After some tumultuous times over the past year and a half, Darby Mills is thrilled and excited about her career for the first time in a long time. The veteran vocalist for Canadian west coast rockers The Headpins, gifted with one of the most powerful and recognizable set of pipes in Canadian rock lore, Mills split with the band about 18 months ago, forming what is now known as The Darby Mills Project.
That band, featuring a cadre of veteran musicians and long-time friends from the western Canadian music scene, has played a handful of shows since forming, but is ramping up its touring plans, with a couple of end-of-July dates in Ontario. On Friday, July 28, the band is playing The Overtime Sports Bar in Kingston, were recent concerts have featured the likes of Anvil and Lee Aaron, as well as at the popular Voyageur Days in Mattawa on Saturday, July 29.
“I think our song choice is going to be a little bit different than what you might expect to hear – it might surprise you, but I am not going to give it all away. But it still rocks, it’s still me. I can’t sing light, even though I attempted it on my solo album. I did an a cappella song on the Flying Solo album just to prove that I don’t have to scream,” said Mills of the album, which is actually a remastered and revamped version of her 1991 album Never Look Back, released on MCA records, but which she retained the rights to after MCA pulled proverbial rug out from under her after only one year under contract.
“But the reality is that’s who I am; that’s my voice, that’s what I do. So we will always rock. And you know what, the pieces of the puzzle have really fallen together for me with this decision to break free and go out of my own accord, rather than on someone else’s. As scary as it’s been for me to make this move, I think the benefits that could come out of it, if I stay pure and true to my course, are ones that will ensure that I don’t regret having made the decision.”
A band splitting or splintering is always a traumatic scenario, rife with emotion and drama. But for fans of Canadian rock music, and for fans of Mills and The Headpins more specifically, it’s a reality that she is no longer the singer in the band, and it’s something that is necessary to address within the context of an interview, because it is still relatively fresh and because, as Mills herself points out, there are still people out there buying tickets to Headpins shows expecting Mills to be belting out hits like Just One More Time, Don’t It Make You Feel and Feel it (Feel My Body).
As with the end of any long-term relationship, the issues leading to it had been around for some time. Essentially, two hugely significant and profoundly life-altering family circumstances led Mills to begin to take stock of her life, her career and her ultimate happiness – and decided that she wanted more than she was getting within the context of The Headpins.
“About six years ago, along with my brothers and sisters, we moved mom and dad into a care home here in Vernon where I live, so that I could keep my eye on them. They weren’t doing well and we couldn’t leave them on their own any more. So for three years I was with either my mom or my dad at a doctor or a hearing clinic or dentist – basically I had become a part-time caregiver for my parents. Eventually they were brought back to what we all thought was good health after three years and then my mom suddenly dropped dead of a brain aneurysm one morning. It was a real shock and then dealing with the funeral and saying goodbye to her was so hard,” said Mills.
“Six months later my husband [Brian Wadsworth] had a heart attack and they broke 10 ribs bringing him back to life in our driveway. It happened that I made a phone call to 911, and thank goodness for cell phones, while I was on my way to get to him. The ambulance got there and he literally died on the gurney in our driveway. A stent and a pacemaker and 30 per cent of his heart is what he is living with today.
“And I remember saying to myself, ‘what are you doing?’ I wasn’t happy with where I was with the band, and not that they weren’t a great band because they are. They were happy riding the wave and continuing on the way they always had and I wanted to try something more and wanted the option of doing both at the same time like a lot of other artists are doing these days. I didn’t have that choice; it was one or the other and that was not my decision; that was what was told to me. It was basically, ‘you’re with us or you’re not, Darby.’ So I said, okay I’m not.’ And they got another singer [Kat Lawrence] and off they went. And it’s all good because at the same time, I knew it was going to go down that way and I knew that would be the outcome in my heart of hearts, and I already had the new players picked out for this project.”
Mills said that she gave one year’s notice to The Headpins, but felt that the atmosphere in the band became too tense for all concerned and so they expedited up the extrication process by half, with her leaving the fold after six months. Mills’ last gig with The Headpins, the band she had been associated with for 36 years, was August 2016 in Calgary.
Mills is honest about the rancour, frustration and ill will that developed towards the end of her time with the band, but ultimately has no lingering hard feelings. Her assertion is that the other members of The Headpins were happy and content with the band’s direction and she was not, so conflict arose and a tough decision needed to be made.
“I wanted to do more, whether it was new music or even redoing some covers. They had a platform that had been established on our back catalogue and they were excelling or at least maintaining it. They had a solid band and were playing good shows, so I guess they felt why screw with the mix? They were happy doing what they were doing and I can’t speak for what was in their hearts or head, I can only speak for myself and I felt like we were this spinning top that just kept spinning and spinning and spinning and the opportunity for growth was not there,” Mills said.
“I just got to the point where I realized that I was an employee in the band and that my vote didn’t count. And having lost my mom and been so close to losing my husband the lightbulb suddenly went on and I remember thinking, ‘is that how you’re going to go down, not counting?’ So I took the wheel and I am now in the driver’s seat of my life and my career. And there are all kinds of extra consequences and duties that come along with it, but as I mentioned in a social media post a little while ago, my kids will know that I said no, I stood up for myself, I took the wheel and I have been in control for the last year and a half.”
Mills admits she is still formulating the ideas of what she would like to see in the future for The Darby Mills Project, but has aspirations of creating more of an experience than simply just a concert in a bar or on a festival stage. She said she wants to play more shows, in a diverse array of venues and at some point would like to write and record new music, making it more than just a part-time endeavour.
“I am going to be 58 this year, so I am no spring chicken. I am hoping that maybe I’ve got 10 good years left in me. I am going to try a somewhat different path with a set list that is more geared towards a family audience than The Headpins’ was. I also really feel that my age group doesn’t want to go to a bar any more. I can see myself and people like me wanting to have a nice dinner and buying a ticket for a great night of entertainment at a theatre. I would really like to see the soft-seater theatre shows come back into play for my age group, where you come and relax and see a great show,” she explained.
“I want to do a real show, not just a concert. So that’s kind of my plan and where I want to take it, once we’re established and we have time to breathe, because right now we’re still pretty new and working everything out on stage together as a band. Once we get more settled I am going to start adding stuff and we’re going to turn this into an evening of entertainment that I just haven’t been delivering like I want for a long time.”
The set list is obviously going to be comprised of Headpins songs as well as solo material from the Flying Solo album. Mills said it was important for her to re-release Never Look Back under a new moniker as a statement of intent – a manifesto if you will, of Mills as a creative force in her own right.
“The hardware of music production has improved and accelerated so much over the years that I brought the CD up to as close as I could get to perfection without having to go in and re-record it. I was thinking about re-recording it and was kind of unsure of what I wanted to do with the record, but at the same time as I was thinking about leaving the band in the way of almost losing my husband, I said to myself, ‘what are you waiting for?’ I realized I am at this stage in my life where there’s no such thing as waiting for the scenario to be perfect or to make a perfect record. Who needs perfect when you can have gooooood. I decided I was going to make it sound as good as I could, I am going to press it and I paid all the right dues and bills and fees and fines and did it all right and sell it through my website and at shows,” she said.
“But you know what, there’s no backing, it’s all coming out of my pocket and the money goes right back to me to invest in this new project. The only place you can buy it is from me, there’s no middle man. And I greatly appreciate the people who spend that kind of cash to get my music, and they are doing so, which is a good thing,” she said.
Mills admitted that she is heartened by the response from many fans to her solo endeavour, saying that she has at least 40,000 people with whom she is in regular contact through various social media channels and her website. And like many bands who have a split where there are two different entities playing the band’s songs, like Styx, Foreigner, Great White and others, Mills is happy for whatever support she gets.
“If they like it, they like it and if they don’t like it, they don’t. All I can do is take care of my band and what I am doing. I am comfortable now with the direction I am heading. I know it was a bold step, and I have had people around me helping me along the way. You need a team. I have got my husband back in the game. He was my manager 30 years ago and he is back being my manager again. And I have a great group of guys from the 1980s scene that are in the band. They were there for the rise of The Headpins and they were there for the fall. They have been there, done that. They know the story; they kind of lived it from the outside so there’s no explaining that has to be done. And I have had just a wonderful group of women come to my aid this past year to help me out, unconditionally, to help me land with my feet on the ground and I am truly indebted to them because it’s been a hell of a trip. But I am here and I am giving it what I’ve got left in the tank and what else can you do?” she said.
The fellas she mentioned who comprise her band are Randy Gabel and Doug Rasmussen, formerly of the band Wildchild, as well as the rhythm section of Ricky Renouf and Ed Cliffe formerly of the band The Knobs.
“We all worked the same circuit at the time when everyone was still able to play seven days a week, 365 days a year. I knew Doug and Randy because they were club players when I was in those same clubs with the band Steelback, the band I was in prior to joining The Headpins. And Ed and Rick were a bit later and caught the last bit of that seven-days-a-week era before the bottom fell out,” Mills said.
Like a divorce, there are people within the industry who perhaps have chosen sides and are not as keen on supporting Mills as much as her former band (and perhaps there are those who have the opposite view). But, as befits a tai kwon do black belt, she is quite Zen about it and has the best attitude imaginable as she looks forward to what’s yet to come, not what has been left behind.
“It’s nose to the grindstone, and one foot in front of the other for me and my band. The people that are worthy of my time and energy are the ones that hung around, and I am very thankful to those people,” she said.
For more information on The Darby Mills Project at The Overtime Sports Bar, visit the Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/276026859543119. Or visit http://overtimekingston.com. The opening act will be popular 1980s cover band, Blue Angel, from Napanee, Ontario.
For more information on the Voyageur Days show in Mattawa, visit www.voyageurdays.com.
To stay up to day with the progress and new endeavours of The Darby Mills Project, you can follow her on social media or visit http://www.darbymills.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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