Not willing to rest on their creative and commercial laurels, Canadian roots rock band The Sheepdogs continues to expand their musical horizons and make new music on their own terms, to both popular and critical acclaim. And the proof is in the proverbial pudding, as the band’s new album, Changing Colours, has rocketed up the charts garnering significant airplay, generating an impressive buzz throughout their fan base, as well as the Canadian record industry as a whole.
It should come as little surprise that as a creative entity The Sheepdogs are unwilling to simply allow their past success to dictate their current musical direction. Yes, Changing Colours is anchored by the band’s core throwback rock approach, which manifested itself on earlier hits such as Feeling Good, Downtown, The Way It Is, and the radio staple, I Don’t Know, but it sees Ewan and Shamus Currie, Ryan Gullen, Sam Corbett and Jimmy Bowskill truly pushing the boundaries of what can be termed rock music.
As well, they took a different approach to recording this album. The previous release, 2015’s Future Nostalgia, was written and recorded over a short period of time, when the band seconded itself in a remote cabin in eastern Ontario. This time around, they took a more protracted and methodical approach.
“What we did for the last album seemed like it was a really romantic thing to do, but it ended up being a bit of a pain in the ass. It felt like a cool idea but when you do it that way, it’s good in the sense that you’re working all day just doing the record, but at the same time it felt kind of artificial. We did this new record while still maintaining days off and doing our regular life stuff, so it felt a little more like it was happening in the regular course of our lives,” explained Ewan Currie, band co-founder and the primary songwriter for The Sheepdogs.
“And we also didn’t do it in an intense, concise period of time. We did it sort of stretched out over a number of months, off and on. It was more relaxed. And it fits in with how we’ve always done things. There is no formula; we’re trying different things every time around. I think in the past we have done it in a manner where we had a lot of these two to three-week periods of intense, gotta get it done, mentality. And instead, this time around, doing it in a bit of a stop and start, no fixed time approach, it lets you relax and breathe and reflect and step away from something and come back later with a fresh set of ears. I think that’s good for the music overall.
“It just felt good not to be rushed and not having to force anything and just really letting everything kind of flow and hopefully come naturally, because that’s important in rock and roll. I believe having that natural vibe is crucial, at least it is to us.”
Changing Colours came charging out of the gate with the debut single I’ve Got a Hole Where My Heart Should Be going to Number 1 on rock radio charts – the band’s fourth chart topper overall.
“It feels very good to see that happen. To me it feels better than an award because it means people are playing the bloody thing, as opposed to whatever political forces may be a work to secure you your award. And it’s validation, obviously. We make music because we believe it’s good and that was the starting point. But when it gets played a lot on the radio and makes it to number one, it just helps you out on the business side of things. It’s going to help you sell tickets and it helps your relationships with all the people on the business side of the music industry,” said Currie.
“And as much as I would love to sit here and tell you that it doesn’t matter, it absolutely does. It’s part of the modern day life of a band. So, we are very happy about it, especially since it’s our first number one since we made the self titled album with Patrick Carney of the Black Keys [in 2012]. Doing it on our own is a nice validation that we can have the success and we don’t need to have some big name attached to it.”
Over the past two albums, The Sheepdogs have been expanding the definition of rock and roll on their own terms. And it’s not some sort of hipster millennial predilection to try and curry favour with that sometimes fickle and fleeting demographic. It’s a genuine expression of the band’s versatility and it’s ravenously eclectic cadre of musical influences.
“The rock and roll that people think of most of the time is guitars, bass and drums and that’s certainly the core of it. But we just want to kind of expand it with keys and some brass, which is something that’s been in rock and roll all along over the years. My brother Shamus plays trombone and I play a bunch of clarinet on this new record. Jimmy [Bowskill] our guitar player plays pedal steel, banjo, mandolin and fiddle, so we’ve got a bunch of that in. For me, it’s like having a toolbox; we now have more tools in it, more things to play around with,” said Currie.
“And it’s really fun to be able to go outside of the usual guitar, bass, drums model and just do something with other instruments. And whatever analogy you want to use, it’s like a painter with a paintbrush, you have more colours and more approaches and that’s good. We want to expand beyond simple rock and roll but still feature those core instruments. Rock and roll can kind of be whatever we want it to be anyways.”
Currie added that he understands that rock and roll as a commercial genre, especially in terms of sales and streams in North America, may be on the wane, but it’s the Sheepdogs’ bread and butter and he understands that modern music fans are not as ‘brand loyal’ to certain types of music and will like what they want to like, regardless of how it’s categorized by the cultural cognoscenti.
“For a long time now it hasn’t really been the popular musical form, it’s a hip hop and pop world. So, I think we will take any fans we can. But to me it doesn’t matter if you’re a Mod or a Rocker, like they used to say back in the day: I don’t care if you prefer metal or you prefer Beyoncé or country or whatever, if you dig people playing music, especially people who play instruments and put a lot of care and thought into the music they are making, then come check out our show,” he said, adding that The Sheepdogs have always been a bit of a throwback in terms of channelling older classic rock musical influences, especially from the diverse early 1970s, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Allman Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, Humble Pie and Led Zeppelin.
“There’s no great pre-meditation happening. We’re not sitting there trying to make music for this crowd or that crowd. We make it because we like it and we hope that it entertains people, whoever those people may be.”
What fans on this current tour will like, especially those who have a hankering for craft beer, is a specially created new partnership between the Sheepdogs and Mill Street Brewery, which have created a short-run limited edition beer that will be sold at each tour stop this month and next. It is also available at Mill Street Brewpubs in Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary, as well as select restaurants across the country.
“I don’t know how it came to be at first, I think probably a relationship between our management and Mill Street. I can tell you it’s going to be a golden ale, which is good. It’s going to have a little bit of flavour but not too crazy, because we’re not the biggest for throwing in all sorts of different things like pumpkin or whatever. It’s a little more of a sessional ale that has a great taste that should appeal to people who just want a quality beer. I think we’re going to call it Prairie Gold, which is sort of a little nod to our homeland of Saskatchewan,” Currie said.
“I think initially we’re starting off just having kegs of it for sale at our shows. That will be the start and we will see how she goes from there.”
While beloved in Canada, The Sheepdogs are developing solid fan bases elsewhere, including south of the border in the United States and over in Europe.
‘We have gone down to the States several times in various configurations. We have been on long runs and short runs here and there, as well as some big festivals. It’s obviously a much bigger beast down there to tame. But the market’s we’re hitting on this current tour are some of our better ones, like Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit. We will be going back to do another, longer tour probably in the spring. We’re doing the U.K. first so we’re still sorting that all out,” Currie said.
“We have been over there five or six times to the U.K. and Europe. We do pretty good in Spain and the more western countries over there. We have found Germany to be kind of tough. They like rock, but they want really specific genres. They want really heavy stuff, or they want really specific blues kind of stuff. We fall a bit in the middle of some of those genres, so it hasn’t quite happened for us there, but we still love playing all over Europe.”
The tour began on Feb. 12 in Campbell River B.C. and will continue through western Canada until Feb. 24 with a show in Winnipeg before the aforementioned dip down into the USA. A run in Ontario starts March 1 at the London Music Hall, followed by a show the following evening at the prestigious Massey Hall. The Sheepdogs then hit Ottawa, Sudbury, Peterborough and Kingston, before heading to Quebec and the Maritimes, wrapping up the tour with two sold-out nights at The Marquee Ballroom in Halifax.
For more information on the band, Changing Colours and the tour, visit www.thesheepdogs.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.
