Halfway to Completing New Album

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Halfway to Completing New Album - potsie - 04-10-2015

An interview with Paul in the April 10th edition of the Chronicle Herald, Halifax's daily newspaper:

Classic Hip hits the road

Fully and Completely comes to Halifax as band channels history

STEPHEN COOKE ARTS REPORTER

<a href="mailto Confused

cooke@herald.ca">scooke@herald.ca</a> @CH_scooke

With three decades of packed arenas under its belt and a 12-album discography that will swell to 13 by the end of this year, the Tragically Hip has maintained a remarkable forward momentum matched by few Canadian bands.

But the band took a rare pause for some nostalgic retrospection recently with the release of a deluxe edition of its classic 1992 album Fully Completely, followed by the Fully and Completely concert tour that starts its newest leg this week. After a run through the U.S. in January, followed by a Western Canada tour in February, the Hip hits Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre on Saturday night.

“Surprisingly, it’s been a lot of fun," chuckles guitarist Paul Langlois from his home in Kingston, Ont .

“I would say it’s significantly more fun, surprising and challenging than I think any of us expected. We’d never done this before, so we wondered what it would be like, and it’s pretty obvious that people are liking it and the record has its share of known songs on it."

No kidding. Certified diamond status with over one million copies sold in Canada alone, Fully Completely was the juggernaut that sealed the Hip’s status as the country’s top rock act, and the first to make a significant impression beyond our borders. It yielded six singles: Locked in the Trunk of a Car, Fifty Mission Cap, Courage (for Hugh MacLennan), At the Hundredth Meridian, Looking for a Place to Happen and the title track, which have remained concert set list staples over the years.

“Then there’s those other six songs that haven’t come up very much, if ever, so that’s the challenge," says Langlois. “It’s a pretty relentless record, but there’s also room to play lots of other songs as well after we’ve done Fully Completely.

“It’s a bit of a mind game, but it’s good. It’s certainly not boring to play, and it really keeps us on our toes."

The aforementioned hits still have considerable power, marking the point where the band moved beyond the blues-influenced rock of early albums Up to Here and Road Apples, and providing charismatic frontman Gord Downie with considerable room to go into full-on freakout mode onstage.

But what about those lesserknown cuts, relegated to the obscure gems file once Fully Completely’s lengthy touring, including the Hip’s adventurous Another Roadside Attraction trek, was over and done?

“Because we rarely play them, but they still seem to be solid, but very different tunes, I liked revisiting Pigeon Camera and We’ll Go, Too,” says Langlois.

“Pigeon Camera is this very different, kind of vibey sort of song, and We’ll Go, Too is a dancey shuffle. It actually feels pretty inspiring to play them. And The Wherewithal is a pretty over-thetop kind of song that we haven’t played very much at all. It’s nice to see that there wasn’t a lot of fat on Fully Completely, which was the nature of the album from the beginning.”

The Tragically Hip was able to burn off that fat by road-testing the songs in Australia in early ’92, before settling in at Battery Studios in London’s Willesden Green.

Knowing what they wanted in advance, Langlois says the sessions were relatively painless, working with hard rock maestro Chris Tsangarides in the same room where the Who recorded Pinball Wizard and the Kinks made Lola, before it became home to high volume ’70s acts like Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and Motorhead.

“It’s a great thing if you can, as a band, write songs, then go on the road, and then record,” explains Langlois. “Generally you write, record and then go on tour, or you write while you’re recording, and the end result is kind of studio-y. But if you can test songs in front of crowds, they sink or swim pretty quickly.

“Those that swim get stronger over time, it seems, and that’s what happened with Fully Completely.”

Currently, the band is in the middle of making the next Hip release, after a round of writing and recording in the fall at their own Bathouse Recording Studio outside Kingston. Although progress was made in those early sessions, it’s unlikely there’ll be much new material played at Saturday’s show.

“It’s still pretty piecemeal. We’d go in for a few days one week, and then do another four or five days a couple of weeks later. It was more about the writing, but recording it as we went,” says Langlois.

“I feel like we’re halfway there, but if you ask another guy in the band, they might think that’s being overly optimistic, or overly pessimistic. But it feels like we got somewhere in the fall, and we’re hoping to finish it up in May and June before we head back out on the road again.”

Tickets for the Tragically Hip’s Fully and Completely show at Scotiabank Centre range from $100.50 to $37.50, and are available at the Ticket Atlantic box office (902-451-1221 or ticketatlantic. com), Atlantic Superstores and online at <a class="postlink" href="http://www.sonicconcerts">http://www.sonicconcerts</a>. com. Doors open 7 p.m., show time is 8 p.m.

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - thompson girl - 04-10-2015

Awesome news! The other day I had a notification from the Hip app saying "new album" and was pretty excited. Then I realized it was just an old posting and my day was ruined. Cry

Now i'm excited again! Tongue

Great article.

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - BakersBrew - 04-11-2015

Kevin Drew from BSS is a talented guy. Interested to see what the final results are with producing a Hip album.

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - Tthip - 04-11-2015

BakersBrew Wrote:Kevin Drew from BSS is a talented guy. Interested to see what the final results are with producing a Hip album.

Where did youu see that?

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - NegPhil - 04-14-2015

BSS?

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - downie_24 - 04-14-2015

NegPhil Wrote:BSS?

Broken Social Scene

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - direwolf74 - 04-14-2015

Tthip Wrote:
BakersBrew Wrote:Kevin Drew from BSS is a talented guy. Interested to see what the final results are with producing a Hip album.
Where did youu see that?

Yea, I don't see that mentioned anywhere in the article. Do you know something we don't?

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - Dire Wolf - 04-14-2015

direwolf74 Wrote:
Tthip Wrote:
BakersBrew Wrote:Kevin Drew from BSS is a talented guy. Interested to see what the final results are with producing a Hip album.
Where did youu see that?

Yea, I don't see that mentioned anywhere in the article. Do you know something we don't?

It's been mentioned a few times, including in the following review of the TO show back in February...

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.torontosun.com/2015/02/19/tragically-hip-warms-up-air-canada-centre">http://www.torontosun.com/2015/02/19/tr ... ada-centre</a>

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - sean.bonner - 05-06-2015

I wish the FC tour wasn't extending into the fall. Wish that this was the priority, and that they would be touring a new album starting next spring/summer.

With the FC tour going into October, I can't see the album coming out any sooner than Fall 2016.

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - BakersBrew - 05-10-2015

I don't now anything about dates, but, they were definitely recording in Bath this week. From a marketing standpoint, I don't think it would make sense to release a new album until sometime next year.

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - direwolf74 - 05-11-2015

It's still only May. They're off the road until the end of June, and only touring sporadically for the rest of the year. I'll bet the album will be in the can, mixed, and mastered by the end of the year for an early 2016 release. My guess is spring at the latest.

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - ceebuler - 07-10-2015

This is encouraging.

<a class="postlink" href="http://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/local-reviews/tragically-hip-fully-and-completely-recharged">http://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/ ... -recharged</a>

Tragically Hip Fully and Completely recharged
Lynn Saxberg, Ottawa Citizen
More from Lynn Saxberg, Ottawa Citizen

Published on: July 10, 2015 | Last Updated: July 10, 2015 4:07 PM EDT

When the Tragically Hip recorded their landmark 1992 album, Fully Completely, the music industry was a different world.

Back in the glory days of CD sales, recording budgets allowed worthy bands to fly to internationally renowned hotspots, stay for weeks at a time and work with a world-class producer. For the Hip, after making albums in Memphis and New Orleans, recording their third full-length in London with Chris Tsangarides had the makings of a “grand experience,” recalled Hip guitarist Rob Baker. Off to England went Baker and his bandmates: singer Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay.

It turned out to be a “pretty horrible place,” Baker added with a chuckle. “There were some definite good things about it, but it was cold and rainy and we were in the studio twelve hours a day. We’d get out of the studio but there isn’t a lot to do late at night unless you really know where to go and have transport. So we’d go back to our little flat that we were all sharing and we’d play Scrabble and drink port and watch Olympic highlights.”

Fortunately, they made a terrific album, at a time when the industry could support the extravagance of an out-of-country recording experience. That doesn’t happen much anymore.

“The industry has changed so much that a band that gets lucky might get $30,000 to make their record, and for that, they give up publishing, some live income, revenue from merchandise. They give up a lot,” said Baker. “That was our art budget for Fully Completely. We spent $30,000 doing the cover.”

In those days, he explained, major-label bands like the Hip would get a budget of about $150,000 to make a record. If it broke even, the budget went up a bit for the next one. By Fully Completely, Baker estimates the budget would have been more than $185,000. The numbers would grow for another decade.

“Our album budgets were rising into the $300,000 level at the same time the bottom started to drop out of album sales,” Baker said, pinpointing the 2002 album In Violet Light as the moment the balance tipped. “You know, I’d like to think it had something to do with the business imploding rather than us getting really s***ty but it’s probably a combination.”

Fans can debate that one, but everyone agrees they were the hottest band in the country in the early 1990s. When the five Kingston lads flew to London, they were road warriors, logging up to 200 shows per year. Tsangarides buffed their raw energy with a studio polish that sent the album to the top of the Canadian charts. There were no fewer than six singles: Locked in the Trunk of a Car, Fifty Mission Cap, Courage (For Hugh MacLennan), At the Hundredth Meridian, Looking for a Place to Happen and the title track.

The band celebrated the release of Fully Completely with a deluxe edition of the album, and have spent most of 2015 revisiting the music on tour. It’s made for a surprisingly intense show, reports Baker.

“There are a lot of uptempo, intense songs, and even the more mid-tempo or downtempo songs have an intensity to them, and a pacing that is probably different than what we would normally do in a set,” he says. “We would mix it up a little bit more. Because it’s a set album and we play it in order, it has a definite momentum to it, which we find physically and artistically challenging to play. It’s fun.”

It sounds like it may have had an influence on their new music, too. The Hip recently wrapped up recording of their 14th studio album, created in their local studio with a couple of youngish Canadian producers, Kevin Drew (of Broken Social Scene) and Dave Hamelin (The Stills). It’s due for release this fall.

“They are two guys who kinda grew up listening to our band, and now they’re working with us and pushing us around in the studio like we’ve never been there,” kids Baker. “They have their own ideas of what the band is and what the band should do, and we’ve made a very different record. I don’t know that I could describe it — it’s atmospheric and big and dark and heavy and trancey … It’s very much the sound of the five of us playing together.

“I think we’re feeling excited about the material we’ve got now and we’re in a really good place as a band on a personal level, and an artistic level. We’re really enjoying this tour. Everyone is feeling challenged, having a good time doing it and getting great response from the crowds. We’re feeling invigorated.”

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - Tthip - 07-10-2015

I am slightly aroused.

ceebuler Wrote:We’ve made a very different record. I don’t know that I could describe it — it’s atmospheric and big and dark and heavy and trancey

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - Rye - 07-10-2015

I like the sounds of this alot. When Baker describes people growing up on The Hip and having an idea of what the band is, it really appeals to me. As a 32 year old who got into the band during the Day For Night era (which is the record that came to mind based on his description), I view this band's sonic peak as something pretty far removed from their Bob Rock era.

Re: Halfway to Completing New Album - Killer Whale Tank - 07-10-2015

That was a really interesting article. I'm always curious to know about the 'business' aspects of the music industry (e.g., the recording budgets they had back in the day). It's also interesting to read that IVL was when the bottom fell out for the Hip (Baker's comments about them being 'sh***ty' were probably tongue in cheek, although I happen to agree that M@W and IVL represent the band's nadir as recording artists - two weak records in a row; something was wrong).

As for the new record being 'different,' I wouldn't read much into that. When has the advanced word on a Hip record ever been anything other than exciting/promising, etc.? 'Different' could be good, but then again, the first Bob Rock record was 'different' and it was also mostly unlistenable. But 'big and dark and heavy and trancey' is intriguing, I'll grant you that. I just hope they don't go the prog-rock route.

Still waiting for that 'hard folk' record a la 'Fiddler's Green/Ahead by a Century,' I guess :wink: