For more than 40 years, the songs of iconic Canadian rock band Trooper have been the soundtrack for literally tens of thousands of house parties, road trips, summer festivals, winter celebrations and pretty much any other occasion where people gather to have a good time in the Great White North.
With songs that continue to garner significant airplay from coast to coast, including hits like The Boys in the Bright White Sports Car, Pretty Lady, Good Ol’ General Hand Grenade, Two For the Show, Santa Maria, Round Round We Go, We’re Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time) and of course the raucous and anthemic Raise a Little Hell, Trooper continues to delight audiences – sometimes now into three generations deep – with their dynamic, memory-evoking (and memory making!) live shows.
And it’s fitting that the band, which is about as quintessentially Canadian as you can get, is performing a number of shows in this, the nation’s 150th anniversary year, including on June 30, at Zwick’s Park in Belleville, and the following day, Canada Day, back in their home province of BC in Port Moody.
“We have more shows for this year than last year, which is, you know, a good trend. We’re doing 30ish shows a year now, which works for us. Most of them are big deal events so they take more time and energy to prepare for and pull off. We do shows in the wintertime but not many. We played in Mexico in February, for instance. Since we pretty much are the ultimate summer band, most of our gig offers come in the summer months. We get way more offers than we can actually accept for those months,” said band co-founder and vocalist Ra McGuire, adding that 42 years after the band’s debut album, he and long-time creative partner and pal Brian Smith (guitar) are enjoying performing as much as they ever have.
“It’s way more fun now than it ever was. We have very little in the way of responsibilities on the road these days. We’re not promoting a new record or trying to pull off an impressive production-type show – where your next move is a mark on the stage where you need to be for a lighting scene. We have an audience now that is truly happy to see us walk onto the stage and all they really ask of us is to honestly play the music in as heartfelt a way as we can manage. And doing that – getting deep into the music during the set – is a great joy in and of itself.”
McGuire and Smith began playing, writing and recording together in 1967 first in a band called Winter’s Green which morphed by the early 1970s into Applejack, which featured nascent versions of Raise a Little Hell and Pretty Lady. Applejack caught the attention of former Guess Who founder and then member of Bachman Turner Overdrive, Randy Bachman, who signed the band to his own label and produced their debut album after they changed their name to Trooper. Moving to what was then MCA records, the band recorded a string of hit albums and singles into the early 1980s, touring from coast to coast, establishing Trooper as THE ultimate Canadian party rock band. Their Hot Shots collection of remixed hits, released in 1979, is still one of the best-selling Canadian albums of all time.
The band’s last two albums, 1989’s excellent The Last of the Gypsies and Ten (their 10th album, released in 1991) were recorded on their own label, and except for a couple of ‘greatest hits’ packages, there has been no new music forthcoming from the Trooper camp, something that McGuire admits is unlikely to change any time soon.
“There are no plans for any new Trooper recordings. There simply aren’t enough people out there who care about new records by ‘classic’ bands. This is proven over and over again by much bigger bands than us. Our complete focus is on the shows these days. I am writing a book though, which is a similarly rewarding project,” McGuire said, adding that he is still pleasantly surprised that the songs he and Smith wrote sometimes more than 40 years ago, are still being discovered by new fans, especially younger people, which is evidenced by the multi-generational audiences you can find at every Trooper show.
“At the t-shirt booth after the show, we often meet families that consist of grandparents, their children and their children’s children. Three generations is definitely a thing with us now. I am overwhelmed by the phenomena. I think at this point Trooper has been woven deeply into the Canadian culture in every way. So we sneak in through people’s parents’ music collections, through classic rock radio, through the internet – pop culture generally. There appears to be no shame, these days, in liking your parents’ music, as there definitely was when I was growing up.
“I think the resurgence of vinyl is interesting. I sold all my vinyl (and CDs) to a collector two years ago, so I’m not on that particular train, but any development that focuses people on the idea of the importance of music is, I think, a good one. To be clear, I still have a huge music collection – but it’s all MP3s and Apple Music now.”
Part of what makes the touring and performing so much fun for McGuire is that he gets to do it alongside Smith, with whom he obviously has a special bond of friendship, having endured the highs and lows of the music industry – and life – for now 50 years!
“Smitty and I have worked out like a good marriage. Good marriages aren’t the result of constant harmony and nor has our relationship been. Between us, though, we’ve managed to somehow create a line of least resistance through the hills and valleys of the music business. We’ve also been extremely lucky,” he said.
As well, the band backing Smith and McGuire has also been around for a long time, ensuring great continuity and camaraderie. Keyboardist Gogo has been in the band for 22 years, bassist Scott Brown for 21 years, with drummer Clayton Hill being the ‘new guy’ with a decade under his belt.
“As you point out, the current band has been solid for a decade – and if you don’t count drummers, and you can insert a Spinal Tap joke here, it’s been 21 years. We have been blessed by a group of musicians and performers – and crew – who are the best at what they do AND cool cats as well. We are a family now. There’s really no other way to look at it. We have fairly regular ‘family dinners’ together, all over Canada.”
McGuire said when it comes to Trooper he truly does take things as they come, and takes nothing for granted, possessing a firm grasp on what Trooper is, and what it means to fans across Canada.
“The other night onstage I shouted, ‘can I get a hallelujah?’ And thousands of people shouted ‘hallelujah’ back. It felt like church. I’ve always said that our mission was to go out on stage and find the particular party that the audiences needs that night. The challenge is to hit that exact vibration with everything and we’re generally really successful at pulling that off mostly, I think, because our number one allegiance is to the music – and the people feel that,” he said.
“I still go to a lot of shows and I learn so much from being a fan. And for me, it’s a lot like what I think church must be like for some people. At its best it should be a joyous, shared experience. [And when it comes to this band] I personally take Trooper a day at a time. There has never been a plan other than do your best work and cross your fingers. That tradition continues to this day.”
The Trooper show in Belleville on June 30 is part of Canada Day Weekend festivities in the Bay of Quinte community, with local band The Remedy opening the show at 7 p.m. There is no admission fee, but there is a $5 charge for parking at West Zwick’s Park on the waterfront.
The show on Canada Day in Port Moody B.C. starts at 9 p.m. at Rocky Point Park and is also free during Golden Spike Days. The bulk of Trooper’s summer schedule sees them criss-crossing through western Canada, with a return to Ontario for Voyageur Days in Mattawa on July 29, and shows in Hanmer, Kingston and London in early September.
For more information on Trooper and upcoming tour dates, visit www.trooper.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.
