Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Gordie Johnson from Big Sugar: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1853

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

In this 1853rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Gordie Johnson from Big Sugar about the band, his gift from Alex Lifeson, the role of Molly Johnson and Dan Gallagher in Big Sugar's origin story, the loss of Garry Lowe, playing Woodstock '99 and so much more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Welcome to episode 1,852 of Toronto Miked. An award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at great lakes beer.com for free. Local home delivery in the GTA. Palma pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh. Homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta. in Mississauga and Oakville.

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Joining me today, making his Toronto mic's debut, it's Gordy Johnson from Big Sugar. Hello. Hey, Gordy, how you doing, buddy? Good. Thanks for doing this. My pleasure. I'm glad we could fit it in. Travel schedules a bit zany.

And you can hear me okay? Yeah, I got you. Now, there's no way you have, you don't have like a USB microphone line around or anything like that, right? Maybe. Just want to capture the gold. I don't. Okay. No, it's okay.

This will be fine. Just, you know, you always ask that question just in case they're like, yes, I have this amazing USB mic right here. Yeah, I have an amazing USB mic, a Senheiser. And it's sitting on the desk in my studio where I usually do my Zoom. call us. Where do we find you today? Where am I? Bonneville, Alberta. How's it going there? It's going really good. We did a show at a high school.

Last night, beautiful little auditorium and nice crowd of people. It was fantastic. Good to hear. Off the hop here. I want to ask you about being a gourdy, okay? Because it seems like as far as I'm concerned, there are so many Canadian legends that had and have the name Gord

Like is there something uniquely Canadian about being a Gordie? Well there ain't many of us in the U.S. I'll tell you what. That's not a name you're very often. And if, you know, at a coffee shop they'll ask for my name and I'll say

Johnson. Because they don't They're not trying to hear See, where I am in Texas Gordy means Fat little girl in Spanish Well, I had no idea Well, I had an idea

It's been explained to me Time or two Yeah, but in Texas Johnson means Wang, right? No, Johnson's a really common name You're thinking of England. Okay, okay. Yeah. In Texas, you know, you had a president of Johnson. Johnson's a very common thing. Johnson's city is about 30 minutes from my house.

And the Blue Jays had a DH named Cliff Johnson, as I recall. It's just a very common name there. Gordy, not so much. No, and I mean, I just, like minutes ago I was chatting with Dave Bedeenie and he's got a, the real statics have a new album. And there's a song with Gore Downey doing a spoken word about Lake Ontario. And I was just, thinking, you know, okay, we have Gordon Lightfoot, Gordon Pinsent, we have Gord Sinclair, Gordowney, Gordie Johnson, Gordie Howe. Like, what's up with the great Canadian Gordes? I think it's a Scottish thing.

A lot of Scottish folks in Canada, a lot of Scottish heritage there. I've got some with me. Yeah, there's lots of it. I think Gordon all my Scottish friends coming from me without. any hesitation. But it's been in perfectly. So you're touring with Big Sugar right now, right? You got any new music coming for Big Sugar and later in 2026?

We do. We have some new music. It's done and it's been done for a minute, tell you the truth. A lot of these songs were written like before COVID. Remember that? coming. Yeah, they were already written and kind of ready to go. But we've had a few detours along the way. We were kind of getting ready to put that record out. And then Jack White called and said he wanted to put out a record we did called 500 pounds. We put it out in 1993. And he loved

it when he was a teenager and wanted to put it out on violin. We were like, yeah, man, sure. okay you want us to go on tour and promote an album from yeah sure let's do that so that's been almost two years of my life is just being on the jack white train well let's talk about that train jack white and i got to let the listenership know we're talking about the jack white you know not some guy with the same name so i know you were playing the commodore ballroom with jack white right back in, like, recently. Yeah, well, that was, that was on my birthday. Yeah.

We were playing in Vancouver and got a call from the tour manager saying, hey, Jack, want you to come to Vancouver? You guys want to play at the commoner with? I was like, yeah, sure, that sounds like a fine way to spend my birthday. So spend a couple days in Vancouver going to guitar stores and pawn shops and Italian bakeries with Jack White and his entire band. Well, that's pretty cool, right? Yeah.

Yeah, well, apparently Big Sugar was influential on a number of people. And, yeah, Jack, Jack raised his hand and said, yeah, man, me and Meg went and saw you guys Pontiac in 1995 or something, 96. And I met him when he was a kid. Apparently, I was nice to him. Like, what? Be nice to every. Everybody. Just be nice to everybody. You never know what's going to happen. Well, that makes sense because you're like Windsor Detroit guy and, you know,

Jack White's a Detroit guy. So yeah, that adds up. Yeah. And we had some radio play in Detroit on rock stations in early part of a career. So Ride Like Hell would have been played on the radio. And he, yeah, you heard it. It's like, oh, wow, a guy playing slide guitar. That sounds like a good idea. So there you go. Fast forward. I mean, obviously the white stripes have their whole own approach to it.

I mean, it's not like he ever copied anything for Big Sugar. But just if I convinced somebody that playing a guitar was a good idea, I think that that counts. No, you get points for that as far as I'm concerned. Here's a fun fact for you, Gordy, regarding Jack White and CanCon. Okay. So Jack White's dad is cousins with Ashley McIsaac's dad. Do you know Ashley? That makes sense because they're Cape Bretners.

Yeah. So Ashley McIsaac is related to Jack White. Related to the Gillises. Yes. Correct, Amando. And of course, Jack White, big, big sugar head. That's pretty rad, man. Love it.

Hey, do you mind if we go back a little bit and then I got, questions and I appreciate you curving out some time to chat with me and I'm glad you're doing this but would you mind like bringing me back and like I just mentioned Windsor and Detroit but like when do you realize you Gordy Johnson you have the gift you need to be creating music when does that strike you I guess you know you mentioned Windsor in Detroit and that is a pretty fertile environment. If you think back, you know, late 60s, 1970s,

rock and roll radio, rock and roll took over the radio in Windsor and in Detroit. And we had three of the nation's top rock and roll radio stations at the time. You know, like WRIF was one of them.

Man, you couldn't, uh, my parents listened to the radio all the time, but as a kid, that was, thing. Like I got a little AM radio. I don't know, probably when I was eight. You know, I had a little AM radio. I just listened to it all day and I hear, you know, Bachman, turn, or overdrive. Stuff like that on my little AM radio. It sounded great. So I just started, you know, carrying a little radio around, riding my bike, listen to the radio. And as I got older,

that was just part of the culture. He went to rock. concerts, you know, you went across the river and you went to Cobo Arena and you went and see rock and roll bands and saw Rush and went to see Queen and Jeff Beck and I don't know, just everybody, you know, with Arrow Smith, we went south. Every band that came to Detroit, we felt like Detroit was the center of the universe for rock and roll. So just, yeah, when you're a kid, that has a big influence on you.

Well, you mentioned Rush, so I'm just going to take this opportunity to ask you about your relationship with Alex Lifeson. What a lovely cat he is. For no reason other than just to be a nice fellow, I suppose. I encountered him a few times in the early 90s. I was just like scuffling a jazz musician on Queen Street. I wouldn't have anything going on. I was just dude with a big guitar and, you know, shiny. hairstyle. I encountered Al in a couple of, you know, charity events or whatever.

He, one day, we'd gone to a recording studio. We were making the Hemivision record. The tour that we're on right now promoting Hemivision. That record came out in 96. But when we were making the record, we weren't all big and famous. Nobody knew the big sugar was. Nobody really cared. But I ran into All at a recording studio. We were borrowing gear, because we couldn't afford to rent gear. We had to borrow some. So we borrowed a piece of equipment from a studio. Rush was in that studio recording. And he recognized me in the hallway and said, hey, man, come on, come on in. And I'll show you around. There's, there's Getty over there. Oh, there's Neil practice in his drums and far out. And I was a huge Rush fan. Now I was a Rush fan from, I was a little kid. My first rock show was

in Rush at Kobo. It's 77, man. I saw Rush. Believe my mind, that was probably the moment that I went, ding, I'm doing that. So here's the guitar player of Rush showing me his guitars. And I saw the white double neck that he played on Farewell to Kings on Zanidoo.

It's like the Zanidu guitar. Oh, yeah, man. Whoa. Look at that. He's like, yeah, I pick it up. I was like, oh, my God, it's heavy. So, man, I saw you play that when I was a little kid in Detroit. And he said, yeah, it's really heavy.

And it's kind of having a negative effect on my golf game too much. Right. So why don't, once you take it and see if it brings you good luck. Wow. I felt my luck improve that very moment. Gordy, that story is unbelievable. Isn't that crazy? I'm not the only cat he's done this team, apparently.

So I took that guitar, and we just put it in the studio, and we all stood around it, like, praying in front of it, warming our hands in front of it, like, what do we do with it? What do you do with a double-neck guitar? What am I supposed to? What do you even do with it? I'm not sure.

I guess we should record it. So we ended up re-recording a bunch of songs we'd already finished, because it just sounded so deadly. And then that went on to be like my signature instrument. You know, it started showing up in videos, and it's on that whole record. Then I had to buy another one, then I had to buy another one.

And I had to buy another one. Eventually, I gave his back to him. I ended up in a museum in Ottawa. But, yeah, that's a major turning point in the sound of Big Sugar. call because of one guy just being a lovely cat yeah we called that uh being a munch yeah and a mentor you know i mean that he's such a humble guy and doesn't you know have any ego to speak of and somebody who clearly could have i mean i'll be to his house i've seen the platinum record he's got like a two-story wall of platinum records and i was like

it was just an entire giant wall of a house and I was marveling at them and he was like oh those are yeah those are just the ones from Latin America Hey so this Gibson

right this double neck guitar that Alex just gives you like he doesn't make you you, you didn't buy it he didn't make you sign something he's like here you just you gave it to you that you can see it in the video

for digging a hole right? Yeah it's the same white double neck that's on Fairwell, the Kings is on digging a hole. Which is a Canadian fun fact. Go ahead. Canadian fun fact. And if I may, when I think of Gordy Johnson,

my first thought is you holding a double neck guitar. Right? Yeah. I never even considered having one until that moment. And then I just, yeah, set me down the path. That's not my thing. Well, I can picture you playing like O Canada on a double-neck guitar before like a hockey game. You know why you play O Canada on a double-neck?

Why? Because if you break a string during O Canada, it's handy to have another guitar like right there. You don't need two guitars to play it, but you're really glad if you've ever broken a string, or it's gone out of tune because you're standing on the ice at a hockey game. Nobody wants to play guitar on ice, trust me. I think we should get one of those heritage minutes made about Alex gifting you that double-neck guitar. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, who would play me? That would be cool. I'd love to see that. Hey, so I already said the words digging a hole. Before I buggy about that song, which I'm going to guess as just a consumer of great music that that song changes everything for Big Sugar, I'm going to say. But could we talk a bit about somebody who I was blessed to have visit me in my basement studio

for a sit-down? Can we talk about Molly Johnson? Oh, yeah, I wish you would. Can you share with us, the listeners. We all know Molly on Toronto Mike. She's a big part of the TMU, the Toronto Mike universe. But what role does Molly Johnson, in play in the trajectory of big sugar?

She plays a pretty massive role. That woman saved me from the street more than once. I had no place to live at a point. I was sleeping in a car, and then I would sort of move to a different car. It's like, you can't sleep in a car. You have to sleep in a house. You're staying at my house.

Yeah, we were roommates for a while at the Cameron House on Queen Street. We shared an apartment there, and then eventually she got herself a place. But she really just sort of grandfathered me into all this stuff in Toronto. Again, I was just like young guy hustling, you know, playing the blues, playing some jazz, playing some rockabilly, but just out there on the street with my guitar, trying to make ends meet Toronto tough, you know. Yeah. And we just, we got a call one day from Molly saying if she wanted Big Sugar to be her backing band,

she had a gig and would we learn some songs and back her up? Well, we're like, sure, if you're like sort of famous jazz singer, we're more of a blues band. But yeah, that would be cool. That sounds interesting. We got to her apartment and we're sitting around learning songs. Well, what's the gig exactly, Molly? you're like, what should we wear? She's like, oh, we're opening for Ray Charles at Ontario Place on Sunday.

Like this Sunday. Wow. So that was our first show. We got to meet Ray Charles and play with Ray Charles at Ontario Place in front of, what, 20,000 people Sunday afternoon. Yeah, so that's a pretty big opportunity. Thanks, Molly. And after that, we were her band. We just did everything thick as thieves.

She was like a big sister to me. She did a thing. She wouldn't come on stage at the beginning of the show. We would have to play a little bit of instrumental jazz or something. We'd play a song, get the crowd just kind of everyone in their seat, quiet, ready for Molly to come out. We'd introduce and play her walk in music. She'd walk on.

And then she stopped coming out. we'd be playing a song and she'd say, Gordon, Gordon, I'm not coming out until you sing a song. Like, I'm not really the, you know, I don't, no, you need to sing a song. When? Like, yes, tonight. So I'd have to sing a song before she'd come out. Okay.

And the crowd kind of like that. And then she'd started insisting I sang for the second set, two songs and then she made me sing songs with her do duets and stuff so really pushed me into being a singer purely out of her own laziness i'm sure it meant less singing for the only thing molly johnson likes more than some singing is molly johnson not singing but she you pushed me towards singing and i got to thank her for that and yeah man molly and look i got i got to also point out We were not looking for a record deal. We were not trying to be a rock and roll band with our own record.

We weren't in that game. We weren't thinking about that. And Molly had a, got a record deal as for her jazz thing. So we were going to make this record with Molly. And at the last minute, somebody offered her a bigger, way bigger record deal for her rock and roll band. Infidels. The infidels. So she said to Tom Tremuth over at Hypnotic Records,

Oh, it's okay. I'll sing a song on their record, but Gordy has all these original songs he's written. They're great. You're going to love it. And Tom went, yeah, okay. I've never heard this guy sing, but okay. For whatever reason, she talked him into letting us make a record.

And then announced to me that, okay, you got to go back to the Cameron House and write a bunch of songs. you're going to make a record. I wouldn't trying to write a bunch of songs. I wasn't thinking about that either. So I wrote a bunch of songs and went to hypnotic records

and made our first record and that's... I need to recap this really quickly, great. So Molly Johnson does several things, but three big things she does is one is she gives you like a shelter, okay?

I feel like I'm Mick Jagger over here. Give me shelter. Okay. So Molly gives you shelter. That's one thing. Secondly, you guys become a supporting band for her jazz performances. Okay? That's the second thing.

And the third thing is, as she's kind of returning to rock music with infidels, she helps you secure a record deal from hypnotic records back in 1991. Yeah, she hands off a record deal. That's okay. So I'm glad we're talking Molly because you can't tell, You can't tell the big sugar story without Molly. And of course, I'm aware of the fact that we talked about your name Johnson. Molly's also a Johnson.

And we had a guy playing saxophone with us. And that was Johnny Johnson. Johnny Johnson. Johnny Johnson. That's like being named Brad Bradford. Okay, Johnny Johnson. So, okay, so we are getting to dig in a hole. But I wanted the Molly Johnson story.

and I also am hoping, can you share with us? You know, I'm kind of talking about people who've been in the basement. Gordy, one day you've got to visit the basement and do this proper so I can give you beer and pasta and we can have a real chat about all this. Oh, all right. One day, one day. One guy who came over, what an epic chat that was, was a Bar-Nagued ladies drummer Tyler Stewart.

Oh, dear. I need to know how your paths crossed with Tyler, you know, before digging a hole. Well, just, you know, back, you know, I talked about them scuffling days on Queen Street. We were all just young guys looking for gigs playing at every bar in Toronto from Clintons and the Rivley and the horseshoe and Cameron House

and all those bamboo, all those great gigs that we had back in those days. And Tyler was just one of those guys running around with his band, Bair Naked Ladies, they were sort of busking on Queen Street and playing the occasional gig that were big and famous

or anything yet. So we just all knew each other from being around. But after the Bear Naked Ladies exploded and all this they sold a million records and they were all big and famous. It was great.

But we're all just but once you get back on Queen Street we're all just the same dudes, you know? Right. We used to sort of put on these parties. We put together a band. It was sort of a jam band for lack of a better description of it,

but it was kind of like it predates raves. So you couldn't call it a rave. But it was kind of a rave because it was all just dance music that we were playing. It wasn't DJs in electronica, but people would get up and rap with us and we would play. It's the three-piece core. band with Tyler on drums, but then we would just have this rotating casts of crazy people get up and rap or sing or play or do something.

We had a guy who'd get up with a juicer and a bunch of carrots and beats, and they put a microphone on it. Instead of doing like DJ scratching, he would use the juicer to, you know. So, and we would play sometimes, so 4.30 in the morning, we'd start after another gig. We would all show up at a warehouse somewhere and played at these parties that went till, till someone kicked us out, Cobb shut it down, or it just dissipated, you know, at a point. But yeah, you had to the most unlikely cast of people upon that stage with me and Tyler in the background, me playing the bass and Tyler playing the drum.

Does this outfit have a name? Don't talk dance. Don't talk dance is the name of the party. And then at some point we decided, hey, we should record this. So there is a recording out there somewhere of don't talk dance. I don't know if it's on any streaming, but it's, you could, I've seen it on YouTube, I think. And it's, there are CDs floating around.

don't talk dance. Well, here, let me blow your mind again. So I just mentioned, I was chatting with Bedini earlier today, and Dave Bedini was talking about Alex Lifeson. He's on the new Rio Statics album. Also, just days ago, there was a Wolf Island hockey game, which has been going on for like 22 years in a row now. And, of course, the host for this, you can imagine,

the host for this is Chris Brown, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir. And another Don't Huck Dance Alumni. There you go. So Tyler Stewart and Chris Brown

and Gordy Johnson. Also one last point on this and then we're getting back to Big Sugar and I promise I won't take six hours of your life here. Just five,

okay, that's all they need, five hours here. I got it. Just kidding. But when Berenic ladies win that contest at CFNY

and they get the $100,000 to make a new album, what do they name that album? Gordon. Full circle, I see what you did there. Yeah, like it all comes back to great Canadian gourds. Right? They named that album Gordon.

Anyway. I saw what you did. I'm pausing for applause. I'm pausing for applause. All right. So there's some great chatter about future FOTM Alex Lifeson, and we talked about, you know, Tyler Stewart, Chris Brown, and Molly Johnson. Alex is on a big sugar album actually.

On the last studio record we did called Eternity Now, Al's on the title track. We were, you know, in separate countries at the time. But all I had to do was say, hey, man, we wrote this song. Sounds an awful lot like a rush song. Maybe, you know, I'm either going to get sued or you're going to have to play on it. Well, right. Now, yeah, you play on it or we're calling it. copying you. But, you know, I now need to ask you how many Juno Awards has Big Sugar won in your

career? You see that. Oh, you know what? I took my eye off the prize here. It's a big goose egg, right? Yeah, it's a big goose egg. But you have five nominations. We don't have any trophies. Whatever. I got a couple of Grammy nominations, but you can't put Grammy nominations on your on your fireplacement. They don't send you a trophy for being nominated. You got to win this thing. No, they don't. Yeah. I mean, you get a letter in the mail.

But, you know, hey. See, I think I... You can frame that letter. Trophies aren't kind of why I do it. No, I know. I guess this is a long-winded route to tell you that I believe, the Juno's that are taking place in March 2026, we're talking in February.

They're in Hamilton. And I believe Alex Lifeson will be a surprise performer alongside Getty Lee and the new drummer for Rush. Oh, that's what you think? Yep. And I'm telling lots of people this. And if it happens, I'm going to take full credit for breaking it. And if it doesn't happen, I'm going to say, I'm going to just say it was a fever dream.

You got faulty intel. Right. Don't, don't quote me on it. But I expect to see. And I wish I could remember her name now that I'm talking to you. But I know she's from Scandinavia. Yes, Ok, Anika, right.

So I believe that new iteration there of Ro, I don't like to call it, I don't know what they're calling it. I think they're promoting it as Rush. I suppose they just have a new drummer in honor. It's up to them. Yeah, of course. They can call it. Why wouldn't they call it Rush?

Oh, my God. Don't make me come over there. It's freaking Rush because Getty Lee says so. That's all. That is all you need to know. Why shouldn't they call it? What the heck? I have no problem with them call.

It's their band. they can call it rush. Because their second drummer isn't here anymore? Come on. That's true. You're right. He's not the original drummer. You're right. And they're not trying to make, they're not trying to get a substitute for him. I love the fact that they just went completely off, off menu and thought, oh, look at her. She's good. She played with Jeff Beck. She must be good. Oh my God. She is really good. She doesn't sound anything like Neil Purt. Why would she? Why would you try? You know what I mean?

You know, you're right. That's exactly the right road to go. It's find someone who's not Neil, get someone who's just going to bring something new and great to it. Challenge those guys. They're such amazing musicians. How do you go from playing with Neil to just playing with anybody? You know what I mean? Like, how do you feel challenged every day if you're dead here out?

I think it's fantastic. I couldn't be happy. Yeah, you don't need to come over here. and beat the shit out of me because I'm on your side. I agree. I just want to make sure you don't. You're not booking that flight

from Alberta because... One minute you're offering to make me spaghetti and now I'm going to whip your ass. Lasagna. It's all yours when you come by. That's for sure. So I keep...

There's one more chap I want to talk about before I just buggy a little about some songs and some other fun facts. But I'm so sorry for your loss. I remember talking to Molly about this when the terrible news was broken that Gary Lowe had passed away. But would you mind maybe spending a minute or two

talking about what Gary brought to Big Sugar in that loss? Oh, yeah. I mean, that was, you know, Gary made Big Sugar the quintessential Toronto band. To my mind, I'm just pat myself on the back here a little bit.

But, you know, we had a membership in the band over the years of people from all these different cultural sectors that we brought together. Not that that never happened. I mean, you always, coming up in Toronto,

you know, in the 80s, you played with musicians from all different corners of the universe. You know, I mean, I was played Nigerian guys, played with dudes from Trinidad, blues musicians from Chicago and Detroit,

come up. Yeah, there's just amazing crossroads of culture. And having Gary actually joined the band solidified for me and gave legitimacy to the fact that Jamaican culture was an enormous influence on me personally and on our music. And what was commonplace in Toronto, I wanted to bring that to the rest of the world. I wanted to show everybody that, hey, yeah, it's rock and roll is not just rock and roll.

It can have all these other things in it, you know, which got us in some trouble too. You know, it wasn't always accepted. You got guys with dreadlocks and to make an accent, but you're playing rock and roll. You're not a reggae band. He goes, yeah, no, that's not the thing. We're not calling it either of those things, but we do all of it just kind of at the same time. and Gary really is

the fact that there was that mutual respect there because I idolized the guy I used to see him play from my first reggae show in Toronto he's the only bass player I ever saw for like almost a decade in Toronto he's like the only bass player we got I know we got other ones

but always Gary so that was just like an unattainable thing I was like well what if I just ask him I had to get my nerve up to ask him I called him and told him what I was thinking of doing and asked him if he'd

come over to the house and I was going to like audition him you know for the gig he showed up with his base and a suit bag full of clothes show clothes he was like ready to do the audition and get on the bus I was like no we're not leaving today we're not leaving today we're not leaving today.

Talk about confidence. The guy showed up with his back. Like, okay, there's somebody who wants the gig. Yeah, no, man. We had an amazing run together. Just making great music. Great loss for the Toronto music scene. Yeah, but, you know, at the same time, it's,

look what we won. Look at all the influence there. And look how reggae music is still, you still hear it on the streets of Toronto and, you know, West Indian culture, that's Toronto culture. I think in the 80s it was considered like a foreign kind of a thing. You know what I mean? And I don't think it is so much now.

I don't live in Toronto now, but I get the feeling that by this time, everyone's had a patty, right? Everyone knows what a ting is. Everyone drinks a red stripe. You know, people just drop. I've noticed in Toronto, like people just drop. out patch while like it's like at nothing. You know what I mean?

Like I hear kids, you know, teenagers, you go to the eat instead of her 15 minutes. It was like these kids speak in Patua. Well, they're not all. They don't all have Jamaican parents, West Indian parents. No. You know. So it's just become part of Toronto speak.

I think that's a wonderful thing. Well, just ask Snow about that, right? You went to number one for seven weeks. Yeah, but see, back in that time, that sort of stood out as odd. Because I knew a lot of people in the reggae music community and the West Indian community, and those were the neighborhoods I lived in. So I heard that kind of, I knew lots of, I knew lots of white guys. I knew white Jamaican guys, Chinese Jamaican guys.

And that speaking patois thing was just kind of like, that was just sort of our little thing, you know, if you can do it a little bit, you understand it. Yeah, sure. It's like being in a gang in a way. You know? But no, it's become way more mainstream now. It's not that it doesn't stick out as being that weird anymore.

Toronto, man. Toronto Mike. You know what I mean? No, dude, I totally know what you mean. Yeah, absolutely. I just had a Jamaican, Canadian reggae artist named a boy was over here the other day. She's actually up for her eighth Juno, and she's never won. So I told her she's the Susan Lucci of the Juno Awards.

So that beats the Big Sugar drought there, if you ask me. So Gordy, I know how I want to close. I want to close by asking you about a few songs that really kind of affected me in the rest of the world, really. But can I ask you just a couple of interesting concerts I want to ask you about? One is Woodstock 99. You were there. Yeah, it was. we got the hell out of there

tell you what we finished our show I don't know I want to say four or five in the afternoon and we had only seen the bus and the venue like we'd just gone from the bus to the stage and played

and it was fantastic like the crowd was amazing it was still fun at that point but it was the last day I think it was on the Sunday we were on the last day And as soon as we left, like the stage area, we're like, oh, George Clinton is playing over there.

Let's go over there, way over there, that stage way over there. We started to walk through the grounds, man. And it was post-apocalyptic. It was horrible. We are getting dirty. I got a white Hugo Boss pants on. It's like, there's stuff getting on me. I was like, oh, hell no.

I am not walked. These blue suede shoes are not walking through. this. So we, uh, we turned around and we're like, what do you mean there's no water? Yeah, there's no water. How is there no water? It's 102 degrees out here. There were just people laying like they look like dead bodies everywhere. I hope these people aren't dead. Is anyone helping? No. No one's helping. Like, uh, me, I like me some or not chili peppers, but I think we got to go. we're going to get let's let's beat the traffic

mom let's get in the car and go so we loaded up the bus and we got out of there you got the fuck out of dodge we did and then we heard you know we heard by the time we got back to Toronto we were hearing all the reports of what was going on oh my god

man we just dodged the bullet there well that and I've only seen the dogs I wasn't there okay even though I did talk to Kim Clark Champness about this because he was there with Cereal Joe. You remember Cereal Joe? Yeah. Yeah. They were there. But, you know, from the docks and everything, so I

I'm a big fan of Mother's Milk. That was the Chili Peppers album before the big Blood Sugar Sex Magic one. I love that album still, but they do a cover of Jimmy Hendrix's fire on that album. So this is like part of their catalog is doing fire. But I guess at that moment, they go into

fire and I guess the audience is just ready to give me an excuse to go. And I guess they're like, fire okay and then you get the closers i guess limp biscuit who have the big hit break stuff and it's like did you say did you say break stuff okay like just go yeah well of course they'll find a way to blame it on the bands but it's yeah it's not the fault of the musicians that's whole thing to me and you were smart to get the fuck out of dodge but earlier and so that's that's in like july 99 that would stock 99 that you predict but earlier i just what was it like

At the, as it was known then, Eric Canada Center. What was it like opening for the Rolling Stones? Oh, it was lovely. It was lovely. That, you know, it taught us a big lesson. I, to be fair, I knew them before. And I was friends with Charlie Watt. So we got the gig sort of, you know,

there were agents involved in stuff too. the original call comes from Charlie liked Big Sugar. He liked 500 pounds. He liked ride like hell. I'd hung out with him a lot. I'd met Keith on several occasions, but I hung up with Charlie a lot.

So we were kind of coming into it already as homies, you know. So that's nice. Largest, biggest, most influential band in the world considers you homies. That's great. But we were quite shocked. They were like,

well, Mick doesn't like carpet on the stage. Do you want carpet? We have all these Persian rugs. If you prefer, we'll put them down. We're like, no, don't go to any trouble. We're like, no, mate, it's your show. We want you to have a great show. Do you want the rugs?

We're like, no, actually, we prefer not to have the rugs. Okay. All right, here's catering over here. There's a selection of nice wine. There's all this food. And this is for everybody. It's for you blokes, too. So get in there and enjoy it.

Just don't eat the chef. Don't anyone break. the crust on the shepherd's pie. If someone's been taken already, it means you can have some. If it hasn't been touched, don't touch it. You don't get to be the first one to have Keith's shepherd pie.

Okay, let's not do that then. But they said, okay, here's the guy who does the video screens. He's the director, so you're going to have a talk with him next. I'm like, to do what? Oh, he's going to direct the videos for you while you're playing.

like we get the video screen, you can say, yeah, you get all of it, night. Wow. Do we have to, like, are they going to make us not play as loud? They're like, no, play as loud as you want. So Rolling Stones, what are you going to do? Like, you're okay. You know, they showed us the absolute,

like they treated us like the headliner. And I guess from what I've heard, that's how they treat their opening acts. They treat you like a headliner. Because if everyone has a better show, it's a better show. The audience has. has a better show. So we've never treated an opening act like a bunch of schmucks. You know what I mean? I found out this young band, they put them in a men's room as a bat, as a dressing room.

We were playing somewhere, Lethbridge, Alberta, years ago. These young guys, they were a good rock and roll band, you know, they were good, not a good show. They didn't even have any beer. It's like, what do you mean they don't have any beer? Wait, let them turn on all the lights. Who Who told them, who told you guys not to turn the lights on for them? Use all the lights. The Rolling Stones said we could have all the lights. Who are we? Turn on all the freaking lights.

Did you say, turn the lights on? Is that what you just said? That's what I said. I have had my share of life. And Lord, they didn't feel to ride a stone. Just wake one, turn the lights on. Lads, what kind of beard do you like? Corona.

Get them 24 coronas. That was Nickelback. That was nickelback. Be nice to people. Just be nice to people. It's not hard. I hate mean rock stars. No, I love this story because you describe how,

although I hope you didn't fuck with that shepherd's pie. Like you knew to respect the shepherd's pie. That's very rock and roll. I love that story. But I heard similar stories about, I have a bunch of bands over who opened for the tragically hip at some point. And to a T, they all talk about how, the tragically hip treated them the way you're describing how you would treat your opening band

Nickelback or the Stones would treat you. Yeah, it's really important. Everyone has a better show. The crowd has a better show. Give them the light show. I mean, unless you're scared. Unless you're that scared, you're the big headliner. Big boy, if you're that scared that the other band's going to play too loud and have too many lights,

come on. Then be better. Not be a better person. Be better. Hey, I just, speaking of great shows, this past December, I saw the trues

at the Danforth musical. And I saw them, because I wanted to see them for their Christmas show, it was fantastic, but because the brothers were just in the basement, speaking of Kay Breton.

And I got to, like, just ask you how you got involved of the truths and then just let the, let the, listenership know that you're a co-writer on the huge Trues jam not ready to go.

I am. And also, the song I'm most proud of with the Trues is being a co-writer on Highway of Heroes. That to me is definitely one of the songwriting highlights of my career and one of the songs I'm most proud of. And I don't know how you top that one. that's to be involved with that one was a that i don't know change i think it changed me as a songwriter like you you got to tap into something really deep if you're brave enough to go there you can really move people with a song so that's that's the one i'm sure most proud of yeah but not really

that was great i mean i co-wrote so many of the songs with those guys on the records we worked on together and even some records i didn't uh produce or or work on we still wrote a ton of great songs and, you know, I've done some of the songs I've written with them with Big Sugar and, yeah, no, that was at a time. It was a very, very

fruitful songwriting, you know, creative relationship that we had going. And you're right. Highway of Heroes is gorgeous, and when they played it live, it was just a magical moment, but yeah, not ready to go. I brought that up because I believe that might have been the most played

song on rock radio that year. in this country. Yeah. Oh, I think I have a trophy for that. They somebody give me a trophy. The truth is give me trophies. I bet you that's from Socan. Do you think so?

I bet you've had a few Socan awards over the years. I got some Socan hardware. Okay, quick hits here, my friend, because earlier you said the magic words Hugo Boss. Okay. And you, my friend, like you're like one of those what did ZZZ Top say

oh sorry ZZ Top that's how I'm calling him now you're a sharp dress man even in my even in my pajamas are they Hugo Bossa pajamas The longer felt You went there You went there

Mr. Hoodie I went to yeah You know I have style I'm rocking the GLB hoodie here And you're in your basement So you're allowed to wear whatever. I'm not wearing pants either, but that's between me. Of course you're not. It's a Zoom call.

No one's wearing pants on a Zoom call. Keep the camera above the table. That's what I say. What were we talking about? Well, I guess I'm curious about just maybe in a nutshell, like how do you end up working with Hugo Boss? Like, Hugo Boss dresses you for a very long time? I think just by sheer contrast.

Remember the Molly Johnson thing? We were coming from the world of jazz and sharps, suits and ties and her shoes were signed and my hair was slick back. And I went to a much music video awards night. And this was the year Grunge took over. And everybody was trying to look grungy. Everyone had holes in their jeans and they'd looked like, let's be frank. Everyone looked like shit.

Everybody just got out of bed. Did you sleep in a bus shelter? come on what is this you wore this to the party so big sugar walking around not fitting in and a young fellow at the time just started working with hugo boss a fellow by name of robert susa who's still a great friend to this day uh but he was a young guy at the company and he was at the party and he walked right up to me at the party not introduced walked right up and said who are you What do you do? You're not a musician.

They're a guy who am a musician? Well, what band is your band? It's a big sugar. Because why are you dressed like this? And I looked at him and like, oh, it's the only other guy wearing a sharp suit. And I looked around. I said, because all these fools are dressed like this. Is that dressed?

And he was like he pulled my jacket lapel open to read the label and see who's clothes I was wearing and said, I'm Robert Susan with Hugo Boss. Come and see me Monday morning at my office. So I went and he walked me into the president's office and said, I've just met this guy at much music video awards. And I'm telling you, this is our guy. And so I became their guy and they gave us a bunch of clothes to wear for the ride like hell video.

It was the first thing they did. And I didn't realize at the time that Robert, although he, you know, he rose in the ranks and became like highly influential cat, he had just come from the warehouse, hanging stuff on hangers in the warehouse. They just moved him into your, into Hazleton Lane in Yorkville. He just got that job. It was like his first day not wearing, you know, coveralls in the warehouse. He was wearing a shirt with a tie. It was like his first thing. And he walked me and he walked me.

And he's like, look at me. I'm already fine. I'm on the street. I got my finger on the pulse. He'd never heard our music. He had no idea if we were any good. And that started an amazing, you know, 10-year relationship with Hugo Bond. See, there you go.

Evidence that grunge was a good thing for Big Sugar. Turns out to have been, yes, by contrast. And, I mean, this is how I know how I, want to end. And then if there's anything you wanted to share, of course, I'll record anything you have to say, Gordy. But you mentioned MuchMusic Video Awards. I mean, I consumed a lot of big sugar on Much Music. But one of the faces I would see on Much Music belonged to Dan Gallagher. Oh, yeah, man. My best pal in Toronto, man. We used to run around together a lot. We were great friends and he had a big influence on on big sugar he put up the money speaking of the ride like hell

video the video for ride like hell was paid for by my friend dan he came up with enough money for us to make the video because no one else was going to pay for us to have a video and the video for ride like hell is something that definitely got big sugar known nationally if not internationally. So just because he had a really good gig. He was a, he was, you know, a radio and TV personality. He was, you know, hosting award shows and doing stuff. So he had a really good job. And so, yeah, he paid for the video.

Yeah, no problem. And he gave us, you know, lyrics for digging a hole and better get, used to it. And some of our biggest songs. Those are huge songs. Ideas he had. You know what you guys should do? You should record the song, Dear Mr. Fantasy. Yeah, you got, yeah, you should, you should record. That would be a great song to cover. So he paid for the recording session and we recorded Dear Mr. Fantasy. Thanks, Dan. Dan Gallagher, who, well, I once met him actually and I was so excited. Oh, there's the guy from test pattern.

Like, this is awesome. And I know he did a lot of work of the Argos as well. And he's dearly missed. He's gone far too soon. It's been over 25 years now, I think, about 25 years since we lost Dan Gallagher. Yeah. But you mentioned digging a hole.

So I know I want to close with digging a hole because, yes, you covered dear Mr. Fantasy and that got you some exposure. But for most of us in this country, our first taste of what Big Sugar has to offer is digging a hole. hole. I think one mind blow right now is there's a co-writing credit for Dan Gallagher from much

music. I think that's a mind blow too. But there's another chap who I've had the luxury of talking to. Andy Curran. Yeah, Andy and Dan. Andy helped Dan with the idea of digging a hole. They had just, it's really funny. I still have a cassette tape somewhere.

And it's one chord. And Dan saying one line. like so is this can i hear the whole song do you guys have no no that's all we got that's all you got but the thing is it was a it was a great first idea it kind of just wrote itself it was it didn't need another verse it just verse and one chorus and two chords and that is all so that's all that's all it needed so you're on tour now basically basically this is the 30th anniversary of Hemey Vision and the first single of Hemmivision, of course,

is Digging a Hole, which you know as well as I do, is still one of the most played Canadian rock songs on Canadian radio. Like, it's still ever present on rock radio in this country. It's a big radio jam. But, like, how do, maybe give me a taste of, like, how do things change for Big Sugar when Diggin a Hole drops and radio picks it up?

and much music as well. Oh, it changes pretty drastically. Yeah, we got really busy. We spent pretty much from 96 to 2000 doing like 300 shows a year. We just lived on the road. We didn't do anything else but Be Big Sugar for those years. Yeah, they're kind of lost years in a way. that produced some really killer records.

He did and other pieces of things. Yeah, fantastic period of time to be in Big Sugar. But yeah, digging a hole is the one that just catapults the thing. Then suddenly we were touring from coast to coast. You mentioned Heated. Is it true the U.S. release of Heated has also has digging a hole on it? Yeah, it's a song that wouldn't come. No way because Hemibision didn't get released, but Heeded did get released in the U.S.

They're like, can we put that song on it too? So yeah, now, that's one of those songs that just keeps coming back around. Well, you're going to do that, Gordy. Why not stick if I had my way on the American release of Heeded? Because Heated has its own really awesome songs. Oh, you're right, man. I mean, Better get used to it is on there. and one of my personal favorite,

turn the lights on, which I teased earlier. But yeah, I got to say, when you dive into the big sugar catalog, man, just rocks. And I just want to say,

big fan here. And I love the fact you carved out some time for some independent podcaster in South Atobico. That's pretty awesome of you, man. Toronto, Mike, I will make some time.

And one of these trips, I do get to Toronto quite often. And I will come to the basement and will eat the Luzon. on you and we can taunt each other in person. And you won't beat me up for even daring suggest me, is it rush? Even asking the question

is that rush? It's rush if Alex and Getty say it's rush. I'll hold a grudge, though. Give up the grudge. Thanks, buddy. This was great. All right, Mike's great talking to you, man. And that brings us to the end of our

1,8502nd show. Go to Toronto Mike for all your Toronto Mike needs. Pick up a ticket to see me at the Elma combo on May 21st. There's a link at the top of Toronto Mike.com. It reads Elmo Gig. Much love to all who made this possible. Again, that is Great Lakes Brewery,

Palma Pasta, Nicayini's, Recycle My Electronics.C.A. and Ridley Funeral Home. See you all Tuesday when my guest in the TMDS basement studio is Liz Worth.