It all started as a one-off side project. Blackie and the Rodeo Kings formed back in 1996 when Stephen Fearing, Tom Wilson, and Colin Linden got together to pay tribute to their friend and mentor, Canadian folk artist Willie P. Bennett. There was no plan beyond the release of their first record, High or Hurtin’: The Songs of Willie P. Bennett, according to Fearing.
“Rather than make a tribute album, like everyone was doing at the time, where 12 different artists do 12 different songs and you curate a collection and put it out as a tribute, Colin and I started the conversation about making this record, and his vision was to make a band,” says Fearing. “There was never any intention of going farther but one thing led to another very organically.”
The veteran musicians jokingly call themselves the most dysfunctional band in the world, Fearing says, because they’ve always refused to do what a band is supposed to do.
“You’re supposed to put out a record, get in a tour bus, and flog it back and forth, north and south, until you’ve scraped the last dregs of what’s possible with that record, and then you do it all over again and keep repeating that,” says Fearing.
Everyone in Blackie and the Rodeo Kings had a career of their own, which Fearing says helped them keep things fresh.
“What we did was make a record, play some dates that we’d all agreed to, and then we pack it in and mothball it,” he says. “Everybody goes back to what they do. We were a little surprised when we came back there was still an audience.”
And the audience kept coming back. It’s been 27 years since the release of that first record and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are out on the road touring their 11th album but Fearing says they’re really touring two albums because COVID hit right after they released 2020’s King of This Town.
“We had literally said to each other at the Toronto airport in February of 2020, ‘I’ll see you in two weeks,’ because we were about to tour the record across Canada, Europe, and everywhere,” says Fearing. “I didn’t see them for two and a half years, but we’re pretty close. As soon as we climbed on the tour bus it took about 10 minutes to get back to where we were before.”
The latest record, Oh Glory, was a very different project, Fearing says, because it was all done sharing files online.
“It’s Tom’s record in so many ways, but it’s also the sound of Colin Linden’s mind,” says Fearing. “If you’re going to get a guitar part from Victoria, and a vocal from Hamilton, and a drum part from a basement in Toronto, and make it sound like we’re all in the same room, you have to have a real mastery of your craft. You have to create a space for all of these things to exist in and that’s Colin’s genius. He’s pretty good at that.”
Fearing says that he thinks of Oh Glory, which came out in July, as being primarily Wilson’s record.
“It’s Tom’s story to tell, but he’s gone through this large transformation finding out in his 50s that he’s adopted, and then finding out that he’s actually Mohawk,” says Fearing. “Growing up thinking you’re part French and part Irish and then finding out that you’re Mohawk is a big change. That dovetails so eloquently with what we have going on in our country with Truth and Reconciliation and the horrific uncovering of the truth around the residential schools, which most of us in Canada found out about over the last two years.”
Oh Glory is a celebration of this band, and a celebration of overcoming adversity, says Fearing.
“There’s a thread in this record that I haven’t felt with this band before and a lot of it for me is around Tom’s journey,” he says.
Words like “supergroup” and “institution” are thrown around regarding this band but Fearing says Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are more like a family.
“That’s what allows us to work through the ups and downs, and trials and tribulations that come at you as a group of adult men,” says Fearing. “Bands are notorious for tearing each other apart, oftentimes because the band is the only creative outlet. With us, rather than breaking up to pursue solo efforts, that’s what we do. We are all solo artists but when it comes time to get back together, it’s a joyful occasion with a lot of laughs and a lot of love.”
Blackie and the Rodeo Kings
8 pm Thursday, November 10
Royal Theatre
rmts.bc.ca