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"I'm excited," says Samson of the Western Canadian tour the two bands are on. "The Lowest of the Low was incredibly seminal for me. I remember we were on tour with Propagandhi (Samson's former group) and someone put a copy of Shakespeare My Butt on in the van. We were trying to find our gig and I remember thinking I didn't want to find out -- I wanted to hear the rest of the album."
Sadly, amid personality clashes, business troubles with their record company, The Lowest of the Low -- featuring singer/guitarists Ron Hawkins and Stephen Stanley, bassist John Arnott and drummer Dave Alexander -- split up soon after the release of their 1994 album, Hallucigenia. It was only their second release but it distilled the essence of the group's punky, Clash-influenced sound.
Years later, many fans -- Samson included -- remember the quartet as the best band that never made it.
"There's something about the way Ron Hawkins writes songs ... his sense of place. His solo work has been a huge influence on me," Samson says.
The feeling, it would seem, is mutual. A few years ago, at the annual NXNE music festival in Toronto, Winnipeg musician Julie Penner went to see a Ron Hawkins solo show -- and he was playing Weakerthans songs because he thought people should hear them.
"Julie let him know that we were actually at NXNE that year and we met -- since then we've become good friends."
TLOTL reunited for several shows in Toronto late last year and Samson says The Weakerthans leapt at the opportunity to tour with the band this month.
For the Winnipeg quartet, the tour is a return to places they haven't visited in a while. Since the release last summer of the Left and Leaving album, Weakerthans have spent a lot of time on the road -- getting in front of people, singing the songs, selling the album. In February, the group did a mini-tour of the U.S., then flew to Europe for the second time in the past six months.
This time around, Samson says the band noticed yet more growth in its audience.
"We were playing to anywhere from 200 to 400 people -- headlining," he says. "It's good."
Still, after nearly a year of touring, Samson, 28, admits he's growing a little tired.
"I'm a bit weary and run down," he says. "In many ways, I think we've driven the songs to death. It might be time soon to come home, try to have a life and to start work on some new stuff."
Speaking of new stuff, Samson -- a notoriously slow writer -- is proud to say that there will be two or three new songs in tonight's set.
"I'm slow. I know I am. But it means I always have stuff in waiting, and I can look forward to catching up on it."
Until then, though, there's matter of catching The Lowest of the Low -- just seven years after they split up.