{"id":23286,"date":"2022-11-09T09:47:46","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T17:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23286"},"modified":"2022-11-14T11:04:45","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T19:04:45","slug":"blackie-and-the-rodeo-kings-remain-most-dysfunctional-band-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2022\/11\/09\/blackie-and-the-rodeo-kings-remain-most-dysfunctional-band-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackie and the Rodeo Kings remain most dysfunctional band in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019: The Songs of Willie P. Bennett<\/em>, according to Fearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather 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,\u201d says Fearing. \u201cThere was never any intention of going farther but one thing led to another very organically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are playing Victoria this week (photo by Taya).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re supposed to put out a record, get in a tour bus, and flog it back and forth, north and south, until you\u2019ve scraped the last dregs of what\u2019s possible with that record, and then you do it all over again and keep repeating that,\u201d says Fearing.<\/p>\n

Everyone in Blackie and the Rodeo Kings had a career of their own, which Fearing says helped them keep things fresh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we did was make a record, play some dates that we\u2019d all agreed to, and then we pack it in and mothball it,\u201d he says. \u201cEverybody goes back to what they do. We were a little surprised when we came back there was still an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the audience kept coming back. It\u2019s 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\u2019re really touring two albums because COVID hit right after they released 2020’s King of This Town<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had literally said to each other at the Toronto airport in February of 2020, \u2018I\u2019ll see you in two weeks,\u2019 because we were about to tour the record across Canada, Europe, and everywhere,\u201d says Fearing. \u201cI didn\u2019t see them for two and a half years, but we\u2019re pretty close. As soon as we climbed on the tour bus it took about 10 minutes to get back to where we were before.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest record, Oh Glory<\/em>, was a very different project, Fearing says, because it was all done sharing files online.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Tom\u2019s record in so many ways, but it\u2019s also the sound of Colin Linden\u2019s mind,\u201d says Fearing. \u201cIf you\u2019re 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\u2019re 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\u2019s Colin\u2019s genius. He\u2019s pretty good at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fearing says that he thinks of Oh Glory<\/em>, which came out in July, as\u00a0being primarily Wilson\u2019s record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Tom\u2019s story to tell, but he\u2019s gone through this large transformation finding out in his 50s that he\u2019s adopted, and then finding out that he\u2019s actually Mohawk,\u201d says Fearing. \u201cGrowing up thinking you\u2019re part French and part Irish and then finding out that you\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh Glory<\/em> is a celebration of this band, and a celebration of overcoming adversity, says Fearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a thread in this record that I haven\u2019t felt with this band before and a lot of it for me is around Tom\u2019s journey,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Words like \u201csupergroup\u201d and \u201cinstitution\u201d are thrown around regarding this band but Fearing says Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are more like a family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what allows us to work through the ups and downs, and trials and tribulations that come at you as a group of adult men,\u201d says Fearing. \u201cBands 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\u2019s what we do. We are all solo artists but when it comes time to get back together, it\u2019s a joyful occasion with a lot of laughs and a lot of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings
\n8 pm Thursday, November 10
\nRoyal Theatre
\nrmts.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23288,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23286\/revisions\/23288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}