Jim Cuddy, Blue Rodeo - Q and A interview

*I decided I am going to do this again*

The following is an interview conducted with Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo.

You can read the article corresponding with the interview at Planet S Magazine, or go HERE.

CM: The Things We Left Behind is garnering a lot of rave reviews – are you surprised by the album’s success?

JC: When you put out a record you have no idea how it is going to be received. How the band feels about the record rarely jives with how people feel about the album. But I think I am happy about it being talked about for its form and content. The fact that we did vinyl and made it a double record seems to be of more interest now and that is really satisfying because there is a lot to talk about with vinyl coming back or people having more access to music now. The album as a piece of work is less fragmented so its nice to see people responding to all the work and effort being put into these sorts of things as an artist still matters.

Is there a common lyrical theme that runs throughout the album?

There isn’t a common lyrical theme on the album but, and this is something that always occurs to us after the fact, is that there are common themes once you stand back from it. The common themes, as we get older, are a lot more the-way-things-are with hints of mortality. So as I get older I start to see these themes.
We have two songwriters who don’t work together so we get together with our songs and its uncanny how similar these songs can be considering they are written in isolation.

Has there been any change in your songwriting arrangement with Greg Keelor?

It’s the same arrangement but in terms of the intensity of it is different. When we were first starting everything was new it was exciting because we were trying to figure it all out. And then in the middle part of our career we suddenly had a career, which surprised us. There is a lot of tension when you are working in a competitive way. Nowadays the mutual respect we have for each other is a lot more forefront. I mean being able to do this once again after all these years is just amazing.

You have obviously seen a lot of changes in the music industry since you first started. Was there ever any specific plan to adapt to these changes or was it all just serendipitous?

Its always been serendipity even though we’ve done many different things to adapt. But we’ve always just made the music that seems the most important to us at the time. And we’re lucky that we’ve always occupied a separate space in that we’ve never been overly attached to the most popular music of the day. When we started there was a lot of hard rock bands out there and our music was very meek, yet we succeeded on the radio. Every time we put out a new record the label would sit us down and tell us how hard it was going to be for us. I think we represent something different than a lot of other bands do. We represent something more personal. We tour a lot to every little town and city. So when our music comes out I don’t think it matters what our record sounds like as long as it sounds fresh and original and it sounds like we are doing something that matters to us.

With Blue Rodeo’s countless appearances on the CBC, your many cross-country tours, playing at Parliament Hill and your performance at the upcoming 2010 Olympics, at what point did you realize how engrained with Canadiana your band had become?

Well those things are really just the icing on the cake. Its because we meet people all the time and so many people say things to us like ‘I saw you at a bar in Sydney’ or ‘I saw you when I was going to university in Guelph.’ We realized we became a part of peoples’ lives at a fairly significant time in their lives when they were a teenager or a young adult. And they took us with them through the rest of their lives. Who knows how that happens?
We didn’t play Parliament Hill because we are so world famous, we played because everyone involved had some connection to us. The Olympics is the same thing. I think the Olympics is going to be a good example of how Canadian bands have become a part of the national consciousness in the last 20 years. There weren’t this many bands 20 years ago and the media didn’t give this much coverage and there weren’t this many opportunities for Canadian music. We are lucky that we’ve been a part of a generation of Canadian musicians that have been embraced by audiences.

After all these years on the road what is touring like nowadays?

Touring is a blast. Long ago we decided that touring is best done in the winter because it was the time when we were the least missed at home and people didn’t have a million options. It’s a lot fun and you get to see how people are coping with winter, whether it is devastating or mild. It’s a charmed life when you are out on the road. You spend the day getting ready for your concert and you don’t have a lot of other responsibilities.

What continues to inspire you to do Blue Rodeo?

We enjoy each other’s company and we enjoy being on the road and playing music. We are all the type of people who would be compelled to do music; I think it might be something in our DNA. So we would be doing this anyway. So I guess we’re lucky that we have this forum for it. We can play on stages for audiences. We really enjoy it and its contributed greatly to our happiness as human beings.