OTTAWA -- At this stage in their career, Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy is not surprised the band is still chugging along.
But he is more than a little surprised the country-rock they've been playing for 20 years still stirs enough fan support to earn the boys two more Juno nods for group of the year and single of the year (for Bulletproof, which they'll perform at the Corel Centre Sunday).
He calls it the "vogue" factor, odd given these cowpokes from Queen St. West were in vogue almost 20 years ago.
"These Junos came at us out of left field," he says, honestly surprised Blue Rodeo's Palace of Gold CD, their 11th, caught as many sparks with the fans as it has.
"Getting a Juno nomination depends on when it is. Sometimes you feel it's your due. Sometimes it feels like it's out of left field.
"Every year there's a new vogue of bands that gets everyone's attention. You never know when you'll be included. This was a nice surprise."
FIVE-TIME WINNERS
This year marks the band's 18th Juno nomination. They've won five times.
The band -- Cuddy, Greg Keelor, Bazil Donovan, James Gray, Glenn Milchem and Bob Egan -- first sprang to international prominence in 1987 with their country-flavoured Outskirts.
The album received four Juno nominations and scored twice, with the band winning group of the year and single of the year for Try.
From 1990-96, the band was a Juno regular, nominated for the top prizes 10 times in seven years with best-selling albums Diamond Mine, Casino, Lost Together, Five Days in July and Nowhere To Hide.
"We keep putting out records and hope that they'll capture the public imagination," Cuddy admits.
"There are times when I look at the audience and wonder how we ever attracted that patchwork of fans, some as old as my parents and others too young for college. But we've been around so long and toured so much, I guess that we've played for everyone in the country."
The band's Juno seminal moment came in 1989 when they were scheduled to play The Weight with The Band.
The Band hadn't played together for years, while Rodeo was the flavour of the month.
"We were singing harmonies when Rick Danko told us how great we sounded. 'It's your arrangement,' I told him. He said 'Yea, and they still sound great.' "
Then guitarist Robbie Robertson told Cuddy that Blue Rodeo would no longer be performing with The Band.
"That's when I knew Rick Danko was a big, big spirit. That whole moment of being disillusioned by Robbie and being really struck by what an amazing character Rick was is my big Juno moment."
Still, Cuddy loves the Juno show. It's a chance to catch up with other musicians. Ironically, the push to make the awards event a big entertaining television event, particularly after last year's in St. John's, is exactly what Cuddy was hoping the Junos wouldn't become.
"I liked the Junos a lot when they were in enclosed theatres and we got the chance to hang out with other musicians," he reminisces. "But when they put the Junos into arenas for television, there was no place to hang out, and the awards show became tiresome.
CARE OVER THE DETAILS
"But I've never experienced so much care over the details as in this Ottawa show. They're asking us if we're happy with the staging and schedule.
"We were going to bring just the horns. The Juno organizers called us and said, 'We saw you perform with strings and horns on The Mike Bullard Show. Would you do it that way?' Sure, we said. I couldn't believe that someone's taking that much care."
Cuddy is writing for the next album and enjoys listening to Ron Sexsmith's Blue Boy and Kathleen Edwards' Failer.
"I love it (Failer). That was a big record when we were recording Palace of Gold. It's intimate and beautiful. She's bigger in the States than Canada."
