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Finishing
What He Started: An Interview with Myles Goodwyn of April Wine |
By
Jeb Wright
When I was in 10th
grade, back in 1982, I remember our entire high school being ushered
into the gymnasium for a special concert by the local Army band. We all
figured we would spend the entire afternoon listening to old military
tunes but, to our surprise, the Army band rocked. The whole event was
just a put on by the military for their recruiters to attempt to recruit
us. Being a longhaired rocker, there was little chance of that
happening. But, I must admit it was pretty damn cool, considering I
went to a Catholic school, to be rocking out instead of sitting in study
hall or detention the entire afternoon.
I remember the
band, which was in uniform, ending their set by playing a song that was
currently on the radio and climbing the charts. The singer took out a
piece of paper with lyrics on it because he had not had time to memorize
them. The song was April Wine’s “Just Between You and Me.” The band
did it justice, and at the end of the song, right before the last
chorus, the singer flung his cheat sheet in the air and bellowed out the
loving lyrics one last time.
The same year I
bought tickets to see Summer Jam ’82 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas
City, Missouri. The concert was going to feature the bands 707,
Rainbow, April Wine, Ted Nugent and REO Speedwagon. As it turned out,
John Cougar, as he was then known, replaced April Wine at the last
minute. I was pissed because I was there to see Ritchie Blackmore,
Myles Goodwyn and Ted Nugent play back-to-back-to-back. It was nothing
that a bit of reefer and a bottle of Jack Black could not cure, but,
man, I really wanted to see April Wine.
I was an instant
fan of the band the first time I heard “I Like to Rock.” I bought the
album Harder Faster and then every other album from the band’s
past that had been released in the United States. Every album that came
out afterwards was a day one release purchase. I never, however,
got a chance to see them live, until 1995 or 1996, when they reformed
and toured small bars in the United States. I saw them in Newkirk,
Oklahoma. They rocked. I was so impressed that the band would put on
that caliber of show, in the middle of nowhere, literally, that I
replaced all my vinyl with CDs. I have since downloaded the CDs onto my
iPod.
Vocalist,
guitarist, songwriter and producer Myles Goodwyn, who is known as a
recluse and does very few interviews, is the leader of April Wine. I
had literally been trying to get an interview with him since the last
time we talked back in 2002. Perseverance pays off. I, finally, got
the green light and Myles was in the mood to talk.
In the interview
that follows we discuss his upcoming blues project, a new record deal
for April Wine and his plans for the future. Myles opened up during our
chat and told me about his families financial burdens, his mother’s
death when he was only eleven and how music gave him the escape he
needed to find a better life.
Read on for a
sincere and honest look into one of rock n’ rolls most reclusive front
men.
Jeb: Let’s start
out talking about the new blues album you’re working on. People are
saying it is coming out soon. Is there any truth to that?
Myles: There is a
lot of truth to that. I started recording this a few years ago. I have
a two-record deal with Universal in Canada. We have not even looked at
the States yet. I finished the first one and I was on a roll, so I just
continued recording the second one. It is mostly done; it needs three
or four songs to be completed. The first one will be released in early
2010, right after the holidays, in time for the summer touring.
Jeb: Why did you
pick now to go blues?
Myles: I have
always really liked the blues. The blues influenced our music, although
it was not something that was ever encouraged. I am jumping all over
the place, but I really don’t appreciate what is going on right now. I
have been lucky enough to be around for a while. I was around for the
birth of rock n’ roll. I remember Elvis and the birth of the Beatles.
I was there for what happened in the ‘60s, 70's and, even the 80's, but
now, there is nothing for me. We saw the best that was around. It is
really hard, now, to give music the attention that music used to get.
It has changed. I don’t like what is going on with radio now. I no
longer want to be part of radio and I don’t want to be on the radio, in
terms of popular music. I did all of that, and I did well at it. I
have no regrets but what I really, really care for is a different kind
of music and I want to try it.
Jeb: Are these
blues songs original or are you remaking some standards?
Myles: I consider
myself a songwriter more than anything. I was inducted into the
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame six or seven years ago. Writing
songs is what it is all about; it is the crux of it for me. I sing my
own songs and I like to play guitar. The idea around this blues thing
was for me to write the songs and then invite people to join me in the
studio, which is not a new concept, but I adopted it for this release.
It is called Myles Goodwyn & Friends of the Blues. It has
a lot of great blues players on the CD. They are mostly Canadian but
there are some from the States as well. I have had no one reject the
idea; everyone has been really keen to do it. Jeff Healey had picked a
song to play on but, unfortunately, he passed away before he could do
it.
Jeff and I were
friends. He opened a club in Montreal and I went to the opening of the
club, at his invitation. He told me that he had been listening to my
stuff and that he had picked the song he wanted to play on. The song is
called, “Tell Me Where I’ve Been So I Won’t Go There Anymore.” He told
me, that night, that he had some problems with his lungs and that he was
going into the hospital; so he didn’t have time, right then, to record
it. He never got well and he passed away far too young.
A guy named Dutch
Mason, who they call “The Prime Minister of the Blues”, also passed away
right in the middle of what I was doing. Dutch recorded the very first
Canadian blues song, way back. I got to go down and play at his blues
festival in Nova Scotia, a few years ago, after he passed away. I got
to hang out with his son and with Hubert Sumlin and a few others. It
was a great time.
I wrote a song for
Dutch, who had a lot of problems with arthritis and gout. He was in a
wheelchair and wasn’t in good health anymore. His hands were like claws
so he couldn’t play anymore. He lived hard. The idea I had was to
write a song and have Dutch and I sing it and have his son, Garrett,
play on it. His son is a great blues player, who has won at least one
Juno, which are the Canadian equivalent of your Grammys. The song is
called “A Good Man in a Bad Place.” Dutch has since passed away, so I
sang it and his son played on it and it turned out great.
Jeb: Did you need a
shot in the arm where the industry is concerned? Did you need to do
something that was fun again?
Myles: I have been
around a long time. Speaking of the industry, April Wine was inducted
into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. I am starting to get
worried because you know you are getting old and shit when those sort of
things start happening. I won an East Coast Lifetime Achievement
Award and I heard I am on a very short list for a Juno Lifetime
Achievement Award. It makes me kind of nervous but I am lucky that
my health is good.
For me, I love
music so much. Being around Hubert Sumlin, and being aware of people
well into their sixties and seventies — BB King is eighty-four. Anyone
who is a great blues player is not going to stop just because they hit
sixty-one. Look at Eric Clapton — the last thing he needs is another
dollar — he is going to continue to play the blues. I want to continue
to play music too. I can’t imagine not being as busy as I am. With
April Wine, I still enjoy the music, but I need that other thing. My
days are very busy writing and recording for April Wine, and for
myself. I am just enjoying life. I was not interested at all, at this
point, of having someone tell me that I have to write this way or that
way. I had that gun pointed at me for a lot of years and I am done with
that.
Jeb: What blues
players most influenced you and how did the blues first grab you?
Myles: I was raised
in Nova Scotia and my father listened to country; I was raised on
country music. I was very young but something about music spoke to me.
There was a lot of music around the kitchen table. I had uncles that
were touring musicians. We are talking Nova Scotia, for crying out
loud, and they were coming in wearing these fancy cowboy outfits and
boots. I have no idea where they got them; they probably made them.
One of them, he is still alive, though he is well into his eighties,
gave me a guitar back in 1972. It is a 1947 Southern Jumbo by Gibson.
I have written every popular April Wine song, including “Roller” and
“Just Between You and Me” on that 1947 acoustic guitar. I wrote those
songs, either late at night, or in the afternoon, when I was just
sitting around with my acoustic guitar.
I was too
overwhelmed by the power of the electric guitar to be able to see and
think straight. I could sit down and compose on the acoustic. I know
my craft well enough, that when I plug in an electric, I can play the
same thing and know that it is going to really happen. I went to that
guitar for the slow songs and the fast songs. More than 80% of what I
wrote was on that guitar.
I was older when
the blues started to influence me. I first got into the blues in the
late ‘60s. The first taste of the blues that I got was through the
Yardbirds and Jimi Hendrix and that kind of stuff. I loved Jimmy Page,
and Jeff Beck is still one of my favorite guitar players of all time.
He is a god, a genius and he is from another planet. I love his playing
so much but I have never seen the man live — something has got to be
done about that.
The first black
blues that I ever got into was Taj Mahal. I listened to his first
album, Natural Blues, and I was hooked. I knew every single song
and all the lyrics. I still have that very same record and I still play
it for inspiration. I have a song where I stole one of his backbeats.
I wrote a song called, “I Hate to See You Go but I Love to Watch You
Walk Away.” The backbeat is just amazing. Later on, I was into BB King
and then Stevie Ray Vaughan. I was never running around buying blues
records and learning to play like that because I was concentrating so
much on April Wine.
When I started
thinking about doing this blues record and deciding what I wanted to do,
I went through my many, many vinyl albums. I had a lot more blues
albums than I thought I did. I had something by every blues artist who
was successful in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Some of them are friends of mine,
like Rick Derringer, Edgar Winter and Johnny Winter. I have worked with
all of those guys. I wasn’t a real traditional, Robert Johnson, guy.
One of my favorites is Howlin’ Wolf. Hubert Sumlin played with Howlin’
Wolf. It is hard to believe that there is still some that was playing
“Little Red Rooster” who is still alive.
Jeb: Kenny Wayne
Shepherd is documenting the music these guys have made. He has a DVD
where he goes around, literally, to nursing homes and gets these old
guys playing and records it. I think that is great.
Myles: I have to
get that. That is really great that he is doing that. I think that
sort of thing is very important. Have you heard of a guy named Kenny
“The Bossman” Wayne? He has played on three of my records. He is an
older black fellow that is really talented. The first time I met him he
had the flower in his lapel, the suit, the hat and the jewelry; he was
totally decked out. He walked with a cane and he just looked amazing.
I told him that one
of my favorite artists was Fats Domino. I won’t say that he is why I
took up piano but he had me halfway in the boat. Later on, Elton John
came out and I had to run out and get a piano. The feel of Fats
Domino’s songs really did something to me. Floyd Cramer did the same
thing for me concerning country. I couldn’t play piano but I could sit
down and play Fats and Floyd songs without knowing anything about the
piano. One of the first things I said to Kenny was that Fats influenced
me and that I needed him to think of that when he played. I got a tip
of the hat and we went into it. It is really, really good.
Jeb: Does the blues
project put a cramp in your April Wine style writing?
Myles: It is going
to influence some of the touring that I do. I am trying to keep April
Wine my number one priority out of respect to the other guys. I won’t
jeopardize my record either. It is going to be a balancing act. As far
as April Wine goes, we have a two or three record deal with a company
who has been very successful up here in Canada. I am going to do what I
call The Vile Series, which is a really interesting concept that
I came up with. I can’t believe they bought it; the word ‘vile’ means
disgusting and horrible.
I wanted the two
packages to look identical, like a set of guitar strings. You know how
strings all come in similar packages? They are actually identical but
the colors are different. You get a blue one, a pink one, a green one, a
yellow one and a red one. So, the packaging for The Vile Series
will always be the same. This is in the contract; I have it all in
writing. What makes this so incredible is that in the contract it is
stated that I can do anything I want. I told them that I want to record
on an eight-track in analog. I want eight-track reel-to-reel. I want
to have to ping-pong the tracks down, just the way they had to do with
Sgt. Peppers. I am going to take that approach because otherwise
it won’t be fun. I have got to jump into the shower in the morning and
be excited about the whole thing.
I am not interested
in ProTools. I have ProTools and I have my own recording studio that is
state of the art — it is a real recording studio. But I don’t want that
for this project. I want to go back to reel-to-reel and record April
Wine. I can do one song that is forty minutes or I can do four songs
that are ten minutes long. I can use any kind of language that I want;
I can do cover songs; I can do any style of music that I want; no one
else has any input at all. I decide everything that goes on the
record. They actually said, “Okay.” They might say “no” after the
first one but I have a three-record contract and I want to deliver the
first one. I think our fans are going to have a whole lot of fun with
it. I think they are going to hear some stuff that is going to make
them smile.
Obviously, I want
it to be good. I want it to be different and fun. I want people to pay
ten bucks for it and have a ball. There will be jams on it and I think
it is going to be a riot. This makes it very interesting for me, the
blues is interesting for me, but in a different way. I have made my
name, and I have made my money, so I want to do things that are
interesting for me now. I just can’t stand the idea of getting up in
the morning and having nowhere to go except for the golf course. I
can’t stand the idea of not having anything for me in the day.
Jeb: I thought you
were an avid golfer.
Myles: I have
played more in the last two weeks than I have played in the last two
years. I belong to a very expensive club and I am never there.
Everybody thought I had left the club a few years ago. I never went
away, I just didn’t play. I use golf to clear my head so I can go back
to work.
Jeb: Had music
frustrated you at certain time over the past decade or so? April Wine
seems to go for a while and then stop. We never get you down here in
the States.
Myles: We work a
lot. We generate more money with our touring now than we ever have and
we work a little less than we used to. We live in an ideal world. I
don’t know how it happened. I saw a guy in the supermarket today, I am
hitting the road tomorrow, so I was just grabbing something for
tonight. He says, “Do you guys still play?” I said, “I am going down
to Missouri tomorrow for the weekend.” He said, “I wasn’t sure if you
still played.” I told him, “We don’t stop. We record and then we play,
and we play, and we play.”
We don’t play much
outside of Canada but we are very busy here. The only time we stop is
around the holidays. We still need some time off. We need that period
to travel, relax and record. Around April, we get busy until the end of
November. I am frustrated about not playing more in the States. I
would like to play more in the States and I know that a lot of our
contemporaries play there a lot. We are very good friends with the guys
in Loverboy and they play there a lot more than we do. I am at a loss
about it. I have been told that because of mismanagement, misdirection
or misfortune, or whatever you want to call it, that we were looked at
as more of a bar band. With our needs, we can’t afford to be a bar
band. We do bars in Canada from time-to-time but we mostly play
theaters, festivals and arenas.
We are not
perceived in the United States quite the same way. We will go down
there and do a festival, and play in the middle of the pack, and get a
great reaction. Promoters come up to us and say, “You guys were so
hot. There has been a buzz about April Wine since we announced you were
going to play here.” We will say, “That is great. Maybe we will see
you next year or the year after.” Then we don’t hear back. We get
nothing but compliments but we don’t seem to come back.
Jeb: I have seen
April Wine many times and you are one of those bands that has to be seen
live. You have always kicked ass in a live setting.
Myles: Every song
is important to us. We don’t fall asleep for a minute. Everybody is
playing as good as ever; that is not the problem. It is not that we are
canceling, or showing up drunk, or can’t tune our instruments, or that
we don’t care anymore. There is none of that with this band. We run in
military time; we don’t fool around. Being late, to me, is a sign of
disrespect. We respect everything about playing live. We are not anal,
but we are close. We’re not nerds; we are professionals. If we are to
be on at ten o’clock, and we are not on at ten o’clock, then it is not
the bands fault, and you can take that to the bank.
Jeb: What kind of
family did you grow up in? Was it affluent or middle class? Where did
music come from for Myles?
Myles: All of the
music came from my mother’s side of the family. Her maiden name was
‘Turple’ from Nova Scotia. My uncles were from her side of the family.
They played for a living. Their hero was Hank Snow and they thought it
was cool to sing like him through their nose. We used to sit around the
kitchen and my mom was the one who actually played the guitar.
I have spoken about
this up in Canada before, but we were very poor. As soon as you say
that you invite people to go, “I bet you weren’t as poor as we were.”
It is nothing to do with that...we were just poor, that’s all. That was
just the way it was. We lived in one of those places that you pass in a
rural area and you see a structure that is mostly tarpaper set up in the
trees. You see that place and you hope and pray that your car is not
going to break down there.
We had no running
water or electricity. We burned wood for heat. We would take bricks
and my dad would heat them up in the fire. We would then wrap the brick
in a cloth and would each go to bed with maybe one or two hot bricks.
We would place them, strategically, around our bodies to keep us warm
through the night. We had an outhouse and we bathed in a lake. This is
really how I grew up. I walked to school. We didn’t notice it so much
when we were young because we did have a lake. The first deer I ever
shot was in my backyard — we lived in the woods.
When I was eleven
years old, in 1959, my mother died of brain cancer. That left three
boys, I was eleven and my brothers were nine and seven. My father never
recovered from the loss. We were very dysfunctional. There was no
hugging, kissing, loving or laughing in the family. It was a very, very
harsh reality of what can happen to people. Bad things can happen to
good people. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I just rose
above it. I got myself out of there due to music. Music is what I used
to escape.
Jeb: So music was a
coping mechanism for you.
Myles: Totally.
That is just the way it was. When you are a teenager, the hormones are
raging and there is a lot of insecurity that comes from not being like
everybody else and being poor. Our clothes were all secondhand. Ladies
really would bring by clothing and bake us cookies, just like in a
movie. When you grow up like that, you don’t have a lot of confidence.
It was hard to go
out and meet people who were basically normal and have any confidence.
Nobody in my town was really rich but looking back now they were pretty
average. We were anything but. You hide out. Hiding out, for me, was
music. I can remember very, very clearly exactly where I went. It was
a rock. It was a giant granite rock. It was very coarse and it had a
shine to it. It was huge and it overlooked the lake. I would go up
there with that old guitar and get away from it all.
Jeb: Music takes
confidence.
Myles: It took a
very long time for me. I didn’t have confidence when I was first with
April Wine. Not long ago we were scheduled for a ninety-minute set but
I just kept going and stretching it. We played two hours and went
through a lot of songs that we usually don’t play. People want to hear
those classic April Wine songs. When they say that in Canada, they mean
things that were big hits in Canada but you have never heard them in the
States. I am talking about songs like “Drop Your Guns.” These songs
are classics in Canada and when we play those songs here everyone just
goes crazy.
It’s funny because
I can’t listen to those records because they are god-awful. Nobody in
the band could play and nobody in the band could sing. The song “You
Could Have Been a Lady,” which was broke in The Top 40 in the States
back in 1971, is a standard here. That song sounds like an
eight-cylinder car running on about three cylinders. There are a couple
of guys trying to sing and there are a couple of guitarists trying to
play and there is a drummer who is out of his fucking mind. The rest of
the song is nothing but percussion. There are tambourines and cowbells
and shakers and it sounds like we are trying like hell to get into some
kind of groove. I couldn’t even sing. The only positive thing I can
say about my voice is that at least I sound like me. I grew to
understand that that is not a bad thing. It really took me several
albums to learn to use what I have to work with.
Jeb: Do you feel
that by Electric Jewels you were still in the learning process?
Myles: That is when
I was starting to think, “There is something here.” Some of the songs
on that record were horrible but some of them were actually good. I
remember the first time I sang falsetto; I did that high part on
“Roller.” When I was done with that I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt
like that guy in Van Halen, David Lee Roth. All he can do is that high
part. I am not a fan of his vocals. I love his spirit but vocally I am
not a fan. He does that falsetto thing all the time because that is
really all he knows how to do. I remember discovering how to do that
but I remember being told not to use it all time.
Now, I am very,
very comfortable in the studio. I know what microphone to use and I
have the confidence to direct people on how we are going to do this or
that. Sometimes we have to fix something here or there. I am so close
to being able to do things in one take it is stupid. I never sing more
than three takes. I can do that now because I have the confidence that
I didn’t used to have. I just close my eyes and I just sing and get
myself into it. I listen back to it and I say, “That’s it.” That is
what happened right now and that is honest. Do you remember Frank
Marino?
Jeb: Of course I
remember Frank.
Myles: Frank is
kind of a recluse like me. I called Frank and said, “Frank, I want you
to play on my blues record.” He said, “I am doing a blues record myself
right now. It will only confuse me.” I said, “We’re not going to
steal. I just want you to play on one track.” He comes back, “It will
only confuse me on what I am doing now. I am doing a jazz/blues fusion
thing.” I said, “Listen, I want you to play one friggin’ note.” He
said, “One note? Let me think about it.” I said, “You know how Hendrix
goes, ‘wah wah wah?’ I want you to do that.” He said, “I can’t do
that. I started out copying Hendrix. I have spent my entire life
trying to get away from that.” I said, “That is the beauty of it. You
have gotten away from it but we are going to go back there for one
lick.” He started to see the humor in it and, wouldn’t you know, this
perfectionist son of a bitch sends me a tape with six versions of
wah-wah on it. So, now I have six licks and I have to choose one. I
finally picked one and I called Frank and said, “Frank, I picked your
third lick.” He replies, “I wouldn’t have picked that one.” I said,
“Then why did you send it to me then?” Frank goes, “The first one is
what Hendrix would have done if he were alive today.” I said “Thanks
Frank. I will talk to you later.” I now have him on there for one
lick. Now, I start reeling him in. I tell him, “You have got to do one
more. You can’t just have one lick.”
Jeb: When you talk
about the upcoming Aril Wine and the blues projects I can hear the
excitement in your voice.
Myles: It is a lot
of fun. I do it well, and the only reason I know that is because
everybody likes it. There are a lot of really great people on my blues
record. We are talking about multiple award winners who were playing
the blues when I was trying to write, “You Could Have Been a Lady” and
shit like that.
Jeb: Are you going
to take the blues out on the road?
Myles: Oh, I have
to; that is therapy for me. That means I still matter as a songwriter,
a singer and player. There is such an ego around all of that, and mean
that in a healthy way. I don’t go around thinking I am all that, I just
go around thinking that I am still worth something.
Jeb: Really? You
still need that?
Myles: Yeah, I
don’t want to ever hear people say, “I heard Myles. He can’t sing
anymore.” Today, I have to prove to myself that I can still play and
sing. I have to prove that I can still get up in front of an audience
and still please them. I need to prove that I can still move them and
make them happy. I need to know that I had a really nice performance
and they enjoyed it and I enjoyed it. I need that in my life.
Jeb: I would think
it would easier to book April Wine than it would be to book you as a
solo artist.
Myles: Yeah.
Nobody does blues to make money. I am doing it because I love it. I
don’t know who will even be in the band yet — I haven’t gotten that
far. I am a solo artist; I have to see who is around and who wants to
go out. I would ask the people who played on it. Maybe I can get some
of the guys to tour with me. Maybe I will get a basic band that goes
with me like Jeff Healey did. I don’t know. I am not worried about it
now. I just know it is going to happen.
Jeb: It is nice to
see you so excited about the future. Many of the artists from your time
period don’t have much enthusiasm anymore. They cash the checks but if
the checks were not there they may not even be playing.
Myles: I don’t know
how creative people like that were in the beginning but it might be the
fact that they can’t contribute anymore. If I was going to record and
try to repeat my past then I would be very discouraged. The fact that I
am going off on my own and going off into a new adventure — if I work
really hard at it then I can gain credibility then that means that I can
walk onto any stage within the context of the blues and be able to
finish my set without getting booed off the stage.
Jeb: Would you
stick to the blues as a solo artist or would you pull out a few April
Wine classics?
Myles: Who knows?
That is a very good question. There is a couple of ways to look at it.
One way is to stay 100% blues. The other way, and a lot of people are
talking to me about this — you’re not around as long as I have been
around without everybody knowing who you are and what you do. I am just
a little Canadian treasure up here. Every time April Wine plays here it
is sold out. It doesn’t matter where we play or what we do, it is sold
out. It is just tremendous.
What I am leaning
towards is doing is the obscure side of April Wine, along with a few
songs that everyone has to hear. There is so much April Wine material
that we never play and people want to hear. It is just really different
stuff. People yell these songs out year after year. They yell out,
“Play “Silver Dollar” or “play “You Opened Up My Eyes.” Years ago, we
may have played it for a short time but didn’t keep it in the set. A
lot of the songs are very keyboard oriented.
I could see making
it An Evening With Myles Goodwyn and making it a two-part set.
The first part would be this whole blues experience that I am going
through. Then, after a little break, I would come back out and do April
Wine music. It would be great in theaters. These would be songs they
knew because they sold millions of copies. Why can’t I make it that
kind of a night? I think it would be interesting. At the very end I
could throw in “Roller” and a couple of biggies.
Jeb: Was it
frustrating to have songs be huge in Canada but nothing in the United
States? I am talking about a song like “You Won’t Dance with Me.”
Myles: That is a
beautiful song. I was writing songs in the ‘60s when I was going to
school. I was playing in a band called Woody’s Termites. We wore
reversible vests and we wore our hair as long as they would allow us to
wear it in school, which was not really that long. We wore Beatle boots
that were ill fitting. I wrote a couple of songs that became April Wine
classics. I wrote “You Won’t Dance with Me” because I had a girlfriend
back then who was Dutch and her last name was ‘Kook.’ It was pronounced
like ‘Cook.’ I was always watching her dance with everybody else
because I was on stage and she was in the audience. Years later, I
took another song I had written titled “Why” and I put that song with
“You Won’t Dance with Me” and recorded it with April Wine. It is still
a big song in this country. The song is a tip of the hat to the Everly
Brothers.
I wrote another one
in Woody’s Termites that became a huge, huge song that we still have to
play all the time called “Tonight is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love.”
We played it the other night at this big festival and once we played the
opening chords the place went nuts. I wrote that song when I was
seventeen.
Jeb: In 1977, April
Wine was a fake headliner for the Rolling Stones.
Myles: The Stones
were doing this double live album. They wanted to go back to smaller
venues and they put together this eleven-piece band. They were going to
record it over three nights in Toronto at The El Mocambo. The shows
were unannounced. They asked them who could sell out the place for two
or three nights as a smokescreen. They said, “April Wine can sell out
this bar.” The place held about four hundred people or something like
that. We agreed to do it and we decided to record as well and we made
Live at the El Mocambo. We played two nights as the Stones
decided not to have us for the third night. It was incredible. We
would play an hour and then the Stones would come out. After the first
night, the entire country knew what was going on.
Jeb: Did you stick
around and watch the Stones set?
Myles: Oh yeah.
They took us down to Buffalo with them and that was really nice. It was
one of the first times we ever played in front of that many people.
Jeb: Did switching
to Capital Records change your life?
Myles: You have to
remember the Canadian music scene was much different then. There was a
rule on the radio that said 30% of all music that played on the radio
had to be Canadian, which meant three out of every ten records. The
American music business saw that as a way of keeping their artists off
the radio in Canada. We were trying to get deals in the States but
nobody wanted a Canadian band.
The only record
deals we could get were not very good record deals. We would be told to
go with this great old company who were on their last legs and really
wanted to work and would put all their efforts into the band. Of
course, they died a slow and painful death and they took us down with
them after one release. Eventually, we got lucky and we signed with
Capital Records in Canada. They liked the history of the band in Canada
and they like the music that we were doing in April Wine. They liked us
so much that we ended up signing in the States with Capital as well.
Jeb: Is that when
you started producing the bas well?
Myles: I started
producing the albums in 1975. The first album I produced was called
Stand Back. Up to that point, our albums were just collections of
two or three minute songs. I wanted to make a record that was outside
of having a twelve second intro with a double chorus as the end. I
really wanted to do something else. The record Stand Back was
our first record to sell platinum. We were really on the right track at
that point.
Jeb: What is
platinum in Canada?
Myles: Platinum is
based on the population here. Back then it was 100,000 units. Fifty
thousand is gold.
Jeb: Was it a lot
more exciting to get a USA platinum album? That is one million units.
Myles: That is
pretty awesome but our records were selling double and triple platinum.
We were the first artist in the country to ship double platinum. In the
States, to get a gold record for 500,000 and then platinum for 1,000,000
is pretty incredible.
Jeb: Did you write
“Say Hello” on your old guitar?
Myles: Almost
certainly yes. That song started out as a drum beat. I think the beat
is in 6/8. I can’t read music. A real drummer has a different
perspective on things. They are very mathematical. For me, it is all
feel. I would come up with something and the drummer would go, “What
the hell are you doing?” Jerry Mercer was our drummer since 1973, until
he retired last year. I had to bring in another drummer to cut tracks
because he couldn’t figure out where some of this stuff was coming
from.
“Say Hello” was really a drumbeat
that I really liked. I started out as a drummer. I came up with a song
with a really funky drum track called “Goody Two Shoes.” My publishing
company for years has been called “Goody Two Tunes.” To answer your
question, all of those songs were written on that guitar.
Jeb: The intro is
so cool.
Myles: If you take
a song like “Say Hello” and really analyze it then you will see that it
is the same three chords over, and over, and over, and over again. How
is it possible to play three chords over and over and make it
interesting? If you play the song then you realize that the solo is
over the three chords done completely differently. The chorus is the
same three chords with a completely different melody. The verses are
different than the other two. If you take that, put it all together and
play it with a funky drumbeat then you are on to something. I also
played the opening notes separately. You don’t play it like a chord.
You record the notes separately so they have a bubbling and churning
sound. You trigger that with the hi-hat. When you hit the hi-hat then
you start the bubbling, churning notes and then you stop when the hi-hat
stops. If you play it without any of that help then it can mess you up
for a bit. It really is only three chords. All you need to write a song
is three chords and a little bit of imagination.
Another example of
that is “Tonight is a Wonderful Night to Fall in Love.” I only have
three chords in that song. I turned them around and I changed the
melody. If you can play three chords then you can play April Wine
songs.
Jeb: You do that
same thing with “Enough is Enough.”
Myles: That is
F/C/G. I forgot about that one. “Enough is Enough” features the same
three chords played three very different ways. You’re spot on the
money. That solo is very much like “Say Hello.” The verses are wide
open. It really is the same three chords all the way through the entire
song. It is almost like using smoke and mirrors. People really think
there is something going on but there really isn’t. I don’t know...I
just love it.
Jeb: You look a
classic 1950's chord progression and turned it into a great rock ballad
in “Just Between You and Me.”
Myles: “Just
Between You and Me” has a little bit of Everly Brothers in there. I
grew up at an age where there was a lot of shit –- most of it really was
shit. After Elvis and before the Beatles there was really a lot of bad
music like Fabian. America was all about rock n’ roll and they were
looking for anyone to put with a producer and put out a song. Just look
at the crap Phil Spector was putting out. The lyrics were just
terrible. “My boyfriends back and there’s gonna be trouble” and then
there is the song where Donna dies in your arms –- it was all a bunch of
schmaltz. Along come the Beatles and everything changed.
Jeb: You covered a Beatles tune in April Wine. How did you decide on
“Tell Me Why?”
Myles: It was one
night in the ‘70s, I had been up all night writing something. Just as I
was closing up, I heard a song on the radio. It was Beatles singing a
really energetic song that was very upbeat called “Tell Me Why.” It was
five o’clock in the morning and Myles was very tired. I got my guitar
and I did it Everly Brothers style, really slow, and I added a few of my
things that I do to it and I recorded it. I still hear that thing in
fucking supermarkets today. It was a hit up here.
Jeb: That is on
Power Play.
Myles: I think it
might be. That song is an example of me finding the blues somehow. I
played that song on a 1962 Stratocaster Sunburst that was very tired
looking – not as bad as Rory Gallagher’s but it has been played a lot.
I don’t stop playing the entire song. I play blues licks from the time
the song starts to the time the song stops. I play the blues behind a
Beatles song that I heard at five o’clock in the morning. You like it
because it really worked.
Jeb: Back on “Just
Between You and Me.” It was cool how you took an Everly Brothers type
chord progression and made it sound current for the time. The thing
that you did that made the song, in my thoughts, is the killer guitar
solo.
Myles: Let me tell
you about that solo... We were recording about 40 miles north of London,
England. Everyone went home and I stayed because I was having some
trouble finishing up the vocals. One of the last things I had to do was
“Just Between You and Me.” I am going to go off the subject here
because that was done with producer Mike Stone. I could talk about him
for an hour. People say I found him. Right, I found Mike Stone. We
discovered each other is more like it. I had heard about him and
contacted him when he was in the hospital flat on his back because he
had vertebra that were fused together. When Mike died, I cried like a
baby. It was a very sad day for me as we were the best of friends.
Anyway, we were
listening to “Just Between You and Me” and I said, “Mike, we have got to
do another solo. I really don’t like that solo at all.” Mike tells me
that all the equipment is gone. We started looking around to see what
was lying around the studio. We found a guitar, I am thinking it might
have been an Ibanez but I really don’t know. We used a pedal that was
basically just a little distortion thing. We plugged directly into the
console and that is the sound we got. We did not even go through an
amp. I played that and it was one of the very last things I played on
that record.
Jeb: I just love
the sound of that solo.
Myles: The phrasing
and the way it was built made me feel that I was on to something. It
really did feel I was on to something special.
Jeb: “Anything You
Want,” “Crash and Burn” and “I Like to Rock” show a heavy side to your
musical persona.
Myles: Don’t forget
“Future Tense.” We were inducted into the Hall of Fame a while ago and
there was another band being inducted that was one of the original
Canadian metal bands. They are called Anvil. I had never met the boys
before. They have a new documentary that is out and I heard it was
great. Anyway, here are these four guys staring at me, who look like
they have been doing heavy metal for a long, long time. One guy says,
“Myles, you are a great songwriter. I love your guitar playing and you
were an influence to me.” The other guy standing there is just looking
at me. He looked like he didn’t have another party left in him. He
just looked at me and said, “How come you don’t write heavy stuff
anymore?” I said, “I don’t know, that is a good question.” He said,
“You really used to write really good heavy stuff.” I said, “I really
don’t anymore, do I?” He looked at me and just said, “No.” They were
really sweet guys. I do have The Vial Series coming up so I will
see what I can do for them and write something heavy.
Jeb: You sound very
grounded. Have you hit the big sixty?
Myles: I am 61.
Jeb: That is
different than 41 and it is ages away from 21. You don’t know how much
longer it can last. You don’t know even what will happen over then next
ten years, physically. How does that affect who you are as a creative
person? Does it create a sense of urgency?
Myles: I think that
you’re right. There are a lot of things that come with being the age
that I am now. I think you know me well enough that you know how much I
love music. I have five records to do and I am 61 years old — that’s
not bad. I have a strong desire to do a lot of things, musically. I
have had a bit of bad luck. I think that is probably helped me for the
blues record. I was hospitalized last year with a bleeding esophagus,
which almost killed me. I finally got past all of that rehab and I got
hit with diabetes. I have been a diabetic now for a couple of months.
I have to take four shots a day.
Jeb: You’re son is
a diabetic.
Myles: That’s
right. He is thirteen and he is diabetic. I have been raising money
for diabetes research since he was diagnosed. I have been able to raise
over two million dollars as a member of April Wine and by auctioning
things for diabetes research. Now I am diabetic. We are both full
blown.
My son was
diagnosed when he was eight years old. There are no days off with that
disease. I have to share a funny story with you. I was talking to
someone on the phone and I said to my son, “I want you to say hi to my
friend Rick.” My son gets on the phone and he says, “Hi.” My friend
goes, “I hear you’re diabetic. So am I. It is going to be okay. You
are going to be the healthiest guy in your school because you are going
to be doing everything right. You will not be eating french fries and
ice cream. You will be doing things right. Also, remember that it is
manageable.” My son goes, “Yeah, alright.” It was almost like he was
going, “Can I go now?” I took the phone and thanked my friend for
talking to my son. I told my son, “You know who you were talking to?”
He said, “Your friend Rick.” I said, “Do you know that song called
‘Hang On Sloopy?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “You know “Rock ‘n Roll
Hootchie Coo?” He said, “Yeah.” I said that is who you were talking
to, Rick Derringer. He said, “Can I call him back?” I told him that we
could not call him back because he was in the middle of a session. Five
minutes later, I hear him on the phone with one of his friends singing
“Hang On Sloopy.”
Jeb: Last one:
Are you healthy enough to do all that is one your plate?
Myles: I had a lot
of energy when I was working on the blues project but then the health
scares slowed me down, especially the first one. I felt very old. I
felt like I wasn’t turning 61, I felt like I was turning 70. I told my
friends that every thing about me is old now. I feel old and thought it
was going to be one of those things where people will say that I never
really recovered. After that I found out I was diabetic. Since I have
found out I am diabetic, and started taking insulin, my whole life has
become easier. Now I can finish what I started.
www.aprilwine.ca
