Big Wreck is a long, long way from home - playing small-town Alberta gigs all too familiar to hard-working local rock musicians. After several months off, the band is doing it to "get our road legs back," as singer Ian Thornley says. Or, as the practice is known to area bands, "paid rehearsal."

The real show is tomorrow night at Red's.

Lloydminster might as well be in Europe as far as this group of largely Boston-based musicians is concerned. Thornley is the Canadian secret weapon. Lloyd was "great", he reports, in the most sarcastic voice he can muster. "Webbed toes and mouth-breathers," he laughs.

Just kidding. Still, "there had been a fight there the last two nights in a row, so we were all ready to play country music if a fight broke out, but it didn't."

He sounds disappointed.

"I don't want to get my ass kicked, but hey ..."

From Lloyd - same name as the phantom bartender in The Shining - it was on to Fort McMurray, where Thornley called in for the phone interview. They hadn't played yet but were hopeful of Newfies at the gig. "I guess they come here to mine the oil."

That's drill the oil.

And in routing familiar to hard-working Alberta rock musicians, Big Wreck played Dawson Creek, B.C., last night.

"Dawson's Creek! I didn't even know there was one," he exclaims.

That's Dawson Creek. Dawson's Creek is the TV show.

Thornley's clearly suffering from a bit of culture shock - being a music college-educated big city boy who formed a smart rock band and ends up playing oil-town bars named "Cowboys" to get their road legs back.

You'd at least expect him to be a bit giddy, "but I'm in a good mood," he says. "We just did sound check and we were running over old Sabbath riffs, and for some reason they make me laugh.

"They're so much fun to play. It's exhilarating - power chords! We don't have enough power chords in our stuff. All our chords have all this intricate, weird tuning."

That's part of the reason we like Big Wreck so much. The new stuff Thornley's been working on doesn't actually contain many power chords. He says it's "lighter" than the usual Big Wreck sound.

"I figure I've got to get on the radio somehow - I mean U.S. radio. I'm going to write that song with those four chords that everybody uses (sings something that sounds like Blink 182). It's the same chords for every song! Then, you just write a silly little melody (sings again, in a higher voice) and then you've got a hit! Rock by numbers, my friend. Blink 182741 with a hint of Green Day. Call it Green Morning."

Just a wee bit giddy.

There are True Tales of the Road inspired by Big Wreck's jaunt across the trackless wastes of the northern Prairies, although Thornley either can't remember or refuses to divulge more details on the "mutilated sandwich incident."

Overall, it sounds like a fun tour. Places like Dawson Creek don't often get a band of Big Wreck's calibre, "so once you get on stage, they just snap," Thornley says. "They have a great time. It's a treat for us, too, having a wild audience."

Big Wreck also plays Grande Prairie tonight.