The Tragically Hip is getting back to
its roots. The band’s eleventh album, In
Between Evolution, hearkens back to the quality and sound of earlier
records, before the generally panned Music
@ Work and In Violet Light of
recent years.
It may have seemed that the quintet was
running dry after 20 years of writing rock ‘n’ roll. But instead of receding
into the nooks and crannies of its native Canada, The Hip tapped into the
source: the live show.
“Our idea this time around was to take
it a bit more to the way it was the first two records,” says Hip guitarist
Robby Baker during a stop in Syracuse. “You have your songs and you tour the
shit out of them, so they’re so road-ready and by the time you get them in the
studio it’s just a matter of setting up and playing them.”
This time around, instead of recording
separate tracks in the studio and using drum loops and samples, the band
perfected the entire album on stage — sometimes wandering into small clubs to
test-drive songs — and then played all together in the studio. They chose
producer Adam Kasper (Pearl Jam, Queens of the Stone Age) because of his desire
to capture the in-person feel. What they got was a snapshot of the band’s
direct, honest, and edge-rubbing live show.
“The strange thing is it’s the approach
that most bands take for their first record or first two records,” Baker says,
“and I think that’s why those first two records by a band are usually their
best. And then you get to a point where it gets all ass-backwards, and you’re
making the song and then you’re going out and touring it.”
The band feeds on interaction with its
audience as much as the fans love seeing the live shows. Instead of feeling
beat down by the road, the band thrives on tour.
“I’ve used the analogy that the whole
process is really like a big, long flirtation, going out to dinner and drinks.
Getting up on stage is consummation. That’s where it’s all headed.”
In Between Evolution is a rare thing: an album on
which every song can stand on its own. The melodies are strong and addictive,
Gordon Downie’s lyrics are genius, the guitars (Baker and Paul Langlois; Gord
Sinclair on bass) and drums (Johnny Fay) pull you gently along or slap you
around, as needed. The effect is classic, back-to-basics. The songs are short
and pithy, but flow from one to the other with a sort of rambling elegance.
There are ballads (“Good Night Josephine”) and rough, agitated singles
(“Vaccination Scar,” on which Baker plays pedal-steel guitar). This is good
rock ‘n’ roll. It will last.
The Hip has an educated, shabby cool
— a sort of musical equivalent of the smart, going-places kid who still
remembers the old neighborhood. They write songs about the extraordinary in
ordinary lives, with a keen eye, and a touch that goes from jaded to sarcastic
to gentle. They’ve put out 11 albums, been together 20 years.
But while the band has found love in
Canada, its songs don’t get much American radio time. It could be because the
songs are hard to sing along to — there’s too much meat there — or it could
be because they’re just too Canadian.
“I think for a lot of years, you’d try
to disguise the fact that you’re from Canada, you didn’t celebrate it,” Baker
says. “We’re a Canadian band that decided to stay in Canada and sing about
Canadian stories… So some people got a little overexcited about that, maybe.”
Baker says he’s glad to return to
Western New York, and he’s interested in the venue the band will play when it
gets here, the fact that it’s not a big arena, but an old theater.
“We always refer to them as sort of
like 50-year-old strippers,” he says. “It’s all that sort of red, velveteen
wallpaper, all nicotine-stained, and a little peeling around the edges, but
it’s just got so much character. It’s history.”
It could be a character from one of
their songs. And it reveals an eye for what’s underneath, the gracious
possibility in the old, the steady, the classic.
The Tragically
Hip plays Tuesday, October 19, at the Auditorium Theatre, 875 East Main Street, at
7:30 p.m. $25. 222-5000, www.ticketmaster.com, www.thehip.com
This article appears in Oct 13-19, 2004.
