The music business is seemingly one place that proves there is no such thing as the impossible. That Slash and Axl Rose have revisited their formerly incendiary partnership and are careening around the world playing to packed stadiums alongside long-time friend and bandmate Duff McKagan in a reformed (in a couple of different ways), revitalized an re-energized Guns N Roses is a notion that would have elicited howls of derisive laughter at the beginning of 2016.
But it’s happening – to a rapturous welcome by millions of rock music fans.
Of smaller proportion but certainly with a similar significance to music lovers in the northern half of the continent is the once nigh improbable reunion of brothers Jagori and Christian Tanna with the vocalist that helped propel the band I Mother Earth to stardom, the enigmatic Edwin.
But that too is happening as I Mother Earth is performing to raucous throngs of fans at shows across Canada to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the band’s best known and most commercially successful album, Scenery and Fish.
As guitarist/co-founder Jag Tanna explained first in an earth-shattering, widely read blog post on March 1 and again last week to Music Life Magazine, serendipitous timing and a well-placed friend helped kick start one of the most unlikely but more welcome reunifications on the Canadian music scene in quite some time.
“The idea wasn’t something that we were pursuing on either side. It was more of an opportunity thing. At the time it was literally within a day that Brian said he was going to try and join another band and basically we had a whole bunch of touring planned for this year. Instead, things got cancelled. But I said that I couldn’t just sit on the sofa and do nothing this year, it’s a really special year for us – me and my brother especially,” said Tanna.
“It was just a weird way that it happened. We had a mutual friend between us and Ed and his name popped up and it was just at the right time in our lives where it was like, ‘okay, enough of the bullshit, we just want to play.’ And I think Ed was feeling the same way. Someone said give him a call and initially I thought of involving him in the little documentary I was working on for the anniversary. The idea of doing shows wasn’t really on the radar.
“This friend of mine said he was good friends with Ed. I said I hadn’t seen him in 18 years or even spoken to him or bumped into him at an event – ever. Not even once had we crossed paths. I never had any full out animosity to the guy and I don’t think he had any for me either; maybe for the first year after we broke up but, really, you forget about all the bad stuff. And I prefer to have a friend than an enemy. This person put us in contact and said see if he would be up to talking about doing this documentary. It had nothing to do with shows, it had nothing to do with music or anything. So I called and he said yes within about five minutes. So we set up a meeting for the next day. And that’s how it started.”
In a story quite similar to how the former members of legendary Canadian rock band Triumph reclaimed their friendship and professional relationships a decade ago after a similarly long period of disconnection and acrimony, there were a few awkward moments when both Jag and Edwin sat face to face for the first time in nearly two decades.
“We hadn’t seen each other in so long and he’s staring and me and I am staring at him and we just started smiling and laughing about how weird and surreal it was. Like, ‘what the hell are we doing here?’ And we kicked everybody else out of the room and we just sat for what I thought would be a 30 minute conversation and it turned out to be, like, two hours. We were just talking about our lives, barely about music. We were talking about how our lives have gone since we last talked. There were these huge, huge changes for everybody. And that was it,” Tanna said.
“One thing led to another and it was like, ‘hmmm, do you want to play again?’ It was a very simple question and he kind of laughed and said, yeah, sure. And I actually asked him if he could still sing the whole album because we have been doing the material for a long time. We were both being very honest at this point and he said, ‘I think so.’”
“So I suggested that he come up to my house in Peterborough and that we would run through some stuff; me him and my brother, and we set it up almost immediately. He came up, we made it through all of Scenery and Fish and we said, ‘okay, let’s do it.’ And we booked the first show a couple of days later. It’s just weird: he needed something in his life at that time and we needed something as well. And these wacky circumstances put us in front of each other, which we never expected in a million years, all of us, admittedly.”
Scenery and Fish was I Mother Earth’s second album. Their debut album Dig, was produced by the man who, coincidentally produced Guns N Roses’ smash debut album Appetite for Destruction, Mike Clink. It featured a lineup that included the Tannas, Edwin and bassist Bruce Gordon, who would be part of the band until late 2012. Dig was a critical and popular hit, especially with the alternative rock set. Thanks to solid radio airplay and rotation on MuchMusic, the song Levitate became an instant classic and is still a crowd favourite to this day, helping Dig go platinum and garner I Mother Earth a 1994 Juno Award for Best Hard Rock Album, beating the album Counterparts by their heroes, Rush.
Scenery and Fish saw Jag step up become co-producer for the band, working alongside veteran studio maven Paul Northfield, best known for his work with Rush, Suicidal Tendencies and Moist. It easily eclipsed the impressive sales figures, airplay and acclaim of I Mother Earth’s debut, primarily on the strength of massively popular, radio-friendly hits like Another Sunday and One More Astronaut, which became staples on MuchMusic for months. The album garnered the band two Juno nominations in 1997 for Group of the Year and Rock album of the year as Scenery and Fish went on to be certified double platinum.
But even during the recording sessions for the landmark album there were rumblings of rancor and dissension occurring between Edwin on one side and the Tanna brothers on the other. They were able to maintain the peace long enough to complete a successful spring tour in 1997, but once it was completed Edwin left I Mother Earth to embark on a solo career that saw him release three albums before joining the alternative rock super group Crash Karma in 2009. That group featured Tea Party drummer Jeff Burrows, former Our Lady Peace guitarist Mike Turner and Zygote bassist Amir Epstein, release two albums.
IME didn’t miss a beat, picking up Newfoundland native Brian Byrne to handle the lead vocal duties by late 1997. Together, this new configuration of the band recorded two albums, the top-10 hit Blue Green Orange in 1999 and the more musically complex and esoteric The Quicksilver Meat Dream in 2003. The band then went on hiatus from 2004 to 2012 before it reunited with Byrne on vocals, touring consistently each year until 2015 when Byrne was hired full time to be a DJ on a radio station in Halifax as well as stepping away from I Mother Earth that same year as he unsuccessfully tried out for the vacant lead vocalist position with his heroes Stone Temple Pilots.
With such an interesting pedigree, Tanna felt it was important to commemorate Scenery and Fish as an important milestone in the band’s history. Although he said he can’t really explain why the album was such an explosive hit, as he has an almost parental appreciation for each album I Mother Earth has released over the years.
“We were not commercial darlings but we had that one moment in our career when we did cross that line and we did have success on a commercial level. And after that we decided to go in the opposite direction just to make the record company mad. Scenery and Fish was a moment in time where everything clicked and everything worked. And that means you have a publicity machine, you have a marketing machine, you have MuchMusic and you have all those things, which actually pretty much disappeared for us after the album,” he said, adding that he doesn’t play favourites when it comes to the Edwin vs. Brian eras.
“As much as I love Scenery and Fish, I also love The Quicksilver Meat Dream. So when I put those two together they have nothing to do with one another except that it’s me and Chris writing everything. That’s the only thread that goes through it. People still know it’s I Mother Earth. It still sounds like us no matter which direction we went. But we got really lucky with Scenery and Fish and everything aligned at that precise moment.”
The first I Mother Earth shows with Edwin back in the fold took place at The Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto June 3 and 4, and Tanna said things went as well as could be expected.
“I think it surprised Ed to jump back into this experience and realize how kind of hard I Mother Earth plays. We are willing to go three hours, if we wanted, and just keep going and going and going. I do remember that first night was a little loosy-goosy because the production was off a bit because things were pulled together so quickly. The second night was perfect, but that first night everybody, including band and crew, was still feeling their way around,” he said.
“But I don’t think anybody had nerves. I think we felt pretty comfortable. We were well rehearsed. I mean, what else can you do? You go on stage and you do what you know how to do. I know Ed had an excited nervousness more than anything, and I think he knew we had his back. If anything were to happen, we would be there for him. Leading up to it he had really good support in terms of getting back into the songs and being reacquainted with how we do things live and that kind of stuff. By the time we came to the second show it was like, ‘okay, we’re ready to go.’ Everybody was relaxed including the sound and lighting guys. It was amazing.”
Whatever tension and ill will that existed back in 1997 was long gone, as a combination of maturity, life experience and the passage of time has given everyone involved a different perspective and a greater appreciation for what I Mother Earth is as a collective creative entity.
“It’s awesome right now. We look at it thinking, okay, we’re old guys now. Who has got time for those petty little bullshit things that were in the way when we were kids? And when we look back, we couldn’t really remember too many very specific things as to why we were mad at each other in the first place. It was really funny. And we have ended up having so many laughs about the good times, which was amazing,” Tanna explained.
“And I have told people this before, even before hooking back up with Ed in this way, you know what, we didn’t think about fights. I don’t ever remember sitting there and having a fight with Ed in my whole career. I don’t remember it. But what happened to us back in the day was sort of building up over time with egos, myself included, power tripping – all the different things a band goes through.”
A large part of what was creating or at least feeding the fires of the conflict was external pressures from an often oppressively demanding and unforgiving music industry machinery.
“We were young, but that didn’t mean anybody treats you with any sort of preciousness or protectiveness. If anything it’s the opposite. The industry started to change not long after Scenery and Fish and all of a sudden the record company was barely putting anything into us. They were waiting to see what happens, but meanwhile we were selling out everywhere we went. They were supporting new bands who weren’t doing nearly the business we were. We were still a money maker for them but at the same time the industry just sort of pushed us aside. All of our contemporaries, all the guys at that time went through exactly the same thing, which is why most of them broke up around the same time,” Tanna said.
“And what it does is it puts this really f***ed up pressure inside the band. You start thinking you’re not doing enough for the record label and things like that. When we eventually left our record deal, I was celebrating like it was a liberation. We could do anything we wanted to. Some in the band were scared, wondering what we were going to do. But I said the freedom is what allows the creativity to happen. You have to trust your instincts that something good is going to happen.
“But that’s why we went on hiatus in 2004. Everyone was getting people chirping in their ears, making suggestions and demands of things we should do. Meanwhile me and Chris are sitting there like, ‘are you serious?’ So we said, ‘okay, before we go and kill each other, why don’t we just hang it up.’ Because if it isn’t fun, I am not doing it. I am the worst guy in the band for that: if it isn’t fun, I am taking my hockey net and I am going home.”
The 2016 edition of I Mother Earth is unencumbered by any outside expectations and thus far the reunion has been a joyful experience.
“Right now we are not beholden to anybody. The reason for doing this feels right. If we can’t look at each other and know it’s a great idea and sink or swim behind that decision then what’s the point. This is why we are musicians. We do this because we love it and because we suck at everything else. When it comes to being creative, come on, let’s just make it work,” Tanna said.
“There was some risk, I guess. On one hand, with every single thing that we do, I am always nervous in terms of the acceptance of people. But on the other hand I did have this feeling, I think we all did, that something special was happening. And when we decided to play this show at The Phoenix, it would be great for fans, we had a good idea the fans would support it. It wasn’t anything bigger than that. We started with one show. And when things started going crazy, we looked at each other and went, ‘wow, that’s kind of weird and crazy and wonderful.’”
Things are going so well and the band is in such great demand that I Mother Earth will continue to tour pretty much to the end of the year and beyond, starting with a jaunt across Canada with their pals in Our Lady Peace for a co-headlining tour this fall.
“After those first shows it sort of took off from there and then we started getting all these crazy festival offers. So we have been doing that through the summer. But we always has the idea of doing something bigger and more extensive and OLP was thinking exactly the same as we were. And people were telling us that we shouldn’t do it and they were getting the same resistance on their side from agents or whatever. So my brother Chris was like, ‘f*** it, I am going to call Raine [Maida]’ and it was basically a conversation where we said hey do you want to get together and do some shows? And their manager was right open to it and we were open to it so it was like, yeah, we’re in. So we’re doing a co-headlining thing and we each play equal sets and we have our own production. Everybody has been so laid back and cool about it, which is great,” he said.
“It will be really cool to hang out with those guys in a really relaxed way in the arenas and on everyone’s buses. It’s relaxed and nobody has to think too much.”
With such a positive response both within the band and the music industry, as well as the excitement generated amongst music fans, the big question, one that elicited a knowing chuckle from Tanna, is whether there may be new I Mother Earth music coming featuring Edwin on vocals.
“I already have a lot of new music. But it is a big question that is sort of hanging in the air, isn’t it? I sit there and wonder, is this going to happen and then we just get busy doing stuff. I know I have music regardless of what transpires, if we decide to do it as a group if the three of can pull it together. And the conditions have to be right so we don’t fall back into old traps. I like to be happy when I make music. It’s the only way I can make music – being happy. I am not one of these people who has to be miserable, moping at home writing sad songs. I will write you a sad song, but I have to be really happy to do it,” Tanna explained, somewhat obliquely.
“If the atmosphere is right, perhaps we will do something. And we have to check with the fans too. If everybody is into it then I would seriously think about it. And I actually think if we did something it would be more than just one song.”
In the interim, besides the hotly-anticipated OLP tour, Tanna said plans are in the works for more shows, perhaps as sole headliners or in another tandem arrangement, for the winter.
Regardless, much like 1996 was a memorable year for Jag, Christian and Edwin, it appears that 2016 is shaping up to be just as momentous.
For more information, visit http://imotherearth.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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