Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Paul Dean from Loverboy: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1973

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

In this 1973rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Loverboy's Paul Dean about his years in Loverboy playing with Mike Reno, their induction into the Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame, Turn Me Loose, Working for the Weekend, and what's next for the band.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, 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]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 1,973 of Toronto Mikeed, 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. Visit PalmaPasta.com for more. Fusion Corpso, Nick Aienes.

He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recyclemyelectronics.c.a.comitting to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Redley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto mic debut, it's lover boys, Paul, Dean.

Hello? Hey, Paul, how you doing, buddy? I'm good. You can hear me okay? Yeah, you sound great. Awesome, thank you. I'm going to just put my phone in my pocket because we don't need the video, right? I mean, I like the video, but I'm not going to, yeah,

I mean, you don't want to hold it, I guess, for the whole chat here. Exactly, right. Okay, put in your pocket. Okay. As long as I can hear you. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully I won't shut off, so here we go. Okay, let's see.

Let's see how it goes. Okay. Still there? Yeah, still here. You can still hear me? Yes, sir. Sounds great. Whereabouts do we find you in the world, Paul?

I live in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Yeah. And I take it you'll be visiting this neck of the woods soon because I want to congratulate you on being inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. When you say soon, you're obviously in Toronto. Toronto. Yeah. This is Toronto, Mike. You're in, yeah, absolutely.

D. Oh, God. Where are, Paul, do you know who you're talking to? We got to get you the notes here. But, yeah, you're going to be in, it's Massey Hall, right? Right? September 26th. It is. It is. It's going to be a fun night. There's no question. I'm looking forward to that. So what does that honor mean to you? I'm curious, you know, as an artist who's, you know, you've made some, you've written some bangers. We're going to get into it.

But what does that mean to you to be inducted into the Canadian songwriters Hall of Fame? You know, it takes a big team to get noticed. and the team includes the guys in the band of course Mike and Doug and Matt and Ken and then the late great Scott Smith and our early early managers also late unfortunately Lou Blair and Bruce Down and Jeff Burns from Columbia Records

who brought us in who introduced us to the world and then it's down to the fans are the fans going to can they can they understand what we're saying can they appreciate what we're saying in our lyrics? And do they get the groove? Can they move to it? Does it move them emotionally, physically, whatever?

And it turns out that the fans really grabbed it. And that's what's important to me. That's, to me, the team did what we hoped we would, you know, in that the fans took notice and still do. It's insane how the response we get live still. I mean, who would have thought 40 years later, we play Turn Me Loose and people go, you know, crazy. So, wow, thank you.

Well, your music sure did grab the fans. But when you were growing up, what music grabbed you? We had one radio station where I grew up in. And it was intermittent because it was, they put an antenna up on the mountain and broadcast It's the one TV thing, station, and could barely get a radio station. And it was a country station. So I grew up with Johnny Cash. Don't walk the line and don't kick your guns to tone and stuff like that.

That was my biggest influence. And then I don't know how I got into where I learned about the ventures, and it was all instrumental, guitar instrumental music. But the ventures were a huge influence of the shadows out of England. And then I got into Everly Brothers. That was a massive influence for our vocal sound. And as I understand it, a lot of like the Beatles learned or kind of copped that harmony thing, the two-part harmony thing.

Mike and I, we were all over that. So that's what I was listening to back when I was a kid, you know, when I started playing. We have our wonderful PR person, Victoria Lord, is waiting in the waiting room. Should I let Victoria into the Zoom? What do you think? Let her in.

Okay, your call, Paul. You know, whatever you want here. Let's let in Victoria Lord. This is how we're rolling here today. Victoria, can you hear us? And I can have you got Paul on? Paul and I are, we're chatting at us. Yeah.

Okay, fabulous. Well, before I jump off, I just want, or mute myself, Paul's got a new project they wants to talk about. So you can ask him about that as well. Oh, well, for sure. We're going to cover as much ground as we can in our allotted time. But good to see you again, FOTM Victoria Lord. Hey, good to see.

Mike. Okay, I'm going to jump off and link you to it. Thanks. Okay. So Paul, I got my marching orders at some point during this conversation. We're absolutely going to talk about your new project, that's for sure. But are you comfortable with me doing a little heavy lover boy deep dive off the get-go here? Let's go, man.

Let's go. Oh, we're already there, right? I love it. We're already cooking here. Okay. So where is this magical place where you have the one country music intermittent? Like, where are you at that point in your life? I'm living in Windermere, British Columbia.

It's on the Columbia River, which is, well, actually, which goes all the way. I'm close to the headwaters of the Columbia, which dumps into near Portland, I believe. So it's a major waterway. And my parents bought a resort there. Check this out, man. It was 22 wakers. We bought it in 1950. And it's lakefront, beautiful area.

They paid 40 grand for it. It's like, whoa, what? But anyway, my dad and he was a salesman, traveling salesman, and he just got tired of being on the road. Hmm, I wonder what that's like. But he was, and so that's where I grew up. And my first musical performance was we had a campfire every Saturday night for all the people in the resort. And we used to sing songs like, Michael Row, your boat is yours.

Those really hokey old folk songs. But in the day, it was pretty hip stuff. So I would take my extension cord from my back portion, stretch it across the lawn for 150 feet, plug in my little amp and my electric guitar and we would sing until my dad would unplug it Oh, that's funny. So that was the first, you know,

it was not really a performance, but kind of. I mean, I don't know who would suggest the songs, but I would play guitar along and just figure out the chords as we're going and change some chords and make it a little bit jazzy maybe, but that's where I started. So it sounds like you know,

right away you wanted to be a musician. That's you being little Pete Seeger there. Yeah, exactly, exactly right. You know, my very first thing was, there was a guy staying at the resort and they came up every summer for two weeks. That's where everybody stayed in the cabins. They had a two-week stand and then the next group would come in.

But he brought a ukulele with him. And I'd never seen a ukulele. I'd never knew anything about guitar or anything like that because we were very remote where we lived. And so I let it. I asked him if I could play it. And he says, yes, go ahead. So he let me into his, his, their cabin.

And I strung it away and I figured out how to play a couple of chords on it and went, and then I got a book which showed me even more chords. And then from there, I pleaded with my mom and dad. And they bought me my own ukulele for my 13th Christmas. and then on my 14th birthday, still pleading, they gave me an acoustic guitar, which I kept for about a year.

And I remember, because I was playing electric guitar now, this is what kids do, I guess. I was playing badminton with it, and I don't think it survived more than a game. I don't know. Where does that come from, you know? Well, that's such humble beginnings

for a man who would eventually end up in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of, fame. Like, that's how it begins. That's right. Got to start somewhere. Right. Because where I want to get you to is, and I hope I don't mispronounce the name of this band, okay? Scrabbleau-Cain. Yes. Okay. Tell me about what is Scrabbleau-Cain and how did that come to be?

We were called Cannonball. That was a Calgary band that I joined. And then a couple of guys from Vancouver wanted to join as well. I played with the drummer before in a previous band. Just to sit the scene here, Lover Boy is my 14th band. So Scobolo was my, I don't know, 11th or 12, something like that. And so we were in, we moved to Calgary and we were called Cannonball. And then we had a great tour, I guess, you could call it.

We had a house gig in Quebec City at LeCircle Electric. and we padded for three months we played every night, seven nights a week, we played there three sets. And our manager, we got a new manager, and we were going to start trying to shop a new album

or thinking about it. And our old manager decided that he owns the name and I'm going to control it and I'm Cannibal and you guys are just my employees. and we said, no. There you go. Managers.

Anyway, so the keyboard player, El Foreman and the guitar player, Jim Armada, I think they got their heads together, and they came up with, they had this Buffalo Springfield in their mind, and they went, well, why don't we call the band Scrobolo Dingfield?

And then they came to the conclusion that Dingfield is not the greatest need for a band. and somehow they came up with Scrabble O'Cane. I have no idea. You know, that's the best explanation I can make. But you did release an album, right? We did. It's round one, yeah.

Was it on RCA Records in 1973? And it's a pretty cool album. I listened to it. That was a real fun thing. We recorded it in three days, and on the fourth day, we mixed it. And that fourth day was up for 24 hours. Toronto trying to help.

I mean, I was pretty much a fledgling. I didn't know too much about mixing in that, but I knew what sounded good, but I didn't know how to do it, you know? So anyway, that was a barathon to say the least,

but it came out and it was great. You know, there's a really cool tune on their call, Feeling Good on Sunday that a lot of people seem to still really like. So, yeah. Feeling good. Okay, and you end up in Streetheart.

Yes. A couple of bands later. And Matt and I were playing in a band called Great Canadian River Race out of Edmonton. And on a night off, we went to see this band. They weren't called Streetheart yet, but we were playing in another band together. More of a cover band, but more esoteric in Great Canadian River Race. We heard these guys in Streetheart, and we were blowing away. So, oh, this is what we got to be doing. This is a killer.

And sure enough, about a couple months later, I swear to God, 5 a.m. by time of Vancouver, Kenny Shields is calling him, say, you want to make a band? That's his exact words. Hey, you want to make a band? I want, yes. And I don't know, probably a month later, Matt and I were out in Regina, recording with Kenny and Daryl and Kenseneath, our current bass player. Meanwhile, back in Paris, right?

Yes, sir. That's it. Wow. Okay, and that kind of leads us to the lover boy origin story, which is what everybody's here for. You mentioned it was your 14th band. You know what they always say, right, buddy? 14th band is a charm. Yeah, well, it worked for me anyway.

Definitely a charm. Okay, so give me the details. This is the home of the deep dive. You're in Streetheart, and then you form lover boy with Mike Reno. Please tell me how that happens. I got the boot from Street Heart due to management as I've said before about managers

and I guess Mike was not very happy with his manager in Moxie so he quit Moxie about the same time and he came back to Calgary because his girlfriend lived there at Laurel at the time and I

he came down to hang out with his guitar player with whom I was playing bass we had a we played ACDC cover band. We had some shows in Saskatoon and that and Mike came down just to say hi. And I, they would

start to jamming in the next room. I was in this big warehouse that Lou Blair had donated to me. And in Calgary, this is all in Calgary, behind the refinery nightclub that was there. And I heard Mike

sing, because I said back up a little bit. I was working, you know, I was burned out with singers by this time. I was said, that's it, I'm going to do my own thing. Whatever, come hell or how I was. This is what I'm going to do. So I'm busily working in the way, and I'm using a session musicians to play drums

and old friends playing bass and that and putting together these demos. And I was gung-ho on it. And then I heard Mike sing, and I went, you know what? I think I can make an exception. I think I can maybe just put this on hold for a bit. And that night, I met Mike at that night, and I asked him if he would come back to next night,

and we wrote a couple of tunes together right off the bat. So that was a really good sign. The fact you're now in the songwriter Hall of Fame means your instincts were correct with this one. This is the duo. Well, you know, you never know. We had a whole bunch of demos, and we used to record everything on a little ghetto blaster. and just the two of us, singing,

Mike singing and lead me singing harmony and me playing along on my guitar. Sometimes we put a metronome up, and that would be our drummer. But I remember we were at a party, at Mike's place, at Mike's place, Mike's girlfriend, and sitting outside some beautiful summer day with the ghetto bust or over by the fence

and playing all our demos, and Denise, my wife, is there with us. And Turnme at least comes on, her ears perk up and she goes, that's the one. Really? Yes, that is the one.

Okay? And I guess she nailed it. She nailed it because they're still blasting that on Canadian radio in 2026. Give me a little more detail on composing Turn Me Loose. I mean, that's from your self-titled

1980 debut album, Leverboi. Actually, before you tell me about Turn Me Loose, where did the name Leverboy come from? well i was you know Denise's little brother who says so what's an new band because i was working with mike at this time and and Doug johnson occasionally and uh whoever else was available

i said it's dean reno band he went oh and just kind of walked away on interested i went well that didn't fly did it so i started thinking about it we got to get a better name than dean reno or reno dean and uh so i'm looking through denises magazines one day in our apartment in Calgary and I'm going, I look on the back and there's a cover girl at a cover girl, cover boy. Oh, I like that. That's a really good name for a band, Cover Boy.

It's got a real ring to it. And I obviously don't have to go to the next step, but that's where it came from. Okay. Oh, you know what? I'm glad you went with Lover Boy over Cover Boy. I think that was a good move right there. Yeah, well, Reno, Reno likes to say, when I told him he says,

we're going to get the crop beat us out of us if we call ourselves lover boy. But you know, it's so far nobody knows is so, okay. So far so good. We'll see what happens at Massey Hall. But so far so. So just tell me a little more because this is the breakthrough jam,

turn me loose. You know, everyone on the, we all know turn me loose. Like where did that come from? You're just, you and Mike are writing together and then next thing you know what, you've got a hook. How did the termy loose come to be?

Well, it started off on the base part that Mike would play that same line every time we would jam. I would be on guitar, even on, be on bass or whatever. And so we switch roles as often would. And one night I was on bass, and he was on drums. And we started playing. And I, the first thing that came to my mind was that same bass player that had been bass part, I should say, been drilled it into my head for the past couple of weeks.

And so we, now we had drums and bass going on. So that was a really good start. It had a great groove. and that's so important to our music, especially that song. And we took that and we were, as I was talking about the refinery, the restaurant, Mike and I were on a break

from our, went in and have a beer or something in the, and we're sitting around having a drink. And we wrote all the lyrics in, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 minutes. Wow. Just how it works sometimes. It's just bam, bam, bam. It just spills out of you.

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes, On the flip side of that, the tune, this could be the night, took four years to write in the studio. Just different titles, different lyrics, going to San Francisco, working with Jonathan Kane, just took forever. But some tunes, they just write themselves almost.

So, Paul, what was it like when you heard Turn Me Loose for the first time on the radio? You know, I think I heard the kid as hot was the first thing I heard on the radio. It wasn't Termi Loose. Because in Canada, that was, the first thing though was the kid is hot and we were playing a bar in lethbridge on our way to to playing the ched bicycle picnic in emminton and i remember driving through calgary on the way

there and the kid is hot came on the radio and i that was we everybody in the i can imagine we were yelling and punching the roof and rolling the windows down and screaming or whatever but that was that was the first thing I heard. And I don't remember. I really don't, I don't have any recollection of hearing turn me loose on the radio. I mean, I've heard it since, but I don't remember my first impression.

But if we can move on to working for the weekend. Yeah, I'd love to. What another enormous jam from Lover Boy. Talk about working for the weekend. We were opening for Journey, and we were playing someplace in Florida, I think. And we had just released a Get Lucky album. and nothing had been played or anything.

And I remember coming to Soundcheck and we're in the van. All of us in the van, wind was rolled down, no AC, and driving through the parking lot. And all the fans are there ready to go in. It's a beautiful afternoon. It's like a tailgate party. And everybody's tuned to the same station and it's playing and working for the weekend as we drive in the parking lot.

And everybody's got it cranked in their party. And that was the first time. And what in it? I'm getting chills just thinking about that. That moment was so great. So did you know that working for the weekend was going to be enormous when you recorded it? Or was it that moment right there? No.

Well, I mean, you never know. But I got an idea. We were playing bars, even though we'd had an album out in and we'd done a few tours opening. We were still playing clubs in Vancouver. We're on Vancouver Island, actually. And I think in Duncan, B.C., something. like that in a little bar. And we were doing all original stuff then.

And we had, there was a three set kind of thing, 340s or 3.45s. I played the first two sets and it was like a meat market. You know, nobody was listening to the band. It was everybody's getting plastered and trying to pick each other up, which is the thing to do, of course. And but we hit the stage on the third set

and we opened with working for the weekend and the dance store was packed for the first time that night and I went, okay, okay. You got something there. Hey, can I, pun intended, I need to tie up a couple of loose ends, okay, pun intended, sure, sure.

But, okay, so I've always wondered this. Well, first, congrats to you that you and Mike Reno, you won the Juno for a composer of the year in 1982, four turned me loose. So the Junos are recognizing greatness there, which is nice. So, cool.

Where is your Juno right now? by the way? Let me see, I could probably put it in my hand. It's right there. I've got them, yeah, there it is. I've got them all in display in my studio in my house. How many Juno's do you have? I think I have eight, something like that.

Wow. You know, the late great Miles Goodwin would be very jealous because he feels he should have had eight. Well, I love Miles. He was a great, great friend. and yeah we we had many fun moments in in airports cross and paths

he's really great guy he did a thing from my video a great little clip for my video for hell yeah for me he's standing at that I don't know what the name of it some iconic place just outside of Halifax

and yeah I love the guy yeah we lost a good one there but yes last loose end on this, I got to know. So, because I'm a little younger than you. So, like, I'm just sort of discovering top 40, you know, a little younger. That ain't hard. I'm discovering top 40 radio in the early 80s, essentially. And of course, I know, turn me loose by Lover Boy. This is everywhere on the top 40

radio in this country. And then, and beyond, but I'm from this country. And then a year later, I'm hearing a song called On the Loose by Saga. Okay? So I'm curious, Paul. Be honest with me. How do you feel in Lover Boy when one year later, a song that's, it's not the same song, but people confuse these songs all the time, On the Loose and Turn Me Loose. What say you? I don't really care. You're indifferent to it. I'm indifferent.

More power to them, you know? It's a decent song. And like you say, it's completely different. And it's a valid statement. But people must come up to you and sing on the loose and get turned around, no? I've never had that comparison. I swear to I swear about it. I trust you.

In all my... Never meant how many years. It's never happened till right now, okay? I know who I'm talking to. You're the lover boy guy, not Saga. Okay. Okay, okay. So...

I love Saga. We open for them in Europe. We went through all Scandinavia with them, and it was a real blast. Those guys are great. They're huge in Germany. Yeah, yeah. We played a bunch of dates in Germany in Scandinavia.

Navy and I think we even touched down in France we play the club there. First time and only time I've been to France. Okay. Okay. Well, they're big in France too, I think. So when you hear, like, when you're in a grocery store, I don't know, you're at a hockey arena or a wedding or something and you hear working for the weekend,

right? Like, does a party you go like, holy shit, like we made that and it lasted. Like, there's something about 45 years of like, it's still everywhere. Who knows how that happened? it hit a chord and it still continues to hit a chord. And I give a lot of it to Mike too for that

because I originally was called everybody's waiting for the weekend, which I thought was pretty valid. And it seemed true when I came up with the title, this is what everybody's doing. There's nobody around me. And normally this place is packed and there's, oh, they're waiting for the weekend, of course. And then he went, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's got to be working for the weekend. And I think a lot of people can really relate to that. Well, apparently. So. Yeah. It resonated. It's tough to make art that lasts decades and decades, and you did it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's my mind that, that people still want to hear these tunes. And even more so that I still want to play them.

I mean, I've played term it as how many thousands of times, I still love playing that song. I love playing our, all our tunes. I wish we could play every song that we wrote, but, you know, we don't have two days it per concert. So what are you going to play at Massey Hall? Are you going to play, uh, working for the weekend? Are you going to play turn me loose or both? Well, just one second here, just let me open this up. You can edit this, right? I'm okay for this.

I love the behind the scene stuff, man. Fly on the wall. Okay, I'm just looking this up because I just want to look it up. Todd Kerns is going to sing the Okay. Amanda Marshall is going to and talk is going to sing

that is some good intel man. I'm glad you stopped. That's amazing. Amanda Marshall, that's going to be amazing. I know. I can't wait to meet her. I've never, never met her. She's incredible. What a great artist. And I want to hear her rendition of working for the weekend. You know, it's going to be really cool. Send her to South Atobico to come on Toronto Mike. I've been trying to get her for years. It would be great. I'll bring it up. Yeah. Well, you know what? On that note quickly, though, do you know who said no to a Toronto mic appearance? Are you ready for this? Yes. I'm ready.

Mike Reno. What? I know. I know. Recently, look, you're going to ask you. I know the PR rep is on the Zoom, but you can have the elbow mic and say, come on, let's make this happen here. I got questions about tears are not enough.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Were you there for the recording? I was. Okay, so what was your role? You played some guitar there? What did you do for working for tears are not enough? I played a solo, and I remember starting it off. This is all after the fact.

All the recordings done and then we were putting the guitar on. I played the solo and I went, no, too busy, no, too busy, no, too busy. And finally, I think it's got like three notes to it. And that's what, okay, I'm comfortable with that. Let's go. That's all I remember. And it was, what a great thing to do, though. We're really great, great money fundraiser, you know?

It's so amazing. I mean, I still talk about it. I'm going to talk to Bruce Colburn tomorrow about his part. He did his part in Germany. Wow. Because he couldn't make it to Toronto for that big day that you were all there. But shout out to Paul Farberman, who made you probably sign the release. Probably.

And Mike Reno's got a juicy part in that song. He does. He sings great. Of course, he always sings great. Mike is a great singer. No question about it. Well, that's why you get him on. Still.

It's still amazing. Still sounds good. Okay. So we're going to cook of gas here because I said, give me two hours with Paul Dean, and they said you get 40 minutes. So we're going to cook of gas here. But when you're writing these songs that people are still love,

like are you thinking about making a radio hit, or do you just follow your instincts and write a good song? I don't think that far ahead. I just think what, working for the weekend, just, you know, as it's very melodic, it came out of nowhere. And I was just sitting with, I used to use a metronome as my drummer. And then I would record what I was playing into my ghetto blaster. And I would play through a ghetto blaster that I could turn it up the tent so I could get a little bit of a rock sound.

And then I would just sing into the air and I would put the ghetto blaster in the right spot. so it would pick up everything and sound good. And then I would sing the melody, and I didn't have all the lyrics for it, but I had some of them. Everybody's on an today. You know, a lot of MERS birds. It always starts off with MERS bursts.

And then my criteria back then, I probably still is, but back then is if I could listen to a cassette recording of a bare demo, just with the melody and the guitar part, and a couple of lyrics, If I can listen to it like 10 times in a row and then I'll go, okay, this is crap.

And I just remember listening to, I'm sitting in my attic somewhere playing that song or writing it and playing it back over and over going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that works, yeah, good, good. And then it comes down to writing all the lyrics. And I'm sure I had everyone's wait for the weekend. And then we, I went to Mike

and said, here's what I got. And he's working for the weekend. And he wrote a couple other lines. I can't remember exactly what lines he wrote. But I do remember he came up with that key lyric change, which is very good. But I remember we were playing in Montreal, and I was in the hotel room.

And I had almost finished working for the weekend. But I was having trouble getting all the parts in order. What is, because it needs a bridge, but what's the bridge going to be and where does it go? What are the chords going to be? And I remember it finally coming all together that night. And I recorded it once again onto my ghetto blasts that I carried with me everywhere. And so that was the structure of it.

And then we finished the lyrics. But it's, you know, I write a lot of stuff on the plane. Well, you can't really sing on a plane, but it can work on parts. But do a lot in my hotel rooms on the road, sing in melodies into my lap, laptop now. He used to be into a dictaphone kind of thing, but now it's right into my laptop. We should put that ghetto blaster into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Oh, I wish I still had it. It was that old Panasonic with a little four-inch speaker. And it was a real workhorse because we would take, or I would take, all our mixes that we

did for the first couple of albums, put them on cassette, go into the room, the recording room with my ghetto blaster. I was really quiet. else or put it on and see if I could hear the bass. And that was, and that, well,

I don't quite hear the base in, in, in, in your mom's kitchen on her little radio, her little clock radio or whatever that, any, I mean, it's got to go from subwoofer's in a,

in a disco to your mom's kitchen radio. It's got to sound good everywhere. Right. And that was, so that was the key. And what I, what I,

term that I came up with was, the base needs to more quarters. In other words, it's got to sound like he's not using a pick. He's playing with a quarter. He needed more that grok, as I call it. And so that was kind of the

final mix was, did it pass the four-inch speaker test? Amazing. I'm going to give you a little piece of trivia. It's a quick trivia question. We'll see if you can get it right. But what do you think is Lover Boy's biggest U.S. single?

It's going to be working for the weekend. No, you know, so this is I think it's a great trivia question because you're on the Billboard Hot 100, your highest charting single ever was hot girls in love. What? Yeah. Isn't that a mind blow? I did not know that.

That is a mind blow. It is a mind blow, right? Well, it blew my mind. And one thing I'll tell you because I'm, you know, born in Toronto, raised in Toronto, still living in Toronto. That's how pathetic I am. I haven't left the city yet in my five decades. But like, I never had a sense of like you'd hear a.

a Canadian band on the radio because there's, you know, CanCon rules and you've got to play Canadian bands. And I never ever could tell what's a Canadian band that's big in Canada, but Americans don't know anything about? And what's a Canadian band that the Americans do know? Loverboy was huge in America. It was and is. Yeah, well, I saw it, yes, is, yes.

That was a real thrill for us because Mike and I, and everybody in the band had been in numerous bands before Lover, boy and none of us had broken into the u.s and that was a real priority because you know it's a huge market a lot of people down there even back then there was you know way more than 10 times of canada so that was our our goal was to play Canada and hopefully get into the states and remember the first time we opened for sammy hagar in the uh the to the coma dome that's a mouthful and it was new year's eve and we were so so jazz that we had finally, in our careers,

had finally played south of the border. So that was a big night for us. Do you feel like Americans understood Lover Boy maybe in a different way than Canadians did? No. You know, I find that I found in Japan and Germany and all around the U.S. and Canada that there was the odd market that would go a lot, but maybe two or something,

two or three markets would not get it right off the bat. But for the most part, the response was really strong from everybody. Good. Good, good. What was your relationship like with Mike Reno when Loverboy was at its apex, its biggest? And then what's your relationship with Mike Reno like today? I don't know. That's a really good question.

I would say it's the same. I mean, we haven't written together for a while. It's been a minute since we've written any songs, but still nothing but respect for the guy. You know, what a great singer and a great songwriter. And that goes for everybody else in the band, too. Great players in their respective instruments. Well, I'm curious, Paul, what it's like when,

and for those who don't know, you know, almost Paradise, which is a song from the Footloose soundtrack, was a big, big jam everywhere. I had that soundtrack. Mike Reno and Anne Wilson doing that duet. So what's it like for you when Almost Paradise is all over the radio?

I don't mind. Mike got a beautiful boat that he called Almost Paradise from that. Oh, back. He got a killer payday out of that. And I'm happy for the guy. I mean, he didn't have it anymore, but he, you know,

I was what went on, it was like a beautiful sea ray, beautiful boat, which is, I guess we all, all had boats back in the day back around that time. We live in Vancouver. Sure. Myself, I had a, along with Blue Blair, we had, we bought a 75 mile an hour 454 Mer Cruiser boat that we were right around in the salt chuck and just get bashed by the waves

and that was a fun thing. I should buy a boat. Don't do that anymore. I'm taking a note here. I should buy a boat here. I guess I can maybe ride it, maybe for like eight months a year. We could do it here in Toronto. Exactly.

Exactly. All right. So you and Mike were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2009, and now you're being inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Again, this ceremony is at Massey Hall here in Toronto on September 26. So that means you're making your way to Toronto very soon. So are you aware of who else is going into this Hall of Fame with you? So it's Mike Reno and Paul Dean from Loverboy, but do you know who else is getting inducted?

Rock. rock rock cuisine Leslie Feist and of course Trajee to him So that's pretty exciting Those are some Those are some big names

Indeed Especially Leslie I mean I wasn't to be honest I wasn't really aware of her Until you know I had to find out who she was Right

And wow she's very impressive What's good A great songwriter Very unique singer And very unique melodies And a lot of A lot of streaming a lot of people apparently really love her.

Well, she was in a band here, a local band called By Divine Right, which was a local band. And then she was in Broken Social Scene, which was like indie darlings of the early 2000s. And Apple used one of her songs. Apple used it to sell the iPod. And she just blew up globally.

Wow. Good for her. She had a song, 1, 2, 3, 4. But she had a mushaboo, she had a bunch of big jams. But so. I'm just telling me jump here. I remember when Apple brought out the weekend, speaking of another Canadian artist.

And I've never heard of the guy. And there he was. They're selling the iPhone. And here's our guest today. I wish they still did that guest thing. But that was, anyway. Amazing. I detract.

So we'll tell me, okay, so we've covered Lover Boy. What would you say is the current status of Lover Boy? Looking to continue playing. And I'm recording. myself. Yeah, yeah, tell me about everything. So on our way out here, I want to hear about all the things you're working on, what's coming, fill me up with some Paul Dean. Well, I've been working on an album for some time. I had a, I had a little jam band in Calgary, and we recorded every night, and I had an original tune. It was with Greg Godavitz, who a lot of people in Toronto will know

from the band Gatto. Absolutely. One of my best friends, who also contributed to the hellia video. and he and I played. He invited me down. I was just sort of hanging out in between the lover boy shows and he invited me down and we were in a little band and we played there every Tuesday

and we recorded all the songs and one of them made the cut and we're talking back a few years but it's hung in there, you know? It's kind of like I look back at my early catalog and do those, do I still like those tunes? Yes.

So this one seems to fit And there's one tune with Kenison Eve and Matt Fernette playing on it. And a bunch of songs that I wrote with an Ontario dude lyrically Tim Mohan lives in Northern Ontario. And

it's a rock and album. It's really it's got a couple of ballads on it. Of course. Got to do that. But there's 12 songs. It's called Electric. And it has a it's not released yet. We're still working on it. I'm taking care of the business part of the music business.

I've got to do that still. But the music part is all done. It's all mastered and it's very rockin. I really did it. No rest for the wicked, Paul. That's true. This is what Tim always tells me. You're still working? You're still up?

Do you ever stop? I just, well, you know, I like to keep busy. I really do. I'm obsessed with putting stuff together. That's what I love to do. It's not a job. It's just a life thing that I just love to do. I love the puzzle, as we were talking about before,

about putting a song together, you know. That's what I do. That's what you do. You know what they say are the best two days in a boat owner's life? The day you buy it and the day you sell it. The day you buy it, the day you sell it. Yeah. Is that true?

You know, I didn't really want to sell our boat. But I fed a few boats. I had one boat. It was at a little five horse Evan Rood on the back of it. And he used to take it out in the storms in Lake Windermere where I was raised. And one day, Denise and I were out in a beautiful calm day, and then a storm came up, which he does. And we were out there seriously rocking in the waves in this tiny little boat.

And Denise is freaking out. And I'm going, this is great. I love this. And that was the inspiration for a year so emotional, which, you know, made it to get lucky out. Well, I feel I'm... Yeah, go ahead. That's my boating story.

That's my boating story. Okay, love it. And I love this chat. I got to tell you, Paul, this was great. We did a lover boy deep dive. We talked about a whole bunch more. But I appreciate you giving me at least 40 minutes on this Wednesday afternoon. Thanks, man.

Anytime. Just call me and I'll be there. Appreciate it, Mike, so much. And that brings us to the end of our 1,973rd show. Go to Toronto Mike.com for a... all your Toronto Mike needs. And much love to all who made this possible. That is Great Lakes Brewery.

They're hosting us at TMLX 23rd on September 28, 2026 from 6 to 9 p.m. Everybody is invited. We're at the GLB brew pub at Jarvis and Queens Key. Be there. Palma Pasta. They'll be hosting us at Palma's Kitchen for the next TMLX event. I should soon have a date.

It's going to be either late November or early December to be decided. Nick Aini's. He's going to have a conversation with Karen Stints at the Old Mill on October 7th, and you should drop by and witness this live. Recyclemyelectronics.ca. If you have old cables, old electronics, old devices, don't throw them in the garbage. go to Recyclemyelectronics.ca and keep those chemicals out of our landfill. And of course, Ridley Funeral Home,

make sure you listen to Brad Jones's excellent podcast, Life's Undertaking. No generative AI has been used in the recording of this podcast. See you all tomorrow when my special guest returning after, I think it's been over a day, decade. It's Ramey the Minks.