Wed Aug 17, 2011
Music

Blue Rodeo crooner Jim Cuddy

Few things say summer in Toronto as much as Blue Rodeo’s annual gig at the Molson Amphitheatre. This year’s show, on Aug. 20, pays tribute to their seminal album Five Days in July. We stopped by the band’s Danforth recording studio to talk with co-lead singer (and tallest drink of water) Jim Cuddy about Blue Rodeo’s enduring allure, why he’ll always stop for fans and exactly how many vintage cowboy shirts are in his closet.

BY: Courtney Shea

You’ll have to excuse my trembling knees. In these interviews we usually ask people to name their celebrity crush, and you are my number one celebrity crush ever.

Ha. Really? That’s sweet.

Seriously. My sister and I once hid in a bathroom stall at Hurley’s Irish Pub in Montreal because we heard that Blue Rodeo was playing a secret late-night show.

In the bathroom?! That is a great story.

I also met you once in Yorkville. You and your wife were strolling along Cumberland and you were actually singing to her. And then my best friend and I had to bust up the moment to ask for a picture. [Shameless reporter shows him the photo.]

Oh, that’s a good one. I still can’t believe you hid in a bathroom stall.

Yeah, well being a mega-fan isn’t always dignified. I guess now is a good time to ask—do you ever get sick of people stopping you in the street? Are there times when you won’t stop for a fan?

No, I will always stop. I’ve been on the other end of being tossed off like that and it’s humiliating. There are certain people whom I admire, and part of that is based on how they acted when we met. Kris Kristofferson, Doug Gilmour, Bobby Orr—they do it right.

Why do you think your music has transcended trendiness for so many years? Your fan base has continued to grow, through grunge, gangster rap, boy bands, Bieber fever…

When we started with this, it was a pretty un-groovy type of music. One of the things that has worked to our advantage is that we’ve never been part of the popular trend, so we haven’t been competing with a bunch of other bands. I think Canadian audiences are keen on diversity. Even if you love Bieber, you don’t want only Bieber all the time.

The show on Saturday celebrates your epic album Five Days in July, which was recorded almost 20 years ago.

Yes, the Winnipeg Folk Festival asked us to come and play the album in its entirety this summer and then we just sort of thought, maybe that’s what we should base our summer tour around. Greg [Keelor] has had some serious trouble with his ears, and the softer acoustic music is easier for him to do, so it just made sense. It’s been great. We’ve sort of rediscovered the band we were when we first made the album.

You and Greg have been playing together for more than 30 years. Do you remember the first time you met him?

We met in high school at North Toronto Collegiate. Greg came in halfway through the school year, so you always remember those kids. He walked into my Grade 11 math class, and he had this big, frizzy hair and, well, kids are cruel. We all started passing notes calling him Leroy New Boy. Later, he admitted to me that after class he went to the garbage, uncrumpled the notes and read them.

You’ve said that 90 per cent of the audience at your Jim Cuddy Band shows would rather see you with Blue Rodeo. You must get something pretty gratifying from the solo project.

Definitely. It’s really about being able to do my own thing. With Blue Rodeo, every detail is done in partnership with Greg. Everything is filtered through the other person and we take that seriously. On my own, I can also do more casual gigs that Blue Rodeo wouldn’t be able to do because the band is just too big of a machine. Like, sure I’ll play your Beer Fest!

The first single on your new Jim Cuddy Band album, Skyscraper Soul, came out earlier this week, and it’s about the royal wedding. That surprised me.

Yeah, me too. What spurred it originally was watching The King’s Speech. Because we fly so much, I saw it a few times on planes. I thought about that king who had to lead a nation that had just come out of a war into another war, and what that must have felt like. Having to live so outside of the normal. Then I heard an estimate that 2 billion people were going to watch the royal wedding. Aren’t there only 6 billion people in the world?!

So then, did you watch the wedding?

Well, I had to. We were on the road somewhere, but I got up at 4:30 a.m. and watched.

Alone, or did you wake the guys up?

Ha. I watched it alone. Can you imagine—“Come on guys! It’s the wedding!”