Nearly 40 years on from the release of the captivating The Trinity Session, Cowboy Junkies are returning to Australia to honour the journey of their discography.
Not many bands have enjoyed such a long and enriching musical career as Cowboy Junkies. With over 40 years of recording and releasing music, informing their individual identities, it’s the strength in their relationships and their conviction in authenticity that have contributed to the band’s longevity.
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Formed in Toronto in 1985, the three Timmins siblings, Margo, Peter and Michael banded together with lifelong friend Alan Anton to birth Cowboy Junkies. 40 years and 29 albums later, the band are set to embark on an Australian tour that will see them honouring their seminal, multi-platinum album The Trinity Session, alongside the entirety of their releases, including their most recent album Such Ferocious Beauty.
They will play shows in most major cities, concluding the tour in Naarm/Melbourne on Saturday, November 23, at The Palais Theatre in St Kilda. I spoke with Michael, the band’s guitarist and songwriter, who cited the tour as being an opportunity to engage in the nostalgia of the journeys they’ve shared in music so far.
“40 years is a big milestone,” says Timmins. “But we’ve always been very aware of not being a nostalgia band, so this is about as close as we’ve got. It is a 40-year anniversary, though, so there’s a whiff of nostalgia to it, but that’s not what the show’s about. It’s about making sure that we touch on all the music.
“We want to make sure that we’re representing the whole catalogue as best we can, and not in a nostalgic kind of way, just in a way of this is where we’ve been, this is where we’ve come from, and hopefully, we’re continuing to go somewhere else. It all has a layer of importance.”
Perhaps it’s been the fact that the band hasn’t spent too much time reflecting on their careers that has contributed to Cowboy Junkies’ ongoing success. Rather, they strive to strike a good balance between playing songs from their early days and showcasing music they’ve created more recently.
“There’s this fine balance between what makes a good show for us and what makes a good show for the audience,” he says. “You want to combine the two. The Trinity Session is the record that probably meant we were able to come to Australia in the first place. Without it, we wouldn’t be travelling there, so we always have to respect it, but also not overplay it.
“We have to make sure that for ourselves and our artistry we’re playing enough new music and we’re playing music that we think represents us as well, and yet The Trinity Session is always represented.”
The album was indeed a pivotal one for Cowboy Junkies, who were, at the time, an emerging band with limited resources. Despite this, they managed to create a unique album. The LP was recorded in the Holy Trinity Church of Toronto with the band members huddled around a single microphone, using only one take to record the song.
“We recorded that album with just one microphone,” says Timmins. “It was a CalRec ambisonic microphone, which was really designed to record stereo. It’s got these different parameters within the microphone that you can change the patterns of it in order to make it fit the space you’re in. It’s really an exercise in utilising the space you are in. We were really trying to grab the atmosphere of the church.
“We were only recording on two tracks, so there was no mixing in post-production, meaning it was mixed live. It was finished in a day – well, a 12-hour day – the first half of the day involved figuring out where to position amps, us and then the second half we recorded it. It was a real dance, though, informed by the choreography of where the best position was for people and gear.”
What resulted was the amalgamation of just the right amount of intuition, understanding, and risk – a well-balanced dance that created the path forward for the Cowboy Junkies – a type of balance that has been applied to how the band and siblings, old friends, have related to each other.
“Those relationships outside the band have been integral in keeping the band together. There’s obviously a connection outside of music. We’ve always realised that the family unto itself is pretty darn important, so whenever there’s an issue or something within the band, we want to make sure it’s resolved so it doesn’t leak over into our familial relationships.
“It’s always been about making sure good communication results in each of us getting out of this what we want or what we need. Ultimately, it’s satisfying and fun; that’s a big part of it. You still, of course, have the frustration. If you’re going to work with anybody for 40 years, there’s going to be challenges, and then if you have any siblings, you know there’s going to be conflict. We just made sure that neither family nor professional musicianship didn’t corrupt the other.”
Longevity as a band is complex and requires constant fluidity and compromise. Cowboy Junkies have committed to that over the years, and 40 years later, they’re still making great music that honours their artistry.
To celebrate 40 years with Cowboy Junkies, you can purchase tickets here.
