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In the rock world, popularity is fleeting, staying relevant a challenge. Nobody knows this better than Randy Bachman, formerly of the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
At 62, even he concedes a difficulty in keeping abreast of new music. And in many cases, he's not entirely sure he really cares, either, branding much of modern rock radio as formulaic, banal.
After more than 40 years of rocking - in Edmonton Wednesday at the Jubilee Auditorium with fellow Guess Who founder Burton Cummings - Bachman says they're not especially bothered with fitting in. In fact, if their most-recent reunion-tour concert dates have shown them anything, their biggest concern is the fallacy of one size fits all.
"It's all been a blur and I'm not sure whether it was Victoria or Kelowna," Bachman says, over the phone from Red Deer, "but down in the front row there were three brothers, aged 10, 12 and 15, with signs saying 'You guys rock!'
"Apparently, their father couldn't get enough seats in the front row, so he sat a few rows behind. Afterwards, the father came backstage and told us there's no merch to buy for them.
"I said, 'You want to buy T-shirts for these three little kids?'
"Now, we've ordered merch in for kids - small, medium and large. Not just adult small, medium and large."
Bachman is giddy, surprised not only that his music has endured, but is being discovered by a new generation of fans. While many might recognize iconic rock names like the Guess Who or BTO, he wasn't sure whether Bachman and Cummings themselves were exactly household ones.
Up until a couple years ago, they had continued touring as the Guess Who, although the circumstances under which weren't ideal. The duo is undeniably the heart and soul of the group, which was formed in Winnipeg about 40 years ago, but they don't own the rights to the name. Former Guess Who bassist Jim Kale, however, did - he registered the name when he discovered the oversight a few years ago.
Unless they hire Kale, Bachman and Cummings can't use the name, to the chagrin of promoters who frequently come calling about booking the Guess Who.
"We were trying to do a tour this year and last year as the Guess Who," explains Bachman, "but we couldn't come to terms with the name. It didn't make any sense for Kale to have the name and send us out on the road, like work for hire - and he wanted a percentage of it.
"But last year, somebody took a chance. In St. John's, N.L., there was a big classic rock festival. They said they wanted the Guess Who, but our manager said there is no Guess Who - we couldn't come to terms with the name.
"They came back and said, 'How about just Bachman and Cummings, with the BTO thrown in?' We told them it couldn't be the Guess Who and they said they didn't care."
The festival boasted a who's who, no pun intended, of classic Canadian rock: Streetheart, Loverboy and Lighthouse, amongst other bands, with Bachman and Cummings playing the Sunday-night finale. Already surprised to have been booked under their own names, they were further stunned at the lengths everyone there went to hear them play.
"We headlined and all these bands that played in the afternoon stayed until we went on at about 11 o'clock," says Bachman. "They were big fans - and there about 25,000 fans there, baked to crisp. It was a three-day festival and by the time we went on, their heads had been fried like eggs."
To the duo's delight, they hadn't lost their touch, still cooking as though it was yesterday. Rock's rejuvenating powers have even helped Bachman lose 150 pounds in the last five years.
Alone, they've both pursued a range of other musical projects over the years. Bachman, for instance, just released a DVD, JazzThing, a follow-up to the 2004 album of the same name. He's also looking forward to another season of Vinyl Tap, his rock-history show on CBC Radio One.
However, Bachman says they're obviously at their best when performing together. He knows it and if the current tour's proven anything, so do the crowds.
"These are the most incredible crowds we've ever encountered. When you get an ovation, 30 seconds is long. To get a three- or four-minute standing ovation just for walking out on stage - that's a really long time, with no abatement of applause, just full tilt."
Bachman and Cummings are obliging audiences with a best of selection: American Woman, Takin' Care of Business, These Eyes, Stand Tall and many others. Their set list won't be unlike the track listing to their new retrospective CD, Bachman Cummings Songbook.
A lesser known tune, fans at the Jube can also expect to hear Prairie Town, which Bachman says is a Western Canadian favourite.
And aside from a range of T-shirt sizes, the merch table will hold another surprise for Bachman and Cummings completists.
The Thunderbird Tracks is their latest album, although it was originally recorded in 1987. The 10 songs weren't exactly lost, explains Bachman, but they were hard to come by, even for them.
"I mixed it to a weird digital format, because there was no digital in '87 - this was before DAT (digital audio tape). But I had an eight-millimetre camera and the input was digital. So, I mixed into the camera, just to get digital sound. But the tape got lost in Burton's car, a T-bird.
"A few years ago, I bought the car from Burton and the guy restoring it for me - who was named Burt, ironically enough - called me and said there was a weird tape in the car he couldn't play on anything."
Speeding from zero to 60, Bachman prepped The Thunderbird Tracks in time for the tour - in Victoria alone, he says they sold a couple hundred copies. Those numbers are just one more surprise in what's been a storied career to reflect on.
"You start out with a dream to write a song, not record someone else's songs. Then, you have a dream that you'll get on your local radio station. Then, your dreams keep going, that you'll be heard on more than just your local radio station. Suddenly, you have a hit in Canada. Then, you have a hit in the States. Then you have Gold, Platinum and No. 1 records that are heard all around the world.
"Then you put a dust cloth over your piano and hang up your guitar. Suddenly, someone is calling you up, reinventing the radio format to be classic rock and telling you about CDs, so all your stuff gets released on CD again - and you have the same success again, 30 years later."
On tour, some have referred to them as the architects of Canadian rock, while others have said they're Canada's answer to the partnership of the Beatles' John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Bachman hesitated with that lofty comparison, and decided to put it to Cummings for his thoughts.
"'Are we Canada's Lennon and McCartney?,' I asked him," Bachman recalls, laughing.
"He said, 'We're not that good, but we're real close.'"
BACHMAN-CUMMINGS NOTEBOOK
Sounds a bit like their new best-of album, Songbook).
From the Guess Who to Bachman-Turner Overdrive and beyond, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings have been dubbed "the Architects of Canadian Rock." Here are just a few career highlights from the legendary rock icons: