Hi Gordon. You’ve been making music for well over twenty years now, and We Are The Same is your eleventh studio-album. How do you think the band’s longevity has affected your music?
When you go in to make a new record, twenty years should matter. But I’m afraid it probably doesn’t. There’s not a lot you can use. You go rummaging around for the blueprints, but you never seem to find them. The way you work, write and record always changes. I like to believe that I evolve as a musician – or shrink, I don’t know. The changes I make are in my daily life and ultimately I hope that the music and the art will reflect that.


So having been in the record-making business for almost three decades doesn’t necessarily make things easier?
I wouldn’t say so, no. You still have the limited amount of time to finish the record and we still run right up against our deadline. You’re working late at night, the candle’s burning down and you’re still convinced you don’t have a clue. You keep pushing to get there, but you never really seem to figure out how you actually managed to get there.


What did you know when you began working on We Are The Same?
We’d made the last one, World Container, with Bob Rock, and we knew we wanted to make a second one with him as well. So the conversation really started there, cause even though we wanted to work with the same producer, we didn’t want to make the same record. We had to make a different record, a better record for lack of a better word.


How so?
Well, we talked a lot about how we should do that and then you write the songs. On the basis of that, you proceed. You either go back to your promise of making a different record or you go where the songs want to go. Know what I mean? It’s ultimately about listening to what the songs want to be. If you’re stuck on a premise or method, you might miss out on opportunities. I mean, you talk about making a different kind of record, a polka record, a country record, a Frank Sinatra record or a heavy metal record, and you talk about recording it in the woods or in a submarine…you have all these plans and ideas, but in the end it’s just about you and your song. What’s the best way to present this song, this story, to people? I’m as surprised as anyone as to how it comes out, how it ends up sounding. I never really regret not following the initial path or straying from the path.


Even though the record might in fact end up not sounding different?
Exactly


Do you find it difficult always trusting your instincts?
Ultimately, our instincts are all we have. And I have to remember who I’m making these records for. If you try to follow a trend or if you to catch hold off the latest thing, you’re destined to fall, I think. You try to improve your relationship with your family, your friends and the people you work with, you try to improve yourself, and I think that also affects the stories you tell through your music. And if that resonates with other people, it’s a bonus. It’s a blessing. But it’s ultimately about trusting that what you do and who you are is good enough.  


I’ve been a big fan for years and years, and to completely honest with you, albums like Day For Night (1994), Fully Completely (1992) and Trouble At The Henhouse (1996), would be pretty hard to beat in my world. Do you as a band still search for the perfect Tragically Hip album or do you think it’s already behind you?
Those albums you mention are all the results of the five of us pushing and tugging ourselves to make the perfect Tragically Hip album. They’re the result of us pushing and pulling and debating about what the perfect album should sound like. Miraculously the debates never get bloody or demeaning or odious. In the end you get this record that we’re all really happy with, and to be honest I don’t really know how we do that. And I don’t think other bands know how they do that.


Why do you think the relationship and the friendship you seem to enjoy in the band have survived through all the years?
First of all, we haven’t succumbed to any new technologies for getting along. We don’t use various strategies for improving our relationships, and by doing that we live in denial that there is anything we can do to improve our relationship. We haven’t gone on any military boot camp excursions – I’m trying to be funny here – and ultimately, I think the only honest answer to your question is that we all probably feel like we only have each other. We started doing this together, we played to five people in Hoboken together, we’ve been in some hairy situations together, we’re family. Ultimately, that’s what we’re selling, Soren. With every night and every record, that’s what we’re selling. I can understand if that doesn’t appeal to everybody, but what we sell is our relationship to one another, who we are and if that’s a fraud, if our relationship is a fraud, then that’s what we’re selling. And we want to make sure that we aren’t fraudulent.


Tell me about working with Bob Rock
I would say it’s nothing short of huge on every level. He’s a great friend of mine, and on a personal level, just a wonderful, helpful man. In terms of professionalism, I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s full of enthusiasm for the job, he remembers why we all do this. Some people say it’s because of love of music when in fact they have lost it years ago, but with Bob, it’s like working with a 14-year old who still can’t believe he’s producing records. He’s the first one in the studio and the last one to leave. I think he’s helped us get pretty damn close to the perfect Tragically Hip record.


I once saw you at a small club in Copenhagen. I think it was about five or six years ago or so. It was basically me and 498 Canadian exchange students. What’s your thoughts on making that final breakthrough into Europe?
I can’t really think about it. We make the records we make, we put on the shows we put on. I have to say I’m happy with that. We get what we get. My heroes are people like Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Cash and Otis Redding, and whenever I see pictures of them, I see people who are very much in the moment. They’re not concerned about anything else, and that’s really what I try to do with my music.


The Tragically Hip’s new album We Are The Same is out now on Rounder. Their tour begins this week, so go straight to Thehip.com for tour dates.