Slow burn coming

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This article was published 10/07/2024 (769 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

No one sounded like the Cowboy Junkies when they formed in 1985.

Today, they still sound like no one else.

The Toronto-based Americana/roots/folk band is known for achingly real, slow-burning songs that can be described as hushed, but the sound evolved naturally when Michael Timmins and his friend Alan Anton were forced to turn things down when the cops showed up while the pair were jamming in a garage.

Once they recruited Timmins’ younger sister Margo to sing and younger brother Peter to play drums, they had to adjust to her soft vocal style through a small P.A. in the tiny jam space.

Early live shows could be a challenge, Timmins says.

“We were playing Queen Street clubs before Trinity came out and we were getting a name and people came out to see a happening band, so it got harder and harder to be heard,” he says over the phone from Toronto, where he still lives.

Trinity would be The Trinity Session, the band’s 1998 breakthrough sophomore release that features the singles Misguided Angel and a cover of the Velvet Underground’s Sweet Jane.

The album was recorded live in one day in a Toronto church with the band gathered around one microphone.

“I think the reason The Trinity Session took off so much is it stood out compared to what was going on at the time: glam rock and poppy stuff. Big-hair bands. What we did was so opposite that,” Timmins says.

“There was no real reason that we should have popped up, but there was something about the recording, really natural ’50s-style recording, and it caught the ears of reviewers, prominent reviews, and back then that mattered. Then music fans heard it and once they did it took off.”

Since then, the band — Michael, 65, Margo, 63, Peter, 59 and Anton, 65 – has released more than 25 albums, including box sets, live shows and collections of cover songs. It has never had a lineup change, tours constantly, has a global fan base and has no plans to call it a day.

The Junkies’ latest release, Such Ferocious Beauty, was released last year and touches on weighty issues such as the death of the Timmins’ father three years ago, much as the band’s 2020 album Ghosts dealt with the 2018 death of their mother.

Putting his parents’ lives and memories to music is both a way of honouring them and coming to terms with the experience, Timmins says.

“Obviously, having a parent die — and having dad die of dementia and having mom die already — he was alone and we were the primary caregivers, so that was a pretty intense experience,” Timmins says.

“I just approached it honestly. I”m not a big one to categorize a song as a bummer or happy or sad, I’m just writing to analyze an experience or figure out my thoughts about the experience, and how it comes out, it comes out. Our audience at this point is not looking for a big twee pop album from us, and I’m not sure I could write one of those anyway.”

When it comes to writing, Timmins still works the same way he always has: alone — this time in a cabin — before getting together with Margo to flesh them out. In the studio, he and Anton – who has been playing with Timmins since they were teenagers – will expand the songs further.

Keeping things fresh after so long isn’t a problem for Timmins, but he takes more time between albums instead of just cranking them out.

“I don’t write as much. It takes me a while to figure out what I want to write about and how to go about it, approaching it lyrically, musically and thematically, and then how to present it sonically,” he says.

“I’m sure I could zip off 10 songs in the next couple of months, but I want there to be a relevancy for me and hopefully that is relevant for the audience.”

Local fans will get to see the band Sunday when the group performs at the Winnipeg Folk Festival for the third time in its career, and first since 2001. The band plays the Big Bluestem stage at 4:30 p.m.

And, Timmins says, the band is louder live than some of their records would have you believe.

“Our sound has developed over 35 years. Compared to a lot of bands, we’re still quite soft, but some people who show up to hear The Trinity Session are surprised. There is a psychedelic electric side to us we put in every set. We know how to turn it up.”

rob.williams@winnipegfreepress.com