Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo fame was nice enough to give us a call from Vancouver where he is currently on tour with The Sadies, just a few days before they both put on a very memorable SideShow at Megatunes. Greg has a new solo album out called “Aphrodite Rose” which we talked about at length and also Greg was nice enough to tell us some Blue Rodeo tales which were fun and enlightening. Always the gentleman, Greg was a riot to talk to.

David: Listening to "Aphrodite Rose " I detect a bit of a Beatles influence running through some of the songs. Would you agree with that and if so to what extent did they influence your songwriting on this album?

Greg: When I started listening to music and when music first hit me, it was the British Invasion, in 1964 I was 10 years old and all that music just blew my mind, even as a 10 year old. The Animals, The Kinks, the Stones….and then the influence that had on American music like Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds and the original garage bands. So that stuff really had the most reverberation for me. When I started making this new album, I set out to do it myself. I wanted to engineer it myself and play everything myself, so my limited musicality led me to that vibe. So the Beatles were a huge influence.

David: Your previous albums "Gone" and "Seven songs for Jim" were defiantly more of a laid back, sparse, stripped down affair with "Seven songs for Jim" being an incredibly personal album dealing with the loss of your father and all the questions about life that come with such an event in someone's life. What occurred in the past year since that albums release that allowed you to make such an upbeat, uplifting album?

Greg: The first two albums had a lot of subtext to it and was kind of music for a snowy day. Nothing really happened and albums make themselves, the first two were just really big moments in my life and this one….when Jim and I came off the road last year, Jim said he wanted to make a solo record and I had nothing to do so I thought “Well I’ll make one too”.  This one, I had a bunch of songs lying around and if there is a thematic to it, it’s because I was engineering it and going for a certain sound.

David: Working with The Sadies and Sarah McLachlan on this new album, among others, were you able to feed off the guest musicians to create something you may not have been able to create by yourself?

Greg: When I play everything myself, there is kind of an amateurish joy to it I would say. So Travis (The Sadies) called me up and said they were going on tour in October and I should come with them. So I had to finish my record quicker than I thought. So Mike and Travis came over and became the rhythm section and played on 6 songs. There is this Notorious Byrd Brothers outtake where they are arguing and Crosby steps in and says “Just play it right man, just play it beautiful” and that’s what The Sadies do, they just play it right and play it beautiful. The just got the sound and it reminds me so much of a lot of those bands from the original British Invasion.

Singing with Sarah, you know we used to hang out together and do a lot of work together. Before she became “Sarah McLachlan” she sang with us on “5 days in July” and when I did my first solo album, she played piano and sang on that as well. I haven’t really hung out too much with her of late so it was just nice to catch back up with her. I just love her singing; she’s one of my favorite singers.

David: Some of the songs on the new album date back a long way in your past, was it comforting to revisit some of these older unfinished songs and ideas from your past?

Greg: You know the first few songs I recorded had this British Invasion vibe and I had that song “Colour and Rhyme” which goes back to our first band with Jim called the “Hi-Fi’s”. I’ve always liked that song and I hadn’t played it in a while, I’ve just always like the feel to it. I just loved hearing it materialize again and there are a couple others that are old songs that were old Blue Rodeo songs that were recorded with the band but for some reason never made it on any albums so I thought it was time to use them up.

David: The song "Glory Oh" has an interesting origin as a song. Tell us about that?

Greg: I'd forgotten it was Valentine’s Day and my girlfriend was very mad at me. I have a very bad memory, I would forget Christmas if it weren’t such a big deal you know. So when I was driving home from the city, I live about an hour outside of Toronto, so I thought I better come up with something to get me out of the doghouse so I came up with this poem. Also part of the deal to get me out of the doghouse was I had to put the poem on the back cover of the “Are you ready” record. It’s seldom that I have a whole lyric written like that, so I made it into a song. So the poem that appears on the back of “Are you ready” actually turned into two songs….”Glory Oh and Aphrodite Rose”.

David: Is the title of the album symbolic of something personal in your life or was it a case of it just sounded right?

Greg: I had the song the song “Aphrodite Rose” on the record already and then I thought it was a nice play on words because I really like “American Beauty” and all the Grateful Dead roses

David: Your relationship with Jim Cuddy goes back to a pre-Blue Rodeo band called the "Hi-Fi's" and before that you went to High School together, how have you managed to maintain a working, successful relationship with Jim for so long?

Greg: We’re kinda like brothers you know. It’s like a family vibe; I think our humor allows us to find a way to still do it. I really don’t know how or why it works…I don’t think about it really.

David: Blue Rodeo has been around for the better part of 20 years, what do you get out of working solo that you don't get in Blue Rodeo?

Greg: Blue Rodeo is a pretty fulfilling band; it’s a great band I think with a great rhythm section. The solo thing, it’s nice because I have my studio at home and I just work on things until it feels right. Blue Rodeo works by committee and everyone’s got their two cents and that’s what a band is.  When it’s just me I can putter around and when it’s just me I can play drums and I love playing drums and playing bass and that’s all stuff I can’t do with Blue Rodeo.

David: Jim Cuddy's new album seems to be a much more energetic album as well; will this re-newed energy carry over to the next Blue Rodeo album?

Greg: You never know, I have no idea. I can never predict what kind of song I will write. I feel very lucky when a new song does come out of me but I never know which way it’s gonna go.

David: Blue Rodeo has been one of the rare Canadian bands that have been able to make a successful go of it without relying too much on American support, what quality does Blue Rodeo have that has allowed them to flourish while so many other great Canadian bands have fallen by the way side over the years?

Greg: Again, I don’t really know but since you asked…..I think it’s the songs. I believe so much in fate and that things just happen and you try to make sense of it and it just sorta happens. When Jim and I were learning how to write songs, our influences were songs were you can sit around and have a beer and sing, songs that you can just sit around with friends and sing.  I think that’s why the band has been able to continue to have a career and have meaning for people.

David: Is there one or two songs in particular on the new cd that you can pick out and say "That's what I do best" or maybe that you’re the most proud of?

Greg: I love all my children on this record. Something like the last song on the record “In the Reflections”, it’s like a jam and you never know where it’s going to go. If you hear the first take of that song, you would think “Well they’re never gonna be able to get that one down” but the one on the record is the third take. I love that jam type stuff, it’s a roll of the dice because you never know where it’s gonna go.  So I was impressed by that, everyone played fantastic. A song like “Alaska”, some of the little backward things on there and using sound effects and delays and out of the chaos a certain beautiful irregular symmetry happens.

David: Speaking of which, how has this new material translated live? Is there a personal live favorite?

Greg: It’s funny because it all changes live so much and there is such a vibe playing these songs with the Sadies.  The two songs I just mentioned, when we play these live it almost sounds like Syd era Pink Floyd in spots which is great.

David: What are you currently listening to?

Greg: On this tour we’ve been DVD’ing a lot. So everyone has their DVD collection. My favorites have been these two New York Dolls DVD’s, there is this one from 1973 where Arthur Kane (New York Dolls bassist) gets stabbed in the hand because his girlfriend doesn’t want him to go on tour so he watches from the side and the roadie is playing bass, I mean that’s just incredible. The other New York Dolls one is from their re-union gig in London and then Arthur dies just shortly after, it’s just beautiful.  The Sadies and their crew got the great collection down, some great Gram Parsons and Love DVD’s.

David: If you had a chance to put together your dream show with you included, what bands or who would be on the bill?

Greg: There is two answers for that, one is that I am in it right now. Playing with the Sadies is just great. The fantasy band would be like Hal Blaine on drums, Norman Putman on bass, Leon Russell on keyboards, maybe Billy Preston on Hammond. I’m not sure who I would have on guitar; I’ve never been asked that. My brain’s overloading with the possibilities…of course this whole thing would have to be around 1972.

David: Success to some artists is selling a million albums, to some it's breaking through in the American market, to some it's writing the perfect song. How do you define success for yourself?

Greg: I think for me it’s more of the personal thing. I figure success for me is that I can engineer my own record and I can sit there with a drum machine and put down the bed track and build it up from there. That I feel is most important to me, I mean my day job is pretty good and I got it covered. I feel pretty chuffed about that.

David: What’s the weirdest bill you or Blue Rodeo have ever been on?

Greg: We played in this place in Pittsburgh where the place had two rooms. We played in one room and in the other at the same time were the Misfits. We opened for Midge Ure (ex-Visage, Ultravox) which was interesting, that was at Barrymore’s in Toronto. The opening slots are usually the weirdest.

David: Have you ever experienced one of those Spinal Tap moments during an in-store appearance? Also have you ever met a label rep like the one in "Spinal Tap" and did you kick them in the ass?

Greg: Blue Rodeo has had many of those, and yes we have met those types of reps…what’s his name again?

David: Artie Fufkin?

Greg Keelor - Aphrodite Rose

CD $17.99

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