Yes, it’s been less than three months since Music Life Magazine chatted with the irrepressible, insanely talented and awesome Canadian rocker Sass Jordan. But when one is celebrating the 25th album of a popular album that happens to be the favourite of both the writer of the article and the artist, it’s worth another in-depth interview.
Plus, she’s just so darn loveable and chatty and fun, who wouldn’t want to read another conversation with the Juno winner.
The celebratory album is her third, Rats, which came out in 1994 and is considered a hard-edged, pioneer work now, but at the time was divisive within the confines of the misogynistic and narrow-minded music industry, meaning it ended up not being as commercially successful as her two previous albums, Tell Somebody and Racine. That was then. Today, Rats is a perceived as powerhouse of songwriting prowess, kick ass musicianship and an often eviscerating raw, open energy.
A limited run of just 1,000 copies of 180-gram, orange coloured vinyl versions of Rats have been manufactured to commemorate the occasion, and are available individually or in special bundles, at her website, www.sassjordan.com. This actually marks the first time that the album is being released on vinyl, since the format was considered dead back in 1994, the heyday of CDs and years before the popularity of downloads and streaming.
While undeniably proud of her accomplishments as a recording and touring artist, Jordan does not live in the past, preferring to focus on the here, now and what’s to come.
“I really only ponder it for the 15 minutes or so that I am talking about it in interviews like this. I have been doing those songs since I wrote them, and I am still doing them in my set. They are not really historical to me, I don’t really think about them in the context of when I wrote them any more, except when my manager says something like, ‘hey, it’s the 25th anniversary, lets do a special vinyl version of it because so many people liked that record.’ It gives the fans a chance to go back and enjoy,” she said.
“Doing something like this is more for the fans and the people for whom that record really brings back a chunk of their life that was wrapped in that music. I have to specifically think about it and go back into it, which I can do, but why? I am always so busy thinking about what’s coming next, you know what I mean? As you know, life always moves on, it always moves forward. I do think it’s cool that I have been around this long, and that Rats is 25 years old, but when you’re in it and you’re you, it’s a totally different perspective. I just don’t spend any time sitting around thinking about how fabulous it is that I did what I did. I don’t even really care, in some sense, because it’s gone; it happened, it’s in the past.
“And I am definitely not the type of person to rest on the laurels. Because when you reach these little mini pinnacles in your life and career, then there’s another mountain to climb; and that goes for life in general. I don’t see it as unlike any other business or profession in that respect. What you do in your life is really not as important as how you feel in your life, if that makes any sense at all. If whatever you’re doing makes you feel happy or excited or enthusiastic then you’re doing the right thing, whatever it is. It doesn’t matter, what matters is you fee inspired and happy and excited about the next day.”
And Jordan practices what she preaches. She is about as ebullient, joy-filled, excitable and radiantly upbeat as you can get without heavy medication. Music is the way she is able to transmit her positive energy to a larger audience in hopes that it will infect them and spread far and wide.
“My life motto is have fun, no matter what the cost. I makes me happy that people see me as a happy person because I think that joy and fun are contagious. That’s my job, really, to be as happy as I can be and invite everybody else along for the ride, and then of course it’s up to them to get on board. That’s why I got into music, that’s why I play music and that’s why I am so excited about music, because it gives me that opportunity to reach a group of people at the same time. It all sounds so hokey, but I am actually too old to care what people think of that,” she said emphatically.
“People really want to be happy, these days they just have no idea how to do it. The joy is found when you empty your mind of shit; that is so easy to say and so challenging to do. When is the last time you actually truly relaxed? Think about it? What the f**, I don’t even know how to do that most of the time.”
In contrast, Rats is not a happy album. It is badass, blues-based hard rock and roll with more than just a tinge of anger, frustration and hopelessness. It was written and recorded while Jordan was living in Los Angeles and is essentially her take on being in the midst of a dysfunctional relationship that has shattered all around her, leaving the pieces of her life to be picked up.
“It’s a dark and angry album that came about very organically. It was a catharsis of the life I was leading at the time. My previous album (1992’s Racine) was more like me exploring Rod Stewart and The Faces, which I grew up listening to, and I wanted to sound like that. It does sound more like The Black Crowes as they were doing the same thing as far as exploring old records like Otis Redding and stuff like that,” she said.
“With Rats the music that was starting to happen a lot around that time was what they called alternative – Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and all that stuff. So, people’s ears, I thought, were a little more open to that kind of gritty sound. What I didn’t realize was that it was only if you were a guy. Because if you were a girl doing that – not going to happen. ‘We’re not going to play this shit on the radio. We’ll take Sheryl Crow, it’s much easier to digest.’ And that’s basically what happened to Rats and it didn’t get nearly the kind of airplay and stuff as Racine did.
“It was a dark kind of a soul time for me, and with that style of music, there is a side of me that has all that rage and angst and I think it’s boring now, but it needed to come out at the time, and that’s how it came out. It came out through that music and that record. And I have used it ever since as a catharsis for the ragey part that we all have. I mean, all of us have that, and for a lot of us, it seems to come out when we’re driving. But it was ridiculous how some people perceived it, and I had no idea when I was writing Rats. ‘No, we’re not going to play this because she said the word piss.’ F***, it was so ridiculous. Compared to the shit women say in music today it was pretty tame.”
The first three songs on the album, Damaged, Slave and the epically incendiary Pissing Down lay it on the line, giving a no holds bar glimpse into Jordan’s mindset as she surveyed the dilapidated ruins of her relationship.
“Those songs are basically all about a relationship I was in at that time, and it was the hardest experience ever. But now, when I look back at it, first of all I am friends with that person now. They were a drug addict then, and now they’re okay; they have been clean for years. It was more that frustration of not being able to get through to that person and watching them just piss their life away. It was horrible,” Jordan said.
“And then you have that saviour complex that we all have when we’re young and then being deeply disappointed when you realize that, no you f***ing can’t. The only person who can save somebody is themselves. That’s it, there is no one else that can do it. There’s no one else that can make you happy either. It’s a choice, a decision that you make and it’s your responsibility. But you have to learn these things, often the hard way.”
High Road Easy comes next, and to some ears, sounds like an anthemic foot stomper, but is in effect an angry realization that nothing is changing.
“I am saying you’re high; you’re taking the high road. It’s a play on words. He wasn’t taking the higher road, he was taking the road that made him high, because it’s easier to do that than deal with life and with people,” she said. This narrative theme is picked up on the lush, but starkly emotive balled Sun’s Gonna Rise, which again, is often misinterpreted as a song of hope and optimism at the start of a new day.
“Listen to the words. It’s the exact opposite to what people think. The sun is going to come up again and I will keep making the same f***ing mistake with this guy. ‘I’ll be listening to those lies again.’ It’s going to come up again and I will still be sitting here listening to this bullshit. It’s again, about the same relationship. I don’t actually think there is a song on the album that isn’t about that relationship.”
There were no other female rock artists who were close to being this authentically raw, this bold in their honest, and this unafraid to use real language, talking about real emotions and situations. Yet this boldness actually worked against her in the music industry of 1994 as outlined above.
A year later, there was a seismic shift in the view of the music industry as it relates to strong women baring their angry spirits for mass consumption, thanks to another Canadian artist – Alanis Morissette and the release of her Jagged Little Pill album. All of a sudden, those who decried Jordan for her perceived crassness were embracing the four-lettered ‘rage’ of You Oughta Know – indicative of the hypocrisy and disingenuousness of media and the music business.
“It’s funny, before the album came out, she came to see me and ended up hiring my drummer and my guitar player and they left on tour. They started playing clubs and three months later she was the biggest thing in the world, and they were headlining arenas and festivals. I haven’t thought about that in a long time and it was a weird feeling for me because it was like what the f***? On the other hand, am I upset that it didn’t happen to me? No, because if I had become a massive rock star, I don’t think that would have been healthy for me. She had a lot more of the music industry machine behind her, and she was a lot younger than I was,” she said.
“I guess I am a bit of a pioneer, Rats did kind of pave the way, no matter what anyone says – they can’t deny that. But you know, somebody’s got to do it and, actually, the ego part of me is kind of proud that I did that, now that I think about it. The industry just never knew what the hell to do with me. I wasn’t, and I am still not, somebody that you can put into any particular category. And I find it frustrating too, it would be much easier for me if I could say, ‘yeah, this is what I do.’ But I do lots of things and I am not interested in being stuck into one thing.
“And getting back to Alanis, it was a genius record, you can’t deny that. But I have to say, quite honestly to me that record she made, that big huge massive record, was pop. That was not a rock record. That was a Disney idea of rock and that’s most people’s idea of rock. And there’s another massive difference between me and Alanis Morissette is that I was real rock, f***ing hard-assed, hard-edged, and she was palatable rock that everybody could swallow, and that’s fine, but it’s not me. I mean, the first record I made in 1988, Tell Somebody was pretty pop, but when it came out everybody was like, ‘wow, this is so rock!’ So, it’s all in the eye of the beholder I guess.”
Jordan already plays a number of songs from Rats in her live set and doesn’t anticipate adding any more for the 25th anniversary release and is not considering doing the record in its entirety. As discussed at the top of this article, she is looking to the future, and incorporating songs from her forthcoming blues album into her live shows.
“Oh my God, Jim, I can’t even believe how great it turned out. Again, it may be to ‘authentic’ for the mainstream, but whatever. And I am not saying this just about me, I am talking about the whole ensemble, because it’s me and my band, the Champagne Hookers, who are playing every single note. It’s all covers except for one original. It’s supposed to be coming out Jan. 24, even though it’s all done and in the can, because there are other records that the record company [True North] has lined up before it, and that’s where it has been slotted. I don’t really care, because it gives me time to set up all the other stuff around it that I want to, like merch and promotions and stuff. It’s a really good album, I had a blast making it and I am really excited for people to hear it,” she said.
For more information on the Rats 25th Anniversary vinyl, tour dates and the upcoming new blues album, visit. www.sassjordan.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.
