Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair and the remaining members of the Hip get together to expand the catalogue, get creative

By Nick Krewen

Special to the Star

In the six years since the passing of their lead singer Gord Downie, the members of The Tragically Hip, arguably Canada’s most popular band, have had a lot of time to reflect on their greatest accomplishment.

Was it selling 10 million albums in Canada over their 33-year existence, fueled by such unforgettable classics as “New Orleans Is Sinking,” “Ahead By A Century” and “Fifty Mission Cap?” Was it the constant string of sell-out arena dates that occurred whenever and wherever the band played coast-to-coast-to-coast, such was the feverish demand for their performances? Was it winning 17 Juno Awards and receiving the Order of Canada?

“Our biggest accomplishment is that we’re good friends,” said guitarist Paul Langlois, 59, as he nursed a beer next to bassist Gord Sinclair in the Evangeline Lounge of downtown Toronto’s Ace Hotel.

“We had our disagreements, our creative arguments, but we made that a priority — friendship. And Gord (Downie) did too. And so, that, really is our greatest accomplishment — that and the fact that we made all this music together and played all the shows.”

Sinclair, 59, said one of the group’s attributes was the ability to pace itself, which led to a healthier and happier lifestyle.

“To maintain the family within our band — and as our individual families expanded, maintaining that became equally important — we made a decision, much to our management’s chagrin and agents and record company, to be out (touring) only for three weeks at a time for our health as a group and our families’ health.

“We’d get back home, keep our crew working rather than grind ourselves into the ground, which seems to be what happens to a lot of musicians: You hear stories of people going away for a year, playing six nights a week,” Sinclair continued. “We always would put the priority on our health as friends and family men. We sacrificed the shorter term for the long term, and I’d say the fact that we still speak to each other and enjoy each other’s company, that’s our testament.”

The duo were in town along with the other band co-founders — guitarist Rob Baker and drummer Johnny Fay — doing promotional rounds for the 25th anniversary boxed set of Phantom Power, the Hip’s sixth studio album, produced by Steve Berlin and released on November 3.

It’s not the first Tragically Hip album to get the deluxe treatment: the 2014 expanded edition of Fully Completely included a live album and two bonus tracks, while the 2021 anniversary release of Road Apples included Saskadelphia — a compilation of six previously unreleased songs from the vault.

The new album — which includes such classics as “Poets,” “Something On,” “Bobcaygeon” and “Fireworks” — contains five previously unissued numbers; a live album recorded at the Metropol, Pittsburgh and seven alternate mixes and demos.

Sinclair said it took him about a year after the 1998 release of Phantom Power to fully appreciate its impact, which had found the band evolving from their raggedy rock period to more nuanced music.

“It was the start of the middle period of our career,” Sinclair declared. “In a lot of ways, I think it was a reset for the group, in terms of not only the music we were making, but the audience we were attracting.

“We kind of took a step towards redefining or re-examining who we were as a band before we were actually realizing we’re doing it — and I think that had a lot to do with Steve’s influence as a musician. He kind of knew what we needed to do.

“I’ve met a lot of musicians that we’ve played with over the years that would describe Phantom Power as their entrée: the record that first turned them onto the Hip.”

“Building off a song like ‘Ahead By A Century’ off our previous record and following it up with a song like ‘Bobcaygeon,’ de-emphasized the rock thing that we did earlier in our career.”

Langlois said that Berlin — a veteran member of the band Los Lobos — was one of the best producers with whom the Hip worked.

“Steve coming in was kind of a breath of fresh air,” he explained. “At one point, in (the song) ‘Escape is At Hand,’ there’s a chorus part that we thought of as a bridge.

“And Steve was like, ‘Are you guys crazy? You never go back to that part — you only do it once … You’ve gotta do that twice!’

“He taught us to really focus on things.”

Sinclair said the Hip also tried to avoid filler at all costs as they adjusted from the analog to the digital music era and formats.

“We were still grappling with the notion of LPs that were now CDs that you could fill up 80 minutes of music if you wanted to, which was sort of a pitfall for a lot of other groups,” Sinclair revealed. “But like Paul said, you see one song basically covering the same ground over the course of developing a record.

“Working with Steve really helped with the writing and arrangements. We would just focus on material that I guess, in his opinion, had more legs to it. Then we could develop it into something just a little bit stronger.”

Sinclair used “Poets” as an example.

“It was the real beauty of us working with a fellow musician for the first time as a producer who actively helped us finish songs,” he explained. “’Poets’ was two songs that Steve encouraged us to put together. There’s an outtake called ‘Nano Baby’ that’s on (Phantom) that’s the first ‘Poets’ — and the chorus was from another song.

“Steve was able to convince us that we should put them together, where, if one of us had suggested that within our full songwriting circle, the idea would have never flown.”

Langlois also revealed that the band was quite comfortable with “the warts and all” nature of the expanded Phantom Power package.

“This is who we were.’ We were very, very, together and proud of the stuff we did. “All the records were made by consensus.”

Langlois added that the previously unreleased songs that have been added to expanded projects like Road Apples and Phantom Power had pretty much been forgotten by the band.

“We’d go to do the next record and there wasn’t anything left over from the last one that we were interested in,” he noted. “We were all writing so there was always lots of musical ideas — and Gord always had lots of lyrics, so we just moved on.”

As the band evolved from its humble Kingston, Ontario origins to a Canadian entertainment phenomenon — culminating in a final tour to support their 13th album Man Machine Poem and one that ended in their hometown on August 20, 2016, witnessed by 11.7 million viewers when simulcast on CBC-TV — did they ever fully comprehend what they, as a collective, meant to Canadians?

“When you travel the world and come back home to Canada, obviously your audiences are significantly larger. You know that the music has a different level of resonance with the people,” said Sinclair. “Even back as far as touring that record, you can see the effect of a song like ‘Bobcaygeon’ was having: you’d literally see great big, burly guys with their arms around each other declaring, ‘I love you, man’ and that kind of visceral response to the emotion of music as a songwriter and as part of a group is really what you’re trying to achieve.

“That notion was completely reinforced over that last tour where the nature of Gord’s tumour was such that he couldn’t remember the words without (on stage) monitors everywhere. In effect, we didn’t necessarily need them because the audience was so brilliant, they were singing along with every song. You could tell: the connectivity between them and us was just visceral.”

Sinclair said as that tour progressed, the energy the Hip received from the live crowd in each city fortified Downie.

“Gord got stronger and stronger and stronger as a performer,” Sinclair recalled. “And when Gord was at his strength, the band was better, because we dodged and parried with him all the time.”

Langlois added that Downie felt so galvanized that he seriously considered adding Montréal and Halifax dates to the tour itinerary.

“We knew it (was our last tour), but we were in denial,” Langlois remembered. “Gord was saying, ‘bye;’ we were all saying, ‘bye.’ We all held out a little teeny tiny hope like, ‘well, you never know.’ But we all knew it was terminal, and he did, too.

“There was a thought of going past Kingston … Gord kind of wanted to hit Montréal, maybe Halifax. We didn’t want to take him to the States because health-wise, it could be tricky. But we finished Kingston, came backstage, and he said, ‘That felt like the last one.’”

Tragically Hip projects on tap for 2024 include a 40th anniversary edition of the band’s first million-selling album Up To Here — and an Amazon documentary helmed by Mike Downie, Gord’s brother.

Does the Hip consider all this extracurricular activity a tribute to their fallen singer?

“It’s a tribute to Gord and in my mind, it’s a tribute to Paul and Rob and Johnny and all the people that we partnered with over the years,” said Sinclair. Langlois also suggested that if Downie hadn’t passed away from glioblastoma— an incurable brain tumour — in October 2017, all the expanded catalogue album projects probably wouldn’t exist.

“We wouldn’t be here if Gord hadn’t died,” he said. “We would not be doing this. We would not have looked back whatsoever. This kind of just gives us something creative to do.”