04-10-2015, 05:40 PM
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
<!-- e --><a href="mailto
cooke@herald.ca">scooke@herald.ca</a><!-- e --> @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 <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.sonicconcerts">http://www.sonicconcerts</a><!-- m -->. com. Doors open 7 p.m., show time is 8 p.m.
Classic Hip hits the road
Fully and Completely comes to Halifax as band channels history
STEPHEN COOKE ARTS REPORTER
<!-- e --><a href="mailto
cooke@herald.ca">scooke@herald.ca</a><!-- e --> @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 <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.sonicconcerts">http://www.sonicconcerts</a><!-- m -->. com. Doors open 7 p.m., show time is 8 p.m.
Now i'm excited again! 
Great article.
