Health scare gave rocker Kim Mitchell a new lease and new appreciation for life

It was not the best way to begin an interview with Canadian rock legend Kim Mitchell, but the subject needed to be broached since it happened within a few short hours of the news making headlines.

Not long before the start of the business day of May 24 it was revealed that Gord Downie, lead vocalist for the equally iconic Canadian band The Tragically Hip, had brain cancer – and that it was terminal. Social media unleashed a torrent of love and support for the charismatic, somewhat enigmatic Kingston native, his family and friends. Music lovers and musicians themselves were equal in their praise for his talent, sympathy for his dire health condition and support for the battle ahead.

One of those stricken with sadness and grief was Mitchell who had befriended Downie years ago, and would run into him on occasion as both lived in Toronto.

“Jesus man, what a sweet guy. We wrote a song together about 10 years ago but it was never released, but I have it on a drive somewhere at home. He rode his bike over and we spent the afternoon writing a tune together. And the funny, sweet part is we decided to go for a coffee and I had to buy him a coffee because he didn’t have any money on him. He was on his bike and you don’t often bring a wallet or money when you’re out for a bike ride. I joked to him, ‘you’re twice as famous as me and you don’t have a cent?’ That was the memory that popped into my heard when I woke up to the news this morning, and what a f***ing thing to wake up to,” Mitchell said.

“It’s reminiscent of what I recently went through with one of my best friends. He went through the exact same thing as Gord and it was about a two year process. He had the operation, they couldn’t remove it all so he had the chemo, had the radiation and that held it for a while. But then over the last year things really started to go south and it just got terrible.”

Mitchell called Downie a poet, and an artist who had a similar creative conviction and as unique a style writing as Bob Dylan.

“He was so prolific and so profound. I always loved everything he did, from top to bottom. Gord had his own little piece of real estate in the music world, and I respect that so much. I was impacted by a lot of these recent deaths, especially Prince because I was a huge fan. But this is one of our hometown boys basically, who has done great things creatively. I just went through a health scare myself not that long ago. We’re all going to go, but still. I guess the key is, and I don’t mean to get heavy but, man, just live your life because we don’t know how long we’re going to be here. We don’t know how much of the runway is left,” Mitchell said.

And while this article was intended to promote Mitchell’s co-headlining show with David Wilcox at Casino Rama near Orillia on June 11, as well as dates in western Canada and other parts of Ontario throughout the summer, the fact of the matter is the announcement of Downie’s struggle brought Mitchell’s own existential experience to the foreground of the conversation.

Back in January he suffered a heart attack and had he not been close to a hospital in Toronto and got the appropriate care, including surgery, he might have been added to the roster of rocker deaths that have already plagued the latter weeks of 2015 and into 2016.

“I was gaining some weight, I had a gut. I had two doctors, my cardiologist and my general physician both saying ‘you’ve got to lose some weight. This is dangerous fat. It causes diabetes and heart problems.’ So for a month I was in the gym, eating better and had no chest pains – nothing. But I was a little short of breath. I had been going through a lot in my life and my friend was dying of cancer and other shit happening so my cardiologist didn’t think it sounded cardiac related,” Mitchell said, giving the narrative of his medical emergency.

“Long story short, I woke up in the middle of the night with a pain in the back of my neck, the kind you get when you’ve slept on your pillow wrong. It was wound up tight and I was like, ‘man this was a sharp pain.’ I put my back out years ago and thought maybe I was going to have to do the same thing and go to the hospital and get a shot of morphine or something so I could sleep. I was on my way to the nearest hospital when I just felt a twinge in my chest. But I thought it might have been muscular. They did some tests and everything seemed fine at the time. Then I started getting more chest pain, and more chest pain and even more chest pain. So while I was sitting there in the hospital I actually started having all the classic symptoms. It got to the point where I called for the nurse and she came along and did another EKG. She saw it and went running down the hall to get the doctor who said, ‘you’re having a heart attack.’”

He was stabilized, but that hospital wasn’t able to do the necessary surgery, so he was quickly transferred to where there was a cardiac surgeon on hand.

“I didn’t have a bypass because everything else was pretty good, so I just had a stent because one of the main veins was 100 per cent blocked. As soon as the doctor said, ‘we’ve found the problem, you’re going to start feeling better in a couple of minutes,’ I just started to bawl, right there in the surgery. I really felt like it was the end and I became completely at peace with it. It was okay. I am not really a religious guy but I just kind of said, ‘thanks for a great life.’ If this was it, f*** it was a lot of fun,” he said, adding that obviously he survived to rock on another day, but not without some pretty profound changes in his outlook.

“If there is any advice I can impart it’s to listen to your body. Look at your family history [there’s heart disease in Mitchell’s family] and listen to your friggin’ body. When I first said I was short of breath I should have told them to investigate it further. But since then, so much has changed. We just kind of roll along and we don’t appreciate so much of the good shit in our lives. And it’s clichéd stuff but that’s because it’s tried and tested – you do appreciate the little things.

“I will now take a walk and appreciate the simple goodness of the earth. Here I am walking my dog and he’s f***ing happy. It’s a beautiful morning and look at all the things I have. I have friends; I have a roof over my head – stuff like that means so much more now.”

And what it also did was help give Mitchell perspective about his music and his career. A founding member of the eclectic Toronto-based 1970s rock band Max Webster, by the mid-1980s he was a bona fide member of Canadian rock royalty after embarking on a solo career in 1982. Songs like Go For A Soda, Rock and Roll Duty, Patio Lanterns, East To Tame, Rockland Wonderland, Acrimony, Lager and Ale and many others are still staples on radio and the soundtrack of millions of Canadians’ lives.

“What it did, and I hope this doesn’t come off as cocky, but it’s made me realize that I have nothing to prove any more. I play guitar, and I am going to go up there on stage and enjoy myself and appreciate the fact that I get to go up on stage and play in front of people who like what I do. I don’t stress out about all the stuff around being a touring musician any more. I am where I am in my life and my career, so I am just going up there and relax and do my thing,” Mitchell said.

Also in recent months, Mitchell was let go from his job as the afternoon drive DJ on Toronto’s Q107 radio station, as part of a larger corporate purge that happened when a new president took over the station’s parent corporation, Corus Entertainment. While disappointed at being dismissed, he said it was handled with class, and that he now doesn’t miss the job at all.

“What they said and the way they handled it was top notch, but I am really glad I am not in the business any more. And to be perfectly honest with you, I have not listened to one radio station since, not one. And it’s not out of anger, it’s like when you sell a house and you leave the neighbourhood. Do you go back to that neighbourhood? Not really do you, you’ve moved on. And that’s where I am at,” he said.

Even though Mitchell technically has more time on his hands since his departure from the radio gig, he has found that he is as busy as ever. Because of the limitations on his health, which he calls his “new normal,” he isn’t inclined to step up his touring schedule because of the wear and tear it could take on his body.

“I am going to quote one of my best friends who retired a few years ago and he is completely retired. He said, ‘dude, you’re going to sit back in about six months and wonder how you even managed a job because you will be busier than when you worked.’ And it’s true. I just get into all kinds of stuff. I play guitar a lot. I am running around, I take my dog for walks, I grocery shop and the next thing you know it’s f***ing bedtime. But it’s all good,” he said.

Mitchell hasn’t released an album or original material since 2007’s independently released Ain’t Life Amazing, but he said that there might be project coming together for a possible release sometime next year.

“I have a bunch of new music and have had it for some time. Greg Wells, who was in my band actually years ago, he moved down to L.A. and has become a pretty big producer working mostly with pop artists. But he’s also done some really cool earthy, organic stuff too. He came to visit me just after the heart attack and I gave him a USB thing with the new stuff that I had. It was all laid back stuff that I had written over the years but thought was too mellow to release. It’s kind of like Expedition Sailor from the Rockland album – acoustic Pink Floyd-type stuff that’s very vibey and atmospheric,” he explained.

“Two days later Greg sends me an email back asking ‘can I produce this? This stuff is awesome. I love this side of you and I think it should be developed.’ So I am going to try and go down to his studio and see if he was serious sometime before summer’s out. And then if he was, hopefully over the winter I will spend a couple of months down there to record it.”

As for his current crop of shows, Mitchell understands what people expect to hear.

“Listen, I think I’ve told you this before but I am all about customer service in rock and roll. I am not the guy who goes, ‘hey you know the f***ing album that didn’t sell anything, it’s my favourite and I am going to do side one in its entirety.’ People are coming out to hear certain songs and hear me playing them. But they have been morphing and going through some changes. So Go For A Soda sounds a little different the way we play it on a given night. And we will start to jam out on some of the songs and be a little freer with the arrangements. I like to give people what they want. And then for the few deeper cuts I might shake it up more from night to night.”

For more information on Mitchell and his summer 2016 tour dates, visit www.kimmitchell.ca.

* Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.

 

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