Fans of the famous Saturday Night Live skit featuring Will Ferrell, Christopher Walken and the phrase "more cowbell" must perk up their ears whenever The Trews' latest single Poor Ol' Broken Hearted Me comes on the radio.

The band's guitarist, John-Angus MacDonald, knows exactly what they are talking about. He just wants SNL fans to know the addition is more an homage to cowbell-heavy tunes like Honky Tonk Woman than any attempt to be ironic.

"Well, yeah, I really like the cowbell. Who doesn't like the cowbell?" he asks. "But just to clarify, there's nothing tongue-in-cheek about it. Everybody sort of thinks we're kidding around, but a lot of our favourite songs have it."

The Antagonish, N.S.-born band, now based in Southern Ontario, is scheduled to open the Ottawa Tulip Festival concert series Friday night. After that gig, there is much work to be done to boost the U.S. release of their latest album Den of Thieves.

The relentlessly touring Trews know exactly how to build on some early buzz and promote the heck out of it on the road.

Since releasing their debut CD House of Ill Fame three years ago, they have played more than 450 shows, headlining or opening for the likes of the Rolling Stones, Robert Plant and Nickelback.

MacDonald says it's now time for him and the rest of the band -- vocalist/guitarist Colin MacDonald, bassist Jack Syperek and drummer Sean Dalton -- to scale back in Canada and focus on the U.S.

"We've played every city a dozen times or more, you know, and the last tour we did 40 dates across the country and a lot of them were sold out," he said.

Going back to square one is not necessarily a bad thing for a band that doesn't have any intention of forgetting their classic rock roots.

"You get complacent walking into a sold-out show," says MacDonald, who says the group is looking forward to "playing for 50 or 60 people, who have never heard your band, and don't know you from Adam, and trying to convince them that what we're doing is cool."

Tulip Festival artistic director Tom O'Connor says he tries to appeal to a variety of music lovers when he looks at the program. Hence the opening night of classic rock featuring The Trews, Marble Index and The Novaks; and other groupings throughout the series focusing on world, folk and new music.

Booking The Trews to open the series, he said, was a "no-brainer."

The Tulip Festival concert series kicks off Friday night, continuing this weekend through Sunday. It resumes Friday, May 19-22. For more information visit www.tulipfestival.ca.