For a number of years, the members of the veteran Prairie rock band the Northern Pikes had resigned themselves to the idea they probably wouldn’t record again.
Co-founding member Merl Bryck had bowed out of the band a few years after the 2003 album It’s a Good Life, and Bryan Potvin, Jay Semko and Don Schmid forged ahead as a trio with their friend’s blessing. They were happy to play whenever an opportunity came along, but each equally busy individual lives to keep them going in the meantime.
Everything changed in 2017 when Universal Music Canada released a deluxe 30th anniversary edition of the Pikes’ major label debut Big Blue Sky, with the hits Teenland, Things I Do for Money, and the fan favourite Dancing in a Dance Club. The remaining band members felt they should tour as a four-piece to do the songs justice. Potvin, now living in Lunenburg, suggested singer-guitarist Kevin Kane, originally from their friendly rivals the Grapes of Wrath.
Potvin and Kane had been touring as a duo and, with a third songwriter back in the mix, the ball kept rolling to the point that the band now has a new album Forest of Love, also through Universal.
'Whole again'
There are three Nova Scotia shows this week, at Lunenburg Opera House on Thursday, Casino Nova Scotia’s Schooner Showroom on Friday and Truro’s Marigold Cultural Centre on Sunday.
“One of the great things about having Kevin in the band is he is of our vintage,” says Potvin by phone, in the midst of running pre-tour errands around Bridgewater. “He’s accomplished in the same way we are, he’s travelled the same roads we have — figuratively and literally — and our bands really aren’t that different, the Grapes and the Pikes.
“Our personalities merge really well, and it just seemed natural at that point after the Big Blue Sky tour that we’d start thinking about making another record. The Pikes played as a three-piece before that, around the mid-2000s, and we never thought of recording again because we weren’t really the same band that made those records. We were three-quarters of it.
“But we feel like we’re whole again.”
The band certainly feels complete on Forest of Love, with Semko offering pointed commentary on the opening track King In His Castle, Potvin opting for heated rock passion on the title track, and Kane experimenting with Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies inspiration cards on Draw From the Deck.
Studio advantage
Potvin credits the record’s sonic punch to the opportunity to record at the new Studio Bell in Calgary, home of the National Music Centre, which has the perfect mix of state-of-the-art facilities and the kind of classic equipment that helped make some of the band members’ own favourite albums.
“We were very lucky in the early part of our career to work in some extraordinary studios, like Bearsville in upstate New York and A&M in Los Angeles, and this is right on par with those types of facilities,” he says of the facility.
“In a weird way, it’s kind of a throwback. I know there are still big studios in operation, but with the advent of ‘recording in a box’ and the ability to make a record almost anywhere with a computer, that has to put a strain on the major studios.”
Studio Bell is the current home of the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording studio, which the band checked out but didn’t use, and a vintage 1975 British-made Trident console, which they did get to use, plus an impressive array of gear like tube amps donated by Neil Young.
It’s certainly a far cry from what bands like the Pikes had to work with when they were starting out as an indie act, the same way peers like 54-40, Blue Rodeo, k.d. lang and Rough Trade did before moving on to greener pastures.
“There was this wave of bands who were getting recognition, signing deals, getting some airplay who weren’t playing this cookie-cutter commercial rock that had been going on previous to that,” says Potvin of that period in the late ’80s when alternative acts entered the mainstream.
“It was, pardon the expression, ‘a new wave’ of Canadian bands making commercial inroads. Speaking for myself, I never felt any kind of competition, there was only one Northern Pikes, and trying to be competitive with something in an apples-to-oranges doesn’t make much sense to me. I suppose I do have a bit of a competitive spirit, but when it comes to art, that’s not how it’s supposed to be, it’s just about expression.”
Tickets for the Northern Pikes at the Schooner Showroom on Friday night are available at Casino Nova Scotia, the Ticket Atlantic box office (902-451-1221 or ticketatlantic.com) and Atlantic Superstores.