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The Guess Who guitarist and founder of Bachman Turner Overdrive return to his hometown tomorrow night with his Every Song Tells a Story tour. The show is a cross between MTV's Unplugged and VH1's Storytellers, with Bachman playing intimate renditions of his best-known songs and talking about how they came to be.
Last week, Bachman told The Sun a few stories about his past, present and future plans.
SUN: We just read that you were writing songs for Canadian Idol? What's up with that?
BACHMAN: I was writing for the Canadian Idol winner. It was pretty amazing. It was guerrilla songwriting. You go in and there's three people you've never met and you've got to have a finished song and demo by 1 p.m., so that's quite hard. Then there's a break and it happens again from 2 to 6 p.m., you get three more partners and you do another one. While this is going on, Ryan Malcolm is visiting the workstations and singing your demo.
SUN: A lot of artists are against the manufactured pop stars thing. What's your take on it?
BACHMAN: Way back in the late '60s the Guess Who had their Canadian Idol -- it was called Let's Go. We were the house band for two years. That made the Guess Who. Everyone in every city in Canada saw the Guess Who once a week on Thursday. I think it's a great opportunity. How often can a guy who's really good go out there audition and make it through this gauntlet, because basically that's what the Guess Who did. It took us 10 years and this all happens in 10 weeks or 10 days.
SUN: The Seven Oaks School Division is naming the West Kildonan Collegiate performing arts centre after you. How do you feel?
BACHMAN: That's quite amazing, I'm thrilled by that. Obviously it's an honour and it's great. I was thrown out of that school.
SUN: How?
BACHMAN: When I was 15 or 16 I met (guitarist) Lenny Breau and I was an A student up to that point. During the two years I spent with him learning all these licks, my school just totally suffered, so I flunked Grade 10. Then when I repeated, I just wanted to get 51 in everything -- so I passed, go into Grade 11 and I flunk again. During that second year in Grade 11, I was at the back of the room with my friend Dennis and every class we played Hangman. The teacher caught us and threw us out. So I went home and my mother was outside sweeping the sidewalk. She chased me back, and the whole school saw me running with my mother behind me, banging the ground with the broom. I ran into the principal's office and the principal said, 'I'm not taking them back, there's no way.' So my mother finagled it so I could write my finals, and I graduated then went to Red River Community College and I studied business before I left to go to New York with the Guess Who.
SUN: Why is the Every Song Tells a Story show important for you to do in Winnipeg?
BACHMAN: It's right after Thanksgiving and I'm coming back to basically thank Winnipeg. These are the songs Winnipeg is on the world map for and nobody really knows all the stories. Most of the origins are in West Kildonan, in St. Vital and at the different community centres, so I'm going to get very personal. I can't say a lot of these things in Toronto because no one knows what I'm talking about. People are all going to know these landmarks that influenced me and Burton Cummings and Lenny Breau and the Guess Who and BTO, so it's going to be a real special night. I just speak from the heart, there's no script.
SUN: How'd you come up with the set list and the stories you were going to tell?
BACHMAN: I picked the stories people wanted to hear -- but if people want me to tell a story that's not on the normal hit trail, they could write a little note and pass it up on stage and I will veer away and talk about something else.
SUN: Would you have done anything differently during your career?
BACHMAN: I have to say I'm really happy with my life where I am now, so I don't think I would have changed anything. Like people say, 'What if you would have stayed with the Guess Who?' Then there maybe never would have been a Taking Care of Business or a You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, so basically I can't say I would have changed anything.
SUN: There's been some trouble between you and BTO -- they refused to be admitted to the Juno Hall of Fame if you played with them at the ceremony. Do you think you can patch things up?
BACHMAN: When that happened I was totally agreeable, so for me there's nothing (to patch up). I had no issues. It was somebody honouring us for what we did in the '70s, which is not an easy feat -- to come out of Winnipeg and have another band make it to the top of the Billboard charts. I'd be happy to be honoured for that, but the change of heart has to come from someone other than me. I think it has nothing to do with any current situation. It's what we were back then and that's what a hall of fame induction is, it's what you did back then.
SUN: What's up with the Guess Who now? Are there plans for a new album?
BACHMAN: We're just in a holding pattern. If somebody came to us with a record deal and said, 'We want you to write two songs for a movie,' or 'We want you and Burton to write' and we had an outlet for it, yeah, we would be doing it. But it's no fun just to do it for fun. We're not teenagers anymore. We live in different cities and have different agendas, so we need a bigger force to say, 'Here's some money, here's a record deal, do an album and we'll put it out and then you're going on tour with the Stones.' And we'll do it -- we're just waiting.