Blue Rodeo: Lost Together (2024) Movie Script

The winner of the Juno,
Blue Rodeo.
Blue Rodeo.
Blue Rodeo!
Never thought this
could happen
But somehow...
Blue Rodeo! Yeah!
Ladies and gentlemen, please
welcome Blue Rodeo!
Here they are, Blue Rodeo,
live, right here.

You got sick of the pattern
And I got lost in this song
Let's get 'er now!
When I was in my 20s,
I loathed them, and now
that I'm in my 40s,
I don't know what I would
do without them.

Hey hey, I guess it hasn't
hit me yet
Fell through this crack
and I kinda lost my head
I stand transfixed before
this streetlight
Watching the snowfall
on this cold
December night

You've been beautiful,
thank you very much.
Thank you all very much!
You've been amazing, thank you.
Good night.
Two, three, four.

Strange and beautiful
are the stars tonight
That dance around your head
In your eyes I see
that perfect world
Hope that doesn't sound
too weird

I want all the world to know
That your love's all I need
All that I need
And if we're lost
Then we are lost together

Yeah, and if we're lost
Then we are lost together

Okay, ready to go?
Yeah.
Greg Keelor tribute video,
take one.
Well, our first actual meeting
was a bit of a confrontation.
We were both jocks, and we
met on a football field
where I was a defensive end
and he was a quarterback.
He was throwing the ball
and I was on his blindside,
and just as he was about
to let go, I creamed him.
Everybody liked to see
the quarterback get it.
Yeah.
A friend of ours died in a car
accident, David Soper.
At that age, 16, 17,
you had a total loss
of how to react,
and how to be with each other.
And we were sitting in Jim's
mother's house,
and there was a beautiful
parlour piano in there,
and Jim sat down at the piano
and he wrote a song
for David Soper.
And we're all just, like,
dumbfounded.
And I had never heard
Jim sing before.
I didn't know that he
was musical at all.
It was just like such a shock.
And the same voice that
he sang that day with
is the same voice he
sings every day with.
He had that voice from the
moment he started singing.
It's just an incredible
instrument
that he was born with.
I kept all my musical
stuff very private.
Because it was very
embarrassing at that age.
I can tell you that, you know,
we kind of dabbled in
music a little bit
because we were around
music all the time.
But when I finished university
in the spring of '78,
you very kindly came
to pick me up,
put all this stuff in, and
we're driving back.
And I was saying to you
that I was going
to devote a year to music.
And you said, "Why don't
we get a band?"
And I said yes.
And we've honestly had
a band together
ever since that moment.
You never please me,
you try to tease me
I know you're always there
I do
Love you
I do

Forty years, you know what
I mean, in a nutshell.
Well, that's sort of impossible.
That's why we're making
a documentary.
But a nutshell, two guys
meet in high school,
they discover a shared musical
intent and vibration
and started writing songs
that took us traveling
around North America.
Greg and I are living
in New York,
and we would meet other
Torontonians in New York,
and they'd come back, people
would come back and forth,
talk about, "I met Jim and Greg
down there.
They got a band, they're
playing CBGB's."
"CBGB's. Oh my God."
The Demics had that song,
"I Want to go to New York City,
they tell me it's
the place to be."
I wanna go to New York City
'Cause they tell me
it's the place to be
Ah, I wanna go to
New York City
I just know that it's the
place for me, yeah
It's a time in music
when bands
did a lot of different genres.
So we would play ska,
we played a little reggae,
we played pop, and we've
been in this band,
Fly to France.
She sees the world through
rose-coloured glasses

And we were tired
of doing that.
It didn't, wasn't that
natural for us.
We were seeing in New York
a kind of a neo-country
movement,
where a lot of rock musicians
were playing country music,
but very differently.
We finally came
back to Toronto in '84
and started Blue Rodeo.
We were shocked at what was
happening on Queen Street,
and it was all because
of Handsome Ned.
When Handsome Ned
arrived on the scene,
he brought that kind of revved
up country music.
And tongue tied Jill
Move over, Miss Ellen,
Run-around Sue

He had reinvented
himself as a cowboy,
and he was doing this high,
lonesome music,
and he's created a neo-country
roots scene,
and everybody starts coming out
and forming bands that,
that are doing that,
either rockabilly bands
or country bands.
'Cause when we had left in '81,
it was dead.
And we come back
to a scene that's,
that's already happening,
the Horseshoe,
the Rivoli, the Cameron.
So it was not the
old country crowd.
This was a much younger,
hipper crowd.
It was a time when college
students were experiencing
for the first time Canadian
bands that they liked
and that were a reflection
of their own lives.
When we came back
from New York,
we knew what kind of band
we wanted to be.
They said they had a name,
Blue Rodeo,
and they'd been playing
in New York,
and that they thought
I might work.
And I said, you know, "You guys
seem kind of serious."
And I said, "I got a kid now,"
and I was, already had like 10
or 12 years as a postman.
I said, "I don't really think
I'm gonna to be
what you guys need because
you probably want
to go on the road
and all that sort of stuff."
So they said, "Oh Cleave, just
do it as long as you want.
You know, you're not the only
drummer in the world.
You know, we'll find somebody
when you can't do it anymore."
I said, "Great. That sounds
fantastic."
We put an ad in Now Magazine.
"If you dropped acid
twenty times,
you lost two or three years to
booze and looking good,
and you can still keep time,
call Jim or Greg."
And then Bazil answers that ad,
calls my house, gets my wife,
who doesn't want to take,
even take a message.
"So just call back, he'll come
back another time,"
just, and Bazil says, "Please,
just take my number."
And they phoned me, said, "Are
you Bazil from the Sharks?"
I said, "Yeah."
Says, "Hey, Cleave's
our drummer,
we're the guys from the Hi-Fi's.
Can you rehearse tomorrow?"
And as soon as we got
with Cleave and Bazil,
we knew we were good.
I think we'd only rehearsed
twice, but we were a band.
It's not country, it's not this,
it's not that.
It's just a collection of the
individuals in the band.
You know, and what we've
listened to over the years,
and that sort of thing.
Do you think a lot of people are
getting into this country music
because of fashion?
I'll answer that one!
Okay.
I think it's very honest music,
and it's very rock and roll.
And I think that people
are really interested
in rock and roll again.
And it's a very good way
for original bands
to get their thing across.
They can talk about
whatever they want,
whatever issues they
want to talk about,
and it's packaged in a very
easy to digest form,
which is kind of
country rock-ish.
People are digging that again.
I just thought they'd be good
guys to work with,
that they were funny
and interesting,
and kind of different
than most people.
They had a quality that
was captivating.
Then one day,
we were leaving rehearsal
and Greg said, "Do you guys
like keyboards?"
I think I was like, "Well,
what do we want
a keyboard player for?"
And the next day,
we showed up,
and Bobby was all set up.
I'm on my way
to the first rehearsal,
I remember thinking, I'm
assuming I can do this
and it'll work, but they also
might find me way too weird,
like the way, the stuff
that I do, pianistically,
and that I've been doing
at music school.
Like, it's just dawned
on me that like,
oh, this actually might
be a train wreck.
But from as soon as we started
in the rehearsal space,
it was, it was awesome.
And Bobby had the most
beat up old Ace Tone organ
from the '60s.
It was that real cheap
organ sound.
And immediately it felt good.

And it was just like, oh my God,
like Bobby is a virtuoso.
I told Jim, I said, this guy
is fantastic.
He was kind of
considered the wild man
on keyboards.
He'd hang from the pipes
of the Horseshoe
by his hands, and play
with his feet,
and he used to hit
that with drumsticks
and roll an orange up and down
it to go, brrrr, you know?
Like all sorts of crazy stuff
that would get people's
attention.
You know, a lot of reviews
would talk about
the crazy guy on keyboards.
And Bobby projected
the crazy genius vibe.
Like, he definitely, there was
something going on there
that wasn't, he was getting
different frequencies
than the rest of us, and that
was kind of exciting for people.
But I came from
a different place
of experimentation.
What was really unique
was that I'm a guy playing
that kind of music
that would, like, really kind of
happen more in art galleries.
It was really quite a lot of fun
to try and straddle
that space between melodicism
and dissonance
in the context of being
a pop band.
When Bobby joined
and added keyboards,
that expanded to the sound that
we had wanted to have.
And we had a couple
more rehearsals,
and then we said, "Okay,
we're ready to play."
And we did our first gig at the
Rivoli on February 8th of '85.
Our first gig at the Rivoli
was sold out,
and we were shocked because that
had not happened to us before.
You were never
the same way twice
I'm falling in love
So we're playing
the Rivoli,
to a full house,
and we played "Try."
No one had heard the song,
I think, before.
They started applauding.
And I remember,
the first time Jim hits
the falsetto part in "Try,"
the whole room levitated.
And I've actually never
experienced that before.
The whole crowd just
went, whoo!
There was an audible gasp
in the audience.

Try
Oh baby, try
Oh, try
We're very satisfied
starting to build an audience
and not having anything to do
with getting a record contract.
Nobody in those days thought we
were ever going to get signed.
You know, you know, these people
aren't interested in us,
they're interested in
hard rock bands.
That was the Van Halen days,
hard rock with hair bands,
that's what got signed.
We were really enjoying
playing to full houses.
And the audiences kept,
just kept getting bigger.
So we were filling in
every club we played.

We were now
playing in bars
that were super jam packed.
Being a successful bar band
felt pretty good.
And all of a sudden,
we're making a living
from traveling around southern
Ontario playing bars.
We all had other jobs, you know.
I had another job, and it was
a really good balance.
The publicist up at
Warner Brothers,
Joanne Keating, she was
a huge fan of the band.
Bob Roper, we had already
sent him a tape,
the A&R guy, and he had
rejected the band,
saying that they were
hiring different,
heavier types of music.
So we thought, okay,
we don't have a chance.
But Joanne Keating,
she kept on pressing,
and pressing and pressing.
Blue Rodeo got on my
radar because it was placed
on my radar by Joanne Keating,
my assistant at the time,
and she was active on
the Queen Street scene.
And she came and told us
about this amazing band,
Blue Rodeo, and that we
had to go and see them.
And she'd say, "I'm going
to The Horseshoe
to see Blue Rodeo.
They're the coolest thing
on Queen Street."
So with Blue Rodeo, it was,
they're amazing,
but, I don't know if this
will get on the radio.
She kept badgering Bob
all through that summer,
and I think he finally
acquiesced with, "Well, okay."
Well, finally, by the
time he got around to seeing us,
we were so popular,
the place was packed
and he couldn't get in.
So he came to see us,
and we had to sneak him
in the back door.
And miraculously, we got a deal.
And little did I know that I'd
be playing with those guys
for the rest of my life.
Night after night, yeah
I know I should leave
but there's something
Yeah, yeah, day after day
After day, after day
And I don't know why
Okay, we can go.
Go ahead, Bazil.
Such a maze
But we got the tempo for that.
Okay.
There we go.
One, two,
one, two, three, four.
Don't tell me I'm wrong
Because I've been watching
every move that you make
Hearts you steal, in your
makeup and heels
Trouble for the men
that you take
Every time you walk
in the room
I couldn't ever be
sure of a smile
You were never
the same way twice
Falling in love,
night after night
It's crazy, ooh
Two things that I've always
wanted to do in my life --
they happened both on
January 8th, 1987.
Devon was born, and that
was the first day
we were recording "Outskirts."
Going into RCA Studios
on Merton with Terry Brown,
it was a little mind blowing,
you know,
because it was
a big time studio.
We were very ambitious,
and we wanted to make
a big time record.
His credentials would not have
been the kind of music
that we were trying to play.
But he was very enthusiastic,
and he knew what he
wanted to do.
We wanted to make something
that was us,
and different from what
a lot of the music was.
Especially in those days,
it really was a hair metal
landscape in the music scene.
There was nothing like us.
I was thrilled to be
in a major studio,
recording a record.
To me, my dream had come true.
Terry did an amazing job
of sculpting our sound,
to rein it in a bit, and make
it more accessible
to a larger audience.
If we would have been
on our own,
it would have been
a little looser
and rambunctious, maybe.
The first time I saw them, I
think, was at The Horseshoe.
The musicianship I thought
was great.
Greg's earthiness
and Jim's sweetness
worked so well together.
I thought they were very
exciting and visceral.
But obviously that changes when
you go into the studio.
So it was, it was a little more
difficult than I imagined.
We were guided through
the record by Terry.
Terry was very kindly
authoritarian.
We did what he said, and
that's the way we thought
records were made.
He got his way.
That is his record, and
there's no arguing
with how successful it was.
Terry didn't really get the
whole retro thing at the time.
Him and Greg, they didn't
see eye to eye.
Greg had, like, rockabilly
sensibilities.
He really loved the
Dwight Yoakam record,
so he wanted things to go a
little more country and twangy.
But, you know, those are amazing
sounding records to me.
And I love '60s from England,
and '70s from California.
I like that sound.
And he kept saying
that, you know,
"We're making a record in
the '80s, right, Greg?"
Greg would say, "Yeah,
but I want it to sound
like it's 1969."
Bobby had a style that
was going to be difficult
to contain on record.
He was a consummate
musician,
and into the avant garde,
but he knew how to have fun.
You know, he was a huge addition
to the sound of the band.
We were cutting
"Piranha Pool."
There was a little bit of an
edge there between us.
Oh yeah, they locked horns.
Bobby just wanted to do
his own thing.
At some point, he took
a pair of drumsticks
and started crashing on this
beautiful Steinway
at the studio, and I kind
of lost my cool,
and let him have it.
I was shocked, I've never seen
a piano treated that way.
Well, I, you know, people like
me did things like that.
That insinuates taking drum
sticks to a grand piano
like it's not really my style.
That could like, that could
destroy things.
It might have seemed
like an attack
to an English gentleman,
but yeah, Bobby would have just
been improvising something.
When we were putting
the record out to radio,
we put "Outskirts" out first.

Warner put that
record out,
but they didn't have
a lot of hope for it.
I think in everybody's
mind, "Try" was a slam dunk.
Where we didn't have confidence
was the first single,
which was the title track
from "Outskirts."
Here on the outskirts
of life

The "Outskirts," the single,
was not picked up
by a single radio station
in Canada.
So we were taken
out for lunch --
no, it might even have
been snacks --
by somebody who was actually
part of the jazz department.
And told us that our record
wasn't doing very well,
and we probably wouldn't be
making another one.
And he basically
told us, you know,
"You've sold 5,000 records,"
which we thought, whoa,
that's fantastic.
He said, "If it doesn't pick up,
we're going to drop you."
Whoa, okay. I mean,
you know,
we didn't have any skin
in the game, really.
Of your life

So "Outskirts" was a dud.
You know, radio wouldn't
touch it.
But the weird thing in all
this was so was "Try."
"Try" was a dud.
And we couldn't believe it.
You know, I know around
the building,
people were thinking if we can't
get "Try" on the radio,
what can we get on the radio
out of this band?
I mean, the record company
by this point had no,
they thought this is over.
So we were having
a lot of trouble.
It was sort of going down
the tubes.

So in the mid '80s,
MuchMusic was really
finding its groove.
Like, it was a huge time for
popular music, you know,
it was, it was Madonna,
"Like a Virgin,"
it was Wham!
It was, you know, David Bowie
and Mick Jagger,
"Dancing in the Streets."
Like big, huge productions,
big hair, big budgets.
It was full on.
And like MuchMusic was
remarkable at the beginning,
and I think it's under
celebrated.
You know, you could actually
go to MuchMusic
and hand them a cassette,
and if they liked it,
it would end up on air.
The magic sauce in "Try"
was a fellow
by the name of John Martin, who
ran MuchMusic at the time.
Blue Rodeo did
a video for "Try,"
and it wasn't added
yet at MuchMusic.
But Dave Tollington took
John Martin out for a beer.
John came back, looked
at the video again,
and put it smack into heavy
rotation on MuchMusic.
Now, this was unheard of
at the time
because we had a music committee
who was going through
hundreds of videos,
and suddenly "Try" is out there
being played alongside,
you know, those huge
acts like Phil Collins,
and Michael Jackson,
and Whitney Houston.
Oh, it's crazy
John hated the video,
but he loved the song.
It was his favourite song
that summer.
And he knew that radio
wasn't touching it,
that he was the lone guy
in the entire country
hammering this thing, and he
wanted to prove a point
that MuchMusic could sell
records on their own.
It hit a critical mass, and
we never looked back,
and neither did the band.
I mean, it just took off
like a rocket.
Oh, you got to try
Try
Try
In many ways, MuchMusic really
had a very fundamental role
in Blue Rodeo's success.
I don't think that we
really understood
how our lives were changing
because of the success
of that single.
Because the song was so great,
didn't hurt that they heard
that they had
a handsome lead singer.
And you know, Jim can still
hit that note today.
"Try"
Oh, baby, you try
Oh, try
Ooh

The many looks
of Greg and Jim.
Oh, oh dear.
Oh boy.
Yeah.
I'm sure glad you're
all here for this.
Yeah.
Couple of desperate dudes.
Jim Cuddy, this is your life.
What makes Blue Rodeo
fascinating artistically
are these two very
distinct voices.
Different style songwriters,
different vocals,
different performance,
I mean, and yet really
complementary.
And Jim and Greg have so much
respect for each other
that it's really foundational.
They're very different, and yet
they make a whole.
You could see that there was
a real partnership there,
but they were a little sort of
oil and water.
Maybe, you know, for Jim,
who was at private school
and had a lot of sports friends,
to have this interesting,
creative, alternative
thinking guy
would have been interesting
for him.
They're both practical
and together,
they're really good.
And I think that's just
really compelling.
I think Greg being out here,
pushing some boundaries,
is exciting for Jim, and
maybe for Greg,
having a little form that Jim
has balances him out.
Because they talk
to each other,
and really listen to each other,
and create something
that is stronger
than the individual idea.
Their voices together
create something beautiful.
Their harmonies are gorgeous,
like in a, in that special way,
and I think that solves
a lot of arguments.
I know it's cliche,
but they're like brothers.
They are, they had each other's
back, that's for sure.
Since high school, they've
been inseparable.
There's Tom Brady
playing with us.
And our love shines
Like a diamond mine
For "Diamond Mine," we
wanted to do something
completely different.
We did the studio
with Terry Brown,
and that was all fancy,
but I think Jim and I have that
sort of contrarian gene in us.
Even though we really
appreciated what he did,
we just didn't want
to do that again.
We didn't really like someone
telling us what to do.
You say the party's over
But like a drunken fool, I
never know when to leave
It's just that
in the eyes
The choices we made
for "Diamond Mine"
were a reaction to having
made "Outskirts."
After the making of "Outskirts,"
we felt that wanted to show
a little bit more
of our improvisational side,
and we had a lot of songs,
and we wanted a bigger,
messier live record.
They found a, an
abandoned movie theater
up on Donlands Avenue.
It was a construction site,
and there was no heat.
It was freezing.
We parked the truck
out back for a month
and cut the record up there.
And we would mostly set
the band up on the floor,
no headphones, playing
with monitors,
just the way they would
at a rehearsal.
And it puts the onus on the band
to play really well.
And, you know, they were playing
100 nights a year at that point,
they were a really tight band.
It was like the Beatles coming
back from Hamburg or something.
It felt like a healthy
process for us.
It felt very musical without
the structure around us.
It felt liberating.
A lot of what people
did like on "Diamond Mine"
was it gave Bobby a chance
to spread his wings,
and to show that jazzy, avant
garde side of the band.
I mean, that's like they
really did feel
like sort of that seal of like,
coolness.
And it was sort of like another
improvisational game to me,
to kind of explore what I could
do to surprise myself.
It would be a point of a lot of
excitement for me to do that.
I think that album
captured the essence of the band
better than some of
the studio work they did
because they are such
a strong live act.
Let it shine
Like a diamond mine
I love that record.
It was the only way we
could have done it.
That wasn't my favorite
record to make.
It was really cold in there,
and for the life of me
at the time,
I couldn't understand why we
were making a record
in a place that was freezing.
Like, couldn't we afford
the heat?
But we did it long enough
until it got so cold
that we decided okay,
well, why don't we go
to New Orleans and finish this?
It was very free form.
I mean, I think every record
has been a reaction
to something that
happened before it.
We went out one day into
the French Quarter.
Cleave said, "My time is up
for my leave of absence.
I took the leave of absence from
the post office for a year."
Our manager was
down there, John Katon,
and he drove me back
to the airport.
He gave me the sudden ultimatum,
or he says, you know,
"Cleave, we're going
to be on the road,
we're getting, you know,
serious.
And you know, you're going to
have to quit your postie job.
This is the second album, we're
going to do lots of touring."
He said, "You don't have
to tell me now."
He said, "I'll call you
in a couple days."
And I went home. I didn't really
have to think about it too much.
I just didn't want to be
on the road all the time.
He says, "I've got a
pension at the post office,
and I've got two kids,
and I can't give up
a sure thing like that.
What about five years from now,
when this is over,
then what do I do?"
You know, I often miss
some of the...
some of the experiences
I would have had,
but yeah, it wasn't
a hard decision really,
for me to make, you know?
The damn guys didn't have
to get so popular,
make it look shitty on me.
But, uh...
Oh, I admired Cleave leaving.
I mean, it was
a real cool story,
to the extent it was a story
in Canada at the time,
that the drummer in this band
is a mailman,
and they got a record deal,
and he's quitting because he
doesn't want to leave his job
because he's got kids.
And that was heartbreaking
because when you've got
something that's
unique and neat,
you don't want to mess with it.
You know, they always say, like,
you change one member,
it's not the same anymore.
The funny thing
about Cleave
is when he finally retired
from the post office,
he phoned me up
and he said,
"I just retired. So, tell
Glenn thanks."
For holding my place, but I'm,
I'm coming back now.
For filling in for him.
For 20 years.
We got our first major American
tour after he left the band,
where we went out for
a long period of time.
Now the focus was on making
our mark internationally,
as opposed to making our mark
only in Canada.

You can live
in the house
And I will find
a little place
Around the corner
Oh-oh
Trouble comes from the
strangest quarters
It snuck up on us now
Without a warning
Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh

The songwriting
is one of the great inspirations
of my life,
and when the God of songwriting
shines its light upon me,
I'm just in the happiest place
that I could imagine being.
It is one of the most pleasant,
calming things I do in my life.
Songs are like little miracles,
you know,
the way they fall into place.
I know everybody writes songs
in their own way.
You know, from my experience
of working together,
Jim's songs generally
come in quite formed.
Lyrics, done. Melodies, chords,
everything is there.
He's much more constructed
when he comes in.
Greg comes in a lot of times
with very sort of raw ideas.
So the process can be a little
bit more unknown.
There's a lot more potential
for, you know,
kind of going around,
and around, and around
to figure out where he feels he
wants the song to go.
You know, and I don't know
if Barry Manilow
would agree with me, but they
feel like they come
from somewhere else,
and you got to get
your antenna up,
and just sort of let the songs
come through you.
They've charted their life
through songwriting,
and they bring their
audience along
through those passages.
And they've all dealt
with broken hearts,
death, birth.
The process of songwriting
is sitting with a guitar
like I've been doing since
I was ten years old,
and playing til I find
something interesting,
and then that suggests a song.
Songwriters have an aptitude
to marry melody and story,
and I'm not sure if everyone can
describe where it comes from.
You know, writing a song is like
unwrapping a present,
and that's a sort of sweet
metaphor for the joy
and the surprise that
comes with songs.
It's the, it's the fuel
for a band.
Jim and I realized that
to keep the band going,
you got to have songs.
There's a couple of
clunkers in there.
They're still your children.
I remember seeing
the interaction,
the relationship between
Jim and Greg.
There was some weird friction
there, like brothers.
But I think a lot of times,
out of friction
comes that creative spark.
I think that there is a subtle
competition between us,
the same way that
many brothers
have the sort of emotional
entanglements.
I think Jim competes
more than I do.
It came naturally to me, and it
was a little harder for him.
That's a joke. I was putting
that in to bug him.
I don't think we compete
as songwriters,
but we push each other.
You know, if Greg has a
particularly fertile time,
and he's writing a whole
bunch of songs,
I think, oh my God,
I better get going.
They used to write together, but
they write separately now.
And then they come in, and
the band will play around
what they've written and
complete the song.
Jim's going to hate me for this.
I once told him this as a joke.
I mean, here's a guy who
was quarterback
on the football team,
married the beautiful wife,
and I said, "You, you have no
right to write sad songs."
He didn't laugh.
I don't think Paul McCartney
would have been
Paul McCartney without
John Lennon, and vice versa.
It took the two of them
to be the Beatles.
But together there
was a magic
that was bigger than
the two of them.

Yeah, I've often asked
myself that.
Why do you ask that question?
Well, I think it's, I asked him
to ask that question.
I want to know.
I have no idea why that is,
but we were heavily,
Lennon/McCartney influenced.
And I think if --
But that's alphabetical.
Keelor/Cuddy's not.
You bullied me in it,
just admit it.
And even though you do
point out that, rightly,
that it's alphabetic, the
personalities of Lennon
suited me more, and
McCartney him, right?
Where I'm a little more loose,
and not as focused and,
but can write some okay stuff,
Jim is more of a music machine,
and in the same way that
McCartney shows in that,
in the "Get Back," he's a bit
of the engine to the band.
You know, and they all
sort of tag along.
But it never bothered me
one way or another.
And, you know, early on
we decided
it'd be just easier if we
tagged everything
with the same ownership.
And that's a Beatle
hangover, too.
Yeah, but don't you think
Keelor/Cuddy sounds better?
Like, I think that's why,
I mean,
it never bothered me
one way or another,
but Cuddy/Keelor doesn't
sound right.
Yeah, Cuddy/Keelor sounds
like farm equipment.

After "Diamond Mine" was
sprawling and, you know,
like a suitcase with clothes
hanging out of the side
when you close it,
we wanted to have
a more concise record.
Well, "Casino" was
a concerted effort
to try and break the band
in the States.
I hate to use the term
"clean it up,"
but maybe the songs
were a little shorter,
there weren't as many excursions
into Bob Wiseman land.
We went down to
Hollywood to Studio B,
and Capital Studios,
and Frank and Dino,
and the Beach Boys,
it was just fantastic.
Pete Anderson
was our producer,
and he has had hit records
with Dwight Yoakam,
and he planned on having
a few with us.
Pete's approach was different
because he didn't want
to waste his time on stuff
that he didn't think
was going to get on the radio.
The challenge to me is,
whoever I work with,
is let's make an
aggressive record
that we can get on the radio
without losing the band,
without losing their identity.
Pete was not a fan of the
improvisational side
of Bobby Weisman, and
really tried to contain it.
Pete Anderson did not go for
Bobby's weird outside,
as he called it.
Bobby played in a style that,
just, Pete just didn't get.
And he called it,
"the wacky stuff."
He says to us,
"What you need is,
you just need a keyboard
player,"
and then get Bobby to just
put the wacky stuff on.
It was really, it was really
traumatic for me.
So by that point, that record,
I wasn't really present.
So although we made,
I think, a good record,
I think it was also
a bit crushing.
You watch the video for
"Till I am Myself,"
Bobby is definitely
somewhere else,
because Bobby is absolutely
without expression.
He just...
'Til I am myself
'Til I am myself again

"Casino," there are
songs on that record
that are such popular songs
in our catalog,
and yet it was not a successful
record for us at that time.
To have a real hit in America,
when you're already a legend
in your home country,
means that a lot of things
have to align.
It's timing, its chemistry,
its money.
It's the eve of the release
of the brand new
Blue Rodeo record. This is a
record called "Casino,"
which is why a lot of people
are going to be
gambling tonight.
And then there's probably
a little, tiny other gamble
that's going on as to whether
or not this is the record
that's going to launch Blue
Rodeo in the United States.
Was produced by Pete Anderson.
It's a lot more, shall we say,
radio accessible.
A leaned down, stripped
down version
of what we love best
about Blue Rodeo,
which is great melodies,
and killer harmonies.

I want to know where
my confidence went
One day it all disappeared
And I'm lying in a hotel room
miles away
Voices next door in my ear
We're on tour
down in America,
we get the call we're doing
The Tonight Show.
Now what, up until that point,
Jim and I had alternated,
and he'd sing a song on TV,
I'd sing a song on TV.
The record company wanted us
to do "After the Rain,"
but it was my turn.
So I had a little hissy.
Greg has this idea that in
order to have the guitar
up where we want it, I have
to play really loud.
He does that in soundcheck,
and we're in separate
dressing rooms,
and I get a call from our
management saying,
"The Tonight Show has
called me and said,
'You need to tell
the guitar player
to turn his guitar down."
I played so loud
at soundcheck
that they took me
out of the mix.
They just turned me off.
Oh, one day
When you discover
There's a certain point
where you realize
you cannot influence your
partner's behavior.
But yeah, it was, it was
so much fun.
Even though I was
having a hissy.
I like having a hissy
at The Tonight Show.

One of the great tools in the
Blue Rodeo tool kit
was the constant touring.
Oh, if I had my way
I would never go back

With my back to the wall,
just let myself fall
Watch the daytimes
turn black
But now and again I find
You cross my mind
Unfortunately for me, that was
sort of the beginning
of my really bad troubles.
So, that just ushers in a very
bad phase for me.
Oh, if I was a train
I would never slow down
For us, we never
really had breaks.
We would put a record out, and
we would tour that record
for probably a year,
year and a half.
Then we would start doing
demos for our next record.
We didn't take long periods
of time off.
As I write one more
letter to you
No, I can't change
the things that I do
Whoa, whoa
One day, when you discover
Just why I ran
Ran away from you, lover
Well, I know I'm to blame
Feel so ashamed
Called out your name
Oh, after the rain

We were on
the road all the time.
There was constant touring.
Like I remember one time
doing a coast to coast run
in Canada, and it was over,
and we had one day off
before we started
the American tour.
You know, we were up to
about 250 shows a year
for a few years.
It was too much.
Well, it took a toll on
our emotional lives at home.
By the end of the
"Casino" tour,
there's lots of people
having trouble
with their relationships.
You know, I know that
Jim had trouble,
Greg had changed
partners as well.
We were gone a long time.
I had a girlfriend when
I left for tour,
and by the time I came back,
she was dating her roommate.
By the time '90 rolls around,
we've been doing
it for a long time.
That's the most turbulent part
of my marriage.
We had two kids quite quickly,
my father passed away
unexpectedly,
and Jim was gone
and touring a lot.
And we really couldn't afford
a babysitter at this point,
and I felt like I was
going to implode.
And finally I just said, don't
come home. I'm done.

Rena and I are at
the breaking point.
So I think that Rena
actually did not want
to stay married to me.
We are not really talking,
and I come home
to what I think is going to be
our arrangement to split up.
I walked you to the corner
Stood beside the bus
And the tears rolled
on our faces
As the driver stared at us
Typical summer
That time of year when you
go back to Toronto
And I stay here
I miss the way you wake up
And the way that you sigh
And I miss the way you
turn your head away
When you cry
I don't think
this time will fly
Here comes
Sad nights again
And here comes
Sad nights again

You know that song, so I wrote
that song for Rena,
I wrote a lot, I've written a
lot of songs for Rena.
She doesn't like the fact she
takes the bus home.
She said, "I never took
a bus home."

Summer girls,
they sure are fun
Get so golden in the sun
That they could block out
any other thought

Dry your eyes and turn away
Because there's nothing
we can't say
'Cause we were never
meant to talk a lot
Blue Rodeo is
beloved by Canadians,
and it's the connection
with the audience
that, that is consistent
wherever they play.
When "Outskirts" was released,
we were seven years old.
We were, we were,
we were kids,
and not yet in control of, like,
what our musical,
you know, influences or
experiences were going to be.
We were really relying
obviously on our parents.
And I think, you know,
it doesn't,
it didn't stand out to
me then as much,
but the difference between
Jim and Greg's voices.
And as I've gone back
and revisited,
and sort of re-fallen in love
with Blue Rodeo.
I hate to tell Jim this,
but I'm, I'm a Greg.
I'm a Greg, voice person.
Damn!
I'm just being honest!
I'm just being honest.
The music sounds --
if somebody said to me --
in fact, years ago my
manager said, I said,
"I want you to hear this band,"
and she fell in love
with Blue Rodeo.
And 'cause she was
sort of a little country,
she was a little this,
she's a little that,
she said, "Is that,
is that Canada?"
And I said, "You know what?
Yeah.
Whatever you're responding
to is Canada."
When I think of Blue Rodeo,
the first thing that pops
into my head is,
we started to be allowed to
have co-ed parties
at our house when we were 12.
And we would like, listen
to our parents' music
at these parties.
And I slow danced with my
boyfriend, Bobby,
to like, "Five Days in May"
and "Hasn't Hit Me Yet."
Like, I have like this memory.
And then the next year, he
and I put on those songs
because he was like,
"These are our songs."
Like, he'd remembered
that we danced to them
the year before.
Like, it's so sweet
on his side of things
that he had, like, he thought
we had songs,
and it's cringe for me because
I'm like, so gay.
So it was like, for me,
it was like,
"Oh God, I got to dance with
Bobby again!" you know?
I think just that openness,
and that inclusiveness
that they showed me early on,
they're like that with
everybody,
and there's not a lot of airs
with either of them.
They're just good, solid guys.
The other day, I posted
on social media
asking people what moves
them about Blue Rodeo,
and it went viral.
Sarah Dundas wrote: "They came
on our first date with us.
They were with us for
our worst break ups.
They are a part of our lives."
This one is from Nola Simon:
"It's the emotion and the
relatability of the songs,
along with tiny little Canadian
details sprinkled in."
From David Andrew Rosenberg:
"Honesty, integrity,
authenticity in every molecule
of this band. And that is
why we love you."
The band. Not you, David.
When summer's gone, ooh

It felt like we'd been
on the road forever.
And we were playing
in a suburb of Detroit,
and it was some
sort of rib festival
because we did a lot of rib
festivals in those days.
And it was of the most pathetic
gigs we had ever played.
We were, there was this, we were
on this side of a canal.
Oh, that's right.
And then on the other side
were the rib fest people
who were, you know, barely
knew we were there.
And so a few times big boats
came down the canal,
and so they couldn't
hear us, or see us,
for an extended period of time.
So it just seemed so useless.
And after a certain point of
touring in America,
we were sick of it.
And the chorus came
quickly that night to me
because it, just, well,
if we're lost,
at least we're lost together.
Two, three, four.

I remember Greg coming
in with "Lost Together,"
coming on the bus saying,
"I got this song,"
and he started singing
the chorus.
And we were, we actually
kind of made a joke of it.
And I remember making fun
of him in the bus.
I don't know whether
it was too tender,
or I can't remember why.
And he was definitely offended,
and I felt bad for doing it.
They thought it was
too sentimental.
Because it was such a singsong
type thing, you know?
But then when we rehearsed it,
we realized,
no, no, this is actually
a good song, you know,
because we, we heard him
singing the chorus
over and over in the back
lounge of the bus,
and we'd be kind of going,
he's still Lost Together, is he?
And if we're lost

We are lost together

There was a couple of times
when Greg's instincts
about music were just so right,
and the band and me
were so wrong,
and I was so wrong about
"Lost Together."
You have to just look back
with embarrassment
at how off the mark you were.

I was playing with
Andrew Cash,
opening for Blue Rodeo
in Guelph University,
and they were looking
for a new drummer
before they recorded
"Lost Together."
I was really into thrash metal
at the time.
I played double kick
drum pedals,
which sounds like the drummer
from Megadeth.
First of all, I got a call from
Andrew Cash saying,
"Glenn, I think your ship
has come in."
And then I got a call
from Jim Cuddy
asking if I'd be interested in
coming in and auditioning.
When he came in, he was
probably too muscular
for us at that point.
I don't think I was an
obvious choice for Blue Rodeo.
I think the fact that I also
had other possibilities
in my toolkit musically
was of interest to them.
I remember doing
"Rain Down on Me,"
and I thought, I guess this
isn't a good song.
I should just, I should
just dump it
because it wasn't working.
So, we asked Glenn if he would
come and play with us,
and he changed everything.
The demos sounded great.
We just righted the ship.
Rain on me
Oh, rain down on me
The song,
"Rain Down on Me"
all of a sudden made
sense to me
and, and we could go forth.
So I think that that
was a testament
to how good Glenn is
as a drummer.
We had to get him away from
the double bass drum.
That just, that was
not right for us.
Jim told me years later that he
went to Greg and he said,
like, "What about this
double kick thing, man?"
And, and Greg was like,
"Just give him time,
just give him time,"
which was nice
because they could have
just said, like,
"You gotta lose a double kick,"
and I would have lost it.
But it did eventually
occur to me
that this is really on the
wrong side of tasteful.

Didn't know what
to bring you
Yeah, when I started
rehearsing with them,
it seemed like the band
was in some disarray.
Jim and Greg seemed really
intent and focused
on what they were doing.
And then there was Bobby Weisman
on keyboards,
who was clearly unhappy with
being in the band.
He just didn't really seem to
want to be there anymore.
I think he'd had enough of, of
Greg and I guiding the songs.
That's not the way he envisioned
Blue Rodeo going.
I think I was trying to
figure out how to leave
for more than a year.
Because even though
it started beautiful,
and even though I loved
those guys,
the relationships changed
over time.
That kind of broke my heart.
But the relationships
in the beginning
were really beautiful and really
about friendship, you know?
Bobby was not someone
who was necessarily cut out
to be a side man.
Bobby had gone from
this guy who was like
this animated jumping bean
on stage,
and then one day he stopped
doing all of it.
People are coming in
expecting to see
the wild man on keyboards,
and now the wild man's
just sitting there
with a straight face.
I was surprised when he called
me and said he was,
he was leaving.
And Jim was really awesome.
I mean, I remember really
clearly that he just said,
"It was great making music
with you."
And it's a very nice,
it's a really nice thing
about Jim's personality.
In the video, was it a little
homage to him
in the, in the solo section.
We built this little keyboard
altar for him.

In the silence of this
whispered night
When Cleave left,
it was tough.
And then when we got Glenn,
you know,
you can't help but wonder,
is this going to work?
I remember talking to Greg
about how difficult
this was going to be
because Bobby
was such a big feature in the
band, especially live.
And he said, "Don't worry,
we'll never go back.
We'll never go backwards."

And I want all the world
to know

That your love's all I need
All that I need
And if we're lost

Then we are lost together

Yeah, if we're lost

I loved it all. It was like,
it was amazing.
I mean, those guys, they were
like my brothers.
It was like an incredible
experience.
I loved, I loved them, I loved
everything about it.

Then we are lost together
Together, together

Thanks so much, Halifax!
Always a pleasure.
Thank you all very much.
So beautiful to see
your faces, thanks.

We were playing Australia
frequently.
That's a long way, it's a very
exhausting travel.
And we were just burnt out.
Around that time,
Jim came to me.
The band needed a break.
It's money, how do we exist,
and still be able to take
a year or two off?
So I went to my boss, "We need
a little bit more money
than usual for the next record.
In fact, what do you
think of this?
We give, we give Blue Rodeo
this signing bonus
for a new contract, and then
when they're ready
to make the first record,
we'll give them another
big chunk of money,
which is more money than
we've ever given them.
And, and then the band's going
to disappear for two years.
What do you think?"
Five Days started off as
Jim coming to me in a rehearsal
and saying that he and Greg
wanted to make
an acoustic EP, and I was like,
"Okay, sure, let's do that,
and get that out of the way,
and then do a proper rock
record," you know,
which was, that was my
mentality at the time.
You know, in my mind, we were
still post grunge Rodeo,
and I was still kind of hoping
we were gonna go,
go in that direction, I think.
You know, on the way home
from Australia,
I'm thinking I'm going to go
home and relax for a bit.
Greg comes and sits beside me
in the plane,
"We've got all this
new material.
I think we should go and record
it as soon as we get home."
He said, "In fact, we can
do it at my farm.
We can get Doug McClement
to bring his truck out."
Harkening back to
enjoying the experience
of the "Diamond Mine"
sessions so much,
where they were just kind of
set up in a circle,
no headphones, and we'd
just like to record
a whole bunch of tunes over
the course of a week.
And since we've done
all this traveling,
let's make it fun.
And we'll just do
this side record.
Won't be a big deal.
I'd never been in a house
where it was just,
like, full of instruments.
Like, he had all these guitars,
he had a couple of drum sets,
he had amps everywhere.
We set up in his living room,
and there's people all around,
there's Mimi, our favorite
restaurateur is cooking for us.
People are in the pool, and
we're just doing songs live
off the floor.
Everybody's changing
their style a bit,
I'm learning how to play
mandolin, harmonica.
We didn't really have
traditional room dividers
that they'd have in the studio,
so we set up microphone
stands in a t-bar setting
and hung sleeping bags and
packing blankets over them.
On paper, a recording engineer
would be horrified.
He would say, that album
came out of that room?
You know, there were
people camping,
people coming out for the day,
or just an overnight.
And a lot of the Queen Street
sort of people
would be hanging out.
We had
Sarah McLachlan there,
and Anne Bourne on cello
and backing vocals,
and, and the five of us.
I was invited in, and everybody
was super warm
and inviting, and inclusive,
and that was kind of the first
time I felt something like that
within a musical community.
So when I say it was
influential,
it was incredible for me to feel
part of something
bigger than myself
for the first time.
And, I think that Blue Rodeo --
Greg and Jim in particular --
really showed me that that is
how it is to be a musician
in the world.
Again, it's one of those
moments where it's like,
is this a dream? Because
it seems so ideal.
You know, I still kind of
get emotional when I,
when I think about it.
Of all the experiences I had
over 25 years in the business,
that's kind of at the top.
And I was sitting on the floor
with Michael Hollett,
and the backyard is full of
family and friends and dogs.
And then Greg yells
out the screen door,
"Okay, everybody shut up.
We're going to do a take."
And if you put headphones
on, you can hear dogs barking,
you can hear birds, you can hear
thunder and lightning
some nights.
Also, there's almost
no overdubbing
on that record whatsoever.
That's five guys in a room
playing songs.
It was live off the floor.
If somebody made a mistake
three minutes in,
they'd start over again
and do it again.
But it isn't cut and
pasted together
the way records are
being made now.
It was very much like
documenting a live event.
And I think that
we thought of it
as just a side project.
It wasn't until I heard
the playback,
and these acoustic songs had
a beautiful landscape,
and they were powerful because
they were beautiful sounds
with space in them.
It was pretty apparent
that "Five Days"
was going to be
something different.
I think pretty much any musician
who plays in a band
goes into the studio.
You're hoping to catch
something,
and they caught
something magical.
All of a sudden our palette had
so many more paints on it,
so many more colors. So it
changed us forever.
It was a complete work.
Kind of like Sergeant Pepper,
you know,
if you put it on, you went
from the track one
to the last track as
a full piece of work.
And I guess the punch line
was, it was,
in terms of Blue Rodeo's goals,
it was a complete
and utter disaster
because it took off like the
second rocket in their career.
And the the offers
to tour were so big
that they couldn't take
the two years off.
And they just went
straight back at it.
So, failed mission. I'm sorry.
They met in a hurricane
Standing in the shelter
Out of the rain
She tucked a note
into his hand

Later on, they took his car
Drove on down where
the beaches are
He wrote her name
in the sand

Never even let go
of her hand

Sometimes the world begins
To set you up
on your feet again
And I know it wipes the tears
from your eyes
And the winner
of the Juno goes to...
And how will you
ever know
The way that
circumstances go?
Always gonna hit you
by surprise

But I know my past
You were there
Everything I've done
You are the one


With this record,
so much happened,
and there was, there were
so many possibilities.
When you get into
making a record,
there's so many possibilities
at a certain point
that it's very easy to lose
sight of what you started out
trying to do.
And, and the dust is just sort
of cleared for me now.
Yeah, I wanted to do something
totally different.
I don't even know what,
but I just wanted to try
to go in another direction.
Part of the painful thing was
it was the mirror opposite.
It was the evil twin
of "Five Days,"
done under the same
circumstances.
We thought, oh, a winter
version, this will be cool.
By the time we were doing
"Nowhere to Here,"
we were indoors all the time.
And you know, we had
a big bag of weed.
It's kind of a stoner record.
And partly because we
were all really stoned,
except for Jim, who was,
poor Jim,
who had his patience
tested greatly.
He lived a different
life than us.
We'd pull into a town,
Jim would get up
and go for a jog in the morning.
You know, he's going to
take care of himself,
he's going to exercise
every morning,
and we're just taking it day
by day on the road.
He expected us to be doing
more at the farm.
I remember him saying, "What
if you worked a day job?
Like you'd have to put in a
solid eight hours, you know?"
I remember Glenn just saying,
"That's why I don't work a day
job, that's why I do this."
And we were working at
a tremendous rate,
we really were.
But we'd all go out
and smoke a joint.
He'd go, "Can we take
a music break now?"
Okay, Jim.
It was not the best
environment for Jim.
There was a wood burning
stove that was leaking smoke
all the time. So for me,
just physically,
it was an incredibly difficult
atmosphere to be in.
I mean, if you ever listen to
the tapes of that record,
there's, you hear the song,
and then it stops,
and then I go,
and I'm coughing like crazy.
I could not thrive
in that setting.
Just around the time that
the bed tracks were done,
I fell from the loft. And I was
in rough shape.
That was when we found out
Greg was diabetic.
He fell, cracked a rib,
went to the doctor,
and they said, "You should be in
a diabetic coma right now."
I'd probably been a diabetic
for a large part of my life,
but I never got my blood test,
I didn't trust doctors
at the time.
So poor Jim had to come out
and do all his vocals
at my place while I'm
upstairs in bed,
moaning in pain.
Yeah.
We made some of that record
with him up in his bed,
and he'd all the sudden
he'd bang on the floor
for us to be quiet.
And yeah, it was, it was so
crazy dysfunctional
at that point.
And I could sense
the frustration in Jim
where he was just like,
"I can't do this anymore."
I'm an accomplishment
oriented guy,
so I wanted to finish
the record,
and I wanted to get
my songs on there,
and I wanted to help Greg
as much as I could,
but I didn't like the
direction of the band.
Greg used to be the guy who
always had incense burning,
always had candles burning.
Lots of them!
One night at the farm, he
had all these candles lit
and everything,
and he fell asleep,
and they caught fire.
And he woke up and
his bed was on fire.
That's how he woke up
to a flaming bed.
So he wrote a song about it.
Last night I woke up
In a flaming bed
It's not a record that's fondly
remembered by Jim,
that's for sure.
When you have two people
leading a band creatively,
there are times when I feel like
I'm doing the leading
and there's times when
he's leading,
and so I think that,
that was just one
where I was just along
for the ride.
I think they were kind of
pulling in different directions.
But I also think they had
just reached a point
in their relationship where
a reckoning was required.
I mean, I think that's
the first time we had
very divergent ideas about
how to make the record.
And your eyes,
they were in my mind
And I just want to
hold on to you
Yeah, your eyes,
they were in my mind
And I just wanna
hold on to you

I think the first big crisis
was when Greg left
to go do a solo record without
sort of telling us
what he was doing,
and there was no surety
that he was coming back.
"Gone" represents
something for Jim
because all of a sudden
his partner
was doing something
on their own.
I thought he was gone.
I didn't think he was coming
back, but I wasn't sure.
I didn't really talk to them
too much about it
because I was sort of driven.
So he was quite comfortable
being somewhat mysterious
and leaving Jim to guess, which
I think Jim likes to know
where things are going,
so it might have been a little
challenging for him.
That was less challenging
in my mind
because it doesn't surprise me
that artistic people
want to make art
in a different way.
Greg needed to do
something for Greg,
but it's always unsettling
when someone starts
exploring something
outside of the unit.
Well, I get the impression from
that listening to music,
and doing some of the reading
on you guys
that that there may have been
some conflicts in style,
and, but it sounds
like a lot of that
might have been relieved by
having the chance to go solo,
where you could do exactly
what you wanted to do,
and you could do exactly
what you wanted to do.
And now you can come back
to Blue Rodeo
and it's, you're happy to,
to blend again.
Everything we've gotten
out of music has been,
you know, like Siamese twins.
But certainly a band
is like a family.
Yeah.
And you really, you spend every
minute with your family.
You tell me what that's like.
And in hindsight,
it was the best thing
that I think they
could have done.
So, I think, I think
"Nowhere to Here"
was a bit of a catalyst
for that.
Has the band ever had an
existential crisis?
Oh God, sure.
Oh that's, that's pretty...
- You're looking at him.
There's been a few
events in my life
that I thought I had
hit the wall,
and like, I just couldn't do
what I was doing anymore.
And when you hit those walls,
it really feels like the end.
Greg developed tinnitus,
and it is distracting
because you have this sound.
But also he developed some
other hearing challenges,
which were painful.
The migraines were so bad.
I couldn't go anywhere
without ear plugs in.
All those things I sort of loved
to do was all taken away.
And it got to, I thought I was
gonna do living room parties
for people, but they weren't
allowed to applaud.
It would just...
I'd play a song,
"Don't! It hurt my ears."
Greg was only doing
a few songs per show.
He'd come out and do
the shows acoustically.
Being on stage, the sound
would, it would,
like, literally torture him.
He reached a point where he's
like, "I can't do this anymore."
I thought that that part
of my life was over.
How I viewed the band
around that time
when Greg's hearing challenges
became something
we had to deal with
was more of a, okay,
what are we going to do?
How are we going to do this?
Number one, we have to rally
around and support Greg,
and then what do we do to
change things on stage
so that we can continue to play?
We tore everything
off the stage,
and figured out how to put
our amps and isocabs
off the stage. Glenn
behind plexiglass,
Bazil on a vibrating pad
so his volume can be low.
Just looked like a normal setup.
There's no sound on our stage.
You can, we could talk like this
in the middle of a rock song
because everything's being
channeled out to the board.
And of course, it allowed Greg
to survive on stage.
It was a big adjustment
for everybody.
The only one that has any sound
on stage is Greg.
Greg has an amp because
he can't wear headphones.
So it's a little bit ironic, but
that's the way it works.
Greg was like, "I'm just going
to switch exclusively
to acoustic, and I want
someone else to,
to play electric guitar," and
Colin was the obvious choice
because both Jim and Greg
already kind of love Colin,
and he just, he just
fit right in.
You know, we had this long
relationship as friends,
and that combined with the work
that we'd done together,
it was a comfortable situation.
So they asked if I wanted
to come in and help out.
I said, "Of course," you know.
And so he switched entirely
to acoustic guitar,
and then I took all the
electric guitar roles.
Colin's a great player.
And now we have
Jimmy Bowskill too,
so like, we have an
embarrassment of riches
in the guitar department.


It was pretty
natural, man.
I mean, they're just such
a great bunch of dudes,
so it was good vibes
right from the start.


And then, but at
the end of the tour,
we all found out that he
was suffering again,
headaches again,
and I kind of felt like,
well, we've kind of failed him.
Over the years, it just got
worse, and worse, and worse.
The world that I
had inhabited,
the life that I had lived,
I couldn't do it anymore.
Greg was anxious about
injuring himself,
and he called Jim and said,
"You know, I can't do this
anymore. It's too difficult."

The phone call in 2016
to Jim, when I said I quit,
I was just sort of
mildly hysterical,
and I was crying a lot.
I was just saying,
"I can't do it anymore."
So we hung up and,
and I thought that was it.

I was at home, I called
Rena from the kitchen.
I said, "Greg just quit."
There was always that
undercurrent of possibility.
So when it happened,
he was ashen.
Like, everything just
dropped out of him.
I think, I mean, I was shocked,
but I was also, I was wounded.
I was wounded that he quit
over the phone to me,
but I was also kind
of tired of it.
I was, I was tired,
tired of the drama.
You know, tired of
all the fighting,
and then, and the uncertainty.
It was devastating. I mean,
this is a, you know,
you're not just creative
partners, they're friends.
You love your friend. This is
like you're losing a lover.
If someone's quitting, it's hard
not to feel rejected.
It was like everything
had been pulled out
from underneath him.
He had worked so hard
to make this happen,
he had really reinvested
for it to happen.
And he was really devastated.
You've been here before
a couple of times,
why is this one hitting
you so hard?
There are many reasons
for either one of them
to be sad about the
partnership dissolving,
but I think at its heart,
it was toughest for him
to be losing a friend that way.
Well, if your high school buddy,
that you have been literally
through thick and thin,
through the wars, through
everything together,
is telling you he doesn't want
to play anymore,
it's pretty devastating.
You know, I thought,
okay, well, if this is the way
it's going to be, all right.
I have a good solo career,
and I'll just keep going,
and that'll be the way it is.
And because I'm okay
with change, I'm like,
"That's great, that's fine.
You know, you got your
own solo career.
That's what he wants.
It's okay."

Greg's such a consummate
professional
that he said, "I will meet all
of our existing obligations."
He agreed to stay through
the summer shows.
And then one thing was added,
another thing was added,
another thing's added.
But we get to Vancouver,
and we're playing a show,
and Greg says to me, "We should
make another record,"
and I'm like, "What?"
I didn't think we were
a band anymore.
And so, whatever made Greg
need to quit at one point
was no longer circumstance
for him then,
so it seemed like we carried on.
I don't know that there
was a definitive time
where we said, is this, are we
still a band or are we not?
I think, like, too many bands
break up not realizing
that like, hey, just give each
other some space.
Go write a solo album,
go, go meditate.
You know, you'd be surprised
in six months
how people's perspectives
can change.


When I quit the band, I
think everybody was a little,
"Oh my god," and that
seemed like a setback.
I think Greg came back
because he missed it.
He missed Blue Rodeo.
I think it was hard for him
to think of a, a life
without that available to him.
I think he loves Jim; I think he
loves what they do together.
You'd be giving up so
much to give that up,
and I think he still loves
to create with Jim.
It took a while to do
the adjustment,
but once the adjustment
was made,
the band has been
playing fantastic.
The band has never
been better.
Just trying to remember
The better times
Back when you were
Wild

Back when you were
Wild
Back when you were
Wild
Back when you were
Wild




'Til I am myself
'Til I am myself again
And here we go, we're going in.
Yeah!
Have fun!
Thanks!
Bye, Jim! Good luck!
Thank you, Stella!
Not that you need it!
Stella!
Jim!
Wish us luck.
Blue Rodeo's legacy is ongoing.
It's still being written.
This band is defying the odds
in a lot of ways.
We're playing to more people,
we're playing larger venues.
They just leave it all on the
stage every night.
And so audiences feel that
if they stay connected
to that through joy and sorrow.
I think that they are one
of the greatest groups
to ever come out of Canada.
I love them.
So when I think about
Blue Rodeo,
I think that in some ways
they are really
Canada's band, right, because
they're a little ragged,
they're very real and authentic.
They're definitely cheeky.
They're just like us.
Blue Rodeo was a big
chunk of that
for the Canadian industry
to believe in itself.
And Blue Rodeo showed
that other model,
which is, you know, just work
your ass off in Canada
and you can have a great life
as a musician.
We love them. Like they're
a part of our family.
And in fact, our families have
grown up with Blue Rodeo.
There is a real affection
for this band.
Blue Rodeo is certainly the
soundtrack to my life.
That sense of community,
I think,
is not only what binds them
to be collegial
with other Canadian artists,
but also with the fans
themselves.
Canadian fans are very loyal
to their bands.
They stay loyal and want
them to do well.
You work hard for them, they
repay that with their loyalty.
There's a lot of love
in the band.
And when we're playing,
you know,
the first couple of songs
every night,
I feel this sort of
wave of love,
and a large part of that
energy is the reflection
of the audience.
The other thing that is
really special for me
kind of happens at
every show now.
I think there was a period
in the band
where I kind of took
it for granted.
You know, when we were
touring a lot,
and it was it was
kind of wearing
and, you know, we get on
each other's nerves.
And Bazil and I would
just walk off stage
and bitch for like an hour,
you know?
You know, which
is not something
I look back on proudly,
but I, you know, I just think
it was something
we had to go through.
Blue Rodeo is the type of band
that we can have tension
and that, but we get
over it quickly
because at the end of the day,
we knew that there was all this
love too, we were brothers.
But I don't think there's
ever been a time
when I didn't want to be
Greg Keelor's partner.
And I think that we had this
kind of perfect partnership.
I don't imagine he feels
the same about me,
but that's just the way
I feel about him.
Jim is one of the great
inspirations of my life.
He's just one of
the inspirations
of why I picked up guitar.
Look at all that's
happened to us.
When I think back on Greg and I
starting this life together
and, and how many good things
have happened to us,
that was our life.
I think even doing this,
going over everything,
I realize how fortunate
we've been.
As you get older and you
start to appreciate
what a rare opportunity it
is to make your living
playing in a band, I think that
you, your gratitude,
you know, fuels your
will to stay.
So now, after 32 years,
when I play a show,
now I sort of just feel like,
I can't believe this
is still happening.
Like, I can't believe
how lucky we are,
I can't believe how lucky I am.
I can't believe that...
You know, there's still
people up there,
singing along, you know?
And...
Obviously, I'm getting emotional
talking about it now.
So, you know, I feel
really grateful.

Strange and beautiful
are the stars tonight
That dance around your head
And in your eyes,
I see that perfect world
I hope that doesn't
sound too weird
And I want all world to know
That your love is all I need
All that I need
And if we're lost

Then we are lost together

Yeah, and if we're lost

Then we are lost together
Together, together



No, that was good, all good.
Congratulations.
Okay, sweet. Thank you, Dale.
I think we said enough.
Jim's said enough.
Okay, we can
cut that, please?