Downie jazzed about new Hip album
It’s good to see inspiring people feeling inspired.
And that’s just how Gordon Downie is looking these days.
With The Tragically Hip’s new album, World Container, set to drop Tuesday, frontman Downie seems enthusiastic as he sits in a hotel lobby, talking about The Hip, Bob Rock and rock ‘n’ roll.
A string of intriguing topics to any music fan.
“I guess I’m jazzed about this record, and excited about it, because I feel like I stumbled onto something,” says Downie.
For the making of World Container, The Hip teamed up with famed rock producer Bob Rock, who has produced some of the greatest rock albums of all time, including Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood and Metallica’s self-titled album.
“The sound is fresh,” says Downie.
“It’s a celebration of a great working and personal relationship with Bob that didn’t exist two years ago.”
The relationship, thankfully, was one that flourished easily and early.
“It became clear this was going to be a very different record for The Hip,” writes Rock in his World Container biography.
“The songs were very personal and one in particular, Fly, got to me right away. I had never heard a song like that from The Hip.”
Needless to say, Rock agreed to do the album, and the rest, as they say, is what they don’t teach you in history class.
Rock’s rock ‘n’ roll style shines through on World Container.
“Bob said to us at the beginning, ‘you’re a great rock band, you know, you’ve got a great groove.’ ”
“It wasn’t like ‘let’s keep it simple,’ but … when we sort of started sifting through material to try, he would … politely move beyond (some stuff) or push it aside.”
Downie says these songs inevitably would be the ones that seemed, “too much from the head and not so much from the heart. And I think I’m interested in what the heart has to say.”
“I think it shows on this record.”
“The heart is one’s greatest resource,and I don’t know if I was really going to it enough.”
Something else Downie says he’s not sure if The Hip were doing enough was letting their musical inspiration shine through.
“I think it’s always fun to show those influences a bit,” he says. “To show that you’re very cognizant and aware of your role in the great lineage of music.”
And being part of that lineage is something Downie is proud of.
“I love music constantly. I love that it’s part of my life.”
“My 11-year-old daughter bought The Killers’ new single and played it maybe 40 times in a row the other day.
“And I was in the kitchen making toast, and I tell you, every time she put it on and I thought Yeah!
“Because that’s what I would have done … you save up your allowance and it’s either candy or record. And you’d get the record and you’d play it a thousand times in a row because you own it, it’s yours.
“And I love that feeling.”
As far as what it is about rock ‘n’ roll he still loves: “I think it’s an instrument of change. I think it can change the world.”
Whether World Container will change the world, we’ll have to wait and see.
But whether or not The Tragically Hip has changed the world of Canadian rock is a no-brainer.
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