Kim Mitchell talks recovery and touring after suffering a major heart attack

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/04/2016 (3768 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO – Kim Mitchell’s life was shaken earlier this year when he was blindsided by a heart attack. Now he’s just itching to get back onto the stage.

The Canadian musician, who has toured extensively throughout his career, considers himself lucky for living through the biggest heath scare of his life.

He credits most of that to being in Toronto when he was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery.

“I’m still thankful I wasn’t on the road,” he says bluntly. “If I had been on the road somewhere, where there wasn’t a (catheterization) lab, I wouldn’t be here.”

After years as Canada’s happy-go-lucky summertime rocker, there’s something particularly serious about Mitchell now as he reflects on a year that dealt him a tough hand.

Before his heart attack, Mitchell, 63, was working through the emotional weight of both his father’s death and the passing of two close friends, all within the span of about seven months.

Those darkest hours laid the foundation for his new outlook.

“You can drop dead any time,” he says. “I’m going to go on with my life.”

Next week, Mitchell returns to the stage for his first performance since his heart attack, playing a Richmond Hill, Ont., venue in the suburbs of Toronto.

The concert marks the start of a wave of shows that will touch down in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia through the end of July.

It’s a particularly ambitious plan for a musician who’s emerging from months in a rehab program for his heart condition.

Sitting at a bistro in downtown Toronto and munching on a heart-healthy bucket of jumbo shrimp, he jokes about his place as one of Canada’s rock “geezers,” or a “heritage artist,” as he more affectionately calls himself.

His love of music began in 1960s Sarnia, Ont., where he joined scrappy high school band the Grass Company when he was 14. Two years later he left for Toronto with a pack of friends to chase his dreams of being a serious musician, much to the dismay of his parents.

“They were very upset with me,” he says. “Although when we left (my dad) gave me 200 bucks.”

Living in the big city gave Mitchell connections to Toronto’s thriving musical community, and after heading to Greece for a year-long gig (“backing up a Greek Tom Jones”), he returned to Canada and formed the band Max Webster in 1973.

After eventually releasing an album, Max Webster began picking up opening slots for Rush tours, just as the iconic Canadian rockers were rising to new levels of international fame.

The attention helped Max Webster score a number of singles and gave Mitchell some unforgettable nights of partying — many of which he admits he doesn’t really remember.

“To me it was like a big damn fishing trip,” Mitchell says. “A bunch of guys and a few women on the road just having a wonderful time and making music.”

Seemingly endless touring eventually led to road fatigue. When Max Webster disintegrated around the turn of the decade, Mitchell reimagined his career as the frontman to his own project.

“It wasn’t a case of going solo,” he says. “I would’ve been fine joining a band. I wouldn’t have cared if I was the leader or singer.”

But the rising demand for music videos in the mid-1980s thrust Mitchell into the spotlight. MuchMusic eagerly supported his energetic goofball persona and penchant for colourful clothing, whether he was sporting a sleeveless shirt in his memorably cheesy “Go For a Soda” video — which gave him his only U.S. crossover hit — or a neon flip brim hat and a series of obnoxiously loud tops in “I Am a Wild Party.”

“That’s when videos mattered,” he remembers. “God I hated that part cause I was so bad at it.”

He also became a Canadian radio mainstay with singles including “All We Are,” “Easy to Tame” and the unforgettable “Patio Lanterns.”

“There were a lot of people who thought it was the worst song they’d ever heard,” Mitchell says of “Patio Lanterns,” admitting it isn’t his favourite either.

“It doesn’t matter. I think along with any kind of success comes people who are going to hate what you’re doing.”

Fame wasn’t something Mitchell grew accustomed to, he says, especially when it came to playing huge concert venues.

“A feeling of sheer terror would come over me, and you’d just kinda go, ‘I wanna be back in a bar having a beer,'” he says.

“The stakes are lower.”

Persistent touring once again started to wear thin and Mitchell says he felt his popularity wane in the 1990s as rock music became edgier. His mother’s death and the disintegration of his marriage helped deflate whatever inspiration was left at the time.

He would go on to become a radio host for Toronto classic rock station Q107 for more than a decade, until his hosting gig was cut last summer.

Mitchell says he loved working at the station but doesn’t dwell on being pushed out.

“I haven’t listened to a radio station since the day I left,” he proudly proclaims.

“It’s not out of bitterness. This is exactly what it’s like: You sell a house, you move out of the neighbourhood and you usually don’t go back.”

He was hardly settled into his next life stage when the heart attack forced him to restructure his daily plans.

Mitchell says he now writes when he’s inspired, tries to play guitar every day, and ensures he’s staying physically active.

A return to the concert stage is the next step.

“I just want to enjoy getting up every day and being here,” he says.

“I feel good. I want to feel good about life.”

Follow @dfriend on Twitter.