the car and drive back to Winnipeg, get home at four or five in the morning and go to sleep. Now you’ve got a road crew to take down your gear, we’d probably go to our hotel and have a shower, get on the bus and sleep in a beautiful bunk and have a room in the back with a television set and games and guitars and people can sleep if they want or else we just fly to the next show. So we’re taking it a lot easier these days. We’re not 20-year-old kids that are out to rock ourselves to death. We’re rock ‘n’ rolling to stay alive actually. We’re playing more prestigious gigs on this tour. For example, Sweden Rock will have 35,000 people and the high voltage festival is supposed to have 75,000, so those are real big deals for us.

 

FM: When you do use the bus and turn on the stereo, what do you usually listen to? Is there anything in today’s rock that gets your attention and makes you crank it up?

RB: Uh … no! (Laughs) I gotta say there’s not much bending my ears from today’s radio. Most of the new stuff I like doesn’t get played on the radio, like the Black Keys. They do just lay down some really raw, rough and gritty blues and it reminds me of some of the old early rock ‘n’ roll records. Back when guys were just wailing their hearts out. With some of the imperfections were left in. That’s what I kind of went for a little bit on the new Bachman Turner album. Not pristine perfect things where you could hear every instrument but where you could hear a band playing, a performance by a band live in the studio. The new album is trying to recreate that and we leave the imperfections, and we did recreate by just setting up and playing live off the floor. Even if a take has a little glitch or mistake here and there you leave it because it’s a good performance and that’s what makes people feel good when they hear it. That’s why I think live performances have taken a front row seat in today’s rock scene. Too many of today’s recordings are so computerized and so perfect where they’ll play a song 25 times into a computer and correct the pitch of the vocal and everything. I prefer to go back to au natural so to speak.

 

FM: So keeping the passion in your takes or performances is key?

RB: Passion and fun and put the fun back in rock and roll. There’s no fun when you play a song 25 times into a computer and having everything corrected. It’s more fun when you play it once and you go "wow! That really felt good!" It’s the old Neil Young thing, walk in do one take and that’s a moment in time you either like it or don’t and I like it so I’m putting it out kind of thing.

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To hear the interview in its entirety check out the interviews section of the KX96 website at KX96online.com

Up next at the hockey house, get set to rock out with Tom Cochrane! At press time tickets for his Saturday night concert were nearly sold out and some may still be available at Ticketmaster or you can visit the Keystone Centre Box office.

 

» Next week in Happenings, we shine the spotlight on local songstress and vocalist extraordinaire Katherine Penfold.

 

Frank McGwire is a radio personality and booster of the music scene in Brandon and Westman.

» franko1@mts.ne