Great Big Sea- The Interview

Great Big Sea, a little bigger?
By Kevin J. Hosey
When Canadian Celtic/roots band Great Big Sea performs at the Sphere Entertainment Complex on Main Street in downtown Buffalo Friday April 2, it will bring in some new sounds and approaches without trying to sound different.
Great Big Sea is touring to support its new Rounder Records CD, “Something Beautiful,” which uses much of the band’s more traditional sound while adding pop and roots rock, including a drum kit instead of just bodhran and acoustic percussion, and adding bassist Murray Foster (formerly of Moxy Fruvous) to replace original bassist Darrell Power, who left to raise his family.
Founding member, singer, guitarist and songwriter Alan Doyle discussed things recently from Boston, where Great Big Sea had just played a sold out show. He said the band didn’t just set out to change things for the sake of change.
“We haven’t lost any interest in the other things (traditional Celtic sound), but we’re not afraid to include all of our influences if we want to use electric guitar or drums, so we just did it. There is certainly a lot of it (drum kit, played by Kris MacFarlane),” he said. “I’m proud of this because we had the balls to do it; it may not be what everyone wanted to hear, but it takes a lot to have the nuts to take a pop song and play it right next to a 500-year-old folk song. It’s bullshit to not have a sea shanty next to a song I wrote two weeks ago. The three of us are folk-based musicians with a bassist and drummer from the rock/pop world.”
Among the better songs on the new CD is “Helmethead,” a fun, hard-driving tune about a National Hockey League enforcer knowing his time is limited and what he has to do to keep his roster slot.
“`Helmethead’ is a great live song, but all of them are catching on live, especially `Beat the Drum.’ If Bob (Hallett, another founding member, who sings, plays various string instruments as well as whistles, pipes, concertina and accordion; Sean McCann is the third founder, singing and playing guitar, bodhran and other instruments) comes up with a song like `Helmethead,’ then great, he should sing it,” Doyle said. “We picked up a really good producer (Michael Phillip Wojewoda) who had a big deal to do with the sound. We were just really happy with the songs. It’s also great that we’re all writing; the only thing better than a good song is two good songs. We usually write and rehearse the songs and have them ready and bang them out in the studio.”
He spoke of the band’s continued popularity playing traditional Celtic and Newfoundland music.
“Five years ago, we were still trying to introduce ourselves to most of the world, trying to do things to define ourselves and what’s the norm,” he said. “But that’s (popularity of traditional music) not unheard of; the eye of the masses has turned to folk music for a while. There was a huge Canadian Atlantic wave we took advantage of; Natalie MacMaster, Ashley MacIssac, Great Big Sea (and Spirit of the West), it isn’t unheard of.”
Besides the band’s popularity in Canada, Great Big Sea has made serious inroads in what could be called border towns such as Detroit, Buffalo and even Boston and New York, “any town that could have heard us and tapped into that; Buffalo was one of the first places we made an impact.” A remark that the towns he discussed were all NHL cities led to a short hockey discussion.
“We’re all massive hockey fans; we’re Montreal Canadian fans first, then the rest of the Canadian teams,” Doyle said with a laugh. When told that this writer might be late for the band’s show because he and his wife would be at the Buffalo Sabres-Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game that night, Doyle turned to the bandmates near him and yelled that the Maple Leafs would be in Buffalo playing the Sabres that night, and said, “Well, it looks like the show will be starting a bit late Friday.”
Doyle and company are not tiring of the road.
“The shows and the response is amazing; the thrill doesn’t go away. The rush of engaging that many people doesn’t ever go away,” he said. “This music is huge in Newfoundland; we’ve been getting our backs patted for 10 years. We always say, `this is not our idea, bands have done this 20, 25 and more years ago.’ There is a lot of precedence and it will be going on long after we’re gone. Newfoundlanders have documented their lives in songs, the events, characters and shipwrecks; it’s so great. We started going around the country waving the Newfoundland flag, and now we’re going around the world waving the Canadian flag.”
To those who have never attended a Great Big Sea show, how would Doyle describe it? “It’s a great night out; we cover a tradition. The band is just leaders of a celebration, not a baroque setting where people sit and watch us masturbate for them.”