Blue Rodeo hasn’t left ambition behind

Blue Rodeo displays the glitziness synonymous with major league football.

Blue Rodeo has always been a band about contrasts and contradictions. There’s the obvious — for over two decades, the band’s appeal has been rooted in the connections and differences between its two lead men, Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy. But there are more subtle instances as well: Despite being one of Canada’s most beloved and popular bands (and playing this week’s Grey Cup halftime show), Blue Rodeo has never had a particular sound. The band’s new album, the lush and haunting The Things We Left Behind, may be its most musically adventurous yet. While the veteran band continues to stay fresh and push boundaries musically, it has chosen to release the new work in an old-fashioned package: double vinyl with a gatefold sleeve.

In Calgary last month to promote The Things We Left Behind, Cuddy and Keelor joked that they’re more excited about the gatefold than the music within (to be fair, it is a gorgeous package), but it’s clear that the medium is part of the message with this one. Also, the two are not complete Luddites — the vinyl comes with a complimentary double-CD version and the CDs are also available on their own.

“What could be more ideal?” Cuddy asks. “You’re giving people the pleasure of a record — in many ways, there’s a lot more pleasure than a CD. There’s so much more sensual pleasure in the album. Then we realized that the imprint of albums is just sketched across our musical souls. That’s how we think of records.”

Keelor adds: “If we can contribute just a little bit in terms of people thinking about vinyl, then that’s a good thing. When I think of picking up [Jimi Hendrix’s] Electric Ladyland, it was just so exotic… these freaks, these hippies, beyond belief to this teenager in suburban Montreal. You open it up and see all these little pictures in the studio and you can truly just transport yourself to the moment. If people want to transport themselves into this moment [points to his own record], it might not be the same thing, but it’s a nice place to be.”

It’s not surprising that The Things We Left Behind ended up being the piece of music that Blue Rodeo chose for the double album treatment. Since Cuddy and Keelor tend to write separately, the strength of some Blue Rodeo albums lies in the contrast between the two voices, not the consistency. But even though The Things We Left Behind is their longest album (though not too long — in the spirit of classic LPs, each side is only four songs long), it is one of the band’s most cohesive. Keelor mentions that he had been listening to Big Star’s 1978 album, Third, a fair bit, and that album’s airy but achingly melancholy spirit shows up on The Things We Left Behind. Cuddy, on the other hand, teases that his songs are never as dark as his partner’s, though most of his songs are similarly sombre, making for a true album, rather than a string of singles.

“There’s always been people who have only been interested in songs but not in albums,” Cuddy says. “How many records are there like that — that have sold 20 million copies because of only one song? But there’s also been a whole culture of people who actually like a collection of songs and all the imaginative synapses firing that comes from listening to one song and then the next and imagining that there is some connection between the two.”

If The Things We Left Behind came together naturally for Blue Rodeo, neither Cuddy nor Keelor seems too surprised by it. Over the years, the band has amassed a rabidly loyal audience and etched out a career on its own terms, all in a similarly organic way. For Keelor, it all breaks down to keeping things honest and staying true to the music.

“A record has a certain fate of its own,” he says. “And they sort of reveal themselves after a point. The nicest part of making a record is when you realize that it has a momentum of its own and going with it to that point. This record, being a double record, was a lot of work, but it went pretty smoothly. And we ended up with a great album cover.”