Ellen Reid's been threatening to do it for years, but it turns out Ben Darvill is the first of the Crash Test Dummies to release a solo album.
In fact, Darvill has released two albums, one a trippy project called B. Darvill's Wild West Show, the other a blues-based collection he's dubbed Son of Dave.
It's Son of Dave Darvill wants to talk about as he tucks into a cheeseburger and soup at The Bay's Paddlewheel Restaurant on a cold Winnipeg morning.
"It's 10 songs I've been recording over the past several years, it's blues- and R&B-based, and I get to play harmonica on every song, which is just tremendous," he grins. "It's the harmonica player's revenge."
Darvill has always loved the blues. He first cut his teeth in Winnipeg's musical milieu playing with young blues group The Detonators and haunting the late-night jams at the old Blue Note Cafe. On one memorable evening in 1987, a barely 20-year-old Ben shared the Note's stage with Neil Young.
His role in the Dummies, though, has not always called for blues harp. Darvill plays acoustic guitar, mandolin and adds percussion parts to the Dummies' sound and says, while he loves his main gig, he's pleased to be able to express himself as a solo player.
"This is me, this is a record I want to spend time touring with and trying to get on the radio with," he says.
Darvill's prime collaborator on the Son of Dave project is English singer and songwriter Stephen Patman, who played with trance-pop group Chapterhouse in the early '90s. The two met while Darvill was living in London, England, and have since become fast friends.
Son of Dave's two best songs are a blend of the modern and the traditional. Devil Take My Soul features a funky backbeat, distorted blues guitar and the soaring vocals of Toronto singer and actress Dorion Davis. Mojo is a self-deprecating look at Ben's lack of blues pedigree interspersed with archival snippets of conversation between Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Boy Williamson.
Both Darvill's albums have been released by Husky Records, his own company, and he plans to both make a video and launch a cross-country Son of Dave tour this summer.
As for his main gig, Darvill says the Dummies are on hiatus at the moment, but the group is looking to do another album.
"We'll just sort of see what Brad comes up with," he says of any new direction for the Winnipeg quintet. "But I think there's at least one really good album left in us before we get caught up in the nostalgia circuit, or whatever."
Reflecting on the past 10 years, Darvill says he wouldn't change a thing about the Dummies' meteoric rise to worldwide success in 1993 and 1994.
"Not at all. When I joined the band, it seemed like (singer) Brad (Roberts) had a good thing going, we had a lot of momentum going our way, and it worked out well.
"The last tour (for the group's Give Yourself a Hand album) was great because I had the licence to just have fun and do whatever I wanted. I didn't have to be in place to do my parts just right, and I could dance and goof off and be out in the audience if I wanted," he grins.
Now 33, Darvill is "between homes," but has places to stay in both London and Toronto. His dream right now, he says, is to buy an Airstream motor home and travel around North America for a year or two.
And is he really a Son of Dave?
"Well yes," he grins enigmatically. "You can choose to believe that or not."
