Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Sheepdogs: Toronto Mike'd #860

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

Mike chats with Ewan Currie and Ryan Gullen from The Sheepdogs about their Saskatoon origin story, getting on the cover of Rolling Stone, I Don't Know, Feeling Good and their new infectious jam Keep On Loving You.

Welcome to episode 860 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. 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. for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees

from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majewski, or as I call him, Mimico Mike. He's the real estate agent who's ripping up the Mimico real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com. And joining me this week are you and Curry

and Ryan Gullen from the Sheepdogs I've been hanging around gas stations. I've been learning about tires. I've been talking to grease monkeys. I've been working on cars. Who's Josh? I saw a few booze on me too. Running back to Saskatoon. Welcome to the show, guys.

Hey, thanks for having us. Thanks for being here. Yes, sir. Ewan, what are you eating there, buddy? Some toast with peanut butter. Pardon me. I'm done. No chewing on the pot.

That's a hard and fast rule. I think I could live on peanut butter, to be quite honest.. Like if you just give me like a big tub of all natural peanut butter, I think that would subside me quite nicely. I love peanut butter. Yeah. Crunchy or smooth? Oh, well, I prefer crunchy, but I'll go either way. But crunchy, I like to have some of those, you know, the good peanuts in there if I can. Yeah. I feel like, you know, a lot of anybody who eats crunchy will eat smooth, but most people eat smooth, won't eat crunchy. I feel like there's no crossover there. That's right. Yeah. You're right. If you're crunchy, you'll go back. Yeah. Right. But you won't go the other way. You're absolutely right. So let's get the voices just for the podcast

listeners, which is mostly everybody. So Ryan, let's hear your voice. This is Ryan. Hello. Hello. And let's hear Ewan. And I'm Ewan. How are you? Good. Nice. Nice to meet you guys i i wanted to open with uh running back to saskatoon uh you're you would you refer to yourself you're a saskatoon band yeah yeah 100 so saskatoon is where you guys meet and uh and uh i guess I'm curious, like where do we find you today? As I speak to you on zoom, we both live in Toronto.

Ryan, neither Ryan and I were born in Saskatoon, but we both spent most of our lives there and certainly like grew up there and it's our hometown. But for the last several years, we've lived out here in Toronto. Now I will tell you, my first wife was from Saskatoon. So I feel like an honorary...

What do you call yourself? Saskatooners? Saskatonian. Saskatonians. I like Saskatooners better. It's pretty good, yeah. It's one of those things where when you're not... When you're from there, there's a lot of pride that goes along and being like, no, it's Saskatoon. It's Saskatonia, not Saskatoon or is like a classic. Well, I remember like when I was researching Saskatoon back in the day,

the big, the big deal there was John Diefenbaker. Dief the chief is, he's a Saskatoon guy. Yeah. Like his house is still standing and there's like a famous picture of him in front of his house it's like very modest little place yeah my grandpa actually once drove john deepen baker that was like a highlight of his life he got to drive deep he lived in ontario but he uh he was a corrections officer and he got hired to be a driver for john deepen baker to be like security for him but she was like he was, at the time it was a big deal. No, he was like an interesting character.

You know what I mean? Like you can argue like, was he a good prime minister or not? But super interesting guy. Like I think, you know, there's a lot of stories to be written about Dieff the chief. Yeah.

No, I mean, it's like, I think it's a little bit removed. I don't really know enough about him, but he's definitely, it's definitely, I mean, there's lots of people from Saskatoon. Rowdy Rowdy Piper is from Saskatoon, the wrestler. You know what? He's my favorite of all the WWF wrestlers I grew up with.

He's my favorite. And just to tease my episode tomorrow night, I got Stu Stone and Cam Gordon in my backyard tomorrow. We're kicking out our favorite wrestling jams. And For Everybody, which is a cover of a song called Fuck Everybody, was one of my favorite songs on the wrestling album. Produced by,

oh, what's his name? Rock and roll, Rich Derringer. Yeah. No, you're right. Derringer is one of the producers on the wrestling album. Yeah. You're absolutely right.

The great Rick Derringer. Yeah. And who's the guy who wrote all those Bat of the Hell songs for Meatloaf? John, he just passed away, actually. Jim Steinman. He composed that Hulk theme, you know, that dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun-da-dun-dun,

Hulk, Hulk, the Hulk theme. Anyway, that's his jam. He composed that. I was thinking, I am a real American. Right, but that wasn't originally. That was for another guy. I can't remember who they were. That was for a tag team.

And then Hulk took it over somehow, the real American song. But anyway. So what neighborhoods in Toronto are you guys living in these days? I'm in. Go ahead, Ryan. Oh, no i i'm in transition because i'm moving in a in a couple weeks but i'm i'm currently living by high park uh in swansea and i know it well yeah yeah and uh but i'm moving to parkdale next next move is parkdale oh yeah that's i was born at st joe's so oh I know Parkdale. So what neighborhood are you in there, Ewan?

I'm in the beaches, or as people here call it, the beach, I've noticed. Do you find that pretentious, like when someone calls it the beach? Yeah, a little bit. But I also respect the pride that people have in the hood. And I dig it. Yeah, you got to respect the pride. We'll just touch on this briefly. I don't want to dwell on this more than 30 seconds but are like what what nhl hockey team do you guys root for if you follow hockey we had we're a bit of an anomaly because

we're like we we're definitely sports fans but we skew like i'm a football nut like nfl and uh but we skew like I'm a football nut, like NFL and, uh, like hoops and Ryan's a big baseball fan. We're just like, not really hockey guys for whatever reason. I grew up playing hockey. Like I played hockey till I think it was 14 or 15 or something like that.

Uh, and I got out of it and I never, as I got out of playing it for like a good chunk of my life, I like my interest in it just sort of dropped off so well you're lucky you guys are both lucky i'd say yeah i'm pretty aware i'm pretty aware living in this city and what's going on i was the other day i had to wait in line for coffee obviously because it takes forever to get anything done here and i waited like an extra 15 minutes because every single person that went into the coffee shop i could hear them being like oh yeah

you know leaves a fucking leaves and it's just, I really just want my coffee so I can get out of here. A lot of grumbling about, oh, Mitch Marner's got to show up. And where's Marner in the playoffs? A lot of grumbling like that, I'm sure, in the coffee lines. Oh, yeah. No, it was noticeable. Every single person. So I just went in there and got my coffee and got out of there. All right, to get started here, and again, we're going to be all killer, no filler, because we have time constraints.

We're going to do this in 60 minutes or less here. But would you mind giving us the sheepdog's origin story? And make sure that origin story includes the name origin, because later I'm going to tell you about my favorite sheepdog. Sure. We'll tell you how we got our superpowers here. Yeah, your origin story. this is for yeah for marvel yeah yeah uh well so we're uh we're like 19 we're in saskatoon uh we're in that like little zone where you've been out of high school for like a couple years

um but you're still sort of kicking it with the same clicks as always kind of bored by life you know oh is this all that adulthood is going to be so ryan and i are kind of like let's man we want to meet new people we want to do something different in our life you know and so with sam our drummer who still lives in sassoon we just go, all right, let's start a band. I think I had been through my first real big breakup. Ryan had got fired from his prestigious career at Blockbuster Video. I was going to say, that part really dates us because that tells you how long ago that was.

And yeah, so then the three of us, like I had minimal experience on guitar. Sam didn't really know how to play drums. Ryan didn't know how to play bass. And we just kind of like, I think I bought a guitar and then Sam rented drums. Ryan used Sam's old bass. Basically, we just went, all right, we're going to start this band. And like from the first day, we were super focused in a really weird way. And I think the first like 30 days we were, we started this band,

we practiced every single day and you know, we're obviously terrible, but we're super dedicated right away. And I think like there was two days where Sam went away to a lake and Ryan and I still got together and my mom's living room and like sat on her leather couch and we're like playing quietly, you know, together. So we just like had this laser-like focus kind of from like the first, from the get-go. Like hearing you, that organic growth you're describing,

like 99.999% of buddies who get together do what you do, don't end up on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. You know what I mean? Like that's, guys, you guys made it like that's unbelievable. Well, there was a, there's many, many years between what you described and what you described a few, a few, uh, hits and misses that, that took place. But I mean, I think we took it really seriously out of the gate, but at the same time, we didn't take ourselves too seriously. Like, you know, we were in that same place, like anyone would, where they're getting together and, you know, jamming with their buds and stuff like that.

But, you know, as sort of things progressed, and I think we are fortunate, like you had mentioned, we'd never really played with other bands before. And so we were fortunate that we were able to, I don't know, learn how to play and learn what we were doing together. There wasn't a lot of like egos in the mix because we all knew we were crappy so we were just kind of learning together and as a result we kind of grew together but we pretty quickly kind of figured out that we had something going on like there was there was something happening I mean but there was a long time between that and the Rolling Stone thing but you know we we out of the gate took it very seriously and kind of never

stopped and just kind of kept pushing ourselves farther and farther i think the main thing that we knew right away was that we were trying to make music like what we were like we like listening to rock music like credence and zeppelin and stuff like that and we go out to see bands in bars and it would always be like punk bands or ska bands or like like the bands traveling the western circuit you know playing around western canada weren't exactly like our cup of tea so we're just kind of like well let's make our version of this style of rock and we'll go and be that band at least in saskatoon and then we'll just push it as far as we can i'm naturally curious because i did intentionally open up with some guess who because i'm just curious so seeing the success like you have this model of a Prairies band that made it big. Okay. The Guess Who? Right. This is like the rare,

and especially in the 70s, it was a rare example of like a Canadian band that had huge success everywhere. Like how influential, I'm just curious, were you guys listening to the Guess Who growing up in Saskatoon? Were they at all an influence in the sound that you would develop yeah i mean i used to drive around when i was in high school listening to their greatest hits like i was not a cool guy like i mean i'm not like i mean i wasn't listening to like you know limp bizkit or whatever we're just funny we're just talking about limp visit last night i was listening to like you know like like you know 70s rock in high school like like almond brothers like uh because i hear some all my brothers in there go ahead love the almond brothers i got into them a little later but high school was like uh zeppelin and beatles um i

really loved the band chicago because i liked horns so another real cool you know band to be into but yeah guess who I mean I don't know like I I don't know I think I had like this real like sense of like oh the guess who they're from Winnipeg and we're from Saskatchewan so I like them I just like them because they rock sure just. They just sound cool. So later on, I appreciated that element more. But I'm like a real immediate guy. When music hits my ears, I know if I like it, just how it sounds. Yeah, no doubt. Now, I realize there's a lot of time here, so we're fast-forwarding quite a bit.

Yeah. So you guys start, and I guess you suck at first, but you put in your reps and your practice and your practice and your practice and then so basically it's five easy pieces is that like the the first ep that you guys put out no the first ep we put out it's called the breaks ep because we used to be called the breaks and then we had to change your name because there was a million bands that same name uh and this comes to the origins right because i wish there was a good story because every time we get asked this question we don't actually have a good story. Wait, wait, this is not the first time you were asked how you got the name of Sheepdogs?

Oh, yeah. But it's like, I wish there was a good story. We've definitely made up many stories because it was like, literally we just went with it because it made sense. And it was like this. We spent so much time trying to pick the breaks and we found out, you know, that the breaks was taken by someone else. So the breaks and we found out you know the breaks was taken by someone else so the first ep we put out was like uh some recordings we did okay um of

some early early songs called the breaks ep so uh our first full-length record is called trying to grow and that came out in 2006 okay so i'm gonna play a song that is you can you can hear this song on uh on learn and burn but it's also on Five Easy Pieces here. And you know which one it's going to be. I'm just going to play a bit of it because it's going to set up the next part of the story. But quickly, very quickly, I will tell you that I learned to read

because in kindergarten, we had these readers called Mr. Muggs. Have you ever heard this name by any chance, Mr. Muggs? Oh, yeah. Sheepdog. Okay, yeah. So Mr. Muggs was a sheepdog. And literally, these books taught me to read.

I still have one cause I have, I have four kids and I've been trying to like bring it back and here's Pat, here's Kurt and learn about Mr. Muggs. But Mr. Muggs was like, that's the only sheepdog I have experience with, but it was a very young impressionable age. Like I've just always loved that sheepdog, Mr. Muggs. Yeah. We, I mean, everyone brings up your, like, Mr. Muggs or Sam the Sheepdog

or, I don't know. I see people bring their dogs up to me too as well. I mean, there's a big giant sheepdog that lives right around me, which is, the old English sheepdogs are amazing. I mean, I think we were at the breaks, we had to change the name. I think I had a MySpace page, another great dated

reference, of songs i was just making on my own that i just called the sheepdogs i think there was a song by a band called mondo dial which is from sweden okay i had a song called sheepdogs i just took it from there there's no cool name no cool story i'm afraid it's just sort of i think it's on you know all right no worries there let me play this this little jam people might know and love. I'll just play a bit of it, then I'll bring it down and we'll talk about it. But this song is called I Don't Know. Never had I heard A motor stepping word

On an awful lot I never felt so quite disturbed Well I get up in the morning now I don't know Straight up, I still remember hearing that song for the first time on the radio and it's like my ears just prick up and it goes, oh, I love that sound. Now, tell me if you don't mind, like who wrote this and particularly like what's it like for you guys when this song starts to hit the airwaves? Like what's that like? So this is from our third record. And at this point, we've done a lot of of we've done a bunch of touring several tours you

know we kind of like learning the ropes we did everything on our own we booked our tours we would drive our van we would run our finances we you know we'd learn all that stuff just basically by by failing and trial and error and it was super valuable um when we made our we made our first two records you know at a studio in saskatoon and then when we did our third one i had a bit of experience using uh learning to use pro tools which is like a you know recording program that people use and so ryan had this house rented in saskatoon he was subletting it from a buddy who was like the middle floor of this house just off broadway in sasatune and uh he'd go to work sort of like monday to friday nine to five type of thing i would go in there when he was gone and would work throughout the day and then he'd come back in the evening and the other guys would come over and we would work

some more on it we kind of worked on it for like i don't know two months we just did it by ourselves and it was like the first time that we really kind of worked on it for like, I don't know, two months. We just did it by ourselves. And it was like the first time that we really kind of like got all our spirit into it, like all our kind of thing. Like when you're young and you go into a recording studio and you're paying by the hour at like the, it's like a really foreign environment with like headphones on and you're looking through a glass at an intimidating producer. Like it's really, it's really intimidating and like not a good vibe i mean i mean it could be for some but we were just terrified so this was like i mean it was just a house and we were sweating our balls off because it was so hot in summertime there right it was

it's so like yeah we basically were like allowed to just sort of like do what we wanted over the period of time. So a song like this came together. I mean, Ewan wrote this song and it was a song that we had already started playing live. We'd seen, you know, people respond to it in bars, like somebody would look up from their beer or whatever. It's some bar and like, you know, cam loops or something like that. So, yeah, I mean, when we recorded this song with this whole album was sort of just the idea

that we didn't really have the money to go in record. And so we and you and wanted to try producing it. And we just went for it and kind of did it on our own terms. So I mean, the space again, between that and when it actually started getting played in the radio was a pretty big space. But it sort of did this thing where at first people were like, you guys sound too much like you're an old rock band. So we can't play play on the radio like it's just you don't sound like whatever the you know the whatever rock band du jour was in 2010 but uh arcade and then all of a sudden we play it started playing it live and people then rolling stone stuff started happening and radio got behind it and really uh really started playing it which was was a crazy thing because to be told for many years that you need to sound like this band you can't record yourself

you can't you know make music that sounds like it's from the 70s you have to make music that sounds like it's from 2010 or whatever and and as a result it was even more satisfying to hear that on the radio to be like or you know to be driving down the street and hear like a construction crew rocking their album you know on on their site or whatever when they make the movie like the biopic of the sheepdogs okay like that's gonna be a big scene like you guys i can see you guys you're driving along i don't know and then uh you're tuning in the local i don't know the saskatoon rock station what is by the way shout out the saskatoon rock station that would probably 102 rock 102 so you tune in rock 102 and you hear you hear i don't know like i'm just like is it like like you guys

because you guys are rolling your own like you said independent doing your own thing that that's that's fucking amazing band from saskatoon the crazy thing is is like when stuff really started happening for us in 2011 yeah uh it was the most hectic breakneck pace of a year that we've ever had since before or since and it was the kind of thing where like we didn't ever have a chance to like a pre like it was very hard to appreciate everything as it happened because it happened so quick right you know it was very full-on and i think it's like you know it's been also knowing that and i think it's like you know it's been also knowing that you know we'd spent all this time getting to that point so we didn't

want to like you know blow it so we were just ready to get in hustle i think we were fortunate because we did have you know seven years as a band at that point to under our belt so we were ready to just go for it but yeah we were like we would play somewhere and then like drive to the airport and fly somewhere else to like you know play somewhere else it was like uh it really went from being like you said driving in our crappy old van trying to like get people to come to shows to be playing huge stages and and like it all happened very quickly well yeah you're not really like driving down the street like tuning in you were more so like you know your friends like hey i heard you on the radio in halifax that's it like Like I'm in, I don't know what I'm listening to. Maybe it's

hits 97.7 or something like that. And here comes, here comes the sheepdogs. And it's just, it just sounded right now. I'm just, this is my curiosity here. So you've got this song, you know, you played it live. You can tell, you can see that you've got a hit on your hands. Cause you know, people are taking notice and you can see the crowd and then you uh you have this on the uh the ep five easy pieces so what makes you change the song you know slightly but you know change the song for uh learn and burn so learn and burn came first oh learn and burn learn where we made as a we made on our own we sent it to this dude to get mixed philly he worked with a band called dr dog which have a very cool band um but they're very much in sort of an indie kind of like diy aesthetic right and not the radio's favorite and like radio is a weird world because

it's like they'll they'll have a super strong opinion on many things, but Lord knows it's hard for them to explain the why or the how. Like it's like they're, you know, I would be asking like, well, what is it that it doesn't, you know, what needs to change audio wise? And it never got sort of a straight answer, but we redid the song for the radio. And all I know is that when we sent them the Redone song, they were like, yep, great.

Sounds good. Okay, I apologize. I got my order wrong there. But yeah, so the version we're all familiar with, most of us, is the Five Easy Pieces version of I Don't Know. Gotcha. I think that's the more radio one.

They both got played a lot. Now, just to let the listenership know, this song wins you a juno for single of the year so do you guys each get a juno or do you have to share a juno how does that work yeah we all get we all get one so that was but that year we were in australia on tour with john fogarty and so with the time difference it was really crazy it was so yeah we've actually never been at when we've won junos we've never been at the Junos. And every time we go to the Junos, we don't win. So the one, you know, we won three that year in 2012.

And we were on tour with John Fogerty in Australias. We woke up at whatever it was, three o'clock in the morning and like checked our phones and saw that we won. It was like, yes. And then went back to sleep. Like it was a very strange and surreal situation. But yeah, we all have Junos.

We just weren't there to accept them john fogarty man that you guys that's your sound man your 70s uh 70s rock i bet you're big ccr guys oh yeah that's literally who i'm like when i was singing that the lyric you know lyrics to i don't know i was like trying to be fogarty because like when we started this band like i always think back to like i felt like a real loser and i was driving around in my piece of shit plymouth acclaim 93 and uh which actually got a ride up in the toronto star one time but uh and we were we were cruising i was cruising around i feel like a loser but i listened to credence to make myself feel cool and that's kind of like how i feel about rock music because it's like it's like hey you're cool man that's like

that's what i want our music to be i want it to be like that oh that's smart but but you know so you when you're so where are your junos right now like do you know where if i said go get your juno do you know where it is or is it in a box somewhere uh yeah i think it is ryan's definitely in a box because he's moving i'm living living out of a box right now. But Ewan, do you know, like, do you have it on display somewhere? I don't. I moved like two and a half months ago. And we're still getting it dialed in here. I'm a little bashful about living in a Hall of Fame to myself here.

You're a typical Canadian, I think. Very humble there. Hey, I will say this. I'm Googling. I'm googling I'm learning about like that Juno award for single of the year that I don't know wins and then I see the Globe and Mail and the Winnipeg Free Press called it an upset and then I look at who else was nominated okay so there's the Nickelback there's there's Headley there's Johnny Reed there's City in Color and I wonder like okay where's the it doesn't retrospectively there's no upset there

like I don't know was a huge jam and there like i don't know it was a huge jam and beloved like who was upset like who was the favorite to win that i just wonder why they thought that was i think i mean in context i think it was a lot of i mean at the time we were a band that a lot of people didn't know that had this song that was you know big a big hit but also we had just won the rolling stone contest and i think a lot of people were sort of like this is just this band that won this contest i mean we put a lot of effort into wanting to continue forward and not just be a band that won a contest so you know 10 years removed from that i think maybe it makes a little bit more sense that we would win that you know but at the time we're a fairly unknown band

that had won a contest so let's touch on that since we brought it up uh let's touch on that here briefly now this was big news of course but i guess the rolling stones had never uh had an unsigned band on the cover which kind of makes sense i suppose but so give us the the quick quick synopsis of how the heck the sheepdogs end up on the cover of rolling stone we uh we met a guy named joel carrier who later became our manager for many years and we stayed at his office because we didn't have a place to stay and he offered us to stay there and we left him an album on his desk as a thank you uh that album learn and burn that we're talking about and he liked it so much that he sent it to somebody who worked at atlantic records as well as someone who worked at rolling

stone and they were doing a competition to try to find the best unsigned bands in North America and we were picked for that so we went from you know sort of slugging it out to going down to New York City and involved in this competition that was like voting you know and that went from like 16 bands to you know they whittled it down and we kept moving like a march madness yeah it was like 16 8 4 2 and it was a lot of like we it was a ton of we had to go to new york like every weekend uh like take a million photos for photo shoots doing all these kind of things and we were just like totally bewildered but but they cover the expenses right like rolling stone picks up yeah okay just yeah yeah that was an important that was an important part because yeah we were like

it was it was uh we weren't in a position that we'd be getting a hotel room in new york city in manhattan uh we would we would play in manhattan and then drive to scranton pennsylvania and stay in like a motel so we didn't have to pay the money but uh yeah so I mean it sort of became this thing where it got farther along we were doing these different competitions and really like kind of crushing it in comparison and I you know Canada really got behind us I mean it was like mentions in like the house of commons like about vote for the sheepdogs and there was like so much like you know whatever uh Canada really getting behind it and and so yeah we we ended up winning this thing we got the most votes and ended up being on the cover

which is a very surreal experience and and very very fun uh but also very like you said it was very exhausting time in our lives but also like a very bizarre time in our lives did you frame the cover you got it somewhere i mean now you're moving i suppose but would this be on your wall should you be comfortable in your new uh new home i think it's in my in my box with the junos we have to sign so many of those yeah sorry oh you're uncomfortable with the praise still i suppose this is like you're like i'm unworthy or whatever but uh that's all i'm not uncomfortable with praise it's just like uh i think there was so much like like we kind of touched on it but like it was such a sort of fabricated you know competition

that there was a definite like sort of as much as there was like a lot of people digging us and being like oh man check this out and it was a great like publicity much as there was like a lot of people digging us and being like oh man check this out and it was a great like publicity for us there was a certain element of like america not at all type of thing happening where people are like well who are these guys how come they're on overnights and why not band x y and z or uh you know some suspicion i think and i think we were very well we're pretty self-aware bands and we were aware that that was, you know, one of the, the D the parts of the deal. And I think we were just eager to kind of like get to the next phase to be

like, no, no, we're a legit band. We've been doing this for years. We like, we haven't skipped steps. We've been touring and doing taking all the knocks and we're going to show you. And you know, here we are 10 years later. So. Yeah. You're not. I think the biggest thing is for us too it was not like um that's like the pinnacle and then that's like you know i feel like the idea like definitely we're proud of it but like the idea that there's so many other things we wanted to accomplish after that so just sort of like hang our hat on like that's our thing put it up on the wall and you know it's definitely

like something we accomplished but i think you know like you said it was we wanted to prove to people we were more than just a band that won a contest and and go beyond that and so to kind of hang our hat on that and make that our prime accomplishment i think right was something that we didn't want so we're going to talk about the new ep because it literally just dropped uh like three days ago i think so no simple thing is the new ep and i'm gonna play some keep on loving you because i've been playing it uh all week because it's it's fucking awesome to be quite honest i play while i was waiting for you guys to jump on the zoom i was just spinning it again and man my ears love it so that's how i judge music do my ears love this song yes they do

that's us how we do it our whole thing is we want to make music we like and hope other people like it so it works out when they do so to bridge us there i'm going to play a little bit of a feeling good just i think leaf fans need to hear this right now and just chill out and get over that and then i'm going to just thank some partners and then we're going to dive deep into no simple thing here so here's a little bit of feeling good. Are you close to mine or could you blow my mind Cause the heat is up already past overtime But I'm here to say I got a better way Nothing brings me down with how I feel today

Yeah, I'm feeling good, all I can know I should Got the fresh repeat just like you know I would Yeah, I'm feeling good, all I can know I should Got the fresh repeat, yeah You know what I want post-COVID? I want to be like in an open field somewhere with a whole bunch of fellow Canadians rocking out to the sheepdogs.

That's what I want more than anything right now. Us too. I'm there, man. Yeah. So is it basically, are we looking at summer 2022? Is that when you guys are looking to be, you know, outdoor summer festivals? I think so.

I mean, we'll see. I think there's a possibility late summer we might be able to do some stuff. I know that they're definitely trying to make that happen. But we have a few things on the books for the summer, but not in Ontario right now. Whereabouts, by the way? Some of them haven't been announced yet. But there's things going on out west uh that are i think going ahead big big events involving uh farm animals and whatnot wow yeah yeah you heard it here first okay so do you gentlemen uh enjoy fresh craft beer

do yes i've been known to enjoy a tin yeah all right All right, well, I'm glad you're living in Ontario because it means you can get yourself Great Lakes beer. And if I ever have the pleasure of meeting you guys in person, this is the great thing. So I always did these in person and then COVID hit and then it moved to Zoom, most of them. And I always like, did I meet the sheepdogs? Because I don't think this counts.

Like, did I meet the sheepdogs? I would say I had a great conversation with the sheepdogs, but I did i meet the sheepdogs i would say i had a i had a great conversation with the sheepdogs but i haven't met the sheepdogs but if i ever meet you guys i have some fresh craft beer for you from great lakes brewery which is a family-run uh independent uh brewery here in southern etobicoke and you guys are gonna just love it man yeah i've enjoyed many many uh great Lake breweries in my day. I like that. It's a good one. GLB.

GLB. Okay, I'm going to hook you up with GLB. I would love to hook you up with a frozen lasagna from Palma Pasta. It's authentic Italian food. Honestly, it's fantastic. I've got Toronto-miked stickers for you from StickerU.com. StickerU.com is where you go to get your sheepdog stickers and and decals and all that they're they're great again a great toronto 19 different oh yeah see how do you know that i have an office in that building okay i had i had a i had a client in that building too

actually one of the worst occupations i think they have is they would they would uh outfit offices with furniture so office furniture and. And then COVID hit. And then nobody was like getting office furniture. It was not a good place to be. But yeah, 219 Duffer. Yeah, right in Liberty Village. That's where you find Sticker U. So shout out to Sticker U.

If anyone's looking to buy and or sell in the next six months, talk to Mimical Mike and let Mimical Mike know that Toronto Mike sent you. That's realestatelove.ca. And I want to give some, some love and respect to Ridley Funeral Home. They've been amazing partners of this program, fueling the real talk. They are pillars of this community.

They've been so since 1921 and much love to the good people at Ridley Funeral Home. Okay. So we played Feeling Good. Any fun facts about that jam before we move on to No Simple Thing? It's easily got to be the most Toronto sports used song because it was the goal song for the Leafs

and the win song for the Jays in the same year. So that's a pretty good one-two punch as far as sports themes go. But yeah, it's been used a lot in sports. That's a big one. It was the goal song for the Canadian hockey team in the Olympics. And we met somebody who played for the, what team was it? It was in Scandinavia.

It was like for like. I was in Switzerland. Yeah. He's like, I know your song because we lost 12-0 to a Canadian men's team. That's great i will uh the opening of that jam it's got a spirit in the sky vibe for sure yeah we uh that that's from our uh our record right after learn and burn which is just self-titled we made that in nashville 20 in 2012 january 2012 we uh we spent all 2011 on the road, like almost like I just, we were almost never home. Uh, we played, uh, like the last day of our tour, I think was the 23rd of

December. And the next day I just flew to San Francisco for Christmas. Cause I was so burnt out. I couldn't bear to go home. We played new year's Eve, uhagara falls on tv with like you know keisha shantae and our lady peace and stuff like that and and uh a simple plan i think as well and uh the next day we flew to nashville and it was like cool you're gonna go make a record with pat carney from the black keys and i was like cool when was i gonna get to write all these songs that we're going to record? Like, what time did I have to do that? So I had all these like bits and pieces and we just somehow were able to cobble a record together. And one of the things was that feeling good. And we knew like, obviously, like Pat really put a lot of Black Keys stank on it.

The guy that mixed it also. stank on it the guy that mixed it also but um yeah like very much like that sort of norman greenbaum jam because it's like one of the greatest songs ever right you know i once read an article about norman where basically he wrote that song and he was able to retire and live his whole he's still alive i believe but he lived his entire life off royalties for that one song and he's jewish it's about jesus which about jesus well you know uh our jewish friends are responsible for the best christmas music you know that so if you look up a great song like white christmas or whatever typically it's written by somebody of the jewish faith so i've a short story on that i i recently got a a cool speaker from amazon and i was using Alexa and it's probably going to go off,

but I asked Alexa to play Exotica music because I really enjoy Exotica music while I'm working. And for whatever reason, it thought I said Hanukkah music. So I was like working away and all these like songs are playing and I'm like, this doesn't sound like Exotica music. And I realized it was all Hanukkah music and good jams. There's some good Hanukkah jams. I got to say, as a non Jewish man, I never really heard Hanukkah songs. It's more than just the dreidel song. Yeah, exactly.

It was more the deep cuts. Shout out to my client, Ralph Ben-Murgi, and his great podcast, Not That Kind of Rabbi. Shout out to Ralph. All right. We have a pandemic i guess you guys know that but so we're tell me the the story of no before i play a bit of keep on loving you

uh how do how do you guys put together no simple thing during a pandemic how did this come to be so like we typically we you know record an album it comes out a little bit after you record it. You go on the road and promote it and play tours for like 18 months, maybe. You take a little time off and you do it all over again. We were just ready to sort of start that cycle up when the pandemic hit. We were in Saskatoon for the Junos right when the news came down, because it was that weekend that everything kind of, like the NHL and the NBA, shut down. We going to go to portland and make a record there i mean portland ended up being a pretty spicy place to be last year so we all went home and kind of like said what do we do

we saw everybody doing like the zoom thing which is like you know it's good for this but it does not work for rock and roll um and then we did a canada day show which was supposed to be on capitol hill but ended up being a stream from montreal and so while we were all in montreal doing this socially distant stream thing we like went into the studio and we did these six songs and uh because we all happen to be in the same place montreal was really weird it was like you know quebec was pretty hard hit um and we just like we would basically record all day and then we would go back to the hotel where we were the only people in the hotel and we would just like hang in one person's room and drink beers listen to like a bluetooth speaker

you know so you basically bubbled up we bubbled up yeah it was very like old school to kind of like have zero distractions because there was nothing literally nothing else we could do so we just kind of hung out and like you said and i think the idea being we really wanted to go and do it in a way where it wasn't fragmented and it was like you know we had never spent that much time apart it was like like longest, you know, as a band, we haven't spent touring or writing music together, recording or whatever. So, you know, I think what made it cool was we did it all in a room where we could look at each other and play together. And there's like a certain level of excitement because we were so jazzed to be back and doing what we were doing and to kind of capture that and capture that moment. And, you know, these are

songs that we had rehearsed a bunch beforehand because we were going to go and record them, but we brushed up on them and recorded them as they were together, playing and getting a really good take of everybody together, which is something that is the antithesis of doing things via Zoom or compartmentalizing things by doing it in different places and stuff like that.

Well, this is a good time. Let's play some Keep On Loving You. And again, infectious groove, man. I'll say more on the other side, but let's get a taste of the latest single from the new EP. How long have I had you, dear? We had those days, but did we have those years? Do you remember when it all broke down? You went and ran your game all over town Those nights were long and filled with tears Felt like disaster for a thousand years

And if you tell me that your love is true I'm gonna keep on loving you You got me dreaming of the summertime I legit don't want to fade this down, man. It's a good summer jam too, of course. But well done, boys. Very well done. Thanks, man. Thanks, Mike.

And Ewan, you wrote this song. Is that typically how the sheepdogs work? You do the heavy lifting and then the guys get to reap the benefits something like that i yeah i write the songs usually i produce the the records um kind of has been that way sort of since day one but uh yeah it's just i think i had this song for a couple years but it's interesting because like we keep we keep getting asked like you know what are you doing like how do you evolve and i don't think it's like an evolution like where we're like you know like every like music writer wants every band to be like radiohead where they take these big bold new directions on every album and it's like great to write about right but uh we're like i think we just try to like mature

and like it's like as a as a writer i lean less on a rift and i get more into the melody and i let the sort of the words and the melody do the work rather than like just trying to have a badass riff knock your head off all the time and nothing's anything wrong with a badass riff there's no shame in your game i would say you guys are a feel-good band like you're you're there and i hope you take this the right way okay but i want a hot summer day a cold beer and listen to some sheepdogs and i'll feel good and i'll have fun and that's that's what it's about like not everything has to be uh yeah nerd you know shout out to radiohead but you know nerd rock from radiohead like there's a space for feel-good jams.

I like some Radiohead, just for the record. They're a very interesting band. No, that's exactly... I mean, look, I'm a... I don't know. I'm a guy who loves a cold beer and football and barbecue. So I have a lot of things about me that are simple. But I don't think that that has to be a pejorative thing

where it's like... I was just talking with somebody about some inside baseball from Netflix or something where they refer to sections of the country as Miller swillers. And I was just like, wow, that's so condescending to do that because there's nothing wrong with good, simple things. Unless you're enjoying a Great Lakes brewery, and it's complex and delicious. On that note, though, do you find the Toronto,

the sophisticated academics in Toronto are different than the prairie crowd? Is there a... Those people are every... I mean, there's... Toronto is like... Right. I mean, you hear people in their backyards

watching the Leafs game all week, because they can't watch inside, so they're maybe you hear people in their backyards watching the least game all week, you know, they're, cause they can't watch inside. So they're maybe getting a couple of neighbors together and watching outside. Toronto's not as like a cosmopolitan as it sort of sometimes acts. That's kind of what makes Toronto great though. That's, that's like, it's like, you know, most people it's everyone's from everywhere kind of thing. I mean, that's the great thing about being from Saskatchewan,

which I was like is definitely Miller's swillers would be you uh you know we're everywhere people from saskatchewan are all over the world when we experience it because everywhere we go someone yells out like go riders or something like that from the crowd so it's it's great right and whenever toronto gets too full of itself and it gets that whole like pretentious like we're we're smarter than i always remind this city that i was born and raised i I mentioned St. Joe's in Parkdale. I remind them like this is the same city that did elect Rob Ford as mayor. Like there's a lot of different people in this city. It's, it's, it's, it's, there's everybody. It's what makes the city great. I mean, if it was all super like, yeah, it's a great mix. And I think that's what, yeah, that's definitely what makes it a great city. Now I did promise you guys I'd set

you free. Uh, cause I know you have a another uh another interview uh it won't be as fun as this one but I know it's important and so I got a few minutes so in the last few minutes uh I'm naturally this is for you and actually how do you decide my friend when you write writing a jam like okay this song is a sheep's dog's song but this song is going to be on my solo album like like how do you because it's not just the solo stuff that uh you put out a solo album recently but you also have uh an album you do with your your brother seamus like literally literally called bros like that came out only a few years ago like how do you decide what goes where does it just sounds like a sheep dogs jam in your head how does it work

well i think the simplest way to put it is like the sheepdogs are the rock band the bro you know bros is is skews a little more into like pop and uh we do some kind of like world influenced like latin sort of eccentric type of things and then the solo record was just sort of like it was a little more chill like i think the sheepdogs is is my you know my main squeeze and it's like the it's the I'm trying to think of an analogy but you know it like pays for all the other projects I suppose it pays the rent it pays the bills but it's like sugar daddy it's my yeah that's right um but it's like uh I don't know like I think as we get further along in this career like I know how Ryan and Sam and everybody plays in our band. And like,

you know, I, we've played so many shows. Like I think about what's going to sound great live, what makes for a good concert, what fits in that cheap dogs thing. It's, it's not that hard.

Like for example, Seamus and I were working on some bro stuff and he played me a song called, are you a good man? Which I said like right away i was like no this should be a sheepdog song and sure enough it's on this new ep so it's it's just kind of like you know if it fits the sheepdogs then let's do it with the sheepdogs and everything else kind of goes to the other stuff okay i'm glad ryan's here because here's the big question for ryan ryan did you ever hear have you ever heard a song on uh like ewan's solo

album for example and said like damn that should have been a sheepdog song i mean i think so but i think it's it's a funny one because like i think for example like i think the sheepdogs could have done a really cool version of tell me which is you know the big bros hit from their last record but that being said i don't know if it would be as cool and as popular as it is because it's a different vibe than we probably would have done so no i mean i think it's cool for me it's like i'm i mean i'm very supportive of the stuff that they do outside of the band and try to like do what i can to kind of help out push their stuff out too so i think it's no i'm not i don't think i if anything sometimes i'm probably like i wish i would have played that

bass line or i wish i could have been playing on that song but if that's it's more so just i'm proud of them i'm proud of what they've been able to accomplish thanks man that's beautiful that's beautiful so before we say goodbye could you name check the entire band of course because we've been only you know i only i only got two sheepdogs you know the zoom it would be too busy in the zoom if i have all the sheepdogs. But name check the current roster. So I'm Ewan Curry. I play guitar and sing.

Ryan Gullen, obviously, is the bass and backing vocal. He's also our manager, which is worth noting, and does a lot of our video work, directing and editing, et cetera. We have Sam Corbett, who is on the drums and backing vocals out in sasatune and we have my brother seamus curry on the uh you know piano and organ uh backing vocals and trombone very often live if you come see us and then uh the man the one ontario member of the band mr jimmy boskill from uh originally bailey bro ontario um you know he's a a legend he was a blues legend at the age of 11 years old and now he's just an amazing all-around instrumentalist uh as a 30 year old man

so that's us amazing again uh no, No Simple Thing is available now. Grab the EP No Simple Thing. That song, Keep On Loving You. What an infectious summer groove. I'm totally loving it. Awesome. And Ryan, you mentioned you're moving. What neighborhood did you decide to move to?

I'm just curious. What part of the city are you going to? It's Parkdale. Oh, yeah. You told me that. Yeah, I told you. St. Joe's. Full circle. Go right back to the beginning when i was growing up parkdale was that sketchy neighborhood

where everything was dirt cheap and nowadays i'm it's all like gentrified well most of it's gentrified and uh yeah i think parkdale's always gonna parkdale man that's the reason i like parkdale's i feel like parkdale's the one place that it's fighting. That Queen Street strip has still got that character that we all love from... I got some of that on Lakeshore in my hood, too, and it's like, don't ever change. Oh, man, that Etobicoke Lakeshore strip's great. I love...

I love Etobicoke so much. I think Etobicoke's so great. Oh, yeah. I mean, come on, man. I'm in New Toronto right beside Mimico. We'd love to have you here, but Sheepdogs, amazing. Thanks so much i think a tobiko is so great oh yeah i mean come on man i'm in new toronto right beside mimico we'd love to have you here but sheepdogs amazing thanks so much uh good luck with the the other interviews you're doing but i really appreciate you giving me a an hour of your time today to to talk rock i love it man thanks mike let's do it again i've heard a couple uh i've listened to a few shows man i like your show so take a reason we'll do it let's do it irl next time we'll drink oh man i wanted you guys in the backyard this take a reason we'll do it let's do an irl next time we'll drink

oh man i wanted you guys in the backyard this time so hopefully yeah we do it in the the backyard with some fresh craft beer that'd be amazing we'll make it happen yeah man thanks mike appreciate it and that brings us to the end of our whoa wait I actually don't know where I was I know I should have just said goodbye lowest of the low

we're closing up the sheepdogs that brings us to the end of our 860th show you can follow me on Twitter I'm at Toronto Mike

the sheepdogs are at the sheepdogs our friends at Great Lakes Brewery they're at Great Lakes Beer Palma Pasta

is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Mimico Mike, he's not on Twitter, he's on Instagram, at Majeski Group Homes.

See you all next week. Everything is coming up, rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.