Great Big Sea are back with new album
'Fortune's Favour' was aided Hawksley Workman's production skills. Ashley Bursey
With their poppy, kitchen-party tunes, Great Big Sea has been a household name since they first captured listeners' hearts with Mary Mac and bar-chant favourite, The Night That Paddy Murphy Died.
But when their newest CD, Fortune's Favour, drops, it's billed to be a collection of tunes shying away from the familiar Great Big Sea formula "" they pulled producer Hawksley Workman on board, generating a whole selection of new songs they never really figured would slot together as their newest release.
With such a successful track record, it begs the question: if it's not broke, why fix it?
"We've tried that. We've made albums that were very much a template to a Great Big Sea record," says GBS member Bob Hallett. "It was fun, but you can't repeat yourself endlessly without digging a hole for yourself. People aren't going to buy the same album twice. I would rather try too hard and fail than not try at all."
He laughs. "As much as you might wanna stay in the same place, it would be like wearing the same clothes every year...everyone else will have moved forward and you'll be standing there in your legwarmers."
And with Fortune's Favour, it seems GBS has certainly taken a step or two forward. It's got that distinctly Great Big Sea twang, the down-home flavour that transcends them from Maritime pub music to a global sensation. But it seems more "" settled, somehow. There's a comfortable familiarity to it, but instead of being tired, it's just right.
"Really?" Hallett asks when he hears this. The album's direction, he explains, was due more to boredom "" the guys wanted something different.
"So we started looking for outside personnel to get us out of the box," he says. "Hawksley was growing in popularity as a producer. He was the kick in the hole we needed." He pauses for a minute. "Over the years, the running of the business "" a lot of the conversations [the band has] are about the business, the bus, the schedule. Economical conversations...and Hawksley was like, we're not talking about this. We're here to make fun records, cool music. He shook us up a lot, forced us to stop planning and making lists and not worry about how it sounds like, if it was good or not."
The result? It's Great Big Sea, but it's definitely GBS like you've never seen them before. Don't expect a reinvention of the wheel, but it's musically advanced, grabbing influences from everything to Bob Marley to Newfoundland folk singer Fergus O'Byrne. And of course, there are plenty of singalongs "" Here and Now has a great beer-raising chorus "" and soon-to-be-favourites.
"You never know what people are going to like. When we recorded Paddy Murphy, we never knew we'd be doing that every night for the rest of our lives," says Hallett. "There are songs that after the fact are very successful. You just never know. You try to second guess the audience and you can't.
"The biggest plan for this band is to keep it going, for any band that's lasting this long...standing up is the main thing, maintaining the momentum, not just staying in the same place. Not doing the April Wine thing and going around the country playing the same 10 songs. "Especially," he adds, "with this album.
"It's f""ing great," he says. "You try to compete in a world where people don't buy albums. You want something with 13 or 14 good songs on it, not just two or three...the idea is to create an album that has a beginning, middle and an end that you can read like a book, even though you're not supposed to do that anymore, you're supposed to put out singles and iTunes and hope people come to your shows...
"When the last night is rung out and the lights are on again, that moment has gone, so 110 per cent has to be in the moment."
Great Big Sea's new CD Fortune's Favour is out now. For more on the band, head to www.greatbigsea.com
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