Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Greg Keelor: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1619

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

In this 1619th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor about his role in the '72 Summit Series, his relationship with Jim Cuddy, Bob Wiseman, the new documentary and all things Blue Rodeo. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, 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 1619 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online 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. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Building Toronto Skyline, a podcast and book from Nick Aynes from Fusion Corp.

And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today, making his Toronto mic debut, is Blue Rodeo's Greg Keeler. Hey Greg, how you doing buddy? I'm well, how are you? I'm glad we could connect. Whereabouts do we find you today? I'm glad we could connect. Whereabouts do we find you today? I'm at home today. I live about an hour east of the city. How often do you get to the woodshed?

Not as much as I once did. You know, I sort of went through a phase where I lived there almost, you know, recording and stuff. But then I had a studio at my own house, so I did a lot of work out here. And I just, I don't have the appetite for, I've been in the country now for 35 years, and I just don't have the appetite for the urban life anymore, and the Toronto traffic just as you well know drives

me nuts. Well, here's a fun fact for you. So I did record at the woodshed. I recorded with Jim about two and a half years ago. And even though I live in South Etobicoke, I biked to the woodshed because I can't be bothered with that traffic either. That's the way to go. Like That's the only way to do it It's the only civilized way to travel

So I'll let the listeners ship know off the top that if they want to hear my chat with Jim from the woodshed that's episode 1097 so go in the archives so now I finally have the legend that is Greg Keeler. So Greg, I have a question off the top and I've been wondering this for a while. So you comfy? You feel good? Yeah, yeah. Now that I'm a legend though, I'm not going to answer any questions.

Well, I know you're a legend because I was at Massey Hall when you and Jim were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame pretty recently. So congrats on that. Well thank you kindly. That was an amazing thing and there are many mind-blowing moments in that event. Well let me ask you about one off the top. So the gentleman who inducted you, if you will, was someone who's also visited me here in the basement, but Ron McClain inducted you. I think he might have had one or two or three dozen Great Lakes beers before he got on that stage. But he tells a story and I heard this story from Jeff Merrick years ago and then I heard it again from Ron and it sounded like a number of people in the audience were hearing it for the first time.

But now that I finally connect with you, I need you to tell me in great detail what happened. But can you tell me the story about you and Bobby Orr in the 1972 Summit series. The floor is yours, Greg. So when I was a kid, I grew up in Montreal and I was a hardcore hockey player. I lived in this place called Townamount Royal and hockey was our lives. The Montreal Canadiens were our team and this is like the 60s and 70s, so it was the glory. I was a goalie and theount junior A, the Toronto Marlies, and the Hamilton Red Wings, which were all major junior A teams at the time. So I went out with Rosemount and they put me on the junior B team. And then I spent a year away from home playing hockey and I was sort of tired of that.

So I moved to Toronto with my dad got transferred. So I moved to Toronto with them. I guess that's what you do when you're 15 and 16. And I went out with the Marlies and after practice, so yeah it was 1972, so after practice tryout, I was just doing boards, you know cardiovascular thing, you know, one, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, just to keep doing that over and over and over until the Zamboni came on. Well before the Zamboni came on, Bob Yorr stepped onto the ice. And he was practicing with Team Canada, but he wasn't playing with Team Canada because his knees

were so fucked up. But he just wanted to be a part of it. And so I got in the net and just like he would on outdoor ice anywhere, he just started taking shots on me. And I guess I've told this story a few times in my life, but I can still remember the inertia in that puck was so different than anything I'd ever experienced before. It just had so much weight to it, and it was just like, oh my God. And in these situations, you sort of rise to a different level. So I was in a hockey zone I hadn't really visited before, in Maple Leaf Gardens under the Dominion clock and then out step Frank Mahovlich and you know 10-15 minutes they just sort of played a one-on-one with me in the net until his Amboni came on and cleaned the ice for the 72

Canadian team. Now were they trying to see if the Big M there and Bobby Orr were fit to play for Canada in the Summit Series? Is that what the... was that the point of you taking those shots? No, the point of me taking the shots was just that I was just hanging out after the practice. Right. And it was just my incredible good fortune that Bobby Orr came out for a little skate before with Frank Mahovlich. And I had my 10-15 minutes there with them until the Zamboni came on and cleaned the ice and then they, you know, Frank Mahovlich played with the 72 team and but Bobby didn't right right but so yeah it was it's sort of it was sort of like that

was the end of my hockey career that was it I didn't make the Marlies a guy named Mike Palmitier ended up being the goalie for the Marlies and go on to play with the Leafs. But I guess fate had different things in store for me. I didn't play guitar by that point, but I probably didn't play guitar even again for a couple more years. So I was still figuring stuff out. Okay, so this begs the question. So you're now in Toronto, so I guess your dad gets transferred, you move to Toronto, 72, you're in Toronto.

So when do you meet Jim Cuddy? That year, I was trying out for the, well I guess I was playing for the high school football team, North Toronto Collegiate Institute at Yonge and Eglinton. And I was a defensive end on the senior team and Cuddy was the quarterback on the junior team. And I didn't know anybody. Cuddy was Jim Cuddy in high school. Like he had status and he was good looking and all that stuff.

And we were scrimmaging seniors against juniors at the end of practice. And you're not really supposed to do this in practice, but he was throwing a pass and I was on his blind side. And I just nailed him. Just dreamed him from the blind side. And he got up and he said, fuck you. And I said, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. And I grabbed him by the blind side and he got up and he said fuck you and I said fuck you fuck you fuck you and I grabbed him by the face mask and I threw him to the ground and that's how our friendship started. So it sounds like your hockey

career has come into an end here and now a music career is burgeoning but you just mentioned you didn't pick up a guitar or anything so like were you did you have visions of the band before you even learned how to play an instrument? Not really I didn't really have much vision or ambition other than I wanted to live the life of a venture and I meant that in the idea of Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac or Kevin Kesey or you know that's what sort of inspired me. And I, yeah, I wasn't academic, I didn't do well at school, I didn't really want to go to university and pick up a profession or a degree, it wasn't that important to me. I tried a couple of times just because that's what you did. But Jim and I, after high school,

ended up going out west and I was out there for a couple of years at the Chateau Lake Louise, working there, and my roommate at the Chateau had a guitar. And I picked that up and I started teaching myself the chords from those little chord boxes in a Gordon Light foot book. So, sitting in my room in Lake Louise, I started playing guitar and then I was I left Lake Louise to work on the Great Lakes Freighters and the first stop was in Three Rivers, 12 Rivers, excuse me more. And we stopped and I went into a music store and there was a blonde maple Ibanez on the wall. And I bought that because Jim had a black Ibanez. And I thought, well Jim's got a black one, they must be good guitars. And so I picked it up, I went back to my cabin and I wrote a song that night.

And it was like the Holy Spirit had descended and I was just so in shock and moved by it that I sat down at my little table and I wrote myself this letter a little manifesto of how I was gonna live my life for that had to be running songs I had to be around creative people and that I didn't know what was gonna happen but I knew that's what I had to do. That's unbelievable. Now, honestly, I could do six hours with you right now, but you're not going to want to do six hours with me. So I'll be all alone on the zoom here. But can I just play a little piece of music just to get a bit of the origin story? And then

of course I want to hear about the documentary and everything. I want to cover all the bases, but let me play just a little bit of a song if that's okay. Sure thing. All right. I don't know why you love me I don't know why you care You never tease me You try to please me I know you're always there And it's true, it's true, I do, I do Love you, love you, I do Greg, what are we listening to here? Well, that's a young Jim Cuddy singing lead vocals on a song called I Don't Know Why I

Love You. And that was our band, the Hi-Fis. And we recorded that with Doug McLemont at Comfort Sound, that was at Dufferin and somewhere, I forget, St. Clair maybe, and that was our first release as recording artists. It did pretty good for us, you know, we in in in the magazines like the press and and all those sort of you know things sort of things and we got we got we got play it got played on q107 a fair amount and so the high flies we started the high-fives maybe in like 80 or 78 I guess and played around the Toronto scene, opening for bands, playing all the

clubs like the horseshoe and the edge and the turning point and all the sort of original music venues at the time. And it was just the coolest scene in the world in our minds. We thought that we you know, we were really part of a happening scene and And you can hear that we were complete Beatle freaks as well without a doubt, yes You can hear that influence for sure so I, I mean, I love it. Sounds great in the cans here, but you guys head off to New York City, so I'm guessing it didn't quite work out as planned. Well, we were signed to a thing called, a company called Ready Records.

And they had released... The Demics were one of their big acts. And the Demics at the time were my favorite Toronto band. They were a punk band led by this guy from Manchester, Keith Whitaker, who was, you know, pretty intimidating sort of guy. But he just had this great voice and he sang the Denix played these great songs Steve Koch was the guitar player and he was a great inspiration as well and so I'm sort of rambling it oh well we're talking no I

love it okay because we have the high-fives and then you guys go to New York and then you come back and I'm just curious what did you learn from your from sauntering off to New York and how did that shape what would be Blue Rodeo? We celebrate Blue Rodeo today. was just for fun. I had a 69 Mustang 351 4-barrel convertible and we drove down to see a friend of ours who was in Cape Cod somewhere and then we went to New York to visit a relative of mine who lived in the West Village and she had this amazing bohemian apartment and her son was really strung out, lived in the apartment next door and there'd been a fire

and it was just so derelict and weird and he took us over his new york and it was dark and spooky and uh... sort of intimidating but we loved it we love the darkness of it and uh... we both felt the pull of whatever that was and Jim's fiance at the time move wanted to move to New York to study acting so Jim wanted to go and

I thought well if we want to keep the band together i guess i'm going to die i was dying to go to new york anyway so it was and i really loved it and it it helped me to focus as a songwriter and to to walk those streets you know I just watched uh

what's the new dillard movie uh complete unknown is that what it's called complete unknown and it's just you know that that's where the west village when I was when when I was there in 81 was very much like that. And so it sort of blew my mind and I went to New York to get my mind blown to experience something outside of what I had been living to that point. And so New York allowed that to happen for me. So when you say keep the band together is that the hi-fis like do the hi-fis go to New York and then come back and form Blue Rodeo like I'm just trying to figure out where the hi-fis ends and

where Blue Rodeo begins. Oh yeah so Ready Records, go back there, They signed us, they had signed Colin Linden, they had a guy named Steve Blimke, but then all of a sudden the Toronto music scene, the floor just fell out of it, the horseshoe closed, the turning point closed, the ads closed, ready records went bankrupt so we were left with nothing there were no clubs to play and so that all encouraged us to go down to New York but just Jim and I went to New York the high-fives broke up Jim and I went down there and spent three years down there working as waiters and writing songs and forming a band that we called Fly to France. And we were there for three years and came back to Toronto with a little more, just a deeper resonance to our songwriting and our attitude. Well maybe

New York City gave you guys your mojo. To a certain extent it just it just opened up a lot of things that we wouldn't have experienced in Toronto. Toronto at the time was still a pretty waspy town, you know. You couldn't order a beer on a Sunday unless you ordered a plate of food. So it was a very Protestant blue-bodied town. Absolutely. Now because of time constraints, I'm gonna, you know, obviously I'm gonna yadda yadda yadda some stuff here and people can hear my idea that I think almost two hours of Jim Cuddy and we covered a lot of ground here and we're gonna be talking about a new documentary where people can get the full story which we're gonna talk about in a moment.

But could you, would you mind saying a couple of words about Handsome Ned for me? In any role, Handsome Ned might have played in the Blue Rodeo story in the mid-80s? Yeah, big time. Handsome Ned, when we came back, we knew Robin before he was handsome Ned Jim worked with them at the Banff Springs in the I guess that would have been the early 70s the mid 70s mid And Ned fell in love with sort of Austin and Austin country, Austin attitude. And he went down there all the time, played gigs all the time. And so, you know, and Austin has a very sort of unique musical country music heritage, you know, because it's got the Texas country and then the high lonesome country. And Ned was sort of a combination of the two. And so we got back and Ned had these matinees every Saturday.

And he had the greatest band, he had basically the Demics, he had Jimmy Demick on drums, Steve Koch on guitar, and I can't remember his last name, on bass. So every Saturday afternoon there was this great scene at the back of the camera. I felt that I had come back from New York and just fallen into this, as it says on the wall, this little slice of paradise. And it was just such a splendid way to spend a Saturday afternoon with all your friends. You're getting high and you're listening to these great musicians singing these great songs. So I think our first gig might have been opening up for Handsome Ned. I think it was.

And then we did our own show a week later or something like that. But yeah, he was a... We walked into a scene. There was a scene there waiting for us to just go and play. And it's very fortunate. You know, you think of the fate of these things, these little strokes of fate have to happen for you to get where you're going. And Ned was a big part of that fate. Greg, if I said to you, is Blue Rodeo a country band or a rock band? What would you say to me? We're not a country band and you know country to me is a very defined thing like I I don't think Bro country isn't country to me, you know

Country to me, you know, there's a few schools of it, but it's country to me sort of has to be from the South of the United States. It's an accent, it's a tone of voice, it's a pitch where the songs are sung and it might be you know like really high lonesome bill monroe or it could be uh the crooners you know like uh what's his name jorge jones you know like sure like like but but those voices, but they're crooners. And Merle, you know, another crooner. Like that.

And then there's a tone to the guitar for me that is country. And that's usually a telecaster played by a tremendous guitar player. Hey, do you ever watch Raptors basketball? Well, I guess I have, and I guess I was deep into it when we had Leonard. Kawhi Leonard, yeah. Yeah, like I was convalescing, I'd lost a toe to diabetes. And so I was sitting here with my my foot up and an IV and and but that thing that that series got me through so I loved it. Yeah, flags fly forever, don't forget that. Okay, but the reason I bring up Raptors is what Mike, why would you talk about Raptors for because Michael Grange is one of the Sportsnet reporters that covers the Raptor games.

And I don't know if you know this, but I've had Michael Grange over a few times. And when I was going to the woodshed to talk to your partner there, Jim Cuddy, I learned from Michael Grange that in the very early days of Blue Rodeo, like mid-80s, he was one of the Blueheads. He's an OG Blue Rodeo guy, and he sent in a note. He wanted me to ask you, Greg, do you ever get... Bluehead from from Prince Edward Island? Yes. Well, I don't know if it's the Maritimes or somewhere out there. Maritimes? Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's Maritimes. The Blueheads were Maritimers. Yeah, he was, I guess he was going to school there and he's one of the Blueheads,

but his note he wrote in was, does he ever get mistaken for Robert Earl Keen? I haven't, no. Okay, there's more though, there's more. And this is Michael Grange, not me. And I hope I didn't bother him for giving him a what's up from blueheads on Carlton Street when he was hitting up a Becker's and cowboy boots and boxer shorts early one afternoon in the summer of 1987. I might have been coming off a long night. In retrospect, Greg was very

good about it." Well, the incident has faded into the oblivion of the past, but the Blueheads were... there was a great phase when we were playing college campuses all the time. And one of our favorite tours was playing the campuses of the East Coast. And it was more fun than we deserved, you know, as just we were really into getting high and drinking in those days. And the East coast is such a sort of romance for alcohol driven activities. You know, it just, and the people were just so much, we just had such a great time. Like we'd have a great time during the show. We were sort of a dance band in those days. And we just wanted to keep

people dancing and so it really did feel like a bit of a dance party and then we just kept on partying after the show and touring often in winter in deep deep snow all these campuses in the East Coast. Amazing. Alright, again, typically I go a lot longer so I go a lot deeper but I know you might have stuff planned here so I'm gonna try to be, you know, have some brevity here. You're my last one so you're not bracketed. Okay, good. Because I need to know who decided the lead single for Outskirts would be the the song Outskirts. I'm just curious who chose that decided the lead single from for outskirts would be the the song outskirts I'm just curious who chose that as the lead single well I

think that was a collective decision a bad one but we just thought it was a great song and a great recording and we just thought that people would eat it up. You know, like it's a tragic tale of a tragic family. It was the, I can't even remember his name, one of the Kennedy kids, one of the Kennedy cousins. Michael Smith or something like that? Was he Michael Smith?

I think so. He died at the Brazilian Court. Oh Maybe I'm confusing my Kennedy cousin tabloid stories I Can't remember it's so long ago, but he all deed in the Brazilian Court Hotel And I just it was a meditation on just what a weird life the kid had had you know They were the first Celebrity culty sort of political thing that you're all on TV and You know, can you imagine?

You're watching TV and you see your uncle getting shot on and Right you live in that fishbowl of That Kennedy Illusion and and ideal and So yeah, we thought that oh, this is this is a great song But it didn't really do too much and no one picked it up So yeah, we thought that this was a great song. But it didn't really do too much, no one picked it up. But then Try hit was a bomb at first too, there were a few things that happened.

Back in those days they mailed out the single and there was a post-strike and the only reason the song became popular is because the guy at MuchMusic loved the song and he played it all the time. Do you remember which guy? Oh fuck it was the guy who ran it. I forget his name. Moses? The British guy? Who was always smoking? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And drinking. Yeah, he was always across the street at the pub there on Queen Street. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, John something. It's gonna come to me in a minute here. It'll come to me in a minute. John Martin. That's it. That's it. And so it was such an amazing opportunity for us because MuchMusic was a new station. MTV, all of that was all brand new. It was all how bands were being marketed and our video for Try was being played the same as Whitney Houston and we were added to high rotation.

So you know us and Whitney and Michael Jackson and so we were in this high rotation and Tri became a hit. Now that video featured Michelle McAdory and I've had Michelle over so we've definitely talked about quite in depth about Crash Vegas. So there's a whole tangent there. You and Crash Vegas, you in your relationship with Michelle, and that Try video, I can tell you I was kind of the perfect age. It hit me hard that that Try video, but I was never exposed to Outskirts the single, like, because like you mentioned, nobody was really playing it. So I never like Outskirts, I discover Blue Rodeo when I see the

video for Try and love it first ear, I gotta say that that song, that song still I listen to that song and I'm just wondering like are you feeling any sense of deja vu like the Hi-Fis had some moderate success sure but like after Outskirts is kind of not bombing but maybe I should use the word bombing but when Outskirts is not being picked up are you at all concerned that blue rodeo is Hi-Fi's 2.0? I think we were mildly oblivious to it all. We were having such a good time playing bigger bars, starting to play all around southern Ontario, campuses again, and moving our way up.

And then the single comes on and we sort of jump into a different league and so it's it's a very exciting time for a band when you start making it it might be of the best time of being in a band and you hear yourself on the radio and you hear yourself in an elevator and and I remember when I heard I sent an elevator I thought oh my god this is the best I can't believe it and we get reviews and Rolling Stone and all this stuff was just sort of coming together and it was just very exciting. But then you got to follow up that success, right? Because the album Outskirts, now you're off to the races of Try, but you got to follow that up. And I'll just tell you, as a guy who was kind of the perfect age for all consuming all this, I always take note, like the breakthrough album, of course, Outskirtsirts and then what's going to be the lead single from the new album, you know, back in the pre internet era. This was always exciting.

I got to hear the new single and I'm going to tell you right now, my favorite Blue Rodeo song of all time is Diamond Mine. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Well, I wanted if you'd share any detail, like the composition and how Diamond Mine comes to be. like the composition and how Diamond Mine comes to be. And I will also tell you while we're talking Diamond Mine, that during the pandemic when there was no live music, Mike Boguski brought his keyboards to my backyard and played a brilliant version of Diamond Mine.

And all of my neighbors appreciated it because we were starving for live music. And there it was in the air. Well, I love Mike that in his solo repertoire, he does blue rodeo songs like he does jazz versions of blue rodeo songs. So it it's always nice to hear his interpretations. Diamond Miner, I guess. Do you know the first couple of, fucking, I wish I had a memory so I could do these things.

You're doing great by the way, you're doing fucking great. I was told you get 30 minutes of Greg and I almost said no because how can I do anything in 30 minutes but I'm like, it's Greg fucking Keeler, I'll take 30 minutes with the man and I'm gonna steal, I might double that so you better watch your step here Who's wicked games? What's that guy's name Chris Isaac?

Chris Isaac, do you know his first couple of records? No they're fantastic and there's one that's a lot of drum machine and I was listening So this is like way before wickedicked Dreams or whatever it's called. Wicked Games. And I was listening to that and I wanted to fashion a song like that a bit. And also at the time, being the live band that we were with a musician like Bobby Wiseman who came from the avant-garde. It was fun to write a song where he could stretch out. And I guess back in those days,

I was really influenced by a lot of the sort of San Francisco sound, and all those jam bands that were late 60s out of San Francisco and I guess California period. But I like songs that stretched out. It facilitated being like the dance band that we were and it gave Bobby a chance to really work out on a song. And there were a lot of songs that were like that, that Bobby was given to just shine on,

like there was Prada Pool and Floating, and they were big staples of our live act. They climaxed really well and they were a great joy to play but so that's sort of where Diamond Mine came from. Well now that you've mentioned Bob Wiseman who I did have, I about 18 months ago he dropped by for a chat in the basement here in South Etobicoke. And when I tried to get him talking about Blue Rodeo, he was kind of cool on it all. And I'm wondering, like, was Blue Rodeo too mainstream for Bob? Like, I'm just wondering why did it end, why did that relationship come to

an end, Bob Wiseman and Blue Rodeo? We went down to Los Angeles to make Casino. And Jim and I wanted to raise the status of the band. So we talked with the record company. They thought it would be best for us to use an American producer and record in America. in America. And we had done Outskirts with Terry Brown, and he was a great producer, but we also wanted just to do Diamond Mine on our own.

But it was sort of decided collectively to go down to Los Angeles to make this record. And we got Pete Anderson, and Pete was a very economical producer. He didn't like much fat, he didn't like jamming out songs, he didn't like that style of music. We sort of trimmed Bobby's wings a bit, and we were willing to go along with it because we thought in that economy we might get better chances at American radio play. And so I don't think Bobby liked that. And I think he was disappointed. And rightly so. You know, Blue Rodeo had a great thing going with and I hear the demos of the songs from Casino and I go, oh oh fuck, that could have been such

an amazing record. Like it's a great record, don't get me wrong, I love it. But it could have been such a great record because we had a lot more sort of attitude in those songs before we went down to Los Angeles. But it was amazing to go to Los Angeles and work with a producer and be at Capitol Studios. The same place, Studio, we were in Studio B at Capitol, the same place that Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys, you know, it was just an amazing experience. but Bobby did not enjoy it and he didn't like Pete Anderson's attitude and I'm speaking for Bobby here.

I'm just my through from what my perspective of it. Will you? I'm sorry. That's not a song and so When we did lost together We we did it Ourselves we produced that one ourselves in Toronto, but that year after casino It's sort of wore on Bobby. And I think he sort of got tired of his role in the band.

And when we first started, he was like a maniac on the keyboards. And I say that with great affection. But he just attacked keyboards. He had a clavinet and his ace tone and this little Casio and those hotwired had all these incredible sounds and he'd play percussion on the clavinet with delays. He was just like, you know, he was half the show. And he just, that light just diminished more and more as he sort of tired of that role.

To the point where after Lost Together, he told us he was gonna leave the band. And so Lost Together together the video, and he played brilliantly on that record. You know, he always played brilliantly, and he was always an inspiration. And he was a great friend and a great musical teacher. He just opened up a whole vein of music

that I had never imagined being part of, like just avant-garde and just jamming, wacko jamming. And so yeah, that was very sad for us. But we were also, we were just so hell-bent on making it that we didn't take time to nurse our wounds. We had already moved on and we were trying to raise the status of the band. But Greg, does making it by your definition at the time, does that mean American success? It did. We wanted, we were signed, we were on Atlantic Records and they started a new thing called

East West and it turned into a monster label. I forget the names of the people that headed it, but they're sort of famous. This one woman who had sort of the R&B part of East West Records signed a whole pile of like big acts and she was most successful. And the guy who had signed us, well our record wasn't quite as successful as the R&B ones were. Everyone thought that our record was going to fit into whatever that was, you know, there was the Americana sort of thing happening, the Wilburys were happening, you know, all that sort of guitar-driven music.

In the eyes of the record company, we were just going to fall right into that and we'd be right off into the Grammy sunsets, but it just didn't work out that way. A few questions came in when I said that Greg Keeler is finally making his Toronto mic debut, so I'm just going to burn through the questions real quick here. And then, well, this question actually segues nicely to the name of the feature documentary I want to talk to you about at the end here. But Melanie writes in, no question, but the classic Lost Together is my go-to song if I'm feeling down I don't know why but the memories it evokes always make me feel better Well, you know, I'm

I'm sort of a I I have a melancholy streak in me. All right, and that's where a lot of the songs come from and You know, there's a certain melancholy in my happiest songs. And, you know, what is it that a song hits a vibration in somebody? And that vibration feels very personal when you're listening to a song. It feels like it's... you're sharing something on a very intimate level. And, you know, I'm very lucky and flattered to be able to have shared that you know as as a live band and as with our recorded songs and we're even so lucky that we're we're a bit of a campfire classic band. I love walking around Halifax,

because Halifax is such a musical town. There's a singer-songwriter in every bar downtown on a Saturday afternoon and you walk around on a Saturday afternoon. I could hear our songs being played in the bars. And that is such an amazing thing, to be able that something that came out of my being is being shared in a bar on a Saturday afternoon in Halifax.

You know, I just, it doesn't get any better. Well, that leads nicely to Jeremy's note, which is he has no comment other than to say thank you for so many years of awesome music. And I would echo that, you know, you're putting this art into the universe and it's bringing maybe not just different feelings, like it's causing us all to evoke different feelings, sometimes joy, sometimes just pondering, if you will.

Like I gotta say thank you as well. I'm a big Blue Rodeo fan and some of your songs are my favorites. Well, that's nice for you to say. You know, like I think Tim Cuddy's voice, right? Yeah. Like that, the first time I heard him sing was when you were at the thing and you know he would have been like 15, 16 and he sat down at the piano after the funeral of a friend of ours who had died in a car accident and sang a song that he had written for him. And his voice was so melancholic and soothing at the same time. And I still hear that you know his he has just one of those sort of voices

you know he's like and it's it's it can be a great comfort and when he sings a song like bad timing that's if you are in a melancholic or sad state, that's a nice place to put your brain for four minutes because it sort of amplifies the melancholy but it gives it the duration. So you get to experience it very intensely for four minutes and then you might be soothed or whatever. Well, Neil wants to know how you feel, Greg, about being John Lennon to Jim's McCartney. I always think that comparison is a little absurd and I don't think we are that and if I was to go into Canadiana I would say that Sloan are more that

beetle-y thing or even the guess who you know like I don't think that we are That's a little too big of a manful and I'm not really comfortable with it well, that's because you're Canadian Greg That's why you can't but I will say it is a interesting because of how you guys complement each other and That you different styles, but together we're all kind of the beneficiaries of what it means for Blue Rodeo. So let me again, I'm very sensitive to the time here but I'm curious quickly here because Jim Cuddy has Blue Rodeo but he's got the Jim Cuddy band. Has Jim Cuddy ever written a song for the Jim Cuddy band that you felt should have

been a Blue Rodeo song? You know, it's funny, I just can't even entertain that stuff. You just have to go, just accept the way it falls. Those are the songs that are on a Jim Cuddy record and so be it. If I started to get, I wish that had been a Blue Rodeo song. It's too weird. It's brain rot. No, you're a smart man.

And it's funny because with just 2024, Prime the the four episode tragically hip documentary series and You know, there was a moment in the talk I was watching and of course Gord went at a some solo albums coke machine glow, etc And there's almost a sigh of relief and the you know, Rob Baker particularly like this relief that like having heard the album and realizing Oh, Gord can't get rid of us like he still needs his meal ticket right like I love Jim Cuddy band but no worries he still needs Blue Rodeo well you know I think he would he might differ on that and I think that he loves being a Blue Rodeo. But you know, he likes the Jim Cuddy band too, and he likes those songs, and he likes playing with those people.

Oh, that wasn't meant to be disrespectful to his work in the Jim Cuddy band, just that if you're going to sell out the Budweiser stage, you might need Blue Rodeo for that one. Well, we get maybe Tim's band open for us sometimes. Well yeah for sure. Now I mentioned the hip but I mentioned the documentary and of course when Gore Downey was diagnosed the hip went on their farewell tour and now that Gord's passed away of course the Tragically Hip they're no longer a touring band and as I see it from where I'm sitting here in South Etobicoke, surveying the Canadian

music landscape, I think Blue Rodeo now carries that torch alone as Canada's house band. Do you feel any such responsibility? I'm wondering if you can even entertain this thought that you're carrying this torch for this entire nation now? I don't see it that way, no. are part of the cultural fabric of Canada. And I know that our songs have touched a lot of people and beyond, like they're played at weddings and at funerals. And as I said, we're a bit of a campfire classic band or a Saturday afternoon matinee singer-song, you know, pub band.

And those are sort of the songs we wanted to write. We were gratefully influenced by the great singer-songwriters that came out of Canada and all the affiliations of those songwriters when they moved to America. And so that's where we set our sights. We wanted to write songs like that. And so, it's a strange thing to actually have written a whole pile of songs that people identify with in their lives. And, you know, as I say, it's the best thing for a songwriter, you know, to know that your songs live outside of yourself. They have a life of their own. And that's an amazing thing. I think it's amazing that I get to soon see Blue Rodeo Lost together, which is if people are unaware, you're learning now, get excited because there's a doc, I mentioned the hip

doc. Well, here in 2025, we can watch the Blue Rodeo doc, and I'm super psyched to see it. Blue Rodeo! Blue Rodeo! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Blue Rodeo! There's a lot of love in the band. You know, the first couple of songs every night, I feel this sort of wave of love. We knew when we came back from New York, we knew what kind of band we wanted to be. You dropped ass at 20 times, lost two or three years to booze and looking good, and you can

still keep time called Jim or Greg. Little did I know that I'd be playing with those guys for the rest of my life. I think a lot of people are getting into this country music because of fashion. I think it's very honest music and it's very rock and roll. Their voices together create something beautiful. Their harmonies are gorgeous. He had that voice the moment he started singing. So we're at Plain Rively, dooli, do a full house, and we played Try.

The whole room levitated. Here they are, Blue Rodeo live right here. And you know, Jim can still hit that note today. I mean, it just took off like a rocket. I don't think that we really understood how our lives were changing because of the success of that scene. that we really understood how our lives were changing because of the success of that scene. Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! The band ever had an existential crisis? Oh, god, sure. You were looking at them. That was pretty good. Strange and beautiful are the stars.

There's been a few events in my life that I thought I had hit the wall. And when you hit those walls, it really feels like the end. They had just reached a point in their relationship where a reckoning was required. I mean, I was shocked, but I was also... I was wounded. I couldn't do it anymore. Blue Rodeo's legacy is ongoing. It's still being written.

Jim is one of the great inspirations of my life. And I think that we had this kind of perfect partnership. They are one of the greatest groups to ever come out of Canada. Look at all that's going to begin its theatrical run across this country on February 1st, opening in Toronto at Hot Doc Cinema with a wider rollout in Cineplex Cinema's February 2nd and 3rd across the country. How did this come to be? I'm just curious, did somebody approach you and say, we want to make a doc about you?

Like, how did this Blue Rodeo Lost Together documentary come to be? Did you talk to Dale at all? No, I haven't. Okay, so Dale, Dale Hislop, the director, we have a long history with the Dale, was the production designer for our first album. And then the first time we did the Junos, he was the stage director for those Junos. way back with Darrell and he's made his living doing videos, documentaries, commercials, that sort of thing. He did the Rush one and he just approached us.

He wanted to do it. He's a fan of the band and he just wanted us to have that place, you know, to have a sort of mandatory documentary, you know, a band in our position sort of. It's part of what you, one of the things you have to do. How did he do? Like when you watch this thing on the big screen, you're thinking, way to go Dale. Like I'm curious what your thoughts were on Blue Rodeo Lost together. I think way to go Dale, I like that the story of Blue Rodeo is a huge, out of control snowball a snowball coming down the mountain. And it just gains momentum, and there's much carnage along the way,

but great successes. And just the lives of how many musicians have been in this band, and all the drama that comes with every life. If he was to get into the melodrama of each member's life, it could have been a ten-part series and quite a sordid story. But I like that he kept it just to the story of Blue Rodeo without going into the details of the individuals too much. But he kept it focused on Blue Rodeo and kept it on the rails as Blue Rodeo without diverging

into... and kept it on the rails as Blue Rodeo without diverging into, and I guess the emotional sort of crux of the, the sort of melodramatic climax of focus of it is that when my hearing really got really bad and I had migraines and I was very depressed and I just quit. And I didn't really quit the band, I quit music because music had become an adversary to me. It hurt, it made me nervous.

The volume of anything just hurt my head and I just had these migraines all the time and I got very depressed and yeah and I just was done. So that's sort of like the melodramatic climax of it all and how that affected everybody and and then just sort of COVID came and I got to rest my ears for a couple of years and they they're just so much better now and you know some good doctrine and I I I don't have the migraines anymore and I can play music and I can be on stage. And so that was a big shift, but that took a while. Well, I'm glad you're feeling better, man. And I got to say huge thank you to you because I was told, hey, you get 30 minutes of Greg. And like I said, I'll take 30 minutes of Greg over no minutes of Greg. I doubled that buddy.

So thanks for not leaving the zoom and saying, what's this guy doing doubling his allotted time? So I appreciate this so much. My pleasure. Enjoy talking to you. And that brings us to the end of our 1619th show. Go to torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to all who made this possible.

That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Building Toronto Skyline, and Ridley Funeral Home. See you all Wednesday when Brad Bradford drops by! I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

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