Tom Cochrane... Part Deux

Terry Evans  0:00  
Reluctantly, he is coming to town, to Edmonton, that is at the fan park at ICE district on June 21 with Burton Cummings. Tom Cochran is my guest again today, reluctantly,

Tom Cochrane  0:12  
reluctantly. Hey, Tom. It's great to see you too. It's uh, go well,

Terry Evans  0:21  
I wondered. I wondered how long it was going to take before there was some reference to the Edmonton Oilers and their playoff run. Here, we got right too, didn't we? Yeah, before we get into anything, how, how do you feel about the leafs? I know you're a Leafs fan too. Well.

Tom Cochrane  0:37  
I mean, they just don't have what it takes. They don't. I mean, you want the dry side on McDavid, they're they get in the dirty areas. They don't. They're not afraid to mix it up. And I just found, I don't think Toronto has the same spirit. There's a reason why admin has the success it has, and it's because the city has an incredible spirit, an incredible, incredible esprit de corps, and it's a great music town. It's a great sports town, and the people bring it, that's why,

Terry Evans  1:16  
well, and as soon as anytime it's announced that you're coming back to it's always hotly anticipated. Everybody loves seeing you. Everybody knows that Edmonton like your second home. It's, you know, based on the support that you've had for so many years from this city going back to, you know, 7980 when the first album came out, and and everything ever since, and all of the the

Tom Cochrane  1:43  
connection to the city, with the symphony sessions, the I mean, there's just so many things that you've been here that you've woven yourself into the into the fabric of this city. Yeah, it goes back a long, long time, even to when I was 19, 1819, I had my heart broken by a girl named Jasper, and I came back and hung out Edmonton for a while and kind of sat in at a couple of clubs and kind of trying to heal my broken heart. But later it was just it seemed like we're in town every second week. And you and I have talked about this, we wouldn't have survived as a band with the support from Edmonton. So it's been that kind of a place early in my career. It's got a real warm spot in my heart. Yeah, so it's I get choked up thinking about it,

Terry Evans  2:39  
isn't it funny how regionality is? There's little pockets of Canada that supported different bands here and there. And it's, it's funny how a band would have be really popular for a period of time in in one area, and then another band would be, I mean, it any when you think about it, it was all those Winnipeg bands and artists going back. I mean, you're coming here with Burton Cummings. It goes back to the Guess who, all the way to the crash test dummies and street heart Harlequin and yourself.

Tom Cochrane  3:17  
Neil, yeah, sure. I mean, it's, it's, yeah, I, I've had tremendous success all across Canada, and, of course, now internationally, with lifestyle highway and romantic fringe and but without that support from, from, as you say, those, those niche areas, for whatever reason that that adopt you Edmonton being one of those places, for me, it's you wouldn't survive as an artist. So I think to have allegiance. It's there is a pretty obvious thing. I you know, I love the gasket Burton. I go back, I remember he did a show in Winnipeg, and he showed up and he said, I just want to be on stage and sing background vocals. Don't try any attention. I said, Hey, you're not drawing attention to bring talent. So he just sat there behind the keyboard that played a little bit here and there, but he sung background vocals for that show. What a generous gap, and they're such a big influence, because there was a time, Terry, when we as Canadian are controlled. Don't tell people you're from Canada. You gotta make it International. You gotta make a mistake, and they have to think quickly that you're there. I said to act with that. I'm not that's I'm proud of, the inclination I wear it on my sleeve, and the, guess who I mean, hectic the record, the seminal record, wheat fields soul, was a tribute to to their roots, and so they, they stayed true to it, even though they had more his than the Beatles on that particular album, that particular time. So. Would they were biggest inspiration for me, probably as much as the band was as well, you know, becoming big heads internationally. But again, the Guess who always embraced the infinity, and it was there again. And in the words of the great gorilla Lightfoot Millen, each stayed in Canada because he says, This is where the the roots of my music grows the stronger, just like a tree, it grows in this soil and The Guess Who wins anyway. So it's always a pleasure working with dirt. And what a gentleman, what a good man. I'm very proud to know Him, and I'm proud to be Sharon state with him on the 21st

Terry Evans  5:47  
it is funny to to look at the music industry, the Canadian music industry, the six successful Canadian artists, and see that even though there may not have been a huge amount of worldwide support or or acknowledgement, or I'm, I guess I'm kind of searching for the word. But the thing about it is that even though it it wasn't a worldwide phenomenon, there was a world of support in Canada for The Tragically Hip, for the blue rodeo, for the Tom Cochran. And, you know, I'm

Tom Cochrane  6:33  
going to make a point here. I don't, don't want to sound like, choose my own horn, but, you know, burden, and I guess who myself with Red Rider? You know, we always insisted on talking about Canada. We always insisted on, yeah, I remember, I won't mention the name of the band, but remember my my manager back then said they tell people that from Mars, you know, get out there and just don't tell him for me, I said, No, I'm not going to do that. I'm proud of work from I'm going to wear it on my sleeve. We were then it was really hard, early part of the late 70s, the early part of the 80s, it was hard to do that, and we stood by our guns, and we kind of established a sense of identity for Canada helped to with with the likes of Northern Lights and I guess who were always proud, proudly Canadian that led to later in the evenings. Obviously, it's tragically in blue rodeo and those guys, both those bands, are massive in Canada, and really have had a limited amount of international success. The Canadians didn't care at that point. We were very proud. As a matter of fact, I think it enhanced that feeling that they're ours, you know, and they belong to us, and we were proud of that, whereas prior to that, we had this need to know that you had to be certified as an international success before you had any longevity. And we, I, we stick by our guns early in the 80s, when it was tough to do that, and helped establish fertile ground for this, this, this nationally embraced identity for our music.

Terry Evans  8:32  
When I talked to Lee Aaron, I asked her a similar question about, you know, you said, because you and Burton Go, go way back. Was there much opportunity for you to have the camaraderie with other Canadian touring musicians, you know, like Getty and the guys from rush and maybe Kim Mitchell and stuff? Or were were you always just crossing paths and seeing each other at gigs where you might have been on the same bill or something like that. Did you how? How easy is it to have a friendship develop with with your your, you know, your comrades in music,

Tom Cochrane  9:14  
everybody's off is off doing their own thing. I mean, we supported Russia, by the way, I could have mentioned that because they were all proudly Canadian. Always lived in Canada, and we're very unabashed about expressing that. And so God bless those guys. And I'm dear friends with Alex in particular. And you know, we forged the friendship after we toured with them in the early 80s, they were big fans of the Neruda, Alex and Neil in particular. You know, I remember getting a Fauci let's, let's talk, let's, I want no But second, that very inquisitive guy, you know, that was. Nature. He decided he's going to be a great poet. He became a great poet. He decided he's going to be the best drummer in the world. He was the best drummer in the world. We hanging out with him a little bit. But again, you're so busy on your different paths and your different trajectories that there's a little bit of that, but maybe not as much as people might think, or people might romanticize people. You know now, Alex and I do a trip every year, golf trips, and we golf quite a bit together, and that's a big bonds for us. So and Gilmore as well. Told Gil I said I'm so tired of hearing wave on the line. Hockey podcast, I hear the 10 times I said, you know when a song's a renewed hit, when people are sick of it, buddy, we're all sick. And hearing that song, I counted it 10 times on the broadcast last night when I was watching the hockey, you know, some of the playoffs, but so Gil and I are good friends. I'm going to his daughter's wedding. She's my god child. And so yeah, I guess the short answer is, yeah, there is, there is that? That bond, sometimes it's accentuated by our passions outside of music. And I think that's where I forged this great friendship with Alex. It's, you know, golf is, is a wonderful place to kind of forge those, those friendships, you know, these you're spending six hours with somebody on the golf course. You can talk about everything or nothing at all, or just your swing, and you know, you're struggling with your putting stroke. And then, in the case of Jim cutting in and getting a lead. For instance, you know, they great, great love for for wine, and collecting wine and creating information on that level. So it's, I think, I think what I'm saying is, I think outside of the music, I think that sometimes other things that that forge those friendships and outside entrance, you know, I know with Ed Robertson, you know, talking about flying, because we both got our pilot's license, and I had a Cessna 185 float plane. How Canadian is that? And he had a 206 for plane. You know, that that led to some pretty good discussion, especially after he had his first crash. And I said, I'll give you crash courses, because I've had two. Reluctantly, reluctantly, you know,

Terry Evans  12:36  
that's something that we've never really talked about, something that I mean, for big Tom Cochran fans, they probably know that you've crashed a plane twice and survived, but

Tom Cochrane  12:47  
get Crash Course. Yeah, and then

Terry Evans  12:51  
was the second time was with the band, wasn't it? Second

Tom Cochrane  12:54  
time was with Randall Stahl, who's a drummer, and Keir brownstone, who's playing base at the time that was back in you're looking back in 99 I guess it could have been a bad one. We were very lucky in that we had flavor and take off this little private airport in Quebec where the fuel was contaminated, and so the engine quit on takeoff, which is the last place you want your engine to to fail, start doing 40 feet over the runway. So we ended up crashing into the trees, and ground loop into the trees. The whole side came off the airplane and and I'm doing the emergency shutdown procedures. And these, these guys are outside the airplane. And this, there's fuel stealing everywhere, and cure goes to light up a cigarette. And I don't like that cigarette. It's gonna be a James Bond movie in a second. It's big fireball.

Terry Evans  13:52  
Uh, how? When's the last time you flew a plane,

Tom Cochrane  13:57  
quite a while ago. I mean, I was, I think you know this, I was honorary colonel in the 409 up at Bull lake. I was behind the controls on that, of course, I was in the training seat behind the seal and and so, you know, I, I flew one of those, like supersonic. It was kind of a non event. There wasn't the light rating or the plane, or any of that stuff that you see in the movies. It was, it was just we were going really freaking fast. So I did. I was pasted to the back of my seat.

Terry Evans  14:31  
I bet you were. Did you do a loop, or anything fun like that? Oh yeah,

Tom Cochrane  14:36  
we did all that stuff. And I wear the the Andy nausea patches behind my ear because it it's uh, Cochran said, notoriously weak stump. And so even my dad, my dad wanted to be a fighter pilot World War Two, and he ended up flying cargo planes over the hump in Burma. He kind of washed out of fighter school because he had. A queasy stomach. But, yeah, it was, it was a great honor, honorary Colonel, you know, and I will say, the camaraderie with with American pilots, with British pilots. I had one Marine pilot who was teaching them about new radar system. And and his name was sister, and so he's a guy that I first went super sonic. He said this, put it in those guys, see if we can get into mark, mark two, 2.5 or something. I don't get how fast we're going. So we were going pretty fast. And so it's always that time, right? And as a matter of fact, you know, all this talk recently about our military, and this thing that back then I remember, and this is the mid, mid, late, 2000 we lent, I think, six jets to Alaska because they were having maintenance problems with their F 16. So we lent those jets to them so they could do their patrols over there. So there was always that bond, and there was always that comrade, and it was wonderful to be part of that. And I was very honored. I remember Harry Mueller. His code name was Jim, so he was a guy that recommended me. Said, so good with the enlisted people, the ground crew and all that stuff and so, you know, I try to spread goodwill like that, and it was, was good to be involved with them.

Terry Evans  16:36  
Your dad, he flew bush plane to out of Lynn Lake, didn't he? He did, yeah, and that was flying stuff up, up north, up north, and

Tom Cochrane  16:45  
he, he crashed towards there was a at his funeral. We had all these pictures up on the Billboard, and my brother in law said, is that your plane that looks like you're playing? It's upside down on the shore. And I went, No, that's, that's a husky. There were the only two of them in Canada, and my dad managed to crash the one, and he flipped it over, and he never told us to them. So nobody knew about that, except for my mind. And so he kept that pretty quiet. So I come by it honestly, in crashing twice, because my dad crashed like the first time he crashed. He had been flying for 24 hours back and forth, and supplies for the smoke for the firefighters terrible forest fire in northern Manitoba, and he ran out of fuel on this one flight, and he crashed in a lake. And he crawled out of the airplane, 20 feet of wine, and managed to make his way back through the bush, back to Lynn lake. So he did this bit for for the Province of Manitoba.

Terry Evans  17:56  
I've always known you're from Lynn lake, but I've never really looked at it from a map. I had no idea it was so far north, like you're closer to the Arctic Circle almost than you are the US border up in Lynn Lake. Yeah,

Tom Cochrane  18:07  
it's real close to the Northwest Territory. So, you know, it's the end of the road, basically, and very kind of honored. But they named the road from Thompson 391, I believe they call it Tom cockman light as a highway, highway. So I went up and did a show with Joe, a duo show in the arena there. And the town was struggling to survive. It's a lot of you know this big part of our Canadian history is that a lot of these towns that opened up the north, they're mining towns, and they they kind of run their course once, once the minerals are done, and they got to find another research survive. And there's a lot of pride, pride updates, like they were trying to survive as a community. A lot of the places were boarded up. And apparently, now they found, they found gold up there. And they're they can know the cost benefit analysis allowing them to to start mining here again. So I'm happy for that community that it's, it's still thriving. How

Terry Evans  19:10  
old were you when you were there? Like, what from when you were there till you left?

Tom Cochrane  19:14  
Pretty young. But my parents always she still, I mean, that's why I'd still have the love of like, the bush and Lake Country in manitobas, about five, five and a half, and we left. But the stories were always there. And I just always felt a real connection with, you know, Manitoba and northern Manitoba in particular. Matter of fact, you know, my dad's first airplane. He went into the petro can building in Calgary, and it's hanging in Petra Kent building. He couldn't believe it when he saw the identified numbers on that that was called a Norseman, dirty old airplane. One of them was the first real bush plane. And the first one they put on floats, and that was his first airplane. That was the very plane that he flew. Yeah,

Terry Evans  20:06  
after you and your family left Lynn Lake, where'd you go? Like, where did you take up? We moved

Tom Cochrane  20:11  
to a little town called Acton, Ontario. And Acton fascinating little town because at least half the town where British immigrants from Manchester and Birmingham would work for a building Lancaster bomb which World War Two, and they moved to work on the Avari. And overnight, that project got canceled by Diefenbaker, and everybody was out of work. So, in fact, Acton became almost like a ghetto overnight, and it became a pretty tough place, you know, it was. It's a fascinating study, really, how that whole project affected Canada, you know, and towns like, like Acton, Ontario. From there, we moved to the west end of Toronto, but I always felt a real strong connection with the West

Terry Evans  21:09  
dad. I don't imagine you still have any family or connection to Lynn Lake. No,

Tom Cochrane  21:14  
no, it's, yeah, it's their long gone. So

Terry Evans  21:19  
the the Manitoba thing. And I know you've got the honorary doctorate from the University of Manitoba, don't

Tom Cochrane  21:25  
you Brandon University in humanity. I got it with James manis, the world acclaimed violinist, incredible violence. That was, that was a real honor.

Terry Evans  21:39  
The connection to Manitoba, no matter how large or small it is, it is funny, and it got me thinking of all of the bands that are from Manitoba, and we rattled a few of them off. Harlequin, street street art. Guess who BTO like? Yeah. Street heart, Neil Young and all those guys. Way

Tom Cochrane  22:00  
of Regina, inspired some Regina, of course, yeah. And then you got lover boy. You got those guys and Paul Dean from from Alberta. You know, it's not forgetting Nickelback and a lot of great Albert arts jam Jan are calling. I

Terry Evans  22:19  
know you and Burton are only five years apart. Oh, happy birthday. By the way, I missed your birthday earlier

Tom Cochrane  22:24  
in May.

Terry Evans  22:30  
I know I usually text you, but actually I was really sick. Actually, from from Easter on through a lot of things, but

Tom Cochrane  22:39  
we get to be 72 it's kind of, you're kind of grateful when the odd person forgets your birthday.

Terry Evans  22:47  
And actually, I'm not that far behind you anymore, too. So I was going to ask you though with and last time we talked, you told me about the cab driving and, you know, coming up and the acoustic thing, and then joining Red Rider, and then some of the members didn't agree with the direction, and all of the things leading up to that. So, but that was like 1977 7879 right? When the first record came out, 79 Yeah, 70 now and late.

Tom Cochrane  23:20  
So, yeah, into 80s, we started kind of really brewing it. I remember Rob Baker and I drew the short straws. And we ended up having to drive this dirty old step band and mildew and all kinds of crap growing in it. And we drove out west to Vancouver, where we set up shop. And Bruce Allen was our manager, and first heard White Island radio just south of Winnipeg. So that was conference at it, you know, and the axle broke down outside of Calgary. It was 30 below 00. Man, it was, What a trip. And we ran out of money. We didn't have credit cards even back then, right? So we just had enough money to get across the country. Then we had to fix this truck. It was on a week. We couldn't get in touch with anybody. So I think we had, we had, like, enough money for the fuel to get over the mountains, and we bought a snack box from Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Robbie and I slipped that that's all we had to eat for 20 hours. It's this box of Kentucky Fried Chicken and french fries. And then we got into Chilliwack I remember the day that a miracle. I noticed in the Americans at Russia and I'm gone. I think it was 70 degrees in Chilliwack. This is Lotus. We're here reluctantly, reluctantly. It made

Terry Evans  24:56  
me wonder, though, with the with the Manitoba connection. Mission and Red Rider, the first record in 79 so that was basically 10 years, give or take, after the Guess who had had all of their success. And of course, by by that time, 1979 they'd splintered off and become back and Turner overdrive, and all of the things that with, with Burton and his solo career in that but how much influence or impact did The Guess Who being the Guess who have on you, and how weird or neat is it for you to be performing all of these years later with Burton,

Tom Cochrane  25:41  
I'm very grateful for. As I said, it was a great guy and very Canadian from the point of view. He's proud, he's proud of what they've done, what he's done, but he's also got humble street Canada. And like I said, he got up, was the same background. What's that one show in women, hey. And he just wanted to kind of sit in the back and do that. He's got an incredible, incredible musical. Uh, he's a musical. His vinyl collection, before it became trendy, was 1000s and 1000s of records, jazz records, R, B records, obscure records you can't stump with that. It's probably as good as you are in that area. If you bring up a song, some obscure bit from the late 50s or early 60s, you'll know who it is. But no, they were big inspiration, as I've said, because they were unabashed about, you know, being proud about where they're from, being proud Canadians. And so as much as anything, they were an inspiration from that point of view, that you know you you stand by who you are. And I've often said that I don't trust anybody that doesn't like kids or dogs and isn't proud of where they're from. So I've always stood by those guns. But you know, as a musician and it was art. And an artist, his body of work is, is, is wonderful and deep, and his singing is still, still fabulous. So it's, it's, it's a great honor sharing the stage.

Terry Evans  27:12  
And speaking of, speaking of sharing the stage, Jonesy will be playing, I don't know which order, who's going on, first or last, but Jonesy Jones, he's doing double duty. Is he gonna

Tom Cochrane  27:23  
have He's excited. It's gonna be a big payday for Sophie. Has enough energy for both of us, but it's good. Now, it's ironic that's here I am with the de facto leader of the guest, Randy and George rang Bachman, but The Guess Who, and we're actually open through the who in September, which is equally as exciting, because those guys, I consider them one of the big four, you know, Beatles of stones, Zeppelin and the Who. So I'm really excited about that. It's a farewell tour, and never played with them before, so I'm excited about that one as well. Terry, we talked about before, and I feel like my dad said once he took hope. My nickname was hope. Yeah, I get into that. He said, If you can make a living, you're hot what you're doing, then God, smile on us. So be grateful every day. So I am grateful every day for that two hours we spend on stage and the time that we hang out as a band prior to going on and after it's it's that pretty special time it makes all the travel and all the drudgery and the bad food and all that stuff, and the lack of sleep hours makes sense. You know, when you get on stage and you have 1000s of people singing your songs, you know, it's great. I can't

Terry Evans  28:52  
remember who it was. It's right. On the tip of my tongue, somebody said that, when you're on stage and you're performing, you're doing it for free the but when you're a rock band or a rock star, you get paid to travel. That's all the you get paid for all of the pain in the ass stuff, for all of the not sleeping in your own bed and and traveling all over the world and cramped airplanes and that sort of thing. But when you're on stage, that's, that's the free part. Yeah, that's the free part. That's that's what makes it all worth when, when I had Jonesy on the podcast, he told me the story about having to miss the Eagles opening for the Eagles at last, last moment. When you guys did that? Was it last fall? Yeah. He was broken

Tom Cochrane  29:36  
hearted. Yeah. He got real. I guess they had food voyaging that day or something. So we bring John diamond, and John diamond had music stand there with sheet music there, this kind of old school section stuff. You

Terry Evans  29:53  
have stuff coming up all through the summer. Again, you got the who. Who, opening for the who? In Toronto, you got August. In Vancouver, June and Kelowna, July and Calgary, Vernon. Are you going to start going on the on the Alice Cooper tour schedule, where you only tour in summer, so that you can golf before each show?

Tom Cochrane  30:17  
That ashram used to be my my ammo for quite a while, especially when you're on an extended tour, because you got to make do with that, and you get to meet a lot of good people and play some good courses. But it's, I don't do it as much as Dick, but just try to get as much rest as you can between shows on airplanes and so on. And it's, but yeah, we've been for quite a while. We've been doing the summer circle. It's always a busy time. I was

Terry Evans  30:46  
looking through your Facebook page, I noticed you've got a couple of things coming up, I think, one in Vernon, one in Kelowna, where it's a really cool fan experience that you're doing with wineries and that. Yeah, I'm

Tom Cochrane  31:01  
friends with Mike that, who owns x and a hero. So that's going to be couple of shows, smaller shows, and then we're playing Vernon at the AC there, the performing arts center, and then also one down in all of which. So it's, I enjoy spending time here in the Valley. It's, it's pretty special as Alberta. I think we got one in Tabor. I think we're playing with Pat Benatar as well. So that's that's going to be fun. That's going to be a blast from the council. One of our longest tours supporting was with Pat back in the early 80s, and a guy that doesn't get I'm glad to see that on the ad. Met, we've got Neil. Neil Giraldo. He's, I'm not sure if they're still married, but he was her guitar player and songwriter. Fabulous guitar player, just, you know, elegant, beautiful rock lines on guitar with his stack of marshland, very much like Mike Campbell in some ways. Yeah. Mike

Terry Evans  32:03  
Campbell, uh, he's gonna be here. In, yeah, he's gonna be here. Mike Campbell in the dirty knobs is the name of his bed. Hello, yeah. So are you at home right now? Are you in Kelowna?

Tom Cochrane  32:20  
I'm in Kelowna right now. Yeah, and yeah, getting ready to hit on the road. On Friday, we got a charity show for university hospital network. On Saturday, couple more shows out there, same sort of thing, Bill and I'll be doing our duo thing. And I think North Bay, Lindsey, a couple other places, and I'm inducting Mike Weir into the Walk of Fame on the 14th. So I'm very honored to be doing that.

Terry Evans  32:49  
Where is that going to happen? In Toronto? Or, yeah, it's happening in Toronto. Oh, nice. Well, that would be a great opportunity. Maybe before the induction, you can go golfing with Mike and Neil from rush or not Neil Alex. Alex,

Tom Cochrane  33:04  
you know, I'm gonna, he said he's gonna be up Muskoka. He's doing some, you know, the corporate stuff and that. So, yeah, we might have helped you the irony. We've been friends for a long time. I did his charity tournament back in early 2000s and we bonded pretty good and went skiing with a terrible ski. He's, he's, he's quite good, and his crazy friend, Kramer is, is an unbelievable spear and golfer. But the irony so we've been friends for a long time, but I've never played golf with him, if you can believe that he doesn't want to contaminate a sling by watching my terrible actions.

Terry Evans  33:46  
The year that he won the Masters was the Friday of the masters that year, 2003 I got my vasectomy, so I watched the Masters with a frozen bag of peas on my nets for the rest of them. So

Tom Cochrane  33:58  
it was a mixed experience for it. Yeah,

Terry Evans  34:01  
it was bitters. It was good, good and bad, I suppose. The other thing that I noticed when I was looking through your Facebook page, every once in a while I like to poke my nose in and have a look at stuff, was some of the old television footage that you made performances of, I think there was a letter Well, the American Bandstand, there was a letterman performance. And it was a couple, actually, yeah, we

Tom Cochrane  34:31  
were on Jay Leno tonight's show three times, right? Yeah, bunch of those shows. He was gracious. He was incredible guy. He's a character. We actually flew in. We hadn't had much sleep, and we had to shower, and didn't have a chance to go to a hotel, and we were showering in the dressing room tonight's show the CBS. You. Let me see and Jade left. It's two bottles of DOM champagne, flowers and stuff, and a little miniature. It's a great car. Actually, love life songs. It was Letterman. And I mean, Letterman did our whole leading up test being on a show in 20 life. So highway, every night, he referred to Paul Chavez. You know, life is awkward.

Terry Evans  35:32  
Remember? Yes, it is.

Tom Cochrane  35:36  
And so he gave us a whole mountain load of promotion back then. It was incredible. I I hope I did not, you know, aggravate is a appendicitis, because I swung around. I was sorry in the band after the performance. Is what we did big league prior to doing life's year or two before, and I swung around, I hit him in the gut. If you go back, I don't know if they still have that. I swing around with the guitar, with my branch, and I hear stomach, the guitar, who doubles over, and they cut. They cut to a commercial. Oh, man, we

Terry Evans  36:15  
talked back in early November. And then, of course, winter happened, and Christmas and stuff. And I know you did a little bit of traveling. Where'd you go? You went to Costa Rica.

Tom Cochrane  36:25  
Went to Costa Rica, had a great time down there. My problem with Costa Rica is big and windy, and also it's gotten more expensive. It used to be one of this, like Portugal, Portugal routes known for how reasonable it was to to get around on a budget and all that stuff. Same with Costa Rica, and busier, and it's a little more expensive, but it's, it's terribly windy that time. So the end of February, and Susan I were down there, and it was, it was a great vacation. And then we just came back from Portugal, we were there with Jim Cuddy and Barney Benson and my girls were with me, my daughters, and Suzanne was there playing shallow and Edmonton gal, and it was a great time. It was cool though. It wasn't, wasn't very warm,

Terry Evans  37:19  
that there wasn't the same trip that Cuddy and Keeler were just on on the river cruise. Was it they

Tom Cochrane  37:25  
did the river cruise. And so Jim showed up two days after we got there, so we did a set with Devon Patty, by love, by the way, anybody wants to, they asked me about young artists I respect in Canada. I really love Devon's work. He played a couple of songs, Arnie played a couple of songs, and then then we played four or five songs. So it was and then Jim showed up a couple days later. And, you know, we biked and hiked a bit, we did a hot air balloon ride, and we were strafing the wildlife, they actually got the air balloon down about five feet above the ground. It was unbelievable. And so that was pretty close to my daughters, and was Susan, yeah,

Terry Evans  38:14  
that's great. Yeah. I recently had Greg Keeler on on the podcast too. Had a great chat with him. Yeah, take taking

Tom Cochrane  38:26  
some plaque from Jimmy. Because Jimmy play lost together. Because, oh my son, oh man, like that song. I liked it still one of my one might be rodeos,

Terry Evans  38:44  
yeah. Well, I know you've got other stuff. You're doing lots of press for, for, for all of your touring and whatnot coming up. I know you're doing other interviews. And we always sit here and end up, okay, you've got Tom for 10 minutes, 15 tops. Well, here we are 40. Let's

Tom Cochrane  39:02  
talk about something close to our How's Riley doing? Great.

Terry Evans  39:06  
My son is he's doing well. He's working with a couple of projects here in Edmonton. One is a rapper, guy named Jay scope, who's originally from Nigeria, lived in Ukraine, had to leave Ukraine because of the war and ended up in Edmonton. So J scope is who he's playing with, and then he's he's put together another band with a a girl and a and a guy a couple of friends with his. He's not doing much for international touring right now, as AP Dylan is is taking a bit of a hiatus from from touring. But I tell

Tom Cochrane  39:42  
you, he's a great build drummer, and, more importantly, he's he's a great person. So you've done a good job. You enjoy a good job. Give him my best hopefully I'll see you guys on the 21st is it going to be around? Yeah,

Terry Evans  39:56  
it's, I pretty sure that we're going to be there and want to. Come down, say hi and be epic. We're gonna have fun. Yeah. And leading up to all of the other stuff, you make sure everybody in your camp stays healthy. Make sure Dav is healthy. I mean, if he's not, Riley's there for you. There

Tom Cochrane  40:12  
you go. Okay, buddy, believe me, I got that in mind when Jonesy and I talk about it, especially opening for the who, yeah, yeah. You couldn't drag Davide off his pedestal for that one. He'll, he'll be there no matter what. Man,

Terry Evans  40:31  
I bet. All right, man, it's always great to catch up with you. Tom so

Tom Cochrane  40:35  
good to see you. So good to chat with you. And we'll see you when we're Uh,

Terry Evans  40:40  
yep, June 21 fan park at the ice district, Burton, Cummings and Tom Cochran. He's, uh, he's a national Canadian treasure. Ah, thanks. Love you. Man. Appreciate it. Love you too, brother.

Tom Cochrane  40:55  
Reluctantly, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai