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"I think we all feel genuinely the same," said Guess Who guitarist-songwriter Randy Bachman, 56, who was in Toronto yesterday to promote his just-released autobiography, Takin' Care of Business.
"We're still in awe of the public response and in each other. It's like 110%. And when it starts to fall apart, I think you'll notice it. We just won't be doing it anymore."
The Grey Cup appearance is part of a November flurry of Guess Who-related projects. There's the band's two-hour CBC TV special, taped earlier in Winnipeg and slated for broadcast on Nov. 19, to be followed by a double live album, culled from the summer tour.
"I haven't even started the album yet," said Bachman, who plans to work on it with Guess Who singer-songwriter Burton Cummings. "Burton's been listening to 28 shows, 35 songs; that's 500 performances. Apparently, I have to mix them. It makes sense to have it out by the time the TV show is on or right after the Grey Cup for that home stretch to Christmas."
The band is negotiating a big New Year's Eve show (place to be determined) and a February PBS-TV special to launch a U.S. tour for which BTO's You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet and Cummings' solo hit Stand Tall will be added to the set list. Bachman and Cummings also lan to write new music.
Given the current good relations among the band members, the timing of Bachman's new book could have been better, because Cummings in particular doesn't always come across that well.
"I don't know if everybody mentioned in the book has read it 'cause it's still quite new," said Bachman. "I read it about six months ago and I felt the need to contact some people and make some apologies."
Bachman himself is depicted as a clean-living, hard-working Mormon who was a tough, often self-serving businessman. At times, there were long-standing feuds, not only with his bandmates but even with his own three brothers.
He also went from rags to riches to rags again. After he left The Guess Who in 1970 at the height of their big success with American Woman, he rebounded a few years later with the equally successful Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
There was an enduring relationship with Neil Young, which began when they played in rival bands in Winnipeg during the '60s, his mentorship by Canadian jazz great Lenny Breau, and a happy marriage to second wife Denise.
"There was going to be a book done anyway by some other guy. I had the chance to collaborate, at least get a true, honest story line," explained Bachman. "And (co-author) John (Einarson) told me it can't be a whitewash. I can't be goody-goody. Whatever so-and-so wants to say about me, let them say it, it's history. I would have preferred to not have my soul or my life bared."