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Together again. Well, sort of.
On this particular occasion, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings are separated by a border and a great deal of coastline, with the former in California and the latter in B.C.
What’s this? Trouble in paradise for the Canadian icons, even before they hit the road for a lengthy cross-country tour?
“Yeah, we fight all the time, but not in front of guys like you,” Bachman says sarcastically. “It’s almost a joke now. I said to Burton, ‘How could we get more press? Let’s have a fight … Let’s give the press something to rattle on about.’ ”
They have — just not the bickering that has been a very real part of the songwriting duo’s 40-year on-again, off-again relationship in seminal Winnipeg rock act The Guess Who and throughout their solo careers and, in Bachman’s case, BTO.
These days, the nastiness between them is in the past, and the focus is the recently released Bachman Cummings Songbook CD, which features pristine remasters of classics from the men, such as No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature, These Eyes, Takin’ Care of Business and American Woman.
For fans and newbies alike, the album is a revelation. “The originals never sounded that good,” agrees Bachman.
And Bachman and Cummings, themselves, have rarely sounded as good as they do now at the ages of 62 and 58 respectively, something Bachman reiterates speaking of a “new sense of freedom.”
Cummings concurs, putting the credit for that with just being able to cast aside all of the litigiousness that has marked both The Guess Who and BTO names for the past couple of decades and release songs that have been part of the Canadian landscape seemingly forever.
“This is a whole new world for us,” he says.
“There’s been a quagmire of legal problems with the Guess Who name and we finally just got fed up. “Jim Kale (the band’s bassist, who owns the trademark to the name) was making outrageous demands and wanted to sit at home and take most of the money for us to go out and play our own songs … The joke these days is no one can sue us for using our own names — so here we are, and it’s Bachman Cummings now.”
And, again, the focus is very much on celebrating that older material.
There are no plans to work on new tracks, although they have just released to radio a re-recorded version of the classic anti-U.S. anthem American Woman.
But, other than the revamped version of that hit, expect the Bachman Cummings tour, which hits the Jubilee tomorrow night, to feature nothing but the familiar.
“Personally, and I think Randy agrees with me, we don’t want to go and shove a bunch of new stuff down people’s throats,” Cummings says. “We know why they’re coming to see us, so we’re going to make them happy as hell by trying to sound just like the records.”
And, while they’re musically turning back time for the fans, visually it also might seem like a trip back.
Both men admit they’re in incredible shape, and feel better than they have in ages.
“When we’re on stage, I look over at Burton and I see the younger Burton and it makes me feel like the younger Randy — like way, way way back when,” Bachman says. “We’ve been onstage so long together it’s like riding a bicycle. But it’s a great ride.”