Change can be a daunting proposition. It creates uncertainty as to its eventual outcomes, frustration over not knowing the endgame, fear of the unknown variables and vicissitudes that are yet to come. But it can also be a liberating process, allowing for the unshackling of emotion, creativity and artistry, a freedom from past practices and expectations, and a cleansing of the spirit that leaves one reinvigorated, energized and poised to move forward in exciting new directions.
While there have been some trepidations over some of the seismic changes that have been engaged by Canadian rockers The Trews, the result of their recent existential crucible is a new album that is full of creative fire, a renewed sense of artistic adventure, and a frisson of positive energy that is palpable from the very first notes.
The album, Civilianaires, will be released on Sept. 14 through the band’s new label, Cadence Music. It was a record deal negotiated by the band’s new management company, Gold Village Entertainment, and the first record featuring the band’s new drummer Chris Gormley.
All of these significant moves happened over the past three years, with the band choosing to part ways with their long-time management, Larry Wanagas of Bumstead Records and Bumstead Productions Ltd., and move to their new U.S.-based management team. That led directly to the new label deal, as well bringing in Gormley on a permanent basis, after he replaced Gavin Maguire, who in turn had replaced long-time drummer Sean Dalton in 2015.
That’s a whole lot of change to manage over a short period of time, something band-co-founder John-Angus MacDonald, his brother Colin and bassist Jack Syperek, took on head first, and continue to deal with as the ultimate long-term payoff of their ‘new normal’ will not be known for some time.
The first significant result was the creation of arguably The Trews’ most ambitious, best crafted and most sonically dynamic album in many years. Civilianaires is the result of a process that was as circuitous as it was fulfilling, involving collaborations from one of the world’s greatest rock producers, from a long-time pal, and from one of Canada’s best young production minds.
“It was a long journey through the wilderness to get to this record. We shed a lot of skin, almost literally. Sean left in 2014 and we parted ways with our manager of 15 years in 2017. We got out of our label deal with Nettwerk and got into a deal with Cadence this year. It was a huge shakeup. We hired new management, we hired a new agent in the U.S. So, there’s a lot of new blood but we shed a lot of skin that we have had on for a really long time. It was a tough journey. It’s tough to find your balance sometimes when you’re out in the wilderness by yourself for the first time,” said John-Angus MacDonald, the band’s lead guitarist.
“And then creatively we had a lot of stops and starts. We wanted to get this record out a long time ago. We would rather this record had come out instead of Time Capsule, our last release which was basically a greatest hits compilation. We had hoped to have something new by then [2016] but we didn’t have enough stuff. And our label at the time preferred to do the greatest hits thing, so we came to a compromise and threw a few new songs on it.
“We had a lot of stops and starts with different studios and producers, just trying top find the sort of sound in our head that would put us in 2018, and for it to feel fresh and to feel good again and feel right.”
In a sense, looking back, MacDonald acknowledges that the discussion over whether to put out the greatest hits package, which is essentially a time for retrospection, with some new material, (which usually involves introspection) led to the dominos beginning to fall creatively and on the organizational side of the band’s ledger, starting with the departure of Dalton, who had been with The Trews for a dozen years.
“Sean’s departure was kind of a mutual decision, it really depends on the day and depends on who you ask. But we had reached a standstill, even as friends. We just couldn’t discuss things, so it just sort of fizzled out and fizzled out in dramatic way when we were still on the road. We didn’t really deal with it at the time, we just put our heads down and went to work, having Gavin as our drummer for a while. He is a great live drummer and we had lots of fun with him on the road. But we never really spent the time reflecting on moving forward without a guy who we had been on this journey with for so long in Sean. It wasn’t the end of the world, but sometimes you just don’t think of the unintended consequences of this stuff.
“We have known Chris for a long time, because he had a band called Daylight for Dead Eyes with his brothers and they were really great, but never really broke into the mainstream. About a year and a half ago he started coming over to my house to write with our band. I thought maybe we were writing for his band, but it turns out after we wrote about a half dozen songs with him, two made it onto Civilianaires. The other four will come out in some way shape or form because they’re really great. We just had this natural chemistry with him that we didn’t have with Gavin, who, again, I think the world of as a player and a human being. But we didn’t develop that natural rapport that has to be there to be able to write with somebody. Chris has that almost naïve enthusiasm that you sometimes lose when you have been around as long as we have. To him, every show is a chance to blow a hole in the sky and if you fall short, it’s still going to be a pretty good show. That’s the kind of personality and excitement he brings to the band.”
As for the change in management, that was certainly one of the more epic dominoes that fell during The Trews existential discussions over the past three years. Wanagas had been with the band since before the release of their smash debut album in 2003 and helped navigate them through the rigours of the Canadian music scene, where they have become one of the most beloved and respected bands in the land. Songs from their first five studio albums and five EPs continue to be staples on Canadian radio, including the likes of Not Ready to Go, Tired of Waiting, Poor Ol’ Broken Hearted Me, Hold Me In Your Arms, Sing Your Heart Out, Highway of Heroes, Misery Loves Company and What’s Fair is Fair.
“We had to take a little bit of a look in the mirror and try to identify where we thought things could be better and how to achieve it. And let me preface this by saying you don’t know. All of it still remains to be seen. We did make a couple of really tough decisions – it really was hard to have that conversation with Larry who had been managing us for as long a he had. We just felt we were at the end of our creative partnership. The ideas weren’t flowing freely. Some things just felt stagnant and he was also making moves towards retirement. So, we decided to push that button, which then led to all the other dominoes falling after that,” MacDonald explained.
“One of the seeds that was planted a few years ago that led us to Larry and us no longer working together was he sold his label with us on it to Nettwerk, who started a new imprint called HOME. We were always on Larry’s label, he would just licence us to the major labels, including Universal who we had done our previous three records with. So, we went along like the baby with the bath water, out the door. And we try to see the good in that. Nettwerk is a good company and they put out The Trews’ ‘The Trews’ album (in 2014) which did all right in the current industry climate. They didn’t botch it, so we carried on with the Time Capsule – they sort of twisted our arms, but we did it. And they had one more option, so we had one more album to deliver. But then we fired Larry and we were searching around for a manager. The phone rang a lot, because we’re pretty well known, especially up here. Lots of people wanted to talk.”
One of the people who wanted to talk was industry heavyweight Danny Goldberg, former president of Mercury Records, manager of artists such as Nirvana, Bonnie Raitt, Hole and the Allman Brothers, among others. He is also a former music journalist with Rolling Stone and penned some of the most well-read and well-respected books on the music industry.
“We have friends in America, a band called Red Wanting Blue who are on Danny’s management roster in sort of a baby band category. They came to Canada and opened for us a bunch and then we went to the States and opened for them in certain markets and became really good friends. In the back of my head I was wondering what it would be like if we had boots on the ground in the U.S., it we were actually making money for an American company. Because our whole business has been so Canadian-centric. It turned out they were interested, and we met with them two or three times and felt it out for a bit, because you have to like each other, you have to have a personal rapport,” MacDonald explained.
“It turned out that all the stuff checked out and we’ve been with them since January. So, we’re nine months into it, and this record Civilianaires will be the first project in the new partnership. And it’s going really well; we love having them on board. Danny also got us out of the Nettwerk deal because he just sensed a disconnect and got us with Cadence. And we were well into the process by then. I remember the stuff we were playing for them and a lot of that is on the album and they loved it. So, there was good chemistry with Cadence. We will see how it all works out.”
On the creative side of the process of change, The Trews were trying to pull material together on their own, but soon an opportunity presented itself to work with one of the biggest names in the industry – producer extraordinaire Bob Rock (Metallica, Aerosmith, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi) who made his name in the hard rock world, but has more recently been working with the likes of Jann Arden, Alan Doyle and Ron Sexsmith.
Rock had taken time out to see The Trews play a showcase gig at the famous SXSW festival in Austin Texas, indicating later that he would be interested in working with the band. After months of discussion and trying to fit into one another’s schedule, the band and Rock met up in Vancouver, but only for three days and worked on four songs. Rock contracted a serious illness meaning the scheduled sessions for a possible six songs in total had to be scrapped, but MacDonald said those three days were inspirational.
“We loved working with Bob and would gladly work with him again, but it just didn’t come together. Bob’s doing some great work these days too. He played me some of the stuff he was doing with Bryan Adams and I feel like he is branching out from his heavy rock roots, where he is doing a whole bunch of folk records and soul records. It’s a cool phase for him,” MacDonald said, adding that he also collaborated a bit with friend Max Kerman of The Arkells, as both he and Kerman are based in Hamilton these days. Award-winning Canadian songwriter Serena Ryder also contributed some of her songwriting magic into the mix.
What pulled everything back together and gave the writing and recording process some focus and energy was meeting eventual album producer Derek Hoffman (The Elwins, Seaway).
“I really think he is going to be a world-famous producer some day and I tell him that to his face all the time. Getting together with somebody new in a creative space can be strange and can be so hard to break the ice. And nine times out of 10 you don’t come away with anything truly great. We like writing with our bandmates. I like writing with Colin and Jack and, sure some days they can be a pain in the ass, but we know each other and trust each other enough that any ideas is good and it’s a safe space where you can throw anything out. With a new person, it’s always strange,” MacDonald said.
“We weren’t going to commit to him producing us the first day we met him. We just wanted to get together and maybe write some songs with him. And he had already done some work on some prospective tracks ahead of time and when he hit play it just blew us away. We were like, ‘holy shit, how did you come up with this?’ It was so good already before we had done anything. And he said he grew up listening to us and it was where he thought we came from, but also where we can go with our music. That piece ended up being the song Time’s Speeding Up, and from there the ideas just flowed out of us.
“It felt like something new. It’s Colin’s voice and my guitar and everybody’s singing on it, but it sounded like a new angle. For us, the mantra has always been process be damned, it’s about the results. Are we happy with the new songs? And we were so excited by these new songs that we followed through on working on the whole album with him. And he also did an amazing job of fitting in the work that we had done with Bob and the stuff we had done on our own with Max to make it sounds like this one amazing cohesive piece of work.”
The lead-off single from Civilianaires is one of The Trews more political songs, New US. MacDonald said it was definitely inspired by what the world has witnessed since the advent of the Trump era.
“It’s not very subtle. I have had a knot in my stomach since November 2016 [the date of the U.S. presidential election that put Donald Trump in the White House] and I don’t care about right and left politics. I think the right has some brilliant ideas about how to fix economies and fix societies and I think the left has a lot of brilliant ideas on how to do that too. But that’s not what this is about. This is about a guy degrading the public discourse to suit his own egomaniacal needs. And I felt that was apparent to everyone,” he said.
“And I remember when the results came down. We were playing in Kamloops, British Columbia and I think was depressed for a couple weeks straight. I was wondering did we just enter a f***ing parallel universe? How did this happen? And then of course it happened because no one would listen to one another, and that’s sort of the problem with American politics in general. There is no discourse.
“The song came about basically from fury. I think the weekend we wrote it was when Trump and Kim Jong Un were trading insults and talking about nuking each other. I mean, how the hell did we get here? It’s not right. We just wanted to get all that off our chests, and that’s the good thing about rock and roll sometimes. When something has affected us that strongly, we have never shied away from that in the past. We’ve got a song called Gun Control [off the No Time for Later album in 2008] and we have delved into politics before. It’s a double-edged sword because some people are going to pat you on the back and some people are going to stop following you. But that’s something you’re going to have to expect when you write a song like that.”
The title for the album’s title track came innocently enough from a second-hand clothing store MacDonald and his wife saw while they were celebrating her 30th birthday in California.
“She wanted to go into this vintage clothing store and it was called Civilianaires. I am constantly jotting down lyric and song ideas – anything that pops out at me, because that’s where the real good stuff is hiding, right there in plain sight. I wrote it down and didn’t think anything of it and then when I was putting some chords and melodies together I opened up my notes looking for ideas and I saw Civilianaires and didn’t know what it meant. The Urban Dictionary said its people who make their money through ill gotten means. They become civilianaires as to millionaires because they can’t put it in the bank. I just thought it was a cool title for a song,” MacDonald explained.
As for touring plans in support of Civilianaires, the band is doing some shows in the United States this fall, including being part of the CP Holiday Train through the American Midwest. Once the album is out, there will be Canadian dates announced, with that tour happening in 2019.
For more information, visit http://www.thetrewsmusic.com.
- 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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