The Sheepdogs: classic rock action heroes

(© Alex Kirzhner)

On the cover of the Rolling Stone… The Sheepdogs, an old-fashioned Canadian rock band, made it there two summers ago. The extra attention generated by the cover shoot and the interview that went with it led to a recording contract with Atlantic. And has now led to an extensive European tour to launch their major-label, eponymous debut album, produced by Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney. On the eve of the tour we rang their exuberant frontman, Ewan Currie, in Austin shortly before his group’s appearance at the South By Southwest Festival. “Necessary, to gradually get known in the US,” he says. “We play much smaller venues here than in Canada, where we already made our breakthrough a while ago.”

There is obviously growing interest in bluesy, Seventies-style classic rock and you guys seem to be benefiting from that.
Ewan Currie: Yeah, that’s true: it looks like rock musicians can just have fun onstage again. In the 1990s, guitar rock was a vehicle used by musicians to emphasise how depressive they were. That worked for Kurt Cobain, because his pain was believable, but after that everyone just tried to sound like Nirvana. Fortunately, now you’re allowed to rock out again, just like in the good old Seventies. Myself, too, when I go to a gig, I just want to have fun: drink a few beers, meet girls, and act silly. At the end of the day, we’re just simple boys from Saskatoon.

Eh?
Currie: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It sounds exotic and remote…and it is too. [Laughs] It is a pleasant little city with a good 200,000 inhabitants in the middle of Canada. When we had to drive with the band to Toronto, the country’s music capital, it took 32 hours on average. And if you want to make it in Canada, you have to do that all the time.

How did you guys make it onto the cover of Rolling Stone?
Currie: We were selected by the rock magazine to compete for it over two months with sixteen other bands. Not only did we have to perform live, but we had to organise all sorts of things online and persuade people to vote for us. And it worked out well.

You guys got no fewer than a million and a half votes!
Currie: Yeah, we were really surprised. It was surreal seeing ourselves on that cover, but we are even more over the moon about the consequences. After a concert in New York, we got talking to Patrick Carney of the Black Keys, a tremendously clever guy who just breathes rock ‘n’ roll, and he turned out to be willing to produce our album! He helped us to cut the fat from the songs. Sometimes, after all, you have too many ideas and you have to get back to the essence in order to rock better.

I have just seen the video for “Feeling Good”, your new single. Scenario: mini action-hero versions of yourselves have to free groupies who have fallen into the hands of violent ninjas. The screen was dripping with fake blood.
Currie: Yeah, luckily it’s the doll version [laughs], but I do like a strong dose of tongue-in-cheek. Most of the dolls, by the way, were converted GI Joes and Barbies, but we ourselves were made out of clay by the Canadian artist Kira Shaimanova. We look frighteningly lifelike.

And quite rock ‘n’ roll. Actually, artists with their own doll collection have usually already made it.
Currie: Yeah, we are getting ahead of our schedule. It would be fantastic to use the dolls for our merchandising, but sadly the production costs are too high for that.

The Sheepdogs • 10/4, 19.30, €11/14, BOTANIQUE, Koningsstraat 236 rue Royale, Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, 02-218.37.32, info@botanique.be, www.botanique.be