Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Sam Roberts: Toronto Mike'd #1347

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

In this 1347th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Sam Roberts about his his eight albums of kickass rock 'n roll, the guitar The Tragically Hip's Paul Langlois gave him, and more, including a surprise visit from another rock star. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Pumpkins After Dark, Ridley Funeral Home, Electronic Products Recycling Association, Raymond James Canada and Moneris. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1347 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. home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta

in Mississauga and Oakville. Pumpkins After Dark. Get your tickets now at pumpkinsafterdark.com. Recyclemyelectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past

the advantaged investor podcast from raymond james canada valuable perspective for canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable informed and focused on long-term success season five of yes we are open an award-winning podcast hosted by FOTM El Grego. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto Mike debut is Sam Roberts. Welcome, Sam. Thank you, Mike. What an absolute pleasure it is to meet you. I'm so glad you're here. I'm still just blown away.

Episode 1,347, did you say? Yeah, so if you're going to get a tattoo, that's the number, okay? Do you have any tattoos? No, I'm pretty tattoo-free. I know I'm a bit of a throwback. A tattoo-free rock star? I know, it's pretty, you know, it's... Well, I'm tattoo-less too.

Now it's like a badge almost, you know, like not having one. So do you think now the cool thing to do is to go uninked, like it's gone the other way? Yeah. Well, I don't know if that's... I don't know if it's like a badge almost, you know, like not having one. So do you think now the cool thing to do is to go uninked, like it's gone the other way? Yeah. Well, I don't know if it's cool. It's hard to say. It's such an individual thing. It's cool with me.

Yeah, it's cool. Would you like a cold, fresh can of craft beer, courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery? I would love one. I mean, it's just staring at me in the face right here. You know, I'm like, okay, Sam, you can have can have a beer but you gotta open it in front of it so open it right in front that's a lager from great lakes i'm gonna try to do this for maximum effect here okay nice that was almost like too too good to be true like like there's a like it was a sound

effect on an old keyboard you can vouch for the fact I didn't have a sound effect. I'm going to open one up too. Oh, you got a three-parter. I went for the three-parter. Cheers to you. Cheers, man. Nice to meet you. A lot of ground I want to cover with you. We're going to cook with gas, do this in an hour.

But I thought, you know, before we go back, because I have questions and I want to bring you back to Montreal and I want to talk about how it begins for you. But I want to start in the current day. Let's start in the presence and let's talk about what's new. I might bring it up again in a moment here, but we're listening to, this is Projection. Talk to me if you don't mind about the new stuff,

and then we'll go back in time here. But the new album is called The Adventures of Ben Blank. What can you tell me about what's new with Sam Roberts' band and, you know, pictures of love and afterlife and all these singles most of us have already heard that have been doing really well? Well, yeah, I mean, today's the day. Today's the release day, actually.

I'm honored you're here on release day. That's a big deal. Yeah, it's nice to be talking about new music and and looking ahead and we we have sort of this mixed uh thing happening right now and we're celebrating simultaneously celebrating the 20 year anniversary of the release of our first full-length record we were born in a flame and at the same time trying very much to focus on the new. And that is sort of, I think that speaks to kind of where we're at in our sort of

path at this point, you know. But as a band, I will say that our philosophy has always been firmly rooted in sort of thinking more about what we're going to do, what we have yet to do, rather than getting sort of bound up in nostalgia and looking back. So to be here talking about something new is what I, you know, I'm very happy that that's the case. I heard that there's going to be like a Indie 88's doing something maybe this weekend or whatever where they're going to like debut

the new album. I thought, you know what, screw it. I'm going to play every song on the album and then Indie 88's they're just fucked. You're going to want them, you know, hey, listen. Beat them by a day. But yeah, you know, it's just cool to get the support from everybody. You know, I can't believe it took us

1,347 episodes to get on this show. Well, I feel like that's on you. Where do you call home? I'm born and raised in Montreal and I still live there. Still live there. Okay, so I'm actually, maybe we'll hang out.

I'm visiting in late November. My daughter's living there because she's going to McGill. So maybe I'll have to drop by and see if I can get a free meal out of you. But yeah, so you're not, you know, you don't hang

in Toronto that often unless you're touring here, right? So what brings you here? yeah you so you're not you know you don't hang in toronto that often unless you're you're touring here right so what brings you here like what brings you here today is it just because it's launch day and you're gonna uh yeah it's launch day it's it's you know it's it's an opportunity to have eyes on you that normally gaze elsewhere you know that that it's uh it's okay to to talk about yourself for 24 hours when you're releasing a record. And yeah, there's a lot of weight that goes into this in the sense that you have this very small window of opportunity

to remind people, A, that you exist, which is still necessary in our case, and that you still have something to say and you're not just a legacy band you're not just gonna tour around you know playing where have all the good people gone and brother down or whatever that you're you've got vibrant new music that is you know fresh music like we're listening to right now available today well i can't lie we still play brother down and where have all the good people gone, every single day. Well, I hope so. I want my money back. Are you kidding me? So we still do that,

you know, just, but at the same time, yeah, you know, we're, we're here with, with a new record

that we have to sort of dig in our heels and, and it's almost like delivering your kid to kindergarten for the first time, you know,

and, and making sure that they, they find their way in the world. That's how releasing the record feels. Amazing. Now, you made a comment, you know, uh and making sure that they uh they find their way in the world that's how i know that feeling feels yeah amazing now you made a comment you know like okay you got the new album that's like you got an excuse to kind of celebrate sam roberts and sam roberts band your sound your music i feel like that's a very canadian thing man this is just my observation from doing this you know 1347 times but i feel like if you were american you'd be like you know fuck it

i can celebrate sam roberts 365 days a year but you i get the sense like maybe you're uncomfortable you know talking about what a rock star you are unless you have an excuse to do so like a launch day or i don't know there's a concert you're promoting or something like that yeah i think i think you're right i nailed it it? Yeah. That's not everybody. And perhaps it is a Canadian trait versus what our American friends might do in this situation. But for myself, yeah, it's almost like I need an excuse to be willing to talk about not just myself, but the band.

And you can see that if you follow us on any of our social media platforms. We're quite reluctant, you know? You're humble Canadians. I don't know if humble is the right word. I don't even want to say humble. No humility? I'm not even sure if that's the word that I'd use. It's almost just I don't feel that compulsion to share everything all the time.

And for me, what I'm here to talk about and what I'm here to share with the public in general is music. So if I do something or make something new, and I guess I'm proud of it as one way of referring to it, then I'll use this 24 hour window every three years to pump our tires a little bit and make sure that people are listening are you proud of the adventures of ben blank again you know proud is proud is a tough a tough word i don't know why i shouldn't have said that you know i was gonna say you said i prompted it you know but yeah i i am i i think to finish a record you have to be proud of it in some ways there's always a there's always a a great deal of reluctance to to you know hit stop for the final time and say this is this is it this is a record this is uh not just as good as it can be

it's this is what it is meant to be and i think as a musician you sort of learn over the years to to uh live with the fact that at some point a record is done and you know i think pride is is in that idea of seeing something through from inception to you know to completion and and then you give it to the world and it's no longer yours and it's no longer yours to manipulate in any way interesting but what you know what really is an album anymore only because okay so there's nine tracks on the adventures of ben blank but sometimes albums in this day and age of streaming and you know there's a whole bunch of questions that leads to but it's essentially this is nine songs like it's like you stitch together nine singles and here they are packaged together as the adventures of ben blank but you know back in the day,

you and I are of a vintage. We remember when albums like had a, there was often like a, a thread sort of like they were an assemblage of, of something with a common theme or whatever. So is this a, this is this nine new tracks from Sam Roberts band, or is this an album?

No, I like to think of this very much as an album. And, and to your point, it's sort of what, what defines an album? Is it just nine cuts that can stand on their own in their own right? Yes, I hope that that's the case with these songs

because I want the songs to be good, whether they're attached to other songs or not. But in terms of the intent behind it, they're very much made to be listened to in sequence this you know and so what defines an album well yes there can be a theme that runs through it in terms of subject matter or uh you know sort of emotional spirit to the whole thing there can be there's a musical palette that you're sort of drawing from from again certain colors more than others and that unifies the experience in terms of you know

what it all sounds like and then how it's stitched together what song comes you know if you think back to the albums that you grew up loving over the years you know you know before the last note of you know song number five what this what the next song is going to be you can hear it in your mind and i very much want people to to listen to this record and and have that kind of feeling of of the relationship between all the songs okay so before we go backwards uh because as you can imagine i have questions uh you know from from you know mentioned 20 years here but you indie 88's doing a thing with you this weekend uh indie 88 is a is 88 is a great local station, and I love the people in Indy 88.

But do you find now, you know, 20 years in doing this, today when you have a new album versus 20 years ago, like, are there less places in the country that want to talk about new Sam Roberts? I'm just curious, has the landscape changed? You can't go to much music anymore. I did yesterday. Is there much music?

Yeah. This is breaking news. You know, this actually really is, and we'll get to much music anymore. I did yesterday. Is there much music? Yeah. This is breaking news. You know, this actually really is. And we'll get to much music. But to answer your question in general before we start talking about the specifics, yes, the landscape has changed about seven or eight times in that 20 years.

Would you have been in a guy's basement in South Etobicoke 20 years ago? Yes. Okay. 20 years ago, yes. You're a good guy. Definitely. 20 years ago?

Yes. Okay. 20 years ago, yes. Because you're a good guy. You know, definitely. But, so 20 years ago, I stopped doing breakfast television. Well, I started and stopped in a two-month period. Shout out to Kevin Frankish. Okay.

So, but now I'm back. Okay. I'm back on the breakfast television circuit. So I had a 20-year moratorium because I was always way too hung over to go to go to breakfast and it just wasn't a good look i would show up you know super haggard bleary-eyed right uh you know that's not a bad look for a rock star i mean yeah it's like who's the viewership of breakfast television you know it's right and now now that i've sort of hit it more come back to a more respectable plateau and I can get up at that time in the morning, I'm like, okay, this is a format I can embrace again.

Okay, I hope Sid Sixero is ready for this. So when is your appearance on Breakfast Television? It was this morning. Okay, you know what? I've already done it. And yesterday and the day before. It's like, man, if you can work the Breakfast TV circuit, you can work every day of the week.

So I'm back. Okay, you're back. You're back, you can work every day of the week. So I'm back. Okay, you're back. You're back on the beach. And I was back on Much yesterday. And you're like, okay, my apologies. Why do I think there's not much music? Is it like TikTok now? What is Much music?

No, well, it did, it's kind of, it was really interesting to go in there yesterday because Much, when you talk about 20 years ago and even, you know, maybe 15 years ago, going to Much was an essential piece of the puzzle. There were certain things, certain markers that you hit every single time you put out a record. Certain journalists that you were going to talk to in every town

for either the big newspaper or whatever the weekly rag was, almost none of them exist anymore. Well, because Ben Rayner has been retired. Ben Rayner, that's a name. Love that guy. You know, that was a name. I said, you know, I know I'm going to have a chat with Ben. I know I'm going to chat with, you know,

Sandra Sparunis in Edmonton, you know, for the Edmonton Journal. It was one of those things where you could sort of rely on these things happening. Much music obviously being the big shining light. C to C. Yeah, that's what we grew up watching. And, you know, you'd see Sloan get up there

and, you know, play their latest single. Just bring in my little... Oh, there it is. Because there's been a lot of much music talk on this podcast lately. So it's kind of interesting to see now that so much disappeared for a bit, but then came back.

But it's come back as this sort of really sort of grassroots operation. It's just a few young people who are interested in bringing music to the world. And they've got to sort of, it's not that different than this space right here. So much has gone from this sort of. So Bell Media is really cheaping out on this thing. Well, it's almost like a weird sort of Benjamin Button. That was what I could think. It's almost like in its infancy again it feels like it's

really sort of starting over and and kind of redefining what it's going to mean today so it was it was really cool to see that again young people who are just like no this is this is a way for us to bring music out to the world and it felt very much like a like a new baby instead of this old you know i'll bet you when you popped into much music the other day uh for these young people i bet you it was very similar to like when george harrison showed up at much music in 87 because yeah i i got my mind set on you right and you know the traveling wilburys it's like you might your parents might remember me from the 1960s. It's like, it's... I know.

Listen, if you get hung up on that, if you get caught up in that way of thinking, then you're just not going to leave your house in the morning, you know? All right, I just remembered. I don't have three hours with Sam Roberts, so I got to cook a little bit here. But Tim P. wrote in and said, ask Sam if he participated in Talent Night

when he was at Loyola High School, and if so, did he win? Okay, did you go to this high school? I did, Loyola High School. I can't even say Loyola. I said Loyola. It's Loyola. St. Ignatius of Loyola is the full name.

I could never say that. I know. It took a lifetime to get there. But yes, we know. So to Tim, we didn't even make it through the audition phase of the talent show so we were cut before we made it to the main the main event so no we didn't win um what did we play we played um we were playing a jesus and mary chain song in those days, uh, between planets. We played helter skelter by the Beatles. Right.

Um, and yeah, we didn't make it off. Like we were, we were left on the cutting room floor, man. And it was a huge blow. It was one of those things.

There are a few things in my, in my life that I remember that it's like, this can either be the end of it, or this can be, you know, the thing that helps, you know, burn, helps the fire burn hotter. You know be you know the thing that helps you know burn helps the fire

burn hotter you know you were born in a flame listen i can tell you this when i hear that story i think about michael jordan getting cut from his grade nine basketball team exactly he's still he's still fueling yeah we're the mj of canadian rock you know i've often said that sam roberts is the michael jordan of canadian rock so i mentioned my daughter's at mcgill right now hello michelle I've often said that. I said, Sam Roberts is the Michael Jordan of Canadian rock. So I mentioned my daughter's at McGill right now. Hello, Michelle, if you're listening. Okay, you went to McGill as well. I did, yes.

Only smart people go to McGill. So I know you're an intelligent man. There was a small window where they were letting anyone in. You know, they're jacking up the price. If you don't live in Quebec, this is a true story. If you do not live in Quebec and you want to go to school in Quebec and you're not already going to school in Quebec, apparently they're doubling the rate. It's going to be some ridiculous, like, out-of-province surcharge

of, I don't know, $18,000, $19,000 or something. So I have four kids. One's at McGill. No one else is allowed to go to school in Quebec. This is my new rule. I can't afford it. Well, I hope, you know, on that front, I hope people fight that. We all fight that because it's bullshit.

Bullshit. Yeah. But you, as a Montrealer, you didn't have to worry about such nonsense. And you're at McGill. I want to get you to, hey, I'm going to play a song because I loaded up some great jams here. Great stuff. You might have heard of this one. I don't know.

That's too close. We'll give it a moment. Enjoy your Great Lakes, and then we have to talk about the beginning. When we're doing it wrong, you see, I'm a brother now Cause it's nothing to me, yeah, it's nothing to me Everyone's saying that it's wrong to cheat But there's no other way to get your life on easy street Get your life on easy street Someone else telling you what you're living for

Been knocking you down, now you're looking for more We'll be right back. I'm always curious when an artist hears in the cans a song that you've probably been singing this every day for the past 20 years, but what is it like when you hear this? What are you thinking right now? Are you thinking, God, that's good, that holds up? What are you thinking? Yeah, it's weird because we do play it every time we play a show. I honestly don't think in...

We've probably played about as many shows honestly don't think in, you know, we've probably played about as many shows as you've done podcasts, you know, uh, and we've played brother down at every single one of them, but the live version of it, uh, even that's changed over the years.

Sometimes I listen back to a live version that we did, you know, 20 years ago, and it sounds completely different than the way we play it now. But to hear the actual recording, it's not something I've you know i don't think i've heard that recording in a really really really long time so i i forget some of the little details um that go on in there but more than anything it's you know you try to imagine like that song launched our career. There's no other reason for our career to have started besides that song.

So I can't help but listen to it and go, what was it? Why did that open all the doors that had remained closed for us before? Well, how long was it closed? This is what I'm trying to understand. So the Inhuman Condition released in 2002. So we've been talking about We Were Born in a Flame. That's actually 2003. That's the major label debut.

This is an EP, right? Yeah. I'm doing math in my head. How much time transpires between McGill and the Inhuman Condition? Well, I finished McGill in 98. But our band had been been we'd been trying you know I went to McGill but I spent a hell of a lot of time you know trying to get our band off the ground when I should have been studying for my survey of English literature did you get the degree though I did I did I

did finish it you know like it like an album we were just saying you know starting something and finishing it has always been an important thing for me. But yeah, we were still, we were working really hard. And I'm sure, maybe, I hope my parents are listening, but, you know, had things taken off in the middle of my university career with the band, I would most likely, well, I know I would have dropped everything and gone off and, you know, tried to seek out our fortunes in music. Who could blame you?

I sure would. I mean, who could blame you? So how does it all come together that we end up with the very excellent, We Were Born in a Flame? Like this EP, like is this an independent release? Like help me fill in some cracks here. I know Linda Bush plays a role in all this, but how the heck does it all happen for you?

Bring us back. So in university is when I met Dave Nugent, who has been playing guitar in our band from the very beginning. I was also at school with James Hall, plays bass. We went to high school together and have known each other since we were five years old. And Eric Fares as well so we were we were playing music and trying to find a way in you know and again we emulated a lot of what you know success to us was Sloan that to us was the band uh they represented the pinnacle of what Canadian music

could and should be and in fact I have a rejection letter from Murder Records this is huge okay because I love Sloan too

did you frame it? no I crumpled it up and you burned it again this is the second thing what was the first thing we were just saying

like lit a fire oh yeah getting cut from the talent show that's why you have it born in a flame the second thing was getting rejected from murder records uh saying that they're not looking for keep a list throughout the chat we have like how many of these markers uh shape the sam exactly today that's great because now not only do i play in my side project band the anyway gang with chris murphy from sloan but we're roommates on the road. I had a question, actually. Come full circle. Cambrio wanted me to ask you about partying

at the dance cave until 2am. Apparently Chris Murphy has been telling this story. Oh, jeez. Well, Chris, you know, it was after an Anyway Gang show, and I'm no stranger to, you know, cutting a rug. And the dance cave is where we used to hang out in the 90s. Right.

Because they played Britpop music, which is what we were all into. You were either into, you were into grunge, you were into dance music, especially, you know, Montreal was very heavily sort of segregated that way musically. You know, you either listen to, yeah, club music, you listen to grunge, or you were one of the seven people who listened to Britpop. And spiral carpets. Exactly. So that was us.

That's how I met my manager. And our whole sort of band collective was very much centered around that kind of music. And when we come to Toronto, we would seek out like-minded people. And you'd either end up at a blow-up party or you'd end up at Dance Cave. blow-up party or you'd end up at dance cave and um so i just thought i'd go back yeah it was a slightly older i just moshed at

the phoenix uh for like an anniversary show of the cfny live to airs that chris shepherd used actually chris shepherd yes but martin streak more recently i suppose the late great martin streak would so they had like a reunion like just a couple weeks ago and i was there and i was like oh shit like it's 1993 again like let's go yeah it's uh it's good for you it's great i'm glad you've still got your mussels you know but uh yeah so so in in all that sort of uh those attempts at the attempts at writing songs and good songs getting them recorded was extremely difficult

for us in those days because it was a it was a very costly venture and we didn't have laptops that can sort of emulate a multi-million dollar studio you had to go into a multi-million dollar studio

which meant you know everybody had to have a job everybody had to sort of So you self-financed the inhuman condition? Well no I got lucky, actually.

Jordan Zadarozny, who was in a band called Blink of the Star, and he is Blink of the Star, he was a friend of my manager, Dave, and he said that I could come out to his parents' place in Pembroke, Ontario, and he had a recording

set up in the basement of their house. So I got on the Greyhound bus and went out there, and we recorded a bunch of songs, amongst which are Brother Down and Don't Walk Away. I think two massive Canadian radio hits. I mean, at the time, I was listening to 102.1, and I think they had a rule. Like, you were going to hear Brother Down or Don't Walk Away,

I think, every hour. Yeah. Amazing. That was the end of payola. How much of that cost exactly but yeah so we recorded in the basement on wow and uh jordan was the one who who made those recordings and gave life to this band and somebody named his name's matt lemay and he worked for the diabetes association of, uh, in Pembroke,

Ontario, but he would come to the recording sessions and he was always, he was a great house guest. He'd always bring a, you know, two, four, uh,

of beer and just sit there quietly while we're recording. And he took two burned copies of that, what became the inhuman condition. And he sent it off to the radio stations in Ottawa. And there were two competing radio stations. There was XFM and there was The Bear. And for whatever reason, the guy actually, because most of the time this stuff gets tossed in the garbage, you know?

I mean, it's like an unsolicited demo from an independent band just doesn't get played on commercial radio. But the DJ listened to it, heard Brother Downs, like, I'm going to play that song. Wow. And started playing it. Do you remember the DJ's name? No, I can't remember.

It's okay. I wouldn't know the name just for people in Montreal. Ottawa. Ottawa, yeah. And again, another weird twist in the story is like,

how is it that our career started in Ottawa? You know? It's a midway point between the center of the universe, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and home in Montreal. It's Ottawa.

Yeah. Wow. We're forever indebted to that, Ontario, Canada, and home in Montreal. It's Ottawa. We're forever indebted to that city, you know, and to those DJs at the Bear and XFM who ended up in a duel who can play this song off this demo more times. And then it sort of spread into Canada and we signed with an independent label called Maple Music here in Toronto.

And that's, you know, Linda Bush signed us to a publishing deal and next thing you know, we're on this sort of bucking bronco. Next thing you know, it's, we were born in a flame

and this is one of the big jams off We Were Born in a Flame. Give it a moment. I gotta say, I'm a big fan of your music, man. I think it holds up, too. Still sounds great in the cans here. Yeah, these are great headphones. No, great music.

I'll take partial credit I think it's your music that makes the headphones great but you won a Caspi award we talk a lot about that station on this program so I need to just do you remember did you attend the Caspis that year? yeah we played at the Caspis a few times

the last time was pretty the first time we performed as well and and the last time was a pretty, no, the first time we performed as well. And the last time, yeah, it was a few years ago. But just huge supporters of the band. Like I said, it started in Ottawa, but it kind of spread like wildfire. And next thing you know, we're getting played,

you know, on CFNY in Toronto and Shom picked it up in Montreal. K-Rock in Kingston. I like this part here. Where did that come from? Do you remember? You don't remember. No, no idea.

I'm not a clue. You know, we recorded the demo for all these songs. The keyboard player in our band, Eric Fares, had this very small apartment. But he's literally the most generous person in the world. And he volunteered to build his bed up on stilts. So that his head was literally about seven inches below the ceiling of his room. And then we built this little makeshift studio underneath his bed and we recorded all these songs uh yeah canadian rock and roll man welcome to being a canadian

rock star it was very much it was very much that you know and uh but just throwing a bunch of paint at the wall and i remember when we were when we were like recording this song we'd gone out to see this band called super furry animals this wel this Welsh band, and just loved it. And that's with the keyboard. It sounds like a guitar in a lot of the songs, but it's actually a really heavily distorted synthesizer. And we'd been blown away by the way they were using these really dirty synths in their show.

And that's kind of how it found its way into the song. All right, here we are talking with a Canadian rock star, but there's a big fucking Canadian rock band I want to ask you about. And just like I'd say about a month or so ago, a gentleman from this band sat in the very seat you're sitting at and we had a nice long chat and you came up in this conversation so I pulled a clip so I'd like you to listen

I'm letting you wrap up where have all the good people gone, I'm going to ask you to listen closely to this couple minutes with a FOTM, that's a friend of Toronto Mike, you're now an FOTM Sam welcome to the club, okay, let's listen that was one of the best things about the whole experience is that we got to bring bands.

Um, and you know who opened for us the most? Uh, can I get the most shows? I'm the watchman. Nope. But, uh,

Sam Roberts, Sam Roberts. And they told me, um, the last time we played with them was their 93rd time opening for us it was an outdoor show

in Montreal and I was like seriously anyway 93 times I got on my second guess because I have seen Sam Roberts

many times you know I try to keep up with you guys but Stephen Dame there's a name you know right Stephen Dame this is not the first up with you guys. But Stephen Dame, there's a name you know, right? Stephen Dame, this is not the first time

you're hearing the name Stephen Dame. He writes... I do, yeah. So you mentioned Sam Roberts. He's a smart guy, yeah. After the hip ended, Paul gifted one of his most iconic, to us hip nerds anyways,

guitars to Sam Roberts. Sam would often tell the story before using it on stage, as he did at the CNA band shell in 2017. Did Paul ever gift any other guitars or offer any advice to any other Canadian rockers? It's a great question. Uh,

yeah, I don't think I ever gifted any other guitars. Um, I, if I ever gave advice to any budding Canadian rockers, um, I don't remember. I would have said you're better out of it.

You know, don't do it. Um, but no, I don't think, uh, yeah, you know,

I mean, actually the only advice I think I consistently gave was you have to get along, you have to get lucky that it's the right people. And if it's the right people, then you just need to work on, you know, making decisions together because that's the toughest part of it is, is you have to, and especially scheduling and everyone wants a life and all that kind of stuff. is you have to, and especially scheduling,

and everyone wants a life and all that kind of stuff. So I know we just got very lucky that we stayed on the same page through kids and tours and recording, and just all that we were able to figure out gradually, and we stayed great friends. So that's our biggest achievement. What do you remember about being gifted this guitar from Paul Langlois, the Tragically Hip? And then, of course, I need to know,

just talk to me about Gore Downey and the Tragically Hip. That's 93 times you opened for these guys. That's wild. That's right. Yeah. Paul's a beautiful guy, as anybody who's ever met him knows. And that guitar was actually called the National Guitar.

And it was made from this old maple tree that had come down in a storm here in Toronto. It was an oak tree. No, it's not an oak. You wouldn't make a guitar out of a... Yeah, it was exactly like the Natural. And I'm Robert Redford. Yeah, you do look a bit like him.

You're like if Ben Rayner and Robert Redford. Yeah, you do look a bit like him. You're like Ben Rayner and Robert Redford had a baby. Or no, I'm Wilford Brimley. You won't get any older. You are never going to die. Yeah. I love, by the way, I don't know if there was a free preview

of like the movie channel or something because we never had the movie channel growing up, but there was a free preview and I recorded the Nash, uh, the natural and I watched it a million times. So Sam finished this story about the hip,

but I'm just going to warn you. We're not being robbed right now. Cause somebody's coming down. This is, uh, I know what's going on. Just, you have to trust me.

You have to trust your podcast host. Somebody's coming down to say hello to you right now. Let's see what's going on. Hey, what are you doing here come on hello okay this is a moment i should do play by play here there's a big hug here okay amy don't hit your head oh yeah i warned you hi we're telling hip stories amy milan has just walked in and amy mil, it's amazing. Everything happens in the Tova Cove.

I didn't know. Right? No, he didn't know. I kept him in the dark. You, okay. Stick goes on. Okay, sure. You told me, he told me you were going to be here.

That's why I was bugging you about Dream Serenade. Well, Amy texts me once every 18 months. And it happened to be two days ago. You know? And she's like, are you going to be? That's not a coincidence okay so well now okay let me hear amy hi okay so uh get comfy uh yeah just project towards that mic okay so please amy you talk people are sick of my voice

talk to sam like how do you know each other i don't know chad okay this is a really this is actually a really funny story and i think it might be 20 years ago this year 2003 right yeah south by southwest we were we had the same lawyer and we were at the breakfast place that time that closed that awesome that had the hibiscus drinks anyway uh so he was sitting on one side of our lawyer and then it was a lawyer and then it was me and then she was like,

oh, have you met Sam? And I said, oh no. And I was like, wow, he's really good looking. And Murray Lightburn was sitting on the other side of me who's been friends with you for like years. And I turned to Murray

who I was already friends with and I said, wow, Murray, that Sam guy's really good looking. And he's like, uh, Sam's really good looking. Sam's really good looking. He got super jealous really's really good looking he got super jealous really fast so anyway you never say that to murray well i learned that day yes he was very jealous of uh anyway that's where we met that was 2022

oh my god some more sorry because i remember i remember that we're we're going through a bit of a retrospective here and we had two of the most disastrous shows ever performed at South by Southwest and we lost a record deal we lost we didn't gain one we lost a record deal see this is the story I need here Sam okay we were we had we had real like for the first time ever we had legitimate interest from from a record label and so when I was at that breakfast thing if I was smiling I was faking it because I did seem a little i was like a little upset i was gonna say i was off right and we just had these two super shitty shows and this guy who'd been courting us we'd never been courted by this is after the inhuman condition this is right before right before right before so we would

have been march south by zoom what's march march yeah So it would have been March. South by the zoo in what? March? March, yeah. So it would have been in March of the same year. Okay. So we went from, so this is fire number three. We're talking all the fires. Taking notes. The rejections that led to fuel. And look at us now. Exactly.

Here we are in Etobicoke. To his basement. We're the same age too, you know? Amy had the best 40th birthday party that I've ever been to. It was pretty legendary. It was. And Amy, where do you call home right now? Montreal.

We live in the same town. But he lives like in the, like a Tobacco of Montreal, basically. I live on like. That's why it feels so at home here. I'm like, where do I sign up, man? This is perfect. I live like more like the cabbage town. Okay.

So my daughter's living in the Plateau neighborhood of Montreal. You could call it the Plateau. What is it called? Is it not called the Plateau? Well, you could call it the Plateau, but it's the Plateau. Plateau. Not the Plateau. Not like the Esplanade.

Well, it's now the Plateau, for sure. Not like the Esplanade. It's just become the... You know, my ignorance comes naturally. I have no idea what I'm talking about. I live on the Plateau. Yeah. I also live there.

The Plateau. The Plateau. Okay, the Plateau. Okay, only because that's where i'm going to visit her because she's renting you're going to go home and you're going to be like oh the plateau finally home home in the plateau is it the beach beaches no i'm always picking on us toronto people come on all right so amy you chime in anytime you want because um obviously we're going to, for people listening right now, there'll be a standalone Amy Milan episode

that we'll record after the episode whenever I have to dismiss Sam Roberts. But Amy, you're like my co-host now. Anything you want to say? You just spit it into my mouth. I want to say congratulations on your beautiful album. Thank you. The songs that have been out are so gorgeous

and your video that Kevin drew. Yeah, I can watch it it's too emotional it's beautiful you know and i yeah it's just um it's so great you're still making amazing beautiful music it's wonderful likewise thanks let's just talk about each other hey how's the sycophantic uh yeah the sycophantic is there any chance sam because you know when uh when hayden puts on his dream serenity a special guests any chance you're a special guest? I'm not. That's why Amy texts me. I'm not.

I have to go back home and tomorrow and work. And tomorrow night's dream serenade. But yeah. We also had children around the same. So my eldest is three weeks around your youngest. Exactly. Yeah. Delphine is 12. around your youngest. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Delphine is? 12. Yeah. So I was. So she started high school too. Yeah. How's that going? No.

She's always been in high school since she was two. Yeah. But so I remember playing and I was super pregnant. And your lovely wife, Jen, was there super pregnant. Yeah. And then she was yelling at you at the end of the night. Let's go. Sam night let's go sam let's go but i think she had the baby like three days later and so did you almost yes i did yeah amy is one of those musicians who just doesn't know when to stop you know and played right through her pregnancy right to literally to the end yeah i

did that with my second also. And I was really hoping that he would just come early. So I was jumping up and down and all the people were like very concerned for me. But yeah, our Christmas shows, I was so pregnant, oh my God. But you know, it got a rock. Yeah.

So Sam, I need to know a reaction. Like how surprised were you when you saw, oh, there's Amy, like from Stars and- Well, I saw the boots and reaction. How surprised were you when you saw, oh, there's Amy from Stars? Well, I saw the boots and I was like, this could be anybody. We have to paint the picture of like, wait, you see, we're in the basement. And I'm looking at your Jason from Friday the 13th mask, you know, always slightly, my eye keeps going to it. And then I look up the stairs and there's this sort of silhouette against the door

and then these black boots walk in. I was like, geez, a mystery. I was very excited to surprise you. That's why I didn't repeat anything. Well, after this episode, we'll get a quick photo of you guys by the famous tree and stuff. And then Amy can reset and then we'll do her up. Love that. Back to back.

Amazing. Canadian rock royalty in the basement. I love it so much. All right. So, yeah, Amy, anytime you want to back. Amazing. Canadian rock royalty in the basement. I love it so much. All right. So, and yeah, Amy,

anytime you want to interject, please, but Sam, please, I need the, the tragically hip, we were talking about Gord Downie and the tragically hip. So we were talking about the guitar.

So the national guitar came to be known, was gifted to me by Paul Angua. And then after a year, I gave it to Leslie Feist. Wow. I just always loved the way she played guitar. And she's the only person other than Gord to be the lead singer for a Tragically Hip performance.

Is that right? I didn't know that. At the Junos. Yeah. Amy knows. Yeah. So that's it. There's been two lead singers for the Tragically Hip.

That's amazing. The first time I ever saw Feist, she wasn't singing. She was in By Divine Right, and it was a street concert, and she was just playing guitar. And I was like, wow, who is that unbelievable firecracker of a woman? And then I heard her sing. I was like, oh. And she does that too.

And she does that too. So Leslie Feist now has that guitar, unless she's passed it on to somebody. No, I think Leslie would have passed that guitar unless she's, no, I think Leslie would have passed that on to. We got to like track this thing. No, just wouldn't that be great. No,

I did. I did, but I was hoping I don't care about the circle. That's the way I want the story to go. That Amy pulls out the guitar and says, are you talking about this? The national guitar. But yeah,

it's a, it's a, that that's, it all started with Paul and it was obviously a big honor for him to you know. Now that part of the combo that we played just before Amy got here from Paul Langlois is

because the story was basically how well the Tragically Hip would treat their opening acts. So maybe you can speak to that as the person who opened the most often for the Tragically Hip. How were you treated by Gord and the guys? Yeah, the same from show one to show 93. We didn't have to, there was no sort of honeymoon or courtship period where they had to sort of learn to trust us and, and, you know, know that we were, you know, going to be able to go out there and, and play a show, but also be respectful of the environment. You know, all the

things that the relationship between a band and an opening band have to, you know, you have to sort of establish these things on the road. And we were, to be honest, on our best behavior all the time. But I think taking notes too, you know, it was definitely,

and they would never put it this way. I don't want to put words in anyone from the hip smelt, but for us, it was an apprenticeship. It felt that way. I don't want to put words in anyone from the hip's mouth, but for us it was an apprenticeship. It felt that way. And an apprenticeship in terms of how do you play a show that feels better than the show that you played the night before every single day, which is exactly how I felt on, again, show 93. It's like how is it that they keep putting more out there?

Where does the energy come from? Where does the passion come from? And that's a huge lesson for a young musician and by show 93 we'd already been playing we had now sort of gone off onto our you know in our own uh on our own sort of path but that path would constantly sort of inter be interwoven with the path of the hip and um so it always still felt like this great opportunity to watch the way they played the way they treated their bands we tried to take that sort of lesson along the you know on our own yeah exactly i don't think we've ever or if it's even possible to quite get to that place uh that they do because it just comes so naturally to them.

But yeah, I mean, it was just a beautiful way to start our journey. And yeah, we were scared shitless, to be honest, the first 20 or so times because you don't know if you're going to be able to measure up to the, to the moment. And that's, again, that's a lesson in and of itself. Amy. I was going to say about the hip that I, we've opened for them a couple of times and they're,

they love music. Like all of them just really love music. It's, it's pretty extraordinary like Robbie we were backstage after the show or whatever and he was like he said weren't you in 16 tons how do you know that exactly not only that that was my very first band that never made a record I I did a demo at bathhouse so i think that and patrick was involved in anyway and then he goes and he pulls out his ipod and he goes i have it right here it's like i got 16 tons on my ipod i was like i can't my mind's crazy so crazy yeah just an incredible bunch of guys do you have

you ever won a juno amy no no no no no oh I guess broken social scene that's sort of yeah kind of yeah yeah that counts yeah I was on stage yeah I did you get one like did you get a physical I did I did and it was really funny because I was wearing this shirt that had all these fringes like I'm into the cowgirl stuff so I was cowgirl a lot of these fringes and I went to hug Jeffrey Remedios and then I got completely caught up in his buttons and everyone was walking to the stage. I was like, I gotta go. And I couldn't unravel myself from him. It was so embarrassing. Now, Sam, we were born in a flame.

There's a whack of Junos here, right? You got album of the year, rock album of the year, and you were the Juno winner of artist of the year. Where are these Junos today? They are in our living room for my children to see nice at any angle that they sit or stand and when so that they can remember that their dad is not just a chauffeur and a bank and i'm a award winner amazing How many kids you got? I have three. Okay. What are the age ranges here?

Just give me a taste. 16. Going on 42. 14. Going on 36. And 12. Going on nine. And Amy, how many kids do you have?

I have two. I have a 12-year-old, as discussed earlier, and a six-year-old. Old mom. Old mom. Okay. I got a seven-year-old. very cute and they're very nice now someone on vacation once asked me it was a french woman and she's like i was like we're not gonna be friends that's funny yeah yeah it's real sweet we're getting to that point though it's gonna be's going to be very gray out there. What I told my mom that, my mom was like, well, Amy, you could be.

I was like, it's true. I was 43. Thanks, Mom. Yeah, thanks, Mom. Moms are great for that stuff. Oh, my God. Your mom is the most charming person I've ever met. I saw a great one the other day.

It's like, if your mom isn't the most annoying person in the world, is she really your mom? That really works for my daughter, for sure. Oh, amazing. Here, let me thank some sponsors really quickly here. Amy, this will give you a sneak preview of what's to come for you. And Amy, did you want a cold beer?

Is it cold? So I know I would run up and get you one while I play the next song or whatever. Do you want me to grab you a cold beer? Because I'll do it in a moment, right after I say hello to some people. So I will do that. Cause I can already tell the hesitation means yes. Okay.

So thank you. Great lakes beer. Thank you. Palma pasta. Thank you. Maneras. The latest season, season five of yes,

we are open is now available wherever you get your podcasts. So make sure you subscribe to yes, we are open. Love the moment here. Yeah. I know you two kiss and do all your things montreal uh represent i love it so much to two of my favorite musical artists together in the basement love it so much shout out to raymond james canada their podcast is called the advantaged

investor you can also subscribe to that right now and a couple of quick websites one is pumpkins after dark.com get your ticket to this award-winning event in Milton, Ontario, because tis the season. It only runs through Halloween. And recyclemyelectronics.ca. That's where you go to find out where you can drop off your old electronics to be properly and safely recycled.

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. I'm going to play a little song here. Then we're going to get back to the chat. You too. Your mics are open. You can talk throughout this song. But here's a little song here and then we're going to get back to the chat. You two, your mics are open. You can talk throughout this song. But here's a little more Sam Roberts. Just because I fucking love this song.

And I'm going to grab a beer for Amy and we're going to pick it up on the other side here. One second. Our mics are open, Amy. You know how many times I've blown that leap? Honestly. Like every single time. Why do you get used to doing it?

Sometimes I do it and I'll make a really, really bad mistake, but then I'll do the same mistake twice because it makes it sound intentional. It's a classic move. Classic move, yeah. But really bad. Not just a little tiny one. I've got to tell you something. I'll tell you about this.

Yeah. I was actually, he invited me to do this. He said, I'm in a turbo car something. I'm going to tell you about this. Yeah. I was actually, he invited me to do this. He said, I'm in Etobicoke. And I was like, how am I going to get to Etobicoke? And I was like, why don't you come to my hotel? And he's like, okay, well, I'll try to rush down there, but I'm with Sam Roberts. Right before. And I was like, oh, I'll come to Etobicoke.

I was like, no problem. I'll be there. I'll just, great. Perfect. See you in Etobicoke. So thank you, Sam, because it saved me a trip. I know. You're welcome.

I used you as bait. It worked. I just found at the beginning, you're going to find out. Have you been on the show before? No. So you're going to be episode 1,348. This is 1,347. So I was automatically insulted that it took that many.

I'm just getting to Montreal now. I had to work my way through TTA okay Amy are you a logger lady or are you an IPA gal I'm gonna say logger

yeah man yeah I mean it's really good oh you can have both thank you Great Lakes for fueling yeah the real time

we couldn't have done this without you this ship would have gone off cheers on your new record thank you cheers cheers Mike cheers We couldn't have done this without you. This ship would have gone off. Cheers on your new record. Thank you. Cheers.

Cheers, Mike. Cheers. Amazing. Them kids. This was a big... I guess now we fast forwarded a little bit because Chemical City also kicks ass. I should have played Bridge to Nowhere, but I was told I didn't have unlimited time.

That won the Juno for Video of the Year in 2007. This is A Love at the End of the World. Came out in 2008. Number one on the Canadian album chart. This was a big jam. You won another Juno. How many Junos do you have, Mr. Roberts? I think six

or seven. Because you got rock album of the year. For this one, and I think we won artist of the year for this one again. It must be nice to be so successful. What does it feel like? What is it like, Sam, to be so successful?

Well, yeah. I mean, now, it's like, jeez, that was a long time ago. Still, they're on the shelf. Okay, they're on the shelf. Yes.

And you wear it like a, you know, you wear it around, I guess, in the sense that whenever we're introduced, people mention that. And, you know, of course, you know in the sense that whenever we're introduced people mention that and you know of course you should continue to celebrate that but there's a psychological

sort of flip side to all of that which is like okay so what about everything that we've done since then you know how does that how does that factor into the picture or people do people just sort of instant you know automatically look back at that and sort of say well that defined everything because i reject that wholeheartedly and i have to as you know amy in order to keep going in order to keep making you know making new music that has any meaning whatsoever and so you have to sort of hold that in the right place, in your mind. Other people, you can't sort of script what they're going to do with it, but for myself anyway, it has to stay very much sort of behind plexiglass.

I have a question. I was going to ask Amy about this, but maybe I'll ask it twice, and Amy, you can chime in on this too, but the landscape has changed so much. Like nowadays it's all streaming. I've had many artists tell me how they make like Starbucks money from the streams and I'm not sure. I don't think that works in an artist's favor. But like

how is it becoming more and more difficult to make a living as a Canadian rock star? One million percent. I mean we have, you probably have a, do you have a platinum record? Yeah. Wow.

God. Jeez. Look at that. That's amazing. I'm just, cause we have a gold one, which is pretty, for set yourself on fire.

But you know, those days it was when you sold records and you made 50% of the money. Yeah. It was good. Nice times. I was like, Oh, this is my life now it was way better

yeah it was way better i'm hoping you two like maybe a frank discussion for us normies who don't know like we just assume you're driving around and you're don't people get bored of that and i feel like everybody knows like oh no i don't think so really i think i don't think snoop Snoop Dogg's talking about it. Okay. Well, Snoop ain't here, man. Maybe revisit some of the highlights for those who might be a little ignorant as to how difficult a landscape it is in 2023 for artists like yourselves. Amy, I'll let you start.

Oh, thanks. Really? That's so gracious of you. You know, well, I will just quote Snoop Dogg. It's not adding up man the math just ain't adding up there's billions of streams but there's not billions of dollars so is that a good snoop dogg not really oh it's like who does that sound like you know it sounds like matthew mcconaughey sounds like amy when she's had way too much to drink yeah it's like all right all right

all right it was a bit of McConaughey. It was, yeah, a bit of Snoop for sure. I think more than anything, it's really less, you know, whatever you have to hustle, you've always had to hustle. But it's more about the like content. Like get on the internet

and be like, hi everybody. But you know, like look at, there's people who are really good at it. Jen Grant, she's amazing. She always like gets up there. She's so charming. I'm like, what's my problem? I'm just like, Murray does it a lot, you know? But who are really good at it. Jen Grant, she's amazing. She always like gets up there. She's so charming. I'm like, what's my problem? Just like Murray does it a lot, you know?

But they are really good at it. And we were talking about this earlier, sort of how, what, you know, what part of your personality does sharing everything fall into, you know, for me, it's zero. Like I'm just, it's not me. I will come on and talk to- Have a conversation.

It's different. I can have a conversation, but I can't just get up there in front of the camera and sell this. Looking back, you watch Beatles. Get back. No, just watching the Beatles interviews and that. But again, interviews. They were always on.

There was a theatrical component to the way they sort of sold the idea. It was a monoculture, though. Everybody was tuning in to watch Ed Sullivan or whatever on a Sunday. No, but I just mean even in their interviews. They were always hamming it up. There was always sort of some other element about, you know, oh, here's this one's personality, here's that one's personality. I really struggle with that.

And in this landscape, that that's a not a great um you know trait well and also we grew up in a time where there was like there was something about that was great about mystique yeah and there's like there's none of that anymore you don't want any of it you're like i just went to the bathroom like people want to know like every single solitary i don't know about you but i'm still hooked on that idea yes very much so it's like the barrier has to exist removing yourself uh again unless we're having a meaningful conversation then just don't say anything or don't say much you know and that because the people that i grew up admiring that was very much there well in some ways there you know this is such a different time because in time, if you sold a song to a commercial,

it was a sellout move. Total sellout. And now everything feels like a commercial. I'm like, take it. Were you selling washing machines, man? Yeah, I know. Exactly. I got a song for you.

I'm like, why isn't Ageless Beauty in a Revlon campaign? Like, what is that? But when I joined Stars, I was like, I won't join this band if we're going to put songs on commercials. And they were like, never. But now everything's a commercial. You have to be your own commercial so it's just such a different mentality of what it is to be an artist really what because because you need to eat right like you need to feed your family

but the problem is that all of this doesn't necessarily amount to being able to feed your family you do all this stuff but again it's just throwing a bunch of shit against the wall. You have no idea what is going to come back to you in the form of something tangible. So there's this part of it where you're like, at what point do I say, all right, enough is enough. My self-respect has to come into play here. There's an integrity component to being a musician that you have to respect.

But it's a luxury that's it's really hard to sort of define at that point like when you've crossed the line and what what what's your threshold like what are you able to sort of stomach and it you know for me it's not much to be honest again i'm not in the business here but is the bulk of the money coming from touring like is it basically like your fans buying a ticket to see you live? Is that where it comes from? Yeah, for sure. If you're lucky enough to get played on commercial radio,

definitely that helps to supplement. If you can find a way to get your song on a TV show. But the thing is that the competition, and touring obviously, but the competition for touring is so intense it's so fierce and also your ability to be strategic about when and how often you tour which used to be very much chained to the album cycle so it's important to sort of see it as an ecosystem you put out an album it you know it takes time to make the album during that time while you're making the album you're not not touring. You're not thinking about playing shows.

You're thinking about writing music, but also you're letting the soil sort of regain some of its nutrients, you know? And then you can go out and tour. Now we have to tour all the time to pay the bills. Oh, and let's throw a little pandemic in there as well. Exactly. Let's throw a two years

where we weren't allowed to even do it. And so then everybody's flooding the gates. All at once. It's just insane. Everybody's out, you know? And and there's as much as we were all sort of counting on people's appetite for live music to be voracious by the time that you know the restrictions were lifted there you know it's there's no way that it could possibly support the demand on the band side because everybody's out all the time i just talked to randy backman and he was saying this like venues can only have one artist a night or whatever and he was talking about you

know trying to make good on gigs that he had planned in like 2020 like the pandemic fucked up like so he was talking about and that's bad that's that's bto's randy backman right like so i'm wondering how difficult it would be for a Sam Roberts band or Stars in 2023. Well, we weathered the storm probably better than most. Not as well as Beyonce or Taylor Swift, but we're still here. It's the bands who were in that sort of incubation, that infancy period, you know, who didn't necessarily have the solid ground.

Like, they're gone. And not just the bands, but the venues. You know, you're referring to venues. The venues have been completely decimated as well. So not only is there a shortage of sort of real estate in terms of, like, the public attention, but there's also finding places to play because you've got every band from everywhere on the road all the time.

Because again, the streaming doesn't pay, uh, selling records doesn't pay. And yeah, I mean, you know what stars did and you guys should do it. We have a Patreon page and it is the best thing we ever did.

And we did it in December of 2019. No, sorry. Yeah. 2019. So when the pandemic hit, we'd already started it. Like we didn't start because of the pandemic.

Sorry. What is it? Patreon is a, it's a, it's like a, you have patrons. So crowdfunding, crowdfunding basically,

but it's, it's, it's per month right so you can have tiered systems but i'm a socialist so i don't believe in that so there's only one tier we do because i don't want to give rich people more things because they have more money um so it's only five bucks to join and then we give them like b-sides or tracks live tracks i've done a bunch of covers that i put on that is only on patreon uh torque djs on weekends for the on zoom and like all the people come and you nurture your fanatics your

your loyal and like actually there's like kind of like maybe maybe out of we have like over a thousand i would say like a hundred are really active with it and most people just want to support us and it's it's the best and it's the best of the internet because all the people there are just there to support you and they're a community within themselves and then they meet each other and they're like yeah well i went to this show and this is where we met there and like this was my favorite thing they have discussions it's it's amazing i'll send you a link i highly recommend well yeah i mean it's crazy love this collaboration you learn these things all the time

how are people getting by like you said the math Snoop says leave that for Amy she's the Snoop impression you should hear me do a Scottish accent I thought that Snoop was it does really sound like it's really bad

alright Sam again I gotta be respectful of your time here. And there are two specific songs I want to ask you about. But three quick hits. One is Al wrote in and goes, when he heard you were coming on, Al is a listener and says, nice, I saw him at the George Street Festival last summer

in St. John's, Newfoundland. Great show. So Al enjoyed you in Newfoundland. Thank you, Al. George Street, one of a kind. Shout out to George Street. Absolutely. Okay, and then a note came in from Laura to say,

Sam played my Frosh Week at Western. What was the wildest, weirdest university set that Sam Roberts' band ever played? We did Western. Is that it? Literally. They're all partiers. I've never seen more crowd surfing in my entire life

than at the Frosh Week at Western University. It's going to make Laura's day. It was unbelievable. Here's my question. What's the difference between Sam Roberts and the Sam Roberts band? That's my question here. Was it just a branding thing? It's the same deal.

Amy's known us since the beginning too and Amy can attest to the fact and anybody who's ever been close to our band knows that, yes, my name was on it, but there are five people in the band and they're all, yeah, they play huge roles in what we do. And they're also, you know, big personalities. Do you want to name them? Shout them out here?

Absolutely. David Nugent Nuge Plays Nuge A.K.A. Nuge Nuge He plays lead guitar Background vocals

At my birthday party My 40th birthday party I think he was the last one there And I think he left with no shoes No, no He's done He's done more Sort of

Diplomacy work On behalf of our band Around the world Than anybody else for sure. Just some music in the background while you name check the members of your band here, just because I do love this song very much. We're all in this together. Keep going, my brother. So yeah, on drums, Josh Traeger, he is the newest member of the band.

He's only been with us for 20 years. And he, yeah, if he played played hockey he'd be a goalie and um a lot of canadian rock stars are goalies yeah especially drummers yeah but uh james hall who again is my childhood friend we grew up one street over from each other in point claire on the island of montreal and i guess if you look if we look back at our sort of BMX years we never would have imagined doing the kind of things that we you know do together for a living and so it's pretty surreal to share this kind of life with somebody that you've known for all of it and Eric Fares again beautiful guy beautiful soul and insists on having more

keyboards than is probably necessary and he plays, it's like an octopus watching him play I just don't quite, none of us can quite figure out and we're like, it's okay if we don't represent everything that happens on an album

on stage, but no he's gonna do it all. Replace him with Ableton. We've tried. If he ever needs a day off. Just kidding, I love you. My buddy Rob Proust will take the gig. He was a keyboardist for Spoons during their glory years in the mid-80s.

Well, Eric has a massive revenge streak in him for all of his docile, beautiful nature. So let's erase that from the record okay otherwise it'll be a bit of a vendetta coming up oh my goodness alright so the two songs I said when Sam Roberts

was visiting I'm like oh I get to finally ask him about two songs and they're not actually Sam Roberts or Sam Roberts band songs here so first one

I hope I know them well you will know them because you're on them you're a featured artist on both of them. But here's one I wanted to ask you about for many years actually. So this is Dirty Water

by chaos. Alright, okay, yeah Alright, okay, yeah Alright, okay, yeah At the age of 18, came on the scene clean Now I know what pain means, spent time in the darkest places Beautiful faces in a dark oasis, trying to take this to the full extent Am I real? Heaven sent, clock, cancer, my alter ego You guys should switch roles. Like you come in and do his part. I love being the Flava Flava of this band.

Yeah, the hype man. I love this song, man. I love it. I love the blend of you two talented Canucks. How did this come together? How did this come to be? You mentioned Linda Bush, who we signed our first publishing contract with. She also signed Chaos.

And she thought, hey, I think you guys would get along. We kind of hung out a few times. After hip shows, she brought him out. And we got to know each other, and we kind of just clicked. And he said, I'm coming to Montreal. We're going to record a trap together. And I'd never done any sort of hip-hop, anything at that point. But also, which means that I don't know how it works.

What are the mechanics of recording a hip-hop song? I had no idea. So we go to this random studio I'd never been to before. And he's like, just show up with a couple of ideas. So that song, what you're hearing me sing, is actually a song that I had written and recorded completely for a pre-career, pre-remuneration phase of our career. Okay.

So I go in and start playing this thing, and Kevin falls asleep on the couch for nine hours. No joke. Because he's a night owl. He's like up all night and he's like,

I'm there. So I'm like, I'm looking back and he would just kind of like... When was the last time you parents had a nine hour uninterrupted sleep? I don't remember.

Never, right? Again, I'm post-sleep now. We've reached that phase of our lifespan our of our life of our lifespan but uh no so he's just he's sleeping on the couch and he'd lift up his sunglasses and once in a while i'd be like yo yo that sounds amazing and i'm like are you listening to what i'm doing because it's i don't know what he's like i'm gonna flip he says i'm gonna flip that shit later.

I don't know what that means, but it sounds cool. So anyway, when this came back, it sounded completely different than anything else that I could possibly have thought it was going to be. But it worked. It was the most beautiful sort of random musical experience. Okay, I'm so glad I held on to that question for a couple of decades. Amazing. One more here, and then we'll set you free. But I do want to get a photo of you two together outside at the tree.

But there's another song I need to ask you about. Maestro Fresh West. Once again, once again, it's history repeating once again We both walked through the valley of the shadow of doubt Whatever happened to the magic is tragic, I can't imagine them out Can't imagine you left, packed your bags in your jet Gradually made incompatible steps, yes We thought that we would live and die together And this was just a trial and error The sole errors on the trial, both kept it in denial Another lesson for the found, now weeks pass, the phone starts ringing

We both feeling lost when the old thoughts winning I'm just tired of your tears, I'm just trying to be clear If it's over, tell me why you lying with me here Oh, I know, you think I'm being misleading once again Oh, I know, It's history repeating once again. Here it goes. You think I've been deceiving once again. Oh, I know.

It's history repeating once again. Once again. That's the absolute uppermost part of my register, by the way. I don't think I could do that today. That was my next question. Could you please try to do that for me that sounds great you know it sounds fucking great and i always liked it when like rock and rap kind of came together like chocolate and peanut butter it's always been my fave but how does this like what maestro called you up and said i like what you did with chaos maybe maybe i'd be like for five minutes I was the go-to guy if you needed a rock and roll collaboration.

But it's more of, you know, in my mind, I'm like, okay, well, I've done this before. At that point, I think Chaos and I had, we had two songs out together. And I was like, I could do this. But then I realized that I'd grown up listening to Maestro Fresh Wes. Do you know the words to let your backbone slide? Back in the day, for sure.

I definitely did, you know. But it was more nerve-wracking than I thought it was. In the sense that sometimes when you have these sort of full circle moments, it hits you harder than you realize it will. Again, in the 1980s, I was an impressionable young, I can't even say aspiring musician at that time, but the maestro was everywhere. Back in those days, the heyday of much music and watching those videos. Hip-hop in my world anyway was still you know

a new thing and i was really into it and all of a sudden i found myself singing on a track and i was like and you know just make this good so that's how i hit the high notes scared just scared absolutely again it's great so was this a song that pre-existed this like where does this song come from this was you know I

I can't even remember if I had to come up with that part or they said do something they wanted me to play guitar too

you know so I played some guitar on it as well which I really love you know the fact that there's this sort of acknowledgement not just that you're a voice behind something but there's fact that there's a sort of acknowledgement not just

that you're a voice behind something but there's other parts of your sort of musical vocabulary they want to incorporate into it but uh i didn't meet maestro until we were shooting a video together so i i recorded my bit in montreal with a friend of mine who also grew up joe donovan you know who also grew up you know having listened to ma also grew up having listened to Maestro Fresh West. And so all of a sudden we're both nerding out the fact that we're doing this thing. But I never met the guy until we shot a video together. He's a sweetheart too.

He's a super nice guy. Here's the full circle moment. So you talked about your plane, I guess, chaos took a nine-hour nap on the couch or whatever. The first time Maestro dropped by, he's sitting where you are, and he closed his eyes during the chat. And I actually think he took a nine-hour nap.

But somehow, even in his sleep state, he could kind of respond and answer my question. But he definitely closed his eyes. And I had this moment of like, oh, fuck, I'm boring my hero to tears here. It was a moment of like, I love this guy. You see here, this is the 12 inch I bought in 1989. It's pretty amazing.

You know, and he signed it in 2016. But I was a big Maestro fan like you were and like, oh, I put the man to sleep like I suck.

You know? Yeah, there's no worse feeling in the world. I know, but that happened. I did the same thing to Chaos. I was like, oh great,

this friendship's over. I put Maestro to sleep. Not Maestro, but Ian Borton. I was, you know, he was slapped a lot ever put Maestro to sleep not Maestro but Ian Borton I was you know he slept a lot during the recording of my record

and I would be like he's just what the hell's going on I have more Ian questions for you in episode 1340 did he say he was gonna flip that shit later or what

but he wouldn't lift his song as long as he'd be asleep his eyes would be closed and then all of a sudden he'd go snare needs to come up like he was 100

present and listening and like would have notes like but i would like out of the blue yeah it's like so jarring micro napping or something like that maybe yeah i don't know by the way the man who produced his great album smile was my guest yesterday and we had a lot of ian talk on that one but i'm gonna have more with you in the next episode but sam i might have stolen 10 minutes from you. That's like my game plan. But that was awesome. Like this was incredible. And I am so glad you gave me

some time today to chat about your amazing career. Well, thank you again. I will not hold a grudge for being number 1,347. But yeah, it's been great. And it's really nice to see my friend here.

Well, that was the big surprise. We don't get to see each other even though we live in the same city. I know, it's been great. And it's really nice to see my friend here. Well, that was the big surprise. We don't get to see each other. Even though we live in the same city. I know, it sucks. And you live in the plateau. Plateau. Okay, okay. But I want to tell you a really funny story

before we end this. There's one more funny story. So Stars was going to make a TV show. We tried to make a TV show. And we wrote a pilot. And in the pilot, it was about like older rock and rollers like from the times where we it was like gonna be a cover shoot for some like magazine like bringing them all back together and

was going to be like murray was going to be in it and you're you were in the story as like evan being super jealous that you still looked so good i don't know why they didn't i don't know why they didn't sign us they rejected us I don't know it was really funny so we were about to you never know you might be roped in again

I'm looking to diversify yeah well I was talking about the boo-hoo so that at one point you start stealing food from the writer because you're like

I'm also having a hard time over here I love it but you have all your hair that's what everyone is mad at you about in Starz you know why what's going on upstairs with the Star. But you have all your hair. That's what everyone is mad at you about in Starz.

What's going on upstairs with the Starz? Oh, you haven't seen it? There's a lot of spray hair going on right before we get on stage. This is what the listeners come for, man. The good stuff happens about 75 minutes into these chats. That's why I can't do like a 20 minute because the good stuff happens at 75 minutes. Juno Award winning rock act Sam Roberts Band are excited to release

their highly anticipated new album The Adventures of Ben Blank. It's available today, October 20th. Woohoo! Eight, no nine, nine tracks including irresistible melodies, rich harmonies and insightful lyrics with the distinctive

Sam Roberts band sound. Beautiful. That's pretty nice. I wrote that. That was... And that brings us to the end of our 1,340... What did we say? 8 or 7?

7. Amy's going to be number 48. Okay. Got to track this up. 1,347th show. You can follow me on Blue Sky and Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Sam, what's the best way to follow you? Who's managing something where people can find out? Because I know I didn't even get into the details

because I don't think you have them. But, but, but, your 2024 North American tour That's right. kicks off in Montreal on February 2nd and it only makes sense

that some point thereafter you'll end up here in Toronto. Yeah, we'll be here at History in Toronto. Looking forward to it. See you in Montreal at the show, babe.

Okay, can't wait. Amazing. I'd make the drive for that show. But see the Sam Roberts band because they kick ass a big thanks to everyone who helped make this possible that's Great Lakes Brewery

how was your Great Lakes beer? it was fantastic went down like a dream Palma Pasta Raymond James Canada Recycle My Electronics Pumpkins After Dark and Ripley Funeral Home see you all in about 15

minutes when my special guest is Amy Millan from Stars and Broken Social Scene and she has some great solo material and we're going to talk all about it in like, yeah, 15 minutes. See you all then. But the smell of snow warms me today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green

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