Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Wide Mouth Mason: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1932

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

In this 1932nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Shaun Verreault and Safwan Javed from Wide Mouth Mason about the origin of the band in Saskatoon, the role of Gordie Johnson from Big Sugar and Big Shiny Tunes, and their sound that moves fluidly between alternative rock, earthy blues, and brilliant jam band excursions.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca.If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please emaail Toronto Mike at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to You Yes, it feels like you Woman, it feels like you. Welcome to episode 1932 of Toronto-Miked an award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery.

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pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today, making their Toronto mic debut. It's Sean and Safwan from Wide Mouth Mason. Hey, how you doing? Good, Sean. How you doing, buddy? I'm pretty all right. Okay, I've got, oh, it's like a note taker that wants to come in. Oh, you can say no to that.

I'm doing this on my work computer, so you can leave the court stenographer outside. Yeah, you know what that is? That's the rise of AI, the AI overlords taken over. Yeah, and I mean, that part of it I'm okay with them doing. You know, you take notes so I don't have to. What was the name of that thing that I mentioned? Oh, go back and find that. writing songs, you know, making movies, leave that to us organic meat machines.

You guys cover the admin and the note-taking part. I'm with you. Like, free me up to be more creative, right? Don't mess with the creative. That's your department. That's right. And leave the struggle and the challenge and the puzzling, all that. Leave that in the creative part.

That's the beautiful part. I have so many friends now. using it where they're like, isn't this great? I put in some prompts and it wrote this thing and it's like, that's like getting pictures of yourself on a vacation you never went on. Like, good for the gram, not so good for your personal development. No, you're preaching to the choir. Like, I find myself craving authenticity. Like, I'd rather see like a flawed real photo than a polished, perfect, AI enhanced photo. I'll take it seven days a week, twice on Sundays.

I think it makes us lean into just be human, make mistakes, be real, they can't copy that yet. What's up, Saf? Gentle persons. Hey, am I allowed to call you Sapp? You can call me anything you want. Oh, careful. You never know what it'll come out there. I've heard it all.

So, Saf, nice to meet you and Sean, nice to meet you. You too. Likewise. Thanks for having us. Whereabouts in the world? are you right now because we're connecting remotely if the listenership can't tell.

You're not in the South Atobico basement here. Whereabouts are you guys? I'm quite close to the South Atobico basement. I'm in the west end of Toronto. And why aren't you in the basement here? Because I have a number of things that are on my plate,

like picking up merch, picking up a child, trying to convince a dog to eat. I can do all that in your basement, but I don't know if that's your jam. It wouldn't be, I think Biff Naked brings her dog into the basement. I could bring the dog. She's quite friendly. But you don't have to docks yourself, but what neighborhood are we talking about in West Toronto? Runnymede and blue earth.

Can I tell you something? Swansea, the village of Swansea. Okay, so, I don't know, it's such a small world. I had no idea, because I thought you were. were at West, but I, my son plays, well, both, I have two kids who play at Rennie Park. That's, that's our park, dude. That's where we, that's where I tried to teach my kids to ride bikes. And, well, I love that park, but I grew up playing hockey at the Swansea Hockey Association.

Oh, that's a, it's a fun little rink. I've not, yes, I have skated on the ice in it, and I've also screwed around in the rink when it's not ice, people play other sports in there. Sure. Okay. So that's wild. You're very close. And I will be, tomorrow, I'll be walking with my oldest, and we're going to meet at Run and Mead in Dundas. Oh, very close. I could meet you if you want. I don't know what I could add to the mix, but. We can get a selfie together. I can add it to us.

I'll bring your dog. So, Sean, whereabouts are you? I am quite far away from both of you. I'm in Vancouver. Right where the FIFA dumb road closures all start, I'm in the middle of that. Okay, you're in Dan City. But you two are Saskatooners, right? Is that the term? I don't even know what you call Saskatooners.

Saskatonian. Saskatonian. Okay, I will tell you, just to break it down real quick here, as we get into Wide Mouth Mason, and I know you guys have a big show in Orno, and I want to just make sure you guys know, my first wife is from Saskatoon. I just want to throw it out there. All right. All right, first wife.

Is she still your wife, or is she more? No, because it would be weird if she's still my wife, but I call her my first wife. wife. We had a friend whose dad would introduce his current wife as Meet My First Wife. I bet you she loved that. I mean, I think she had to know what his sense of humor was going in, is my guess. Right. She probably said, you can no longer call me the wife. And then he went, all right, I can want up that. So before I bring us back, I was going to say before we're running back to Saskatoon, I'm going to do that one. Yeah, thank you. I'll drop a few of those here. But I do want to shout out the rockstalgia music festival because it's happening this weekend like we're talking

July 11 and 12 at the Orono fairgrounds in Orno Ontario and I know Orno because that's where Dan O'Toole from Jay and Dan is from. Really? Yeah. I did not know that. Fun fact, Orono is Toronto without the tease. Okay. You just blew my mind, Saf.

Are you kidding me here? Okay. When I was told that, it blew my mind. So people can get tickets and I am told by people who know that for $39.95, which is like nothing in 2026, that gets you to the Sunday show and $69.95. Still very inexpensive for a quality rock concert. That gets you Saturday. What does that get you? That gets you Saturday. And that includes taxes and fees and stuff. So maybe because we can do this now and then I like to go back because.

I like the hooked and nostalgia to my veins, but please, are you excited to be rocking out at the rockstalgia music festival this weekend in Orno? I mean, I'm happy whenever a new music festival launches. So often we're hearing about this legacy festival just couldn't survive for its 27th year and that kind of story. So that someone has the ambition and the drive to launch a new music festival, I think is really exciting for Saturday. and I, we are just completely up to our heads in gratitude every time we're on the road now. I think it was partly having done this for as long as we have next year, we'll be 30 years since our first major label record came out 30 somehow. And maybe, you know, the feeling during the pandemic that, hey, this can be taken away.

This is not something that's a given that you get to do. going on the road and playing music for people, especially now that we hang out afterwards and meet people for as long as we're on stage for, the connection that we have, the decades of people supporting our band and listening to us, coming up and telling us their stories of, hey, I met my partner at your show with the horseshoe 27 years ago, and here's our 23-year-old kid, and they play drums now, and they're into your band is beautiful. So, exciting. to play a first year festival and hopefully see that one continue on and build and just always happy to play music for people.

But are you happy to be under the banner of classic rock? Like I don't think of Wide Mouth Mason as classic rock, but they're celebrating rockstelgia as two days of classic rock. What does classic really mean? If I think of the word classic and anything I do is associated with it, I'm feeling pretty good. You guys are legends, that's for sure here. We're an interesting Lego piece that we're often the youngest band at a classic rock festival and then the next day the oldest band at an indie rock festival or a blues festival.

We plug into a lot of things. And I think part of what's been fun about when we do play classic rock fest is running into other bands, hanging out with them, trading stories. but we've been focused on new music for the last bunch of years, and it's always been fun at these things to go, don't worry, we're going to get to the big shiny tunes song and the song that was on much music. But we've released a couple of records in the last few years,

and here's some music from them, and the response to that has been really, again, gratifying and exciting to watch, hey, people are singing along with the stuff from the last record just as much as from our first record. I think if we felt like we were going out and reliving the legacy, that would be worthy and fun and great to remind people of. But the fact that the new stuff has been received like it has put the rock in the rock stalgia part for us. Okay, so great new stuff, but will it annoy the heck out of you if I bring us back to the 90s now?

Are you like, hey, man, let's move on. Let's time travel. 90s were great to us. We hold them in high regard. Okay, you know what? You sound like me, man. I'm like, yeah, remember the 90s? Okay, so mid-90s, Saskatoon. Tell me about who are you guys and how does Wide Mouth Mason come to be? Like, give me the origin story. We're guys with really funny haircuts. And we're in our late teens, depending on which part of the mid-90s you're talking about. We're fresh out of high school. We are not really sure what we're.

doing, Sean is working in a music store, living on his own, well, with a roommate, with learning how to like keep an apartment clean. I'm living in my parents' basement and going to university. And we're just trying to sort through the, you know, the bits and pieces of identity politics and the crazy world of the 90s, right? What was going on? It was a, there's an existential period, as I like to recall. And we had been playing music together in some way, shape, or form since we were 10 years old, maybe nine years old. We went to elementary school together. We went to high school together.

We're both involved in the band programs throughout really strong band programs. And so we'd always played together. And after high school, Sean kind of pulled together this group of people that he was like, I know these. I know that I know a drummer. I know this other guitar player. I know this bass player. why don't we go jam? And my parents had let me set up shop in my, in their basement with my drums.

And I'm like, hey, why don't we do it here? So Sean brought myself, Earl, and a fellow named Neil Hendry together. And we jammed. And it was, I don't know, maybe it was just me, but it felt pretty magical and uplifting. And again, in the sort of darkness of the 90s, of the existential angst, 90s, it was just this really uplifting experience and this sense of like, oh, this is a thing. This is awesome. And it built. It grew. We started doing, you know, local gigs, whatever we could find. Often it was just covers, but at some point we went in and recorded at the other guitar player, Neil Hendry's teacher's studio.

So it was our first taste of recording in a studio. And just all of the, all of the experiences were, you know, just wrapped in this sense of joyfulness in the, in that we got to do this. And it was such a cool experience. And it built and built. And gradually we started playing as a cover band to other smaller places across the prairies. We built up a bit of a, I guess, of a reputation, at least insofar as we kept getting hired. We started getting into the blues quite a bit, largely because of Sean.

We went to like a Bebe King concert. We went to a buddy guy concert and we were immediately like, this is the coolest thing ever. And so we started playing a lot of blues songs and that got us into the blues bar circuit in Western Canada. So like King Eddie, Blues on White in Edmonton, King Eddie in Calgary, Buds on Broadway in Saskatoon, the Yale in Vancouver. And those audiences were open to us like sneaking in some of what we were now doing in terms of original music. so we would sneak those in towards the end of the third set when everyone was properly lubricated. And that started building and growing.

And then back in those days, the major labels of Canada had pretty deep and strong field offices across the country. And so part of those field offices job was to promote existing bands on their rosters, but part of it was also to kind of be hip to what was going on in the local scenes to kind of keep their ear to the ground. and so some of them started paying attention to us and brought it to the head office and we started getting label interest

and it flew from there. All right, Sean, anything to add to this origin story? Did Saf get it right? I think he nailed it. I mean, it was different times. I feel like we've been in four or five or six different music businesses or eras of the music business. But it was just a really

night by night organic ground swell and such a great training ground. I feel wistful for a time where if you wanted to learn how to play, there was an opportunity to get your reps in back then when it would be like

six nights a week, five sets a night at a blues bar where it would be a lot of the repertoire and then like Saf said as long as it grooved and they could dance to it, you could play your own stuff toward the end of it. That's how we learn how to keep your voice after singing six nights a week,

how to deal with hecklers and weird energies and take control of a room and be on the road together. It was really, really formative for us. And the near-death scrapes and the things that we just barely survived just brought us closer together and made us better as a band. Then as Saf said, once we got signed and things, We had a really good narrative arc where we played a show in Saskatoon where we were the opening, opening, opening, opening band before Big Sugar. And our manager at the time just would not leave Gordy Johnson alone until he came to see a song.

And he relented to shut Norm up. And then a few songs in went, what are these guys on again? Oh, they're on Warner. Their first record's about to come out. What are they doing for the next couple months? I want them to open the tour across Canada that we're doing. So we did that and the Big Sugar audience was predisposed to, you know, like our band and like a lot of the same influences and Gordy generously put us in front of them. And then just step by step, it would be like, hey, we got an offer to do our first shows in the U.S. opening for George Thurogood in a bunch of like converted vaudeville theaters along the coast.

And then, oh, Zizi top tour will be the first time we play in arenas. And then, hey, the Stones asked us to open some shows. So all those tools that we learned playing in Yellowknife and Provost and winning over an audience that wasn't necessarily into the music starting right then or whatever issues they might have with these young dudes or our set list or whatever, we were honed into a pretty, you know, sharp steel by the time we ended up in front of an ACDC audience or a Rolling Stones audience and we knew how to look them in the eye and not flinch and turn them into fans of the band.

You're dropping some heavyweight names here, man. Rolling Stones, ACDC, ZZ Top. Like, that's a... We've been fortunate. You've been fortunate. But I am glad you brought up... I knew he'd come up, of course, but I just had Gordy Johnson on my show, actually. And it's interesting to hear you talk about Gordy's role in Wide Mouth Mason, because he talks about Molly Johnson the same way. So Molly Johnson begat Gordy Johnson and Big Sugar, which begat Wide Mouth Mason.

Yeah. There's very much in music, and especially in the blues and R&B sort of roots side of it, that we came out of, that is a mentor, you know, people taking you under their wing in the blues bar that we grew up in Big Dave McLean, who's like the Canadian, you know, Western Canadian muddy water sort of was always willing to, hey, come on up and sit in for a few songs. Hey, I'm running the Saturday jam at the blues bar. Come up and play some. Or people who, a drummer from the south who take Safa's side and go, now you're pretty good at a shuffle, but let me show you some things. This is how we do it in Chicago. This is how they do it in Texas. This is how, and there's very much a mentor system where if you're a sponge and you're into it and they see that you're excited and passionate about it, a lot was extended to us of people showing us the ropes and being generous with their experience.

I love to hear it. Go ahead, Seth. Including a 90s band called Well, and the current band called Odds, they were also really important sort of mentors and big brothers to us. Well, since you brought up odds, I'm going to ask you about the, because I live in Toronto. There's a shock for you here, but I've always lived in Toronto. And sometimes we, as SAF can testify, we sometimes think we're the center of the universe and we forget about Western Canada. But I'm curious about the scene out there because it's funny, I just mentioned Biff Naked. did I mention that on the recording or maybe he was on the recording,

but I mentioned Bif Degger, but I'm trying to understand the scene in the mid-90s out west because I'm at this point listening to a lot of alt-rock radio. But as I think now with you, I'm thinking, okay, there's the Watchmen in Winnipeg and I'm thinking about the Waltons and stuff, but who were these, you know, who was playing in the scene, you know,

west of Ontario? Well, the people who'd made it from Saskatoon that were like, hey, there are footprints in the snow. There are people who've done it. It was obviously Joni Mitchell before our time and then the northern Pikes. But in like 93, 94, when we first started going on the road, everyone was telling us, look, it's sort of like if you're not in a Garth Brooksie sort of a band, we don't know what

to tell you. We're not sure what you're going to be able to do. So we didn't really have careerist ambitions. we were just like, all I love to do is play music with these people and find new places to travel with our friends and do it. So it just sort of was building. A lot of the people who we were seeing were more regional, like the Danny Gatton of Western Canada as a guy named Jack Semple, who's a devastatingly good guitar player, always had an amazing band. People like blues bands like the House of Pain would roll through and we would just learn. from watching the way that they all played together.

So it was less bands that had big radio success or were big touring juggernauts. And it was more like someone has a stage in a room. What do they do in the next hour musically, vibe-wise, telling a story that really speaks to us. And a lot of them were more sort of regional and Western Canadian bands that we were getting to see at that point. In excess, kick was the first tour that, uh we ever saw um we actually just played a festival in saskatoon outside of the arena where saff and i saw our first ever big show and that brought us right back to that and you know often things would be like touring across the country winnipeg edmonton and not stop in saskatoon so we were

seeing a lot of smaller club shows and and theater shows when we were coming up there was um there was some like if you broaden the region like pursuit of happiness yeah um they were a little bit before us but we were aware of them um grapes of wrath were even more before that i think but also we were aware of them we went to see i think i went to see like one of my first uh concerts after that in excess concert was seeing sarah mclaughlin and the grapes of wrath i think in the basement of the centennial auditorium which was super cool. Like that was that it was a critical piece of my,

as I look back on it, of kind of my trajectory because the drummer for Sarah McLaughlin was a guy named Ashwin Soud, a fellow of South Asian descent who, um, also sang like incredible harmonies and just was so good, like played everything perfectly. And he was a huge inspiration for me.

Okay. So many places I want to go. But one is you dropped the name in excess. Okay. So as your first concert, And it's funny, I just I was talking to Susie McNeil

and Susie McNeil got like super famous from being on rock star in excess. She was like the top ranked woman on that show. I don't know what play she finished in, but she didn't win it, but she was J.D. Fortune won this, but she did very, very well.

And, you know, when you were talking about this mentorship and the, you know, helping out the next band and Gordy Johnson helping you guys out, She was talking about Jeff Healy and his bar and how this blue scene in Toronto that she was when she was coming up in music and how instrumental that was. So I just love hearing about it. Grossman's too, right. Grossman used to be a big one.

We would come and jam there whenever we'd be in Toronto. Still is. Like the guy from Spin Doctors plays there every week. Eric Shankman. Eric Shankman. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's funny you mentioned,

the odds, which I love, and Craig Northy there, and then you mentioned Pursuit of Happiness, because you can catch Trans-Canada Highway Men today, which is like the supergroup. Yeah. Love that. I mean, I think if you're a lifer, you're going to find ways to keep this going. And if that takes multiple plates spinning, if that takes working on different projects. And I think, you know, coming up in the 90s, there is also that feeling of you're a band and a brand and a tribe and outside of that you don't do things and I think over the years we've

been able to do collaborative tours like the you know one we would do with big sugar where they'd all be on stage with us we'd all be on stage with them we've done shows in the past that we called odd mouth manson where it's some odds guys and some mason's guys and um those those those that the odds were making uh nest while we were in the studio. making our first record next door and ended up jamming with each other and playing a lot together. So I think those feelings of being part of a wave of something and then watching how everyone has kept it going, whether it's some of our peers stopped for a while and started again. Other ones are doing different supergroups and collaborations.

And we're feeling very much like we're looking out going, yes, there are all these people who came to see us, 30 years ago, had us on big shiny tunes to, maybe had the first two records. But at the shows in the last couple of years, we'll also look out and go, who are those 22-year-olds over there? And they'll be like, I found you guys on Instagram. I watch your lap steel guitar videos. My aunt or uncle spun this song. And the beauty of having all of recorded music in your pocket at all times is it doesn't really matter when a thing came out. People can discover it. my 14-year-old daughter's on a huge rumors kick right now. Every time we drive somewhere, it's Fleetwood Mac in the car.

And I think people are discovering stuff and going, it kind of works to our favor that it was never as massive as some other things because they're like, hey, I found my little niche corner of this three piece of whatever these guys are. Last night, I walked by the kitchen and my 15-year-old daughter was sitting there and humming something. I'm like, that sounds really familiar. And then I get closer and I hear, and she's singing, you're so vain by Carly Simon.

I'm like, you know that song? And she looks at me. She's like, you know that song? That's funny. And then you could drop. I was alive when it came out. You can drop the mind blow that it's Mick Jagger on background vocals. She wouldn't.

She'd be like, who's that? Great. To be honest, because I have my daughter's, I have a daughter younger than that, a daughter older. But what they really would say is, oh, is that what moves like Jagger is about? they would just do that's what I do. Sean's daughter. Sean's daughter has the best line about Jagger. We were talking about if we got a dog, what would we name it?

And she was like, what about Mick Jagger? And I was like, you know, your dad toured with them and hung out with Mick Jagger. And she's like, yeah, you've told me a million times about when you toured with ACDC. And I was like, oh, baby, he's actually not in ACDC. And she's like, yeah, I don't care. Oh my God. And then, you know what? How old is, how old is she?

14. Yeah, you know what? At some point, the light goes off and she'll care at some point. Maybe. Or maybe not. You're right. You never know. Okay, so again, you probably, Saff has a busy schedule.

You probably don't have seven hours for all my stuff. But I do want to talk about that major label debut. Came out in 1997. Maybe just give me a little. Actually, before we talked about the name, major label debut, Who amongst you decided to call the band Wide Mouth Mason? I think it would. Well, we all decided. So back, rewind to an earlier touch point in this conversation.

When we're on the road as a cover band in Western Canada playing Pinocca and Quinnell and Prince George, we have different names. And at one point, our agent booking us gives us a name when they're like, this is a terrible name. And so I'm not going to say it's that bad. You know what I'll say it? It was some kind of ruckus. And we're like, that's a terrible name.

But he just started booking us under that name. So then we're like, we got to come up with something better than that. And the blues thing starts happening in terms of us getting hip to blues and getting really into it. And we're noticing certain names in the blues world like Clarence Gatemouth Brown and pine top Perkins. And we're like, oh, those are kind of cool names. and so we're sitting, I think it was in Pinocca, actually, some bar where we're playing and we're drinking out of Wide Mouth Mason jars.

And I look over at Shons and I'm like, hey, what about, that sounds like Gatemouth Brown. What about Wide Mouth Mason? And he's like, yeah, I think, I think that's it. And that was it. It's like when you hear the name that's right, that's it. We've got our name. You feel it. You feel it.

I love that you're named after a jar. I feel that. In true, very fashion. A lot of advertising in basements and root sellers in Saskatchewa. We're big in the seller community. We have it a couple times at summer festivals that someone would come in and go, is this where the canning exhibition is happening? It's like, oh, that's a different wide mouth mace.

Yeah, no. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. Okay, so you got your name. Okay, so because I mean, I was. reading about the Nazarene and everything, but what can you tell us about the major label debut, the self-titled album, and all those Canadian rock radio hits we've been inundated with since 97? Yeah, we worked with a sort of a Ronnie Hawkins kind of a character named Carson Cole,

who had a reel-to-reel tape machine in a barn on his farm in Alberta. And it was our after like Saf said that experience cutting a couple songs with our friend's guitar teacher that was the first time we endeavored to make an entire record and recorded in the barn would go on the road play some more shows come back with

some more ideas and lay them down and then we just toured like crazy and I mean not just playing nightclubs but every breakfast TV show our manager could get us on every program director's backyard party that we could get on, just doing the work of being a young band and spreading the word. And when we, as Saf said, label people started coming out to shows,

seeing that we built an audience, seeing that we were confident on stage and liked some of our songs, they went, well, we could just release this. But we had been on the road for almost a year since we'd finished it and we're like, these songs have grown. We've grown as singers and players. The fidelity of it could be higher and we've written some more songs. So we went into a studio here in the in the Vancouver area to finish it, worked with a producer named Joel Van Dyck who'd been kind of in the Brian Adams' Little Mountain, Bob Clear Mountain world, who taught us a lot about, okay, when you're on stage, this is great. great that this extends out to 15 minutes, but maybe for the version on a record, like,

really got us thinking about, is this more effective if this happens eight times on a record, or can it happen two times and have more impact because of that? So a lot of those lessons, being in the studio going, it's important, you know, to be able to have a pattern that locks in together on this verse part, not just freestyling like you often do. So he really made us aware of listening not only to what our own songs were sounding like, but listening to other records and going, why does this feel like the chorus explodes from the verse? Oh, because they do this on the verse and this on the chorus. So it was a really big learning experience for us. And then we just road-dogged for the next couple years of hundreds of shows a year, that trajectory

like we said, of opening for different bands and starting to headline our own shows, really going home for a few days, doing laundry, going back out on the road. And it laid the foundation. I mean, as we said, it was totally different times. Every city had three different weekly magazines with three different live music and record reviewers and record company reps in each city who had relationships with radio stations. And so we'd fly around for three weeks, just going everywhere in the country, doing things like this, chatting with people, playing acoustic songs.

That was the time where we were laying the foundation, I feel like, for the rest of what's become our 30-year career. Yeah, you're making me nostalgic for that time. I mean, we just talked, was it yesterday, that Rogers was shutting down six radio stations across the country? And there's a lot of talk about radios dying. much music is a TikTok channel now, right? And they don't play music. But of course, we're similar vintage. And how did I get my music in the 90s?

Oh, yeah, they played it on, you know, 102.1 The Edge, or I watched it on much music. Like, I learned about Wide Mouth Mason from Much Music. Like, it does, we have lost something there, I think. Absolutely. Yeah, we had those shared watering holes where we all had to go for stuff. and now it's so fractured and siloed that it's like you can discover new music that you would love

that just isn't put in front of you. And the flip side of that being, we made our most recent record for less than we spent on tape on our first record. A lot of tools are in your hands to be able to have agency and be self-sufficient and get music to people directly and it just becomes about how do you rise above the stack? and the noise and connect with people and work algorithms to try and make sure that you're in

front of the people who would be interested in you. So again, we feel like we've been survivors of multiple different music businesses in our time in it. You know, the best thing and the worst thing about the way it's done today are like the same thing. It's like anybody can do it for very little money. I was about to say it's the democratization of music creation and, and access to the markets, which is a good thing, but it's the loss of like truly curated higher levels of art.

And that's maybe not such a great thing. No, it's fascinating. Okay. So not to spend the rest of our time together in 1997, but I mean, Midnight Rain, my old self this morning, like there are huge jams on this self-titled debut. And again, I meant I shouted out much music.

But maybe just a moment on the role of much. music. Obviously, radio is huge in the mid-90s as well to break you guys, but the role of much music specifically in the career of wide-mouth Mason. It's critical, I think. It, it, I mean, look, you know about us because of much music. I would venture to guess that, you know, a significant swat of our fan base from the 90s, that was their access point. And not only their access point to us, but everything. And, yeah, What a, what a, like I feel, again, maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but I feel like we were so lucky that that was happening at that time. Because if, you know, yeah, it was tough to get over the hurdle of are you accepted within that?

Are you, are you going to get promoted there? Are you going to get play? But once you're over that bar, if you do get play there, oh my God, what a boon to your exposure and your ability to connect with people on mass, whether it's, you know, just through what. they're playing on the TV channel or what they're doing sort of in their live in studio spaces or the events that they would do. We went and did something called Snow Job, which was like huge for us. David Kines was behind that, I think. Yeah, go ahead.

And so much fun. We had so much fun there. And we actually like over and above that kind of on a personal though, like made friends with people that were there too. One of the, one of the VJs, a fellow named Chris Nelson, is still really good friends with both Sean and I. Like, his daughter and my daughter are very tight because they went to school together and that kind of reconnected us. But, yeah, like, you build personal relationships too. Denise Dahlman played a big role for both of us in other pursuits and just life in general.

She gave us really great opportunities. Terry David Mulligan. Terry David Mulligan. Of course. Mike Campbell. in eastern Canada. There are a lot of much people that, like Saf said, went above and beyond.

Sure, it was great when we would perform at the HQ or our videos would be in the countdowns and that kind of thing. But Chris would do things like, hey, can I come on the road with you guys for a week and we just record everything and turn it into a piece that we show on Going Coastal or TDM to this day is like, hey, if you're coming through,

let's talk about the new record. and always so supportive of us that we've, it's a business of relationships and friendships, and we've had so many people in our corner from there over the years. But now I need, since you brought up Terry David Mulligan, who has also been on the program, really dig this guy. He's got great Joni Mitchell stories from way back. Yeah, like way back.

Hendricks. And he was there in the room when they're putting together, tears are not enough, okay? So these, you talk about that balancing. But he said to me on this very podcast, Toronto Mike, he told me that much music was too Toronto-centric. He said it was tough. The reason much West even had to exist,

and he just felt like Toronto was the center of the music universe, according to much music, and then they would forget about what's going on. And you mentioned Mike Campbell, who I've also talked to. But like, how tough was it for you because you're from Saskatoon? Would life have been easier if you were, I don't know, a Toronto band? I think because we were on Warner, that automatically was the door opener, right?

And so, again, those relationships were there. And so we were touring so much. We would be coming through Toronto all the time because of, you know, just the population density. Like you could come and spend two weeks in the GTA and just do like the 401 tour, we would call it, kind of going back and forth. And so we'd home base out of Toronto and that probably helped. But those, you know, while they were smaller pieces, those regional components of much music, the much west and going coastal and then Mike Campbell stuff out east. Like those played a critical role too and they took up a lot of space and we'd hit those as well.

So I'm not sure that it was kind of a regional bar. Maybe it was for some people. I don't know. Maybe maybe my memory of it is colored because of the Warner. in, right? Well, shout out to the last punk rock president, as Ron Hawkins calls him, Steve Kane. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think when we were in those conversations, it was really a guy named Dave Tallington and Kim Cook were the two Horner people who we were seeing a lot. And their vision and awareness of the musical history tradition that we came out of was really the,

the defining factor in why we wanted to work with them. That Dave could talk about being on a hilltop in Jamaica and talking with SAF's reggae heroes and then talk with me about all the stuff that I was into. We really just felt like, you know, the whole world is out there. Those, the first tours we did through California was a real like, hey, what we're doing, it was maybe to our benefit to develop,

it in relative seclusion in Saskatoon and just be into what we were into and be playing at the blues bar. There was no A&R people at our first 100 shows going, this isn't ready yet. So by the time we did go to play those bidding war shows to play Canadian Music Week or North by Northeast or whatever, we had hundreds of shows under our belts. We could take the room back from a heckler who was trying to bogart it from us. We could, we could, we We knew who we were and we were ready to present these things that had been, you know, honed in tough situations. Where I think if we had come up in the middle of that, it might have been a really different experience and we would have been half baked when we were being presented to all these people. Okay, but fun fact.

California has as many human beings living in it as all of Canada. This is a fun fact. but so at some point when you're breaking on much and I'm trying to think did CF and Y play Wide Mouth Mason or were you too bluesy for them? I think Yeah, there were a few songs

I don't think like mild self and those kinds of things got on there but I think some of the other songs maybe from the second record got more love there I'm probably the mists of time or Yeah, maybe like why or I don't know smile or something like that. I'm trying to think all the one word titles you guys those very 90s. At least we said them in the song not like just random like why is this called

high top you never say that. It's funny you mention that because speaking of jars and wide mouth mason and everything like pearl jam right so pearl jam you ever heard a pearl jam is they made it okay heard of them yeah but like porch for example like I don't think porch is in those lyrics like this is Everything was a name like that, porch, oceans, whatever, just one word. That was the 90s, wasn't it? Yeah, well, that one, not in the title. You're right, you're right, exactly. Deodorant, as I recall.

Yeah. It smells like teen spirit. Okay, so, so many, you mentioned, I was trying to cause some Canadian rock controversy here about Toronto, center of the universe, Saskatoon, and Venus, and really what I should bring it back to is a combo I had with Miles Goodwin from April 1, the late great. Yeah.

And they were kind of based in, well, they're a Maritimes band, but they kind of based themselves in Montreal at some point. And he told me Miles, because they got nominated for many, many Junos. But they never won a Juno. And he says it's because they weren't in Toronto to be on those, like, golfing, to golf with all those decision makers or whatever, because they weren't based in Toronto. He said he felt they were slighted for being like east of Ontario, that band.

And I'm curious, how many, do you know offhand either of you, how many Juno nominations, wide-mouth Mason has had? About three. Three? Yeah. Okay, three. Including one for like best new act from that 97 release, right? Yes. That and, uh, and, uh, ask us how many, ask us how many we've won.

Well, that's where I'm going here, man. Like, like, like, how many have you won? We're three-time Juno losers, wide-mouth Mason. And I don't know that that's. necessarily because we weren't from Toronto. Other people had bigger years, I think, than us in, you know, I think we might have lost one to the hip. There's not a lot of, what are you going to say? I would have voted for them.

Yeah. Who won best new artist that year in 97? Do you remember? Are you ready? I'm ready. I'm going to tell you. It's going to tell you what was going on. If you think back, it was a crazy sidepiece style of music that was really happening.

it was Celtic music and a band Nope what's your guess Okay I haven't my guess will be I'm trying to get the year right for 97 though But The Alan Doyle band They're big

Great Big C Nope wasn't them They were already They were already doing their thing But I feel like Because the band that first jumped in my head Is home Because you mentioned home for arrest earlier

Like you just dropped the trip The West Yeah but they're too old Like they were around old as well It's a band called Leahy. Oh, right. I have vague memories of Leahy.

Like, I always think of them as like with the Rankin family. Yeah, so, and this is what someone told me to your point about, you know, Miles' comments on, on Juno's wins. I don't know how true this is, but when we didn't win that best new acting, what we were told is basically the votes are, the voters are looking at what are your numbers and whoever has the. the most sails at that particular moment is going to get the votes in all likelihood. And Celtic music was big at the time.

Really big. I do recall. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So shout out to... We didn't really have much of a Celtic vibe. No. You know, your vibe, though, maybe a moment on this, because I wonder if this works against

you in any regard, but describing the sound of wide-mouth Mason is like an exercise. If you tell you, because it's kind of got a note. alt-rocky thing and there's a jam band component it's very bluesy you mentioned reggae right big sugar's got reggae jams right like it's like like how how would you describe the sound of wide mouth mason brother that's been the bane of our existence but also the boon of our existence yeah i think in music history there are those acdcs who get a thing and just refine and hone and and and surf that thing for their entire careers. You know what they are and what they aren't. I grew up loving Prince who would look different every record beyond sounding different every record, have different

hair every record. We're all, you know, massive fans of the police who went from being a scrappy three-piece band to an orchestral, you know, synchronicity band, Zeppelin. We love people who not only evolve but kind of went look there's no way we can escape me sounding like my voice us having our sensibilities as players so why not swing wide and try and anything that you are inspired by and on those long drives we'd be doing i'd be going hey i'd discover this new slide guitar player called ben harper let's listen to that and saff would be like you never heard black uhuru have you let's listen to that and we would just expose each other to stuff and it wouldn't always we wouldn't be like let's do a reggae song but the influence of that or the melodies of that

or those things would kind of seep into it was part of the reason why we called our third record stew whereas a little bit of a little bit of everything mixed together is is over time eventually going to sound like us was the hope but it it can be there will be people who are like um i thought you were sort of a grunge band because of when you came out and i heard my old self on big shiny tunes, but I didn't know there was this side to you. And in some ways, that can be a strength, like we said at the beginning of if we're playing a blues festival, we have a bunch of stuff from that sort of realm that we can draw on, where if we're playing a rock festival, we might lean on other parts of our catalog. But it has been hard to do an

elevator pitch on over the years because we kind of just follow our muse wherever it leads. You're a marketer's worst nightmare. Yeah. But a musician's best friend. Yeah, no, I dig it, but you mentioned ACDC. Like, you know, this is a good sound. Let's just duplicate it every song and every album for all of eternity. Through Chris Nelson, I got to interview Angus when we were on the road with them.

He was like, hey, I could do it, but I think it would be funny if I just film it and you do it. And I went, Angus, there are people who level the accusation against you guys that you've just made. the same record 12 times. What would you say to that? He went, well, I suppose we've actually made it 14 times. He's laughing all the way to the bank, that's what he's doing there.

It's funny, because every rock band, I can think of hard rock band, at least I can think of maybe one ballad or a couple of ballads that they put out, right? Usually their biggest hits, by the way, are the ballads. That's a fun fact. But there's no ACDC ballad.

I guess the jack. She got the jack. You know, I'm not even going to... That's the slow song. for you to dance with your STI-infused lover. I was going to say, a mistress for Christmas or something like that. I don't know.

Hey, the reason I just remember, again, you guys have been amazing. Like, I just, I can't believe one of you guys I could bike over and, you know, hug.

Let's meet right now. This is the beginning of a beautiful thing for you too, I feel like. Well, I worked for 18 months at the McDonald's at Runnymede and Bluer. It's no longer there, but. It's no longer there.

So how long? I think it became a wing stop. Oh yeah, no, I know because I walk by it with my, because I do this loop. I started running meat and Dundas and I walk Dundas to the running meat, sorry, to Dundas and bluer, and then I come back to Runa Mead and then I go across Rundameen. Like I know that's definitely a wing stop, like the ground floor and there's some kind of like school thing or some kind of tutoring thing. A tutoring thing.

I'm very curious as to, I look at like the number of the proliferation of cannabis stores and this seems like there's too many in the market. And now I feel the same way about wings. Good point. How many wings are people eating? Yeah, wings are... They go hand in hand with the cannabis story. It's a bubble, Saf, it's a bubble.

It's the wings bubble. It's the wings bubble. Yeah, their money out of it now. But why did you, Saf, why are you in Toronto? Like, how long ago did this happen? You've abandoned the West? What's going on? I went to law school in Vancouver in 2005,

but in the summer right before I met the person who had become my wife. And so she was living in Ottawa. And so after my first year, I transferred to Ottawa. I did my last two years there article in Ottawa. And then shortly thereafter, we had a baby. So she took Matt leave. And she grew up in Paris.

So she's like, do you want to try living in Toronto for a year? She felt Ottawa was a bit sleepy. Wait, do you mean Paris, Ontario or Paris France? Paris, France. Okay, just checking. Paris, Ontario, I can work with. Paris, France, different story. So I was like, sure, let's try it.

And we moved into Toronto in 2010 and never left because we really did it. Well, you picked a good neighborhood, like to a point where with my current wife, we were buying a home. I was priced out of the Bloor West Village, Swansea Village area. And that's how I ended up in South Etobico. Are you in Mimico? I'm right beside Mimico in New Toronto. Oh, I didn't know Mimico in New Toronto. What's the delineating?

Okay, well, you know when you get to the numbered streets? Yeah. The numbered streets are all New Toronto and then into Long Branch. So there are no numbered streets. So the actual division line is Dwight. Okay. Where the McDonald's is at Lake Shore and Dwight. So Dwight is the dividing line and then you get to the numbers.

And the numbers take you to Mississauga, basically. So that park that's Colonel something? Yeah, Colonel Samuel Smith Park. Is that in New Toronto? Correct. Yes, correct, correct. It's quite nice. It is amazing.

It's amazing. They do have, I think, still a rib fest in there, but I did see. I saw the following bands playing Sam Smith. You ready? I saw Kim Mitchell play. This is all free concerts, by the way. He just waltz over and watch. Fantastic.

Kim Mitchell. Sass Jordan. Fantastic. I love Sats. I love Sass, too. I love Sass too. She's on the, this came up with Susie McNeil. That Sass Jordan is on the bodyguard soundtrack.

Do you know this? It did not know that. And it sold like, I think, 35 million units or something. Yeah, that's like, I think I would, would. Would you trade that for Big Shiny Tunes too? Well, I'm going to get to, we're going to close with Big Shiny Tunes because you're, I did a whole episode about Big Shiny Tunes. And you're on two, which is, I think, the best one.

That is, I think, that was the sweet spot. Yeah. I will say as if I were a Juno voter, it would be, it would win because it sold the most. Just like. It was great. Really quickly, just a couple more bands I saw that. I can't believe I haven't finished this list yet. Alan Fruhe from Glass Tiger.

Nice. And 5440, which is a great West Coast band. Love those guys. Fantastic guys, yeah. And Helix. We just did a show with Helix last summer. He's like an opera singer, you know. He took me aside.

I did the weirdest gig at the Commodore opening for the trailer park boys solo acoustic. And Brian the singer from Helix was after me. And he pulled me aside and went, Hey, do you know what Belcanto singing style is? That's what he does. I want to show you this because I think as a singer, this would, I like how you sing and I want you to be able to do it for a really long time. So who would have thought that the singer of Helix would be giving me.

Oh, I know. Canto singing lessons. That's exactly what he's into that style of singing. Like it's like opera or something. I don't know. It's a big deal. Yeah. Okay, two quick hits here, and then we'll close with big shiny tunes.

And again, I urge all the listeners here with Sean and Saf. We're talking big, sorry, we're talking Big Sugar. That was another episode. We're talking Wide Mouth Mason, but just to remind people, rockstalgia music festival, it's coming to the Orno Fairgrounds, widemouth Mason are the headliners. And this is happening now. So we're not giving you a lot of ramp time.

It's coming up this weekend, okay? so that's what the 11th and 12th of July, 2026, if you're listening in the far off future here. But quick hits here, which one is twice I think I went to California because I'm curious, was it ever important to you two gentlemen to break the U.S. market? I think anyone in any Canadian band is trying to break into the U.S. market just because of the point you raised earlier,

which is one state of law. is the size of Canada, right? So you break that market. You have a touring, at the very least, you have a touring circuit for many, many years to come. And probably you get a much more higher probability of breaking internationally. So yeah, we went and toured and spent time.

We were assigned to Atlantic for a while. We kind of did our thing and tried to make it happen and never really did. Was it ever close? Like, I'm curious, because Kim Mitchell, it was close. Like, he got, they were trying to break, go for soda. But then the same label that had go for soda, the same label had, we're not going to take it by Twisted Sister.

And they were like, oh, yeah. So Kim came back home, basically. But I'm curious, was there ever a moment where you thought it might happen? Well, when we first signed with them, a lot of the reason that we went with them is they were, they wanted to replicate what we had done in Canada. And they were like, our history is these guerrilla live one fan at a time. Craig Kalman would be like, we got a bus with a stage on top of it, and we would drive Jewel to every major sporting event.

And when people were leaving, she'd be performing on top of the bus and do what we did in Canada. One room at a time, open for other people, build that audience. And when we submitted our second record, which was the first one, that we were making that we were giving to both Warner and Canada and Atlantic in the US. When they first got it, they were like, this is going to be perfect. Get ready. Pack your bags. We're going to give you tour support.

You're going to go on the road. Because as you alluded to, there's always been that sort of jam band element to what we do. And there were a lot of blues travelers and those types of bands that were starting to explode. But in the interim, new metal. and boy bands happened. Right. And they came back to us after thinking on it for about a week and went, you know,

yes, we're still probably going to do all the things we just talked about of playing the long game and getting you out on the road. But can you give us a single that's either new medley or boy bandy? And we went, that's, it's not just about making that thing once. It's about then playing that every night.

and every morning on breakfast TV, and so much of why we can throw ourselves into this is every song is us. It feels like we're presenting ourselves and we're behind this and believe in it 100%. And that would be pantomime. That would be play acting. And no, we can't do that. And it's interesting. We were going through that process at the same time as Big Rec were also on that label. and they kind of presented us both with the same thing.

Kind of similar bands. This is the two forks in the road that music is going on. And Big Rock were like, well, we'll try and write something like that. And we would run into Ian at the horseshoe going, I've submitted like a hundred songs, and they're still parsing. And we were like, we've already gone on the road for our second record and done an entire tour across the country. And we're working on our third one while he was still working on.

that and they did end up selecting a single doing a really expensive video putting a big push behind it but the zeitgeist had sort of moved away from what it was that that we were doing into being in sync or uh you know uh corn and that kind of stuff so in the end we were throughout our career not to drop another name but i remember sitting backstage with malcolm young getting a chance to hang out with him and he was like listen you guys not totally dissimilar to us that you're kind of based in roots music and because of that there's going to be times where your career is like this and other times where it moves away from that and he was like I get as much joy out of playing an a club as I do an arena and if you

can do that if it can be about playing the music you love and being happy if 300 people come or 3,000 people or 30,000 people come then you can do this forever and I think that was, we really took that to heart that there will be times where we're not aligned with what the popular things are and therefore there will be fewer opportunities for us. And we've all seen people chase those things and it never works out. So just keep doing what you do. You're always only three minutes away from writing a song that connects with a bunch of people. And we've been fortunate to catch successive waves and still be able to do this.

But that was basically the story of that is the temperature changed and we were a different flavor than the one of the month. You were not new metal, that's for sure. We are certainly not limp biscuit. No. Who was I just talking to? It was on this very podcast, but I record a lot and it becomes a big blur. But shout out to blur.

But I believe it was, yeah, the Evanescence hit, Bring Me Back to Life, right? Monster hit. right, it came up because of Sully's favorite song, the captain who landed that plane in the Hudson in New York. And that's in the rehearsal season two. If you haven't seen it yet, you've got to see it. But Amy Lee wrote that song as a teenager, and the label said we're going to make this a new metal song.

Like they brought in some guy to do this whole new metal part, like to make it new metal because it wasn't new metal and the label wasn't going to put it out unless it wasn't. And she, I guess she had to comply. But I just was thinking, you could just take a song and like, Put a new metal guy on there to do some kind of a rap thing or whatever and just just just thought of that. Okay. So put this in different clothes and maybe it will work. And that speaks to the malleability of a song idea. If it's like this could be a country song or a metal song or a whatever. Well, you two are good looking guys. You could have been a boy band. It's never too many. You should have seen us back then. Well, you remind me of serial Joe, okay? Not a boy band, but I'm going to show.

shoehorn that in. Okay. So we're closing They were on Edge Fest. We would just I just saw two days ago, 27 years ago, we were on the Edge Fest tour and Serial Joe were on the one of the side stages. Well they, you know, they played Woodstock 99.

Speaking of Limp Biscuit, and they were managed at the time by Kim Clark Chapness. And he's a, he's still rock and I wrote him a note today because I'm trying to get a contact for somebody else. Okay, so here's how we're closing. So you're on Warner, okay? I'm no fool.

I'm no idiot. I know Warner is responsible, I think, for the tracks on Big Shiny Tunes, too. Am I right? Yeah, I think it floated around and they took turns. So my understanding was it would rotate in terms of which label got to release

each one, but every label got to submit one entry or two. I can't remember what the numbers were, but like Universal got to put one on each one. EMI got to put one on each one. Warner got to put one on each one. Well, you know the big question I'm going to hit you with right now, which is, how the heck

did you get my old self on Big Shiny Tunes, too? The best of the Big Shiny Tunes. No one knows the answer. I think it was, I feel like it might have had something to do with Kim Cook, who was Sean referenced earlier. Yeah, from Warner. Or Tallington. One of the two. They were both big champions

of ours, and really well respected. And I don't, I don't know how those things work. I don't know if like the Warner, the Warner Brass sits in a room is like, okay, you know, rock, paper, scissors, who gets to pick which one, which band or which song is going to be on it? But I don't know. Do you know, Sean? I feel like it was maybe some of that sort of, hey, we have a slot for one of our artists. And it's also like that meme of the one guy dancing on the hill all by himself. And then one more person comes over at first as a joke,

but then more people see, hey, that's fun and start doing it. There was a moment. There was a while where, you know, the fire was building around our band and it was like, oh, we did this and it went well, this single is doing well, this is doing well on much. So it, it kind of was the narrative arc that would fit one of those things of things seem to be happening and everyone loves to join a party that's already in progress. That's kind of downplay. Not the downplay. I don't know, like, who else would they have put on their roster on that particular, you know, style of compilation. Maybe odds, but

someone who's cool, I think, was on one of the other one, yeah. So maybe it was just our turn. You were, you got lucky on that one. But you belong. Like, you definitely, like, you're sandwiched between the Chemical Brothers and Radiohead. And you don't

sound out of place. Like, you just sound like a great new rock song. One of my first records ever in the, you know, Columbia Record House days, a bunch of the first ones were like those compilation gold and platinum that would have Mr. Mr.

alongside Lionel Richie alongside Prince alongside you know whoever and it was different times it's so weird to tell our kids about it like you had to buy every record and hope that there would be enough good songs on it that you were happy so

it's funny to have our own piece of that compilation record part be part of our history And there are, because there's a lot of international artists on Big Shiny Tunes, even though it's kind of a much music joint here. But I will just shed out the other Canadian artists. I'm going to do it super quick and then we'll say goodbye.

I could talk to you guys all day to be honest. I'm going to run and bump into Saff in a minute here. But okay. So Canadian artists, Brand Van 3,000. And I still love this song, Drinking in L.A. That's on Big Shamedians, too. Yeah, it's still great too. You know what?

It's funny because I don't normally go back to back. I do one episode of Toronto Mike a day at the most. Because I just said goodbye to Susie McNeil, I literally, and I don't even know how it came up anymore, and I can't believe it's come up two episodes and rolling that, but I sang some of drinking in L.A. Oh, she went to L.A. for a bit when she was trying to break in the States after this rockster in excess.

And I sang some drinking in L.A., so that's a coincidence right there. Okay, I digress. I loved Holly McNarland's numb. Hmm. I love that. We had a great, super fun tour with Holly. she was like, you know, there's a big overlap in sort of when we were both up and coming.

And she's so much fun, man. She knows how to make a room fun. Before Dave Ginn, after Matt Goodbend, and before he joined 5440, he was her guitar player on that tour. So we had a lot of fun. I had a lovely email exchange of Holly because I desperately wanted her on this podcast, because I loved hearing her on, you know, 102.1. edge back in the day. And she politely told me in a very sweet way, she doesn't really want to revisit that rock star stuff. So I am not able to land Holly McNarland, but she seems very sweet.

All right. Wrap it up. Go ahead. I just think of, you know, again, some people do this forever and love it. For other people, I think there's a point of their life where they move on to other things, whether it's being more involved in family or travel and, you know, refurbishing homes and renting them like I know all he's doing. And I think we're fortunate that like Saf said, he went to law school, became a lawyer. I've worked in the guitar industry on the side. I work at a company that works with promoters and festivals and labels and artist managers and stuff. So we've been able to keep enough plate spinning that we're really fortunate to be in a spot where we are with the band where we don't have to go on the road all the time, be away from our families to try and piece

a living together, but we also get to choose the, okay, we want to make this record and we can just afford to pay for it ourselves and contract things out and we want to do these shows. So, you know, it's really the sweet spot of being able to do what we love, having enough of a built-in audience that will support us through it. But to be really excited, we were just texting before this about our next session of recording new music and working on stuff for our future release that to be this far into it and to be like, you know what, our next record is going to be our next record, is going to be our best record. And to be excited about it and fired up and excited to play the rockstologies and summer festivals in the next couple

months and then we're doing a tour with default in the fall and just to have this keep going to go back to what we started on at this point we're just grateful that we still get to do this and that there's an audience for it no love it it does remind me a bit of my friends and the watchman because they're in the same place where they got other things going on know, their careers and stuff, but they will play these, you know, big festivals or play the odd show here and there, maybe at the Danforth Music Hall or whatever,

and it's not their full-time thing being the watchman, but they'll still get together, and you guys are getting together this weekend. Cool. All right, so because I'm going to kill myself if I found, I'm making an air fan. So two more Canadian acts. So you guys are on this, obviously.

But the Tea Party are on Big Shiny Tunes 2 of Temptation. So shout out to the Tea Party. And from Windsor, Ontario. And last but not least, on the Canadian front, the Age of Electric with remote control. Yeah, tea party, age of electric, good friends of ours, always happy to share stages with them. They're at festivals. We actually made our last two records with Ryan Dahl from Age of Electric at his studio here in Vancouver and then on Main Island when he moved there. And that's part of the fun of this is being part of.

of a community and coming up with a bunch of our friends who are still doing it in one way or another. Love it. Love that you keep on rocking in the free world. We got to let Safco, though. It's raining out, eh? Yeah, it's like all of a sudden really nutty. Because I'm in the basement with no windows, so I'm like oblivious. Yeah, I was in the living room and still was with windows and still was oblivious.

I stepped down. I'm like, oh, it's crazy. Right. So we'll leave it there. I suspect at some point knowing Saf is so close or whatever, I'll get one or two of you in the basement for like a sequel episode. So maybe when the new music comes out or whatever. But thanks for this time.

I loved talking about Wide Mouth Mason with you guys. Thank you so much for having us, man. This was fun. Peace and love, Saf. I'll see you in the Junction. And that brings us to the end of our 1,932nd show. Go to Toronto Mike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to all who made this possible.

That is Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Nick A.eNeys, Recycle My Electronics.C.A., and Ridley Funeral Home. See you all Monday, when Jeremy Hopkins is going to go off on A-I. Slop.