Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ivan from Men Without Hats: Toronto Mike'd #1012

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

In this 1012th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Ivan Doroschuk, lead singer and founder of Men Without Hats. They chat about The Safety Dance, Pop Goes the World, the band's breakup and reformation and what's new. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and RYOBI Tools.

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Joining me this week is founder and lead singer of Men Without Hats, Ivan Dorochuk. Welcome, Ivan. Hi, how are you? What a pleasure to meet you. We have a mutual friend. I want to shout out Pete Fowler off the top. Pete said, Mike, you've got to get Ivan on the show. And I'm like, well, duh, of course I do.

And I'm so glad you're here. Cool. Thanks for having me. Right on the serious tip off the top, an interesting question came in from Diamond Dog, a listener of of this program diamond dog would like me to ask you and i'm i'm i'm curious myself uh do you still have family in ukraine and how are they doing we don't we were we're a few generations removed okay well i'm, I'm glad everybody's, uh, everybody's safe and you're in your world. And,

uh, yeah, it's a, it's awful. What is happening in your, uh, your, the,

the, the home of your ancestors. Let's, let's go back before we come back to the present day. Let's go back. Uh, would you mind sharing with us the, uh,

basically how did men without hats come to be let's go way back here well it was uh 1976 and i was studying law in the south of france and uh i would go and shop for records you know could. And then one day I came across this record by the Sex Pistols. And I said, no, no, they shouldn't be doing that. That's wrong. That's wrong. But the name, it's kind of stuck in my head. And after I did my first year of law i came

back and uh i came back to canada and i kind of rode in on the same wave that punk new wave was coming in on too you know so we kind of landed back in in north america at the same time anyways i went i i enrolled in mcgill university in the film and communications program. And that was kind of the year punk broke and 77. And I met a bunch of guys in the film department, film and communications department. That's where I met the three the three guys who i formed the three original members john gurren dave hill and pete seabrook we're all we're all just sitting

beside me in the in the classroom we just started talking decided to form a band and decided to form a decided to pick the name of the band before we'd even practiced or anything like that. Well, I was going to ask you, where exactly does this name Men Without Hats come from? Oh, I'm the one who chose that. It just came literally off the top of my head. The story goes that my brothers and I were too rugged to wear toques in the cold Montreal winters.

And that's where the name comes from. You were real men without hats in the cold. Yeah, real men don't wear hats. The cold tundra of Montreal. I mean, you know, our climate's pretty similar here. And I won't go biking in the winter without a balaclava on, okay? So I am not a man without hat. Yeah, well, you know, you can bend the rules.

All right, my friend, a great question came in. And in a moment, I'm going to play a song. And then we're going to talk about that. Because you can imagine the questions I got about a certain song. And you've got a number of great songs in the catalog and we're going to eventually hear some new stuff, which sounds fantastic, by the way. But this question came from Adrian.

He says, please ask him what it was like opening for the Stranglers in 1980 at the concert hall. I remember that one. I remember that one very well because back in the days, one of the things that punk crowds did to the bands

that they didn't like was they spat on them. And so I got rained on for a couple opening sets there by Strangler fans. And yeah, it wasn't too pleasant. I mean, the Stranglers were great. I loved the Stranglers.

I was a huge Strangler. I still am a huge Strangler fan. Right. Well, that was the day you wish you were a man with a hat, I suppose. I wish I was a man with an umbrella. That's the spinoff. Yeah, they were throwing all kinds of stuff, too. They were throwing lighters and quarters and stuff.

Well, that's punk, right? You got to... It was definitely punk. All right, I'm debating with myself. I think I'm going to play, if you don't mind hearing yourself, and I hope you don't mind, I'm going to play a little bit of a song called the safety dance, and then we're going to get into it because I have some,

some questions for you. So I hope this is okay with you. We're going to just listen to a bit and then I'll fade it down here. Yeah, sure. Here we go. We can dance if we want to We can leave your friends behind Cause your friends don't dance

And if they don't dance Well they're no friends of mine See, we can go where we want to There's a way we'll never find And we can act like we come from out of this world Even though we are one far behind We can act like we come from out of this world In the Rio one far behind We can dance What do you say?

We can go if we want to Night is young and so am I And we can dress real neat From our hearts to our feet And surprise them with a victory cry See, we can act if we want to If we don't, nobody will And you can act real rude and totally removed

And I can act like an imbecile See, we can dance, we can dance Everything's out of control We can dance, we can dance To do it, it's important We can dance, we can doing it from pole to pole. We can dance, we can dance, everybody look at your hands. We can dance, we can dance, everybody's taking the chance. Ivan, I don't even really want to turn this down.

I'm digging it, man. But what's it like for you to hear this song again in your headphones there? Like, does it take you right back? Oh, yeah, yeah. Especially listening to my first exploit sing the background vocals then brings me back is that a good memory or when that you're very good good memory it's all good it's all good don't worry okay good to hear that so the first question on this note here uh comes from tom jokic. He says basically,

Ivan's story of how getting thrown out of an Ottawa nightclub inspired the safety dance is really great. Have fun with him. So, can I hear that story? Yeah, that's a true story. I used to hang out in

Ottawa. I used to have friends who lived in Ottawa and I used to go out there a lot. We to have friends who lived in Ottawa and I used to go out there a lot and we'd party in the discotheques and it was the dying days of disco and every now and then the disc jockey would slip in a blondie heart of glass or you know B-52 rock lobster and we'd get up and start pogoing. Pogoing was just jumping up and down and bouncing off each other it was kind of the precursor to the slam dancing and the mosh pit sure i remember the the loss sorry the last pogo at the horseshoot at the horseshoe exactly yes exactly and so uh but you know in those days you know late 70s the bouncers and the rest of the people dancing had never seen

him seen anything like it and they just assumed that we were fighting or trying to cause a fight or you know up to no good and i was getting tossed out regularly for for doing that so uh i went home and wrote this song as a tribute to that when you wrote the safety dance and when it came together uh like did you have any idea what you had done? What a massive hit that would be. Worldwide hit, I'll point out. Did you have any sense of what you had

created? Well, I've got to be truthful with you. When you're a young songwriter, you think that everything that you write is going to be a worldwide smash hit. And you just can't understand how people are just not getting it, you know? Right. So, well, you know, what happened was that we released the single and we didn't have an American deal or anything.

We had a Canadian deal. We were signed to a small British label, Static Record, a guy who used to work for Virgin Records, who went off and started his own label. And he signed us, and we were actually being sold as an import in Canada. That's strange. The single came out, yeah. The single came out, and it went up to, I think, number 12 in Canada or something like that. And we were stoked.

We were like in top 40. Wow, this is like, we're happening. We've made it. And the label had sold enough copies to put us into the studio for a second album. And we were super stoked. We were like, wow, we're making another record. This is unbelievable.

And then they said, while we were making the second record they said okay guys we got to do this thing called a 12-inch remix everybody's doing it we want you guys to do one too and you just got to take safety dance and stretch it out put some you know things here and there and just you know make it a dance kind of more of a dance floor thing but you know mostly just drag it out and so we did and then we sent it off to them and went back in the studio and kept working on our second record So I went and looked it up

because I'm like I know it's a hit here because I'm born and raised in Toronto and I know it's a hit here but I sometimes don't have a sense of like what's a hit in Canada but the Americans are like I don't know that song like sometimes I'm surprised to find out like, oh, Americans weren't like listening to Sloan the way I was listening to Sloan. You know what I mean?

So I looked it up and the safety dance spent four weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. That is a, that is a massive hit. What a big deal that is. Do you have any memory of what kept you out of the top spot? Do you have any memory of what was number one for those weeks? Oh, I don't know. There were so many big bands in those days.

I mean, you'd look at the top ten, and those guys are still around. They're huge people. So I didn't really care. We were there. We, we'd already been number one on the dance charts. So, so we were, we were just completely, you know, stoked. Like I said, again, and no, it was great. It was just a great adventure just starting up there.

Amazing. Now, I got a question from a gentleman named Mark Weisblatt. He's very interested in how much money you can make off a big hit like that. And I mean, I'm not asking to see your taxes here or anything like that. But can you give us a sense of how lucrative the safety dance has been for you since you released it in, whatever, 1982? Well, I've never had to get a second job. Let's put it that way. Okay. No, excellent.

I mean, I can only imagine. But because you do hear, you know, I'm sure now with streaming and stuff, if you want to capture a mood, particularly a 1980s mood, the safety dance is a heck of a way to do it. What a jam that is. I'm sure there's endless possibilities there.

I'm blessed. I'm totally blessed. I'm a music fan myself. One of the reasons I got into this business is because I was a major super fan myself. And that was one of the tools that I consider was one of the tools that got me in the door. I look at all the bands that I grew up listening to or even missed, you know, like that I discovered now. And I see how many bands put their hearts and their soul and their lives and their families and their savings and their house and their mortgage, everything into the music. And, you know, most of them never got heard.

You know, most of them never didn't get the chance, didn't get remembered, you know. It's like, you know, it's like the NHL, you know most of them never didn't get the chance didn't get remembered you know for it's like you know it's like the nhl you know for every guy who makes it there's a couple thousand who don't you know so it's the same type of thing so it's it's i have to always keep that in mind and be very very thankful for where i am and and who i am and and thank my fans never forget the fans because they're the ones who you know there's a couple of songs I had a couple of songs put into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and

nobody did that but I didn't do that my fans did that right you know I didn't you know I wrote the song everybody writes the songs but the fans are the ones who determine which ones go into the Hall of Fame or not you know so I got nothing but thanks for, for all you people. Thank you. And that's awesome. So I, you know, having somebody 40 years later, let's say some guy named Mike, like having him, you know, ask you about this, you know, this, this jam you released 40 years ago, that never gets tiresome for you. Never. I know I get the, I get asked that a lot too you know and it never i the

song is is a lot bigger than i am you know and uh sometimes i feel like i'm a museum curator going around with it with the traveling artifact this artifact that i present to people all over the world and it brings them this immense joy you know and that's so i it's it's pretty much outside of me you know i'm kind of one of the people who's sitting around saying wow you know that's i remember that song you know so uh go ahead i was going to say we haven't yet invented time travel so i think the closest thing we have is that somebody you know who remembers 1982 83 somebody can hear that song that you wrote and be transported back it's quite magical i don't know if you can hear me but i lost you oh i can hear you yes can you hear me now i can't lose ivan from men without hats you there

buddy yeah i'm back okay you froze you froze there for a while okay i'm glad you're back here uh let me read a statement from andrew ward who's a listener uh he writes mike one of the great new wave synth hits was the safety dance but equally good is i've got the message it was released in the uk during the summer of 1982 and got bounced around as a B-side until it was released in North America in early 1984. Can you ask Ivan how frustrating this was for Men Without Hats considering how awesome

the song is? Well, I'm glad you asked that. I could write a book about that song. That was the first song released off the album anywhere in Canada. I got the message. That was my choice. That was, for me, the obvious, obvious choice for a first single.

For me, it was an obvious hit. It had all the parts. It had everything. For Canada, it had English and French. It had everything. It was multiple lyrics you could sing along with. you know it had for Canada it had English and French it had everything it was like multiple lyrics you could sing along with title of the of the song you know firmly in the song itself in the lyrics we released it in Canada first and it also I think went into the top 40 and then

that's really safety dance was second it was supposed to be the second single after the safety dance was released in the states we were supposed to put out i got the message and tim pope and i worked on a video for i got the message as a follow-up to safety dance and it has a lot of the same characters in it and the day before we got to shoot the video the record company phoned us and said we're not going to uh release i got the message we're going to release i like as a single and we said well what are you going to do what do we do about the video they said just shoot shoot the video you know just change the music, whatever, take the same. And so we said, okay, whatever, we'll do that, you know.

But the reason they gave us for putting High Like Out was because they didn't want the band to turn into a, they didn't want the band to be perceived as a hit factory or a hit machine. And they wanted to give the band a harder edge. And we were like, wow. You're actually telling us that you're putting out a single that you're putting out this single so that you don't sell more records is that the that's the logic behind this and kind of yeah yep we don't want to we don't want you to be a one hit wonder so we're going to put out uh we're going to put out a real you know sort of hard edge song which you know it became a hit hit. It became amongst our fans,

but it definitely didn't go number three for three or four weeks on the Billboard charts and the dance version definitely didn't go number one on the Billboard dance chart where I got the message. I'm sure it would have. Well, Ivan, can I play a little I Got the Message just so the listeners can hear

some of this? Let me hear a bit of this. ច្រាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានប� I'm gonna tell you this, I'm gonna tell you this I'm gonna tell you this, I'm gonna tell you this I'm gonna tell you this, I'm gonna tell you this I'm gonna tell you this, I'm gonna tell you this I'm gonna tell you this, I'm gonna tell you this Well, it's mine Not yours Get down On all fours

Pull it long And hard This road To Mars I've done a good thing, yeah Watch it going, everybody's moving Watch out, it's showing I've done a good thing I got you dancing, everybody's happy

I've done a good thing. I got you dancing. Everybody's happy. I have done a good thing. I got you moving. Everybody's dancing. You're really grooving. I have done a good thing. Don't say more, damn it. Everybody's happy.

I got the message. I got the message. I got the message. Why is it, I guess you'll tell me now, but why is it that the record label has so much control over aspects of the art like this? I mean, is it just that's their department? Yeah, well, that's basically, they take it upon themselves.

They think that because they pay for it, they... Yeah. You are frozen. Okay, he re-sequenced the album. Okay. Okay, I'm back now? Now you're back, yes. I was telling you...

Okay. I was saying, I'm back now? Now you're back, yes. I was telling you, okay, I was saying, I was telling a story of what happened at our label once that, you know, that Simple Minds, the new Simple Minds record came out and the guy at the Canadian record label re-sequenced the album because he thought it would, he thought the canadian audience needed a different sequence and so when jim kirk came on a promo tour he took the album nice and he took it over and read and he goes what's going why is why are the songs out of order and the guy you know happily explained because i i figured you know canadian audiences blah blah blah blah and they had to hold jim

care back like you know yeah i want to say stay in your lane like stay in your lane you know they have they think that because they have a big record collection they have artistic you know an artistic say to what you what you've been working on for the last three years so

alright so any stories like that you want to draw up here I'm just loving it so uh this is yeah i have another one of good friends voivod and this is one of my favorite stories that i tell all the time is that that one of their records got held up and so it was Michelle, the drummer, Away, sent us, Michelle sent us a picture that he wanted on the cover of a Martian.

And we think that the Martian's ears are too big. And so they weren't putting out the record in the States because of Martians ears were too big on the cover. And so, but luckily the president, apparently the story goes, the president just told the guy to leave the room and go pack his bags. Okay.

Love it. Love it. We just did, I think about, I guess about a week ago, we did a deep dive into the history of heavy metal in Canada. I had Martin pop off on the show and we covered deep dive. So a lot of Voivod chatter in that one.

We did sort of an Anvil versus Voivod. So if anyone listening wants some more of that, it was fantastic. And by the way, I'm wishing I had met you earlier. I did a deep dive of New Wave in Canada. You were represented, of course, but I had met you earlier we did a I did a deep dive of new wave in Canada you were represented of course but I had Rob Pruce a great guy lovely guy lovely guy and I always wonder like men without hats in Montreal and then you had spoons here in the GTA and I always wondered what was your relationship like what was your relationship like with the guys with the people from the spoons well the spoons we were

we've always been really friendly with them we shared a lot of you know a lot of stages back in the 80s and uh and and today we still share a stay we did shows with them not too long ago last year we did we did shows with the spoons and also gourd plays with uh he plays guitar for flock of seagulls now so i see him all over the place we see each other like every couple of weeks and um no but back then what i what i wanted to say was back then being in a band was a lot different than being in a band now for me anyway back then it was a lot of competition being in a being a band was like being on a on a hockey team you know you're you're fighting for the top 40.

There's only so many places in the top 10. There's only so many clubs to play in Toronto. There's only so many journalists and pages in a newspaper and that type of thing. So there was much more competition back then. We were all friendly, but it was a healthy competition. And now it's more the people that are out there they're nobody's doing it to pay the rent everybody's out on the road now because they loved being on the road and there's no everybody's everybody's happy to see each other when they're out there and it's a great time love it uh ken writes in uh one of the loudest bands I've ever heard in a bar. He saw you at Wilders in North Bay,

and he says, surprisingly loud, but well worth the damage to my hearing. I think the loudest show I ever saw was The Jam. That was... A loud one? A loud one, yeah. Pinned me up against the back wall.

Wow. All right, I'm going to play another jam that we're going to 87 here and we're quickly going to get you up to current day of course I have a new jam loaded up too but let's hear this song from 1987 ladies and gentlemen boys and girls pop goes the world by men without

hats and girls. Pop goes the world by men without hats. Thank you. Touch and you play keyboard Johnny play drone Call a little baby and a big funnel Everybody tell me how to hurt All goes to world You got something to miss Pop Goes the World. I got questions about Pop Goes the World here. Let me pull them up here. So, I mean, their questions kept flying in.

I had questions from Gene who wanted to know how long did they walk around in circles? Quite a while. They're still walking. This question, actually, this one's about, I'm going back to the safety dance, and then I'm going to bring you back to Pop Goes the World, but Rock Golf wants to know, do you get, he wants to know,

do you get paid when safety dance appears on a compilation album? Yeah, yeah. We get paid every time it appears anywhere. And now back to Mark. So Mark, you basically said you don't have to get another job, and that was a hint there. But Mark has a guess, and I'm just going to read you what he says, and you can react to it or not.

But his guess is that you've made $15 million off of Safety Dance. Is he out to lunch, or should we just tell him it's rude to talk about money? Well, it's rude to talk about money, but, you know. Is he close? Well, you know, I don't know the exact figure, but it's been played a lot.

You know, it's one of the top songs of the 80s. It's, you know, it's been in pop culture and in all kinds of tv shows and all kinds of ads and movies and everything like that so yeah it adds up i don't know the exact figure but it adds up i like this question from george uh have you ever heard sulu dance the parody that was played on howard stern uh quite a bit in the 1990s yeah Yeah, I have. I have. That was good.

Yeah, that was a fun one, Sulu Dance. And speaking of pop goes the world, so I looked it up. It went to number two in Canada, but it was in the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. Another big hit for you. Cam Gordon wants to know, whatever happened to the Duke of Earl? Jeez. Good question. Good question. Cam Gordon wants to know whatever happened to the Duke of Earl jeez good question good question Cam's always got the good questions

Sean writes in we saw the popularity of Men Without Hats in Canada but what was the popularity outside of Canada and how did you and the band react and what is the acceptance like for you so we did talk about how these are big hits globally,

but what is it like when you tour outside of Canada? This is a Sean question here. It's great. I mean, actually this time I've, I've put the band back on the road 10 years ago and we've been on the road. We've been touring around the world since then. And we've actually gotten to more places this time around than than the first time we've reached you know a lot more countries we've been you know australia south africa we've been to scandinavia twice in the last 10 years so

these are places we didn't hit the first time we were sort of concentrating on north america the first time around and uh so it's been really it's it's it's been great going to other countries i mean these people have been waiting they've never people have never seen they've waited 40 years for seeing to see the band a lot we're on a lot of people's bucket lists so uh it's good to it's good to be able to fulfill their wishes. And you seem, I mean, you're big in many countries, but you seem particularly big in South Africa. It seems South Africa, big men without hats fans. Yeah. Yeah. We just did it.

We just had Lyman and a huge festival there and just outside of Johannesburg. And it was, it was great. It was it was great. Good for you. Good for you, man. I love this. I love this success story. Now, Jerry the Garbage Man has so many questions about the Pop Goes the World video. And I'll just run down his questions.

But was that a girl or a very small woman with the crimped hair? What's up with Elvis on guitar? And how did that baby play keyboard? Yeah, the baby, that's the magic of video there's like all kinds of they have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves those guys they can make us believe anything uh the girl was it was she was about 13 or 14 but uh she was uh a lot wiser than her years. And the Elvis's, we're big Elvis fans. And that's, I think we did that just to prove that Elvis wasn't that fat when he died. Right.

Now, Rich Thorpe says, the guitar player woman reminds me of Amy Mann from Till Tuesday. And then Rich Thorpe says, Elvis sort of looked like George Michael from the Faith video. And he says, maybe the kid was a prodigy like Mozart. And the lead singer, this is, I guess, is kind of a cross between, I guess this is you.

If you took Daryl Hall and Michael Hutchence and you slammed them together. That's not bad. I think that's good. I'll take it. Take that. That's not bad. I think that's good. I'll take it. Take that. That's a compliment, my friend. And Rock Golf wants to know,

did you have to get permission to use Bonhomme, I believe? Bonhomme? Yeah, Bonhomme. Yeah, see? I'm showing my English is showing here. Did you need permission to use Bono? We might have, but we, we might have, we might've needed permission, but we didn't,

we didn't ask for it. So we, we haven't gotten any feedback from the carnival yet. Rockoff also, he was on the Wikipedia page for Pop Goes the World. And it says the actress who played Jenny is unknown. Can you fill in that blank? Because we have listeners who will go to Wikipedia and add in information

they've learned from the Toronto Mic episode. So can you fill in that blank? I unfortunately can't. I'd like to find out who she is. It will remain a mystery. Track down a lot of the people, like the baby on the Pop Goes the World cover.

Yeah, that one will remain a mystery. We've found everybody else, but not her. Michael Moniz, I like this note because he's asking about an album, I think, criminally underrated as well. But he says, the Sideways album and the song Sideways, he says it's a criminally underrated grungy song and album.

He loves the rock side of your songwriting and what else he says? There's a Blow It High Do cover from the cover's EP that he loves. So can we just speak to the fact that the sound of Men Without Hats, it gets sort of harder

as we enter the 90s it gets a sort of more of an edge to it yeah well i was that was just the product of me hanging out with a bunch of local munchie all musicians uh hanging out with away the drummer from voivod and john casner from the doughboys and a couple other people and we we would when the bar is closed we'd end up in a jam space you know just jamming and uh i just started writing songs for these jams and uh it turned into an album it's just one of those organic things this was sideways was a great project we had nothing but fun making it we toured can Canada. We took it across Canada and had a blast everywhere we went. And no, it was just one of those albums that everything came together

and we just had a lot of fun doing it. And shout out to the Doughboys. I don't even want to reveal this, but I do have a Doughboys song I'm going to play during the next Toast. And I know, Ivan, you don't know what I'm talking about, but the next toast episode is the 17th of March. That's St. Patrick's Day. And I have a Doughboys song lined up. So just shouting that out here. But Paul Hunter has a great question for you here. He says, he goes, if you run out of questions for

Ivan, and I doubt you will, ask him if he knows whatever happened to Peter Seabrook. He was the guitarist for Men Without Hats in the early days when they were more of a punk band. I worked with Seabrook at a summer job back in my student days. Seemed like a cool dude. I realize that's too specific a question for a general audience, but it would be interesting to hear why they changed their sound and what it did for the dynamics of the band. And he puts in parentheses, as I recall, Peter, uh,

left on his own. What say you, Ivan? Oh yeah, Peter, Peter, first of all, he was the drummer.

He wasn't the Wikipedia, uh, says he's the guitar player, but he was actually the drummer. We'll fix that. And yeah. And, uh, yeah. Wikipedia says he's the guitar player, but he was actually the drummer. We'll fix that. And yeah. And yeah.

John Gurren was John Gurren. Dave Hill was the bass player. John Gurren was the guitarist. And Pete Seabrook was the drummer. And I only I only I kind of lost touch with Pete after that. The other two I kept in touch with, Dave and John, I kept in touch with. Until now, I'm still in touch with them. But Pete, I lost touch with. Okay.

So there you go, Paul. Thanks for that. Nothing's too specific for this podcast. That's what we love, getting in the weeds. All right. So, Ivan, I mean, I know your Man Without Hats is back, and we're going to talk about that in just a moment. But can we talk just briefly about the solo, Ivan, if mean, I know your Men Without Hats is back, and we're going to talk about that in just a moment, but can we talk just briefly about the solo, Ivan, if you will?

And I'm going to just play a little song here, which we in the FOTM community, we consider it kind of Chris Shepard-esque. Okay? By the way, do you know where Chris Shepard is? Where is Chris Shepard? Do you have any idea? I was on a uh

zoom with like i don't know 13 or 14 people who used to work at one still does but used to work at cfny and this is a special episode 1000 and uh funny thing freddie p from humble and fred was just calling me right there i just turned off my ringer but uh all this is to say nobody knows where chris shepherd is so let me play the song and then we'll talk about super bad girls uh and then we'll see if you know where chris shepherd is here's super bad girls I'll tell you who I hate the most Tell me, tell me, to my face And I will go in outer space I tell you I believe in almost anything Just give me Bad girls, super bad girls

I love bad girls The ones that run around and stick together Bad girls, super bad girls I love bad girls The ones I put for trouble really do it to me Spirit and the Holy Ghost Put Mary on the roller coaster Take me to your highest peak I'll make it seem your highest low Tell me, tell me, I can face it Even got an outer space suit, you know I believe in almost anything Just give me

Bad girls, super bad girls. I love bad girls. The ones that run around and stick together. Bad girls, super bad girls. I love bad girls. The ones that look for trouble really do it. Bad girls. Kudos to you, Ivan.

You're not afraid to change up your sound and try something different, man. That sounds great. What can you tell me about this Chris Shepard-esque period of your career here? Here, I'll turn this down because Ivan's having some technical difficulties. And as soon as we get him to rejoin. So let's listen to this jam while I try to... Oh, here he comes.

Back into the Zoom. Okay. Bad internet wherever Ivan is zooming in from. And I apologize, but you know, that's part of the adventure here. You never know what's going to happen with a remote conversation. I'm just glad we have Ivan from

Men Without Hats on the program. And we're going to put up with some technical difficulties if that's what it takes to capture these stories. Give me five girls. So for five girls. Five girls. Five girls. Five girls.

While we wait to see if Ivan can reconnect with us, I see on my status here that he's joining, but he is having some internet problems. I want to thank some sponsors of the program. Great Lakes Brewery, fresh craft beer brewed right here in Southern Etobicoke. Get it at LCBO's. Palma Pasta, authentic Italian food. Go to palmapasta.com. They're in Mississauga and Oakville. fresh craft beer brewed right here in southern etobicoke get it at lcbo's palma pasta authentic italian food go to palmapasta.com they're in mississauga and oakville stickeru.com they're

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Hello. Okay, welcome back, Ivan. I was asking about that period of time when you were what I called Chris Shepard-esque. And I was giving you kudos because you're not afraid to change up your sound. You're constantly evolving. And I thought it sounded great. Yeah, that was a project I just decided to do. Don Punter, a producer who produced a lot of my favorite bands, like Roxy Music and a lot of 70s and 80s stuff.

So I just went into studio with him and put this all together. It was mid-90s, so there was kind of a rave scene happening. And the whole Chris Shepard connection was quite spot on because we were in contact a lot in those days. We bumped into each other a lot. He had a dance

project at that time going on that was really happening. Was that BTS? What was that? BTK? BT something. He had a bunch of projects going on. When was the last time you talked to Chris? It was at a Canadian

Music Week thing a few years ago. Quite a few years ago. Over five years ago. I saw him there. If you hear from him, let me know. I'm trying to track the man down. I have questions for him as well. You do revive

Men Without Hats in 2003 uh there's a comeback album no hats beyond this point and you kind of hit the road again so basically let me know what what you know caused you to get the band back together and then i have a couple more questions and then i want to play some new stuff yeah about about 10 years ago uh i got a call from uh an agent in the states who was uh putting together 80s packages and and and just starting it was just you know people were there was starting to be an interest in 80s bands the demographic was kind of right there and uh so he called me and said would i like to put the band back together go on the road i said sure and uh the first tour he got us was opening up for the human league and the b-52s wow it was just like you know he hadn't hadn't done a show in over 25 years and just to

the first tour to be opening up for those guys was kind of a mind blower. So we had, we had a great time and we just, we've been doing that for the last 10 years. Like I say, going to places that we didn't get to go the first and find it's been great.

Just seeing our fans. We, I think the thing now is we see our fans, we see them with their, with their kids and with their grandkids, even sometimes now. But this begs a question, and then this goes back to the underappreciated Sideways album. You basically, you break up the band in 93.

Of course, it gets back together 10 years later. But is it because of the negative reception of Sideways? Because, I mean, a lot of people wrote in with love for Sideways. In fact, DJ Dream Doctor said, I'd like to ask him about the Lost album Sideways, because he can't find it anywhere. So, help DJ Dream Doctor, where would he find Sideways? And is it basically

the negative reception to Sideways that causes the 10-year hiatus for Men Without Hats? No, I don't think so. We had a great time, It was, uh, we had a great time. Like I say, again, we had a great time making sideways. We knew it wasn't going anywhere. We knew that the record company had no idea what was going on. The only reason they let us make it was because I was contractually obligated to make another record with them. Right. And I made them a deal. I said, hey, give me half of what you're, you know,

give me half the advance that it says on the con. And they went for it. Anytime a record company can save money, they go for it. And then they ended up with this record with no keyboards. They went to no keyboards and they just, they didn't know what to do with it. So it stopped there. But we had, like I said, we had a blast with it. So it stopped there, but we had,

like I said, we had a blast making it. So that's the main, that's the main point. So you just wanted to do other things, maybe just, maybe just take a break from the band for a decade. And yeah,

I took a break. I took a, yeah, I took a break. I was a, I was a stay, stay at home dad for 10 years. I,

I, you know, I had a son and, and raised him while his mother was getting her degree. And that was a unique experience too. That was just one of the lucky things that happened to me during my life was being able to do that. Well, that's great. You never get that back. I mean, you only have that one chance to be there at that point in your son's life, and it's awesome you could be there for that time. Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. We have a bond now that's like we're like brothers almost. It's really funny. I'm like his older brother. It's great. Amazing, amazing. Topper says, how did the Faith No More cover project come to be? It's fucking awesome.

We'd love to hear how it happened. Ivan kills it. A Faith No More cover project come to be? It's fucking awesome. We'd love to hear how it happened. Ivan kills it. A Faith No More cover project? Tell me about this. Yeah, that was Jason Rockman. He's the lead singer of the Montreal band Slaves on Dope. Yeah. And he works for, he's the main DJ at Shom now in Montreal, at Shom FM.

Right. And he and I have always been really close. I met him through John Kasner. He was a good friend of John Kasner's. And I met him through John. And Jason and I, Jason has been our number one guy in Montreal, you know, for the last 10 years. He's been, it's a part-time job for him promoting Men Without Hats. Great.

But anyway, he put this together. He knows all the guys. He's like, he's on a totally personal level with everybody in that video. And he asked me and I jumped at it. I was like, for sure. That was, awesome experience Amazing and where does DJ Dream Doctor

find sideways, like how can an album be lost, you can't stream that, what's going on? I don't know that's kind of out of my hands, I would say Amazon, not Amazon but eBay maybe or something like that or just get a YouTube to MP3 converter right go that way there's

always there's always there's always a way always a way all right tell me about okay so uh i want to hear about the new album here so i have a song in fact maybe i'll play the song and i mean i should set this up by saying uh again part again, part one came out in 2021. And then again, part two is literally coming out, I believe tomorrow, which is, and it's your first album of original songs in 10 years.

Is that, can that be true? Yep. That's it. Okay. Let's hear a bit of this. And then I, I need more details on this.

So let's listen to, what do I got loaded up here. Let's play it and find out actually. Let's get surprised together. world should end today If the world should end right now It wouldn't matter anyway It wouldn't matter anyhow If the world should end today, if the world should end right here, it wouldn't matter anyway. If the world should disappear And there's nothing I could say

Cause you took my breath away When I first laid eyes on you My world ended When I first laid eyes on you Time suspended When I first laid eyes on you Finally I knew Why one and one is two

When I first laid eyes on you If the world should end today, Ivan, you still got those pipes, buddy. Thank you. It sounds great. It doesn't even sound like, it sounds like Men Without Hats, and you sound great. And I can't believe this is the first album of new stuff in a decade. Yeah, yeah. It goes by fast.

Goes by fast. So what can you tell me about the, again, this is called, again, it's called, again, part two, and it's literally out tomorrow. But what can you share with me about what we can expect from this new record? Well, the songwriting spans about 40 years. This is an album, like usually i'm a i'm a water shatter usually i i don't do anything for two years and then i spend a week or two writing 25 songs and this album was a bit different this album was uh going back into the vault and getting songs that never made it past the demo stage

of the safety dance era and pop goes the world era. And then there was a whole bunch of songs that I wrote in the back of the tour bus while we've been on tour for the last 10 years. And then there were a couple of songs that we wrote in the studio while we were putting this whole thing together. But the main story about this record is that it started off as a piano vocal album. It started off as a solo project. I was going to do another solo record

and sort of reimagine some songs of my catalog and some cover songs that had been important to me growing up. And it's when we did the Tragically Hip song. I recorded that one piano and voice. And after I recorded it, we listened to it and I said, you know, I'd like to hear this one done up by, you know, the full Men Without Hats treatment, just out of curiosity. And once we did that, we put, you know, we put a whole band behind it, and I really liked it. I thought that that was a good direction to go in, and that kind of changed the direction of the album,

and it became a full Men Without Hats album, and we made it a double album with still the reimagining of the Safety Dance song with the No Friends of Mine and covers, and then songs that we, you know, like I say, we picked out of everywhere. Amazing. I mean, that song we just listened to, If the World Should End Today, it seems to be, is that like an ecology song? Is this about our Mother Earth?

No, but you could. It's one of those, you know, that's what I like to do with my lyrics is to make the interpretation open to everybody. And this one's about seeing the most beautiful girl in the world, the most beautiful woman in the world for the first time. Wow. And, yeah, but I can, you know, like I say, you can interpret it a lot of different ways.

I see it sometimes as seeing my son for the first time coming out of his mother's body how i you know i i still remember that moment you know when when he just twisted his head around and looked at me you know and and he was half in half out and it was kind of that's one of those moments but i tell you that's you know those moments i have four of those moments where you see your child like emerge and that that that that split second where you you know it it is like that's the moment you never forget that moment and it's just it's surreal really it's just like yeah you're witnessing a miracle and this person will be like you mentioned you're like an almost like an older brother now you're so close with your son but like this person you're now laying eyes on for the first time will be like closer than close like you can't even use the english language to uh maybe

french has better words for this but how close you'll be of that human being you're laying eyes on for the first time and that's just it's just beautiful yeah yeah no that's uh i was great i was great i was lucky i had a son late in life. I was 45 when I had my son. But I'm glad I did. I'm glad you did too. And I'm glad that we got your internet figured out. I was thinking, oh man, like what an opportunity. And now technology is going to mess it up.

But, you know, it was great having these conversations and even playing some older men without hats songs, some solo stuff. And then here in the new jam, which sounds fantastic. So good luck with the new album and, and let people know, like,

where would you like people to, uh, grab a copy or to, I guess, do you grab copies? I guess some of your demos still grabbing copies, but where would you like people to hear, uh,

again, part two? There's, it's, it's everywhere's everywhere I mean it's all over the streaming platforms it's on our website it's on our website safetydance.com you can buy physical copies along with men without hats

then it's ironic right you can't you know because you can't be a man without a hat if you're wearing the hat yeah well you, you gotta sort of see both sides of it. And that brings us to the end of our

1012th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Men Without Hats are at menwithouthats1. That's numeric one. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. Canna Cabana are at cannacabana underscore. And Ryobi are at Ryley FH. Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore and Ryobi are at Ryobi Tools USA. See you all next week. I check out, just come in, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and green. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow won't be the day. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away.

Because everything is rosy and green. We'll be right back. And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you But I'm a much better man for having known you Oh, you know that's true because Everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow won't speed a day. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rolling in gray. Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who

Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? All them picking up trash

And them putting down rogues And they're brokering stocks The class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar Just the best that I can Maybe I'm not And maybe I am Thank you. Wants me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray

Well I've kissed you in France And I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Shakhtar Khor But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up rosy and green

Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy

Yeah, everything is Rosy and, everything is rosy and gray.