Even Colin MacDonald wasn’t completely sold on the idea of issuing a so-called ‘greatest hits’ album for his band The Trews. So instead of just slapping something together where they simply compiled all the band’s top charting radio hits, he and the band’s other co-founders, brother and lead guitarist John-Angus MacDonald and bassist Jack Syperek, decided to assemble a collection of hits, fan favourites and some new material and release what they are calling a career-spanning album – Time Capsule.
It will be coming out in digital formats as well as a physical copy on Sept. 9 through HOME Music/Entertainment One, and features 20 songs in all.
“We weren’t totally 100 per cent jazzed about having it; we still think we’re too young to have a greatest hits album. But it was a contractual thing and we tried to make it fun for us and for the fans by putting some new songs on there. So there are actually three brand new songs and a full studio recording of one of our older songs that never really got a proper studio recording treatment – Sing Your Heart Out. We released the single earlier this summer, which is one of the new tracks, a song called Beautiful and Tragic which we wrote with Serena Ryder,” said MacDonald, the band’s vocalist and rhythm guitarist.
“We are actually looking at it as a chapter of the band which closed when our drummer Sean Dalton left in 2014 [replaced by Gavin Maguire]. We always knew that this sort of album was coming because when we signed our last record deal we had it in the contract to put out a greatest hits-type album in the next few years. I think it’s a way to look back and appreciate the success we have had in this country since our first album in 2003. We have managed to rack up a lot of radio songs and we’re certainly grateful for it. For me, the only way to be in a band is to keep making new things and breaking new ground, or else you’re just going backwards. So we like to look at Time Capsule as a stop gap; it’s a moment in time where we can pause, collect our thoughts and look and what we’ve done, celebrate it, and begin to move on.
“Some of the songs were chosen because of radio play and then we chose a few fan favourites that didn’t necessarily chart as well, but that people loved. Like Highway of Heroes never charted very well, but it’s one of our biggest songs. Ishmael & Maggie was never even a single and it’s one of our fans’ favourite songs. So we put some songs that were bona fide Trews fan favourites, not just the big radio hits.”
That being said, there are a number of hit songs that are staples of active rock, rock, and alternative rock radio stations on the album including Not Ready to Go, So She’s Leaving, Poor Ol’ Broken Hearted Me, Hold Me In Your Arms, Power of Positive Drinking and many more.
Reflection is not only one of the themes when a band such as The Trews puts out a retrospective album such as Time Capsule, but it can’t help but be the topic of conversation when one ponders the events of Aug. 20. That was the evening when legendary and beloved Canadian band, The Tragically Hip, wrapped up what may be their final tour. It was an evening of intense emotions for all concerned, including the 11.7 million Canadians who saw the show on TV, streamed it online, or watched in amongst family and friends in bars, backyards, parks and parties across the nation as it emanated from The Hip’s hometown of Kingston.
With lead vocalist Gord Downie battling what has been termed incurable brain cancer, he and his bandmates, Gord Sinclair, Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois and Rob Baker, soldiered through a series of what must have been emotionally and spiritually exhausting shows before the climactic show. Downie’s gripping, soul-shaking, but powerfully uplifting performances riveted the nation as he expended what seemed at times to be limitless energy for his fans, and his friends.
The Man Machine Poem tour reminded an entire generation of music fans of the cultural importance of The Tragically Hip as genuine troubadours for the Great White North, but also as an important touchstone in the hearts and minds of millions of people for whom songs like 50 Mission Cap, Ahead By A Century, New Orleans is Sinking and Poets were integral to the soundtrack of their lives.
Numbered among that admiring throng is MacDonald and his bandmates in The Trews. Over the years, The Trews have had the opportunity to befriend and work with various members of The Hip, forming not only a collegial bond, but also an insiders understanding of just how good The Hip are as musicians and songwriters, but also human beings.
“I was actually down in Los Angeles with my fiancé [songstress Serena Ryder] and I didn’t get to see the live broadcast of the final show, but my sister taped it for me and I have watched some of it since I got back to Toronto. I got to see the boys in Toronto at the first night of their Air Canada Centre run and it was beautiful. I just drank a bunch of beer and sang my lungs out that night. I didn’t give a f*** if I lost my voice because I was going to celebrate this band as hard as I can,” he said.
“I got to see all the guys at an after-party afterwards and got to see Gord Downie and to say hi. And I also talked to Gord Sinclair and Paul, Robbie and Johnny and just spent time hanging out with them. It was amazing; it was probably the best show I have ever seen and I can’t imagine that Kingston was any different. From what I saw of the broadcast it was incredibly moving, even that opening scene where they were embracing before they hit the stage – I was definitely fighting back the tears. I am not saying this is the end, but in the face of this tragedy they went out and did what they do, which is play live, play hard, sing great songs and bring everybody together.”
So what, in MacDonald’s view, made the Hip so successful, so beloved and so enduring for more than three decades?
“The Tragically Hip is a band that really brought this country together, a country that had a bit of an identity crisis since its inception. The Tragically Hip became our band; they were cool, they wrote great songs, the had good morals and they had integrity as people and as artists. They were kind of everything you would want to be as a Canadian, and not just in the music community. A lot of people looked up to them and they were kind of pointing the way for all of us, even if they didn’t realize they were doing it,” he said, warming to the subject.
“And that’s what made it all the more special. It wasn’t contrived. They weren’t trying to be Canada’s band. They were who they were – genius artists that wrote amazing songs and it just inspired the country. You couldn’t do that by trying to do that, it just happened. It was an organic thing right from the start and it was beautiful. There will never be another band like them and that’s alright. It was a beautiful thing and what they did by going out on this last tour was the most courageous and brilliant and inspiring move they could ever make.”
And to some degree, all the wonderful words MacDonald has spoken so reverentially for The Tragically Hip could also apply to the way The Trews have approached their music over the past 15 years or so. In some ways, whether deliberately or unconsciously, they are living up to the example set by their older musical brothers in The Hip.
“Highway of Heroes, for example, is just a song that we wrote over the phone with Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar. And with anything in music you can’t plan if something is going to take off, you can’t plan your relevance, it just happens. You work hard at what you do, and you love what you do and you try to do it to the best of your abilities and if happens to collide with culture and you’re lucky, it works out. I think that’s been The Hip’s career for the get go. They sang about what they knew and they did it really, really well. And when you make art really, really well, people connect to it and they feel it and they relate to it and they get really attached to it,” MacDonald explained.
“All I know is that when it comes to our music I really don’t know why it’s connected with so many people. I know that I feel really lucky that when we put a record out it gets some attention. It gets traction and the songs do well and we play really good live shows and have really good audiences from coast to coast. And beyond that, we just sing what we know. We’re pretty honest about it and it’s pretty bare bones. It’s not contrived at all. It’s just really honest; I think why people connect to us is they’re connecting to the honesty. We don’t put on airs and we’re pretty regular guys and I think, in Canada, that’s really appreciated.”
The Trews tend to prefer to do all their writing ‘in house’ but do have a small group of collaborators, including the aforementioned Mr. Johnson.
“Some people have different opinions on the value of using outside writers but we tend to stick to a pretty small community. We don’t go to Nashville and write with 36 different writers all looking for a hit. We don’t go to L.A. to do that either. We tend to stick to our really good friends, and these are people we have actually shared the stage with and played music with and been in the studio with and made records with,” MacDonald said.
“We kind of consider it a Trews extended family. Gordie Johnson factors heavily into that as does Gord Sinclair of The Tragically Hip. I have written with Serena Ryder and Simon Wilcox and that’s pretty much it. They are just people who wake us up to a new way of thinking when we need it. Because we have been together for so long and we always write songs on our own, we usually write within the band, but we’re not averse to really inspiring people coming into our circle and revitalizing our band, because we want to keep doing it, we want to keep it exciting for us and our audience.”
With that in mind, MacDonald reports that The Trews are well into the creation of their next studio album, which would be their sixth after 2014s self-titled release. The band has also released five EPs and two live albums.
“We have been demoing here, there and everywhere throughout the year so we have a bunch of new songs together. At this point we are just getting ready to send out some of those demos to some producers and get a feel for where we want to go with the next bunch of songs. I think it’s always good to have an outside producer and maybe this time it will be somebody we have never worked with before just to totally change everything, because that’s what we have always done on each record. We like to bring in an extra set of ears that just shakes things up so we don’t sound like we’re making the same record over and over again,” he said, adding that the band will continue to play a few sporadic dates towards the end of the summer before launching a full-scale electric tour In the fall.
On Sept. 2 the band is playing the Jackson-Triggs Amphitheatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake, followed by a show in Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition Bandshell the next night.
For more information on the band, and Time Capsule, visit 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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