"Throughout this band's run, we felt that we should always be ready to go back to our beginning," Cowboy Junkies guitarist/songwriter Michael Timmins says. On the eve of its twentieth anniversary, the quiet Toronto four-piece is still operating under that guideline.
"Some people form bands thinking it's their goal to sign a record contract," Timmins continues. "We had no such desire. It sounds hokey, but we just wanted to play music. We don't like to do parties." Adds his sister, singer Margo, "We're the worst hang-outers. We're just too tired."
The Cowboy Junkies have gone back to their beginning on their ninth studio set. After successfully returning to its independent roots with 2001's One Soul Now, the band has further gone DIY with Soul, recording the set with just the original four-piece (drummer/sibling Peter Timmins and bassist Alan Anton round out the group) that came together in 1985. The Junkies have spent most of the past two decades refining their trademark moody sound, but by setting up shop in their rehearsal space, they rekindled some of the warm, loose magic that permeated their 1988 breakthrough, The Trinity Session, which was recorded in a church, though with a bigger, broader musical palette of sound that echoes 1993's Pale Sun, Crescent Moon.
Unlike Trinity, One Soul wasn't waxed in a day. "We've done a lot of records where we produced ourselves, but we always had engineers and people twiddling knobs," Michael says. "This time it was very relaxed. There was a sense of, 'Let's try that.' And if it didn't work, we'd throw it out, without losing anything but time. Since we weren't paying hourly rates, we could sit on a song for a month or two, and reassess it."
Michael Timmins says that the band's isolation and the fact that the songs were given so much time to develop helped feed what were some of his more introspective lyrics. The songs of life and death are still present, but Timmins now writes as someone informed with twenty additional years of living, perhaps best exemplified in "My Wild Child" and "The Slide." The former is a rich, multi-faced reflection on parenthood. "Having kids is a fantastic thing," he says, "but they don't tell you how it affects all the relationships you had before you had kids. The verses are about these changes forced on you. By the chorus, you realize that kids are also these incredible anchors. They make things seem real and tangible and important. It's this mix of totally fucking up your life, but making it better at the same time [laughs]."
"The Slide" runs contrary to the notion that the Junkies' music is relentlessly dour. Though the title implies a movement towards an unpleasant end, the song actually shimmers with optimism. "It's just a metaphor for throwing yourself into the vagaries of life," Michael says. "Just going into it, with the good and bad." Adds Margo, "I think people forget about those little glimmers of hope, and I like to think they're there in our music. You can look at your day-to-day existence and say it's hard work and you're tired. Or you can find those moments of hope and joy. I think that's what this album's about. That's what you get, those little bits and pieces. There's no prize at the end of the day."
On the subject of hope, four years ago, the Cowboy Junkies found themselves at the end of their run with Geffen Records and the group took a gamble and decided to resurrect its Latent Recordings label (which has since been linked up with Rounder's Zoe imprint), rather than shop for a new deal with a major. It turned out the timing couldn't have been better. Over the years the Cowboy Junkies have made an effort to establish strong ties to their following. Margo regularly sticks around after shows to meet and greet fans. The band's fan-friendly nature found a perfect complement with the Internet, the ultimate tool for communication and fandom. The band utilized its Web site early on, and by keeping its community that much closer, made the departure from a major label less daunting. "It was a little scary for us," Margo continues. "But we did feel like we had a big enough fan base to make it work. And they didn't care if we were on RCA or not. It's a great place for us to find out what they like. Or what they don't like, unless they get personal with me. Then they get ripped apart [laughs]."
It's that sort of fan-friendly rationale that sparked the idea for another new release. The band has put together a CD-ROM for purchase through cowboyjunkies.com. Anatomy of an Album offers a thorough behind-the-scenes look at the creation of One Soul Now. "Before I'm a musician, I'm a music fan," Michael says. "My favorite thing was to buy a record, put it on and get into the liner notes. This is almost like a very intensive, modern day set of liner notes. Since we recorded the album in our own space, we had all the gradations of the songs, pretty much from songwriting to the finished song."
The band will get back to the fans with a summer tour that launches tonight in New York City and is scheduled to run through an August 27th date in Boulder, Colorado, as the march towards the twentieth anniversary continues. And in a way, if you take the Cowboy Junkies' nine albums in, one at a time, in a way, they've gone back to the beginning each time. Some have a bigger sound (1998's Miles From Our Home), some are a bit poppier (1996's Lay It Down), some countrier (1992's Black Eyed Man), but each album sounds singularly like the Cowboy Junkies, and beneath the refinements in sound is the band's style.
"A lot of people throw that back at us like it's a bad thing," Michael says. "It confounds me to this day. I think there's a line from our first album to this record, but it's a huge scope of refinement along the way. We don't get together and say, 'Well, who do we want to sound like now? Puff Daddy?'"
"That would be so hard," Margo says, laughing. "But I think one of the reasons we're going into our twentieth year is that we do the music first. Trinity Session was recorded before we even had management. Sure, once you make a record, there's a business side. But it has nothing to do with making the music. We do that, and we like our sound."
Cowboy Junkies tour dates:
7/6: New York, Beacon Theater
7/7: FleetBoston Pavilion
7/8: Hyannis, MA, Cape Cod Melody Tent
7/9: Glenside, PA, Keswick Theater
7/11: Vienna, VA, Wolf Trap
7/13: Norfolk, VA, NorVa
7/14: Atlanta, Atlanta Botanical Garden
7/16: Nashville, Belcourt Theater
7/17: Cincinnati, 20th Century Theater
7/18: Chicago, Skyline Stage
7/20: Rochester Hills, MI, Meadow Brook
7/21: St. Paul, MN, Fitzgerald Theater
7/22: Milwaukee, Northern Lights
8/3: St. Louis, Pageant
8/6: Austin, Stubbs BBQ
8/7: Houston, Numbers
8/8: Dallas, Gypsy Tea Room
8/11: San Diego, Humphrey's
8/12: Hollywood, The Roxy
8/13: San Juan Capistrano, CA, The Coach House
8/14: Saratoga, CA, Mountain Winery
8/15: San Francisco, Fillmore
8/17: Roseburg, OR, Stewart Park
8/18: Redmond, WA, Marymoor Amphitheater
8/21: Portland, OR, Oregon Zoo Amphitheater
8/22: Bend, OR, The Courtyard
8/24: Park City, UT, Suede
8/27: Boulder, CO, Fox Theater
