But if you’ve seen the band live, you’ve likely heard the calls for Trinity’s hit, a cover of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane.” And you’ve also probably read the constant references to Trinity, the album that gave the band from Toronto sharp teeth, allowing Michael Timmins, Margo Timmins, Peter Timmins, and Alan Anton to record, tour, and prosper for the past 20 years.
So why not celebrate that magical moment? The Junkies decided to revisit it, and they brought their friends.
Trinity Revisited, which will be released as a DVD packaged with an audio CD on February 26, 2008, on Latent/Zoë Records, is not an attempt to outdo what holds a special place in music history—it’s a brief look back to see what remained, an exploration with three guest musicians: Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant, and Vic Chesnutt.
They expected nothing. What they got on film was, well, another masterpiece.
If you can’t wait until February 26th to see what took place, you can order your copy today through the band’s website.
I recently was able to speak with Michael Timmins, songwriter and lead guitarist for Cowboy Junkies, about what transpired at Trinity, their guest musicians, and their last album, At the End of Paths Taken.
Last year, you released At the End of Paths Taken, which received great reviews. Was it hard to focus on that achievement and Trinity Revisited at the same time?
It wasn’t because Trinity Revisited, although it’s probably the biggest production we’ve done in years, it was very simple because it was really only a couple of days work as far as the actual recording and that goes. From an artistic part of it, for me, once the guests fell in place, it was really just a matter of me making internal arrangements and talking to them a bit, and actually getting together for a couple of days and doing it. And then it was done.
It was actually a really easy project for me, from that point of view. We kind of stuck it in between a couple of tours; we had some dates before it, which we concentrated on playing a lot of the Trinity stuff, to get familiar with it again. We then went home, got in and did it, and went back out on the road again. It was really easy, actually.
Was it sort of intimidating walking into the church again?
It was great. Walking into the church was fun. It was the first time I had been there, I think, since we had done the original recording. So that was kind of interesting. But yeah, as the production was beginning to set up I thought, “This isn’t the same thing!” (laughs). The first time, it was just the musicians and Peter Moore (producer); this time there was a crew of 60 or so people.
But the neat thing about the whole couple days was that once you sort of set up the instruments and we sort of got in our circles—the circle of musicians—and started to play, that’s when the original day really came flooding back, and the sound of the church, and how amazing and fun it is to play in there, how it took hold. And then the production company was really amazing in being out of our way once things began. They really kept on the perimeter of the circle; any interior stuff was done by a little robotic camera in the center, which we never even saw. It was really easy to fall into the music and to tune into each other. It was pretty intense, an intense day of recording; but once things started to roll, it just felt good again; it felt like we were getting something strong. Any kind of tension that the production could have brought just kind of disappeared.
And it looked like from the DVD, as the day went along, you started to find something new in the music that your guests brought out.
Absolutely. That was the idea, to get some people in there who brought their own personalities and their own perspectives on those songs, and, hopefully, then to pull that out of the songs and out of our performances. So that made the day really exciting for us as well, it wasn’t just a matter of trying to recreate something or playing 20 of your old songs. For us, it was playing songs which obviously had an importance to us, but also having them looked upon as slightly new by the guests, and that made it exciting.
The last time we talked, Ryan Adams came up in the conversation. What’s it like playing music with him?
It was great. I had never met Ryan up until that day when he came up. But through people like you and reading, I had heard that the Junkies and Trinity in particular was a very important record for him—at the time he was 15 or 16 years old when it came out. So it was actually a perfect time to get hit hard by music. So that’s why we contacted him, and immediately, he said, ‘Yes, I’m in. I’m there.’
And his enthusiasm for the project was so great! (laughs) It’s so nice to feel that energy. It was amazing. His ability and his willingness just to go for it, just to throw it in, you know, just to play. It was really amazing, so refreshing, because that’s what we’ve always been about—playing. And if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. He very much had that attitude as well, which was really healthy. And I think that’s what added to the intensity of the new recording, to just go for it and not be afraid of making a mistake.
Adams sort of has a mysterious reputation, maybe being hard to work with, I wouldn’t know, obviously. Is that fair to him? Did you ever worry how he and the other guests would work together with the band?
I find that artists that have a reputation of being hard to work with, it’s usually coming from managers and business people, or even press—not from other artists. It usually has to do with things outside of music, as opposed to the actual music itself, and I don’t worry that stuff.
But yeah, there certainly was a concern, not just with Ryan, but with the three—Ryan, Natalie, and Vic. Just wondering how we were going to put them into the band. We had no clue really how their voices, and the way they play, how it would come together with the rest of us. So, that was a concern. But I just kind of went with my gut feeling, and the knowledge of the way they sing, and how they play, and thought, ‘Well, I think this is going to work, but I don’t really know until they show up.’ (laughs) It was definitely a concern on that level, but it made it even more amazing when it worked out.
Did you bring in Ryan, Natalie, and Vic before you started the recording, just to talk?
What I did was, before they even came up, I put together rather extensive notes on each song, and also on the project as a whole, and what we were trying to achieve here. I just explained to them that we didn’t want to just walk in and leave; we wanted them to be part of the whole session, like it was the day when we originally did this recording. We brought a lot of musicians into that original session as well, and incorporated them into all the songs. A lot of those people that day, we had only met that day as well; some of them we knew for a while, but a lot of them we just called up and knew they played a certain instrument, and we liked their style and we invited them to come in. It was very similar, and I explained that to Ryan, Natalie, and Vic in advance, and kind of broke the songs down, sort of as a starting point, not necessarily as a ‘hard and fast, this is the way we’re going to do it.’ But just sort of giving them a starting point, you know like, ‘Natalie, if you could come in here,’ or whatever. Just as a place to start.
So then when they came in, it was really just a matter of playing. We didn’t do much talking, it was matter of sitting down around and playing, and it went from there.
You are still writing new songs and putting out new albums. How important is it with a project like this to still announce that “We’re still moving forward”?
Well, that was definitely something we thought about when we began to think about how to approach it. We definitely didn’t want it to turn into a nostalgia thing. And we knew, no matter what you do, some people are going to go, ‘Oh, God. Why would you redo that?’ And I understand that to a certain extent; Trinity Session is a very important record for a lot of people, and I think it’s a relatively important record in our style of music. So, it was never our intention to try and improve upon that, or to redo it. That’s why we specifically called it, ‘Revisited.’ The way we approach music, we are always revisiting things—our own catalog, other people’s material. There is a sense of moving forward with it no matter what you’re doing.
There is a danger of it, but really, if you look at what we do, and how much we record, and by how much we tour…it’s not like we stopped and we were out of ideas. (laughs)
What is the future outlook of the band?
Well, we start touring again in March. We’re still sort of touring At the End of Paths Taken, and I’m starting to write again for the next record—I’ve actually started to get serious about it last week. Just put some time aside to do some writing and working slowly toward the next record. So that’s sort of where we’re at right now.
Your most recent album, At the End of Paths Taken, is very personal. Can you talk about that?
Yeah, it is a very personal record on many levels. It’s sort of…I think it’s the first record I’ve ever written where I’ve sort of sat down and said, ‘I want to write a record about family and about themes related to family, and how those are connected.’ And to do so, that meant me reflecting on my own family, as far as my children are concerned and reflecting on my relationship to my parents. And so, it was very personal on that level.
Especially the last song, “My Only Guarantee.” I’m sure many people have asked you about it, and its blunt subject matter, as far as a parent talking to his or her child. (“My Only Guarantee/I will fuck you up”). Was it a hard to decision to include it on the album?
You know, it wasn’t hard to decide. To me, it needed to be there, and it needed to be the last song on the record. It was the song that kind of in the way was the cold, blunt summation of everything. And nobody in the band has any issue with it.
I mean, everyone has kids, so we all immediately recognized how true it is, and I think any parent who is totally honest will recognize it as well—no matter how much we try, no matter how good of a parent we are, there is no getting out of the fact that you’re going to fuck up your kids…in some way, you know. It’s inevitable, and it’s just the way it works. And I think the more we sort of almost relax into that notion, it becomes a bit easier. It doesn’t mean that you can just not do anything, or all is lost, you have to realize that you’re not perfect, and they’re not going to be perfect, and what is perfect, you know? It wasn’t hard, it was just an important part of the record, and we’ve never really shied away from making a statement of whatever we’ve had to make, whether it be musical or lyrical.
“Cutting Board Blues” features a lyric, “Take it all, but leave my cutting board behind.” What would you say you mean by that?
It’s a really obscure song. (laughs) I don’t even know if I know! It was line that I had… that was actually said to me by my wife. I was heading up to the country to do some writing, and she was also using it as a studio. And it was near the end of the process, where we were going to be packing up because we had rented it for a few months. And she actually said that line to me! (laughs) It stuck in my head. It’s a very obvious line, but it’s not! It can take so many directions. To me, it sort of became a song about not knowing what comes next, or the vagueness of the future. You never know what’s coming next.
Catch Cowboy Junkies on tour in 2008
Photo Credit: Chris Buck and Bob Hacking
Glide Senior Writer Jason Gonulsen lives in the St. Louis, MO area with his wife, Kelly, and dogs, Maggie and Tucker. You can e-mail him at: [email protected].
