Forty years have passed since the formation of The Tragically Hip, and the band stands as one of Canada’s most iconic and beloved musical groups. As Hip bassist Gord Sinclair reflects on the band’s legacy, the release of a documentary series celebrating their journey has brought both triumph and nostalgia. The documentary, directed by Gord Downie’s older brother, Mike Downie, chronicles the band’s highs and lows, the essence of their friendship, and the depth of their journey.
Gord fondly recounts attending the premiere at The Toronto International Film Festival, “We were all there for the screening and I have to say, hats off to Gord’s older brother, Mike Downie, who directed it. I think he did an amazing job creating a doc series that people who knew the band intimately can get something out of it, and people that never even heard of us before take something from the story and maybe get into what we did and feel like they didn’t miss out on something.”
“We’re pretty humble and when we heard that they were going to show all four episodes in a theater at TIFF, we thought, “Good Lord, the place is gonna be empty by the end.” It turns out, people were on the edge of their seats and they stayed for the entire thing. It had a real resonance with the audience and it’s due in no small part to Mike. He did a great job.”
“It hasn’t been an easy process at all since the very start when we agreed to it. We’ve known Mike for as long as we knew Gord when the family moved from Amherstview to Kingston to go to high school. Mike was in my grade, Gord with Rob, and Mike knew where all the skeletons were buried. He’s lived it as Gord’s brother. We’ve worked with him before, and to his credit, he approached us right off the start and said he didn’t want to make a puff piece. He wanted to talk about the stuff that made the band what the band was.”
The documentary’s aim was clear: to tell a story that captured the band’s heart, struggles, and the intense bond shared among them.
“A lot of those circumstances involve a lot of time, but a lot of heavy emotions. It’s about love, it’s about loss, it’s about friendship. It’s about trying to maintain a creative partnership where five individuals are laying it all on the line. And, you know, sometimes you can’t get your way. We had lots of scraps over the years. We never talked about it publicly before because that was just for us. That was part of the process whether it was how a lyric was supposed to go or which songs to put on the record.”
“Those decisions weren’t always easy, but we managed them. I think that’s what helped, Mike’s sensitivity to that, but also to his brother and his brother’s legacy and his family. He brought that into the documentary in a very masterful way that tells an interesting story. It’s not a concert film. It’s the story of 40 years together, and in any friendship, you’re gonna have some highs, and lots of lows, and you’re gonna lose people along the way.”
Gord Sinclair and Hip guitarist Rob Baker began their friendship literally playing in the sandbox together. He reflected on the bond the band has with each other and the impact that has had on their careers.
“I see him (Rob Baker) all the time and talk to him every other day. We’ve been hanging out with each other since I was three years old, and that’s a big part of what the story was. Gord and Paul had the same relationship, and collectively the five of us have developed that trust and love for each other that saw us through a 40-year career of driving around North America, Europe, and Australia.”
“The stuff that kills a lot of bands is the proximity to each other and financial stuff and credit. We resolved all those issues because we valued our relationship with each other first and foremost and didn’t want to let anything else, not even a guy’s stinky feet, bust the band up. We’re open when we talk to each other as friends should. From my perspective over 40 years, you realize how fortunate we were to have all the opportunities that we had and the number of people that we had the chance to work with.”
“In retrospect, you look at who we’ve lost over those years and how instrumental a lot of people were to get us from playing a crappy little club in Kingston, Ontario to that final show. Nothing more profound than seeing the picture of our 10 parents in the documentary, and now we’re down to three. And that’s part of life, right? We couldn’t have done any of that without those 10 people.”
The journey, however, was not without sacrifice. In the early years, Sinclair and Langlois contributed lyrics, but as the band matured, Downie took on the role of primary lyricist, a decision that wasn’t easy for Sinclair. The shift marked a pivotal moment in their career.
“That was a really difficult juncture in our career. When Gord brought it to the group, it was a pretty fraught meeting, because it’s impossible as an artist and as a writer to take your ego out of it. You’re being told you need not bother any longer, that someone else is going to do it for you. We talked it out like we did with everything. It was important to Gord for the authenticity of the performance, both on record and live. I totally got that, so I respected the decision and moved on.”
“As chance would have it was among the best decisions ever made, because now, as a writer, I don’t have to worry about finishing a lyric or even starting a lyric. I can concentrate on doing what I felt I did best for the group. It allowed us to develop our cooperative songwriting approach whereby the time we got to Day for Night or Trouble at the Hen House, we weren’t even finishing musical ideas.”
“We just knew that we could go into one of our songwriting sessions and throw out a riff or a chord progression, and someone else in the band is going to pick up that thread, whether it’s John rhythmically or Gord with the melody, and push that in another direction. That represents what the group was as a collective. It’s really what made The Hip.”
“Day for Night was our real creative watershed where this is who we’re going to be. We’re not going to chase radio singles, because that’s a mug’s game. We’re going to try to become the best band that we can and that’s what we worked towards, and the first step towards that was Gord becoming our principal lyricist.”
Downie’s lyrics, a blend of poetry and storytelling, drew from both personal experiences and snippets of conversation with friends. Sinclair remembers how phrases that seemed insignificant at the time would reemerge in Downie’s lyrics, immortalized in song. One such memorable song is “50 Mission Cap,” which Downie crafted almost verbatim from the back of a hockey card, bringing a mundane object to life with the depth and wonder he found in the everyday.
Sinclair explained, “It wasn’t like he was writing, Yummy, Yummy, I Got Love in My Tummy. He was a fantastic lyricist, a great storyteller, and one of the best our country has ever seen. He was a voracious reader, but he was a fantastic listener as well. He had a great ear for a turn of phrase and someone would say something unusual and it would go right into his book. It could be years, but it would reemerge in a lyric or a song title. He was our journalist on the road and it’s amazing the number of times I’ve gone through the lyrics and I remember the circumstances of conversations I was involved in. It takes me back to how we actually wrote and recorded material together.”
Their determination to stay true to their music paid off in the end. Songs that were once shelved, like “Ouch” and “Wait So Long,” have found new life and popularity decades later. Their decision to limit tracks to fit the 40-minute LP format meant many songs were left behind, but Sinclair is grateful for this process, which allowed the band to create a strong, cohesive product each time. Today, they continue to uncover old tapes, thanks to drummer Johnny Fay, whose dedication to preserving their archives has been invaluable. These rediscovered tracks offer a nostalgic glimpse into the band’s creative journey, a testament to the abundance of music they created and the power of a collaborative, artistic process.
“Very early in our career, we did a gig with The Chili Peppers before they hit and watched them play. This is down in Texas and I’d never really heard of the group. I was like, wow, this is fresh, this is new and it’s cool. And they’ve got funk, but they put their own spin on it. And so being the bass player and certainly John, our drummer, we were drawn to it immediately.”
“So, we wrote a bunch of songs like that, but we realized quickly that, well, you can’t have two funk songs when we’re kind of a rock and roll band. It was much the same way that Get Back Again got left off of Up To Here because we wrote a better acoustic track that everyone had contributed to. It goes back to a time when, you’re making LPs and you’ve got 40 minutes of music, tops. So, in a lot of ways, the CD age kind of killed that because all of suddenly you have 75 minutes of music instead of 40.”
“Having to edit yourself in advance and pick and choose between the songs that you’ve recorded for a project, invariably something potentially even great gets left off. We’re kind of the beneficiaries of that now because we wouldn’t be putting this stuff out if it was crappy.”
“And then in the case of Ouch, I thought Twist My Arm resonated live with the audience, and it fit with the other tunes better than a song like Ouch, which was full on Funkadelia. Same thing with 38 Years Old. I just thought it was a better song.”
“We were never ones to say, ‘We’ll pick it up for the next record and throw it on.’ We were full steam ahead. So we’ve got this catalog and geez, you blow the dust off the tapes and listen to it 35 years later. Like, Paul’s song, Wait So Long. I hadn’t listened to that in a long time and I can pick up the guitar and play it back for you right now. It’s a great song, just never saw the light of day. It’s just the nature of the medium that we’re working in.”
Sinclair describes recording their first full-length album Up to Here which has just been released as a 35th Anniversary deluxe boxed set featuring the remastered album, unreleased tracks, a live recording and video of a concert at The Misty Moon in Halifax, demos, and much more.
“We went down to make our first album in Memphis. Like most bands, we were super prepared for it. We rehearsed, we knew all our parts, and the songs were together. We had an acoustic number all prepared for that record called Get Back Again, one of my songs. It’s a great song and always resonated with the crowd. But when we got down to Memphis, it was such a creative environment and Don Smith was always pushing cool ideas we should develop.”
“While we were there, we wrote 38 Years Old. It started off as a guitar riff one evening, and by about 4 or 5 a.m., the song was entirely written. It was one of those moments creatively where all the dominoes fell exactly into place and Gord had this great story that we wrote one night and recorded the next day. We have so many stories like that. That was the cool thing about being in a creative unit where you had all this material. We used to approach making records like doing a live set. It was A side, B side, five-song sets.”
One of the unreleased recordings in the boxed set is a song called “Get Back Again which recently became a number-one song on active rock radio in Canada, 35 years after it was recorded.
“So that’s the way we sequestered and we came up with this acoustic number which knocked another acoustic number off the record. We didn’t really think about it too much. And then ironically, it just went number one in Canada a month or so ago. A song that’s 30 years old that never saw the light of day. We’re fortunate to be in this group that the songwriting was so much fun.”
The song was also recorded by Sinclair with John Angus and Colin MacDonald of The Trews, vocalist Miss Emily and Sinclair’s son Elliot.
“We kind of did that just for fun. The guys in the Trews are dear friends of mine and they sort of came to the band around the time of Phantom Power. We were just goofing around in the studio and they suggested we do that version. They knew the song better than I did. I actually had to sit down and relearn it. That’s the great thing about songwriting, it never goes away. Whether it’s recorded or not, it’s always there and it’s something you can always come back to,”
The Hip’s influence reached beyond their music. They embodied a sense of Canadian pride, something Sinclair attributes to early inspirations like Rush, who showed them that they didn’t need to conform to commercial pressures or seek validation from the U.S. to succeed.
Says Sinclair with deep admiration, “My love and respect and appreciation, gratitude, it’s endless for those guys. They in no small way built the road that we were just a decade behind them, following on the same path. It was probably around 91, 92 when we got the invite to support them. They did an annual charity fundraiser for the local United Way at Maple Leaf Gardens. We got the call completely out of the blue; would we come and support them on that show? I get goosebumps still just thinking about that opportunity.”
“The 16-year-old me would be like, it’s unbelievable because the first show I saw, I can tell you what they opened up with, Bastille Day, I remember it like it was yesterday and here we are playing Maple Leaf Gardens with them. All our moms and dads were there because at the time we figured it was never going to get any bigger than this. Playing the Gardens with Rush was going to be awesome. Moms and dads are all there. Equally significant was that they were playing this sold-out venue and yet every nickel that they were generating was going back into their community. Their philanthropy and their integrity, we took that page right out of their book that night.”
“They are in my opinion, by far the best band that has ever come out of Canada. You know, we’re just lucky to have shared the stage with them a bunch of times and call them friends now.”
“Rush made it cool to be Canadian. We were never big radio guys; we didn’t live and die by the top 10. We were album guys and I can’t think of a group that exemplifies that philosophy better than Rush. I think of Rush in terms of records, not hit singles. They had lots of great hits or songs that still resonate with people that are more popular than others. But I think that kind of came after the fact that’s what we always wanted to be.”
The Hip followed in their footsteps, creating albums that prioritized artistic integrity over hit singles. This philosophy kept them grounded and allowed them to find their own voice without compromising for the sake of fame.
“We wanted to find our own voice in the same way that the guys in Rush had, and we were really lucky. We were signed into the States because of all the touring we did and because of our relationship with the Canadian audience, we always did well enough for the record company that we got another chance to make another record. They kept us hanging around, but were never so popular at a commercial level where they tried to turn us into something that we weren’t. And I think Rush was the same sort of thing.”
“We had a pretty decent hit with “New Orleans is Sinking” off of Up To Here, and it would have been easy for us to sit around and write 12 bar blues songs for the rest of our career, but we didn’t want to do that. We were able to find our own voice and be true to ourselves.”
“The approach that we took to songwriting, we were always trying to write together and develop song ideas together. We were always together when writing in various shapes and forms. it evolved, changed over time and some material is better than others, obviously, but we always had way more songs than we needed because of the way that we wrote songs together.”
“We would literally go around in a circle and throw out an idea and take it about as far as it could go. And then, in particular. if Gord got a hold of a melodic or lyrical path that would really influence how the song evolved, we were always pretty successful that way.”
“As a result we’ve got lots of cool material floating around and I’ve got to give full props to Johnny, our drummer for finding these tapes. That’s a Herculean task, but whenever a project is up, like what we went through with Up To Here, he’ll phone up and say, “You won’t believe what I found” It’s cool to be part of something like that.”
“We’ve never been a better functioning unit in terms of communication than we are now. Obviously, we’re down one guy, the very important guy, and I’m quite sure that we wouldn’t be doing any of this backward-looking stuff because he was always onwards and upwards. We no longer have him, but to honor him and to honor the group’s time together. Now we have this ability to go back in time and sift through that stuff. If it was all crap, we wouldn’t be out.”
“Our first albums were records, and studio time was crazy expensive. You couldn’t make a record in your basement on your laptop with your Pro Tools rig. And stuff like that. You had to have a guy who knew. You had to have a building and a studio and a specific place to do it, and you had to have someone to pay for all that stuff.”
“We never had that kind of budget. We were signed by an individual who was the vice president of artist and repertoire at MCA who saw the potential in my little group and convinced a bunch of suits in New York to pony-up the bread to allow us to make these records. That doesn’t exist anymore. It makes me lament that period, where an artist or a collective, like my group, had the opportunity to do that and find their voice and to develop their talent.”
For The Hip, music was always more than just a career; it was a means of connection. The documentary highlights this, exploring the way loss shaped their journey. When Downie was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the band came together as never before. There was a very intense moment during the documentary that shows the band at a breaking point during the recording of their final studio album, Man Machine Poem. It caused Gordon Sinclair and Paul Langlois to walk away from the band for a short period just before the devastating news of Gord Downie’s cancer.
“We spent a lot of time with each other, really close friends, but were also co-workers, and businessmen together. It wasn’t always easy. We had to make tough decisions and, in some cases, feelings got hurt. In the documentary, we had to revisit quite a bit of that. Rob Baker had a similar experience when we produced Trouble at the Hen House. Didn’t enjoy the process and I understand why. Self-producing is not easy. It’s not just as simple as five guys making a decision. You know, decisions have to be made and toes get stepped on. We always had a great facility to talk things out”.
“Several months went by when we weren’t talking. It was a tough one. But it’s funny. Something happens that affects your buddy or your brother in a particular way and all that quickly falls by the wayside. All those little conflicts are driven by ego, and my ego was bruised when We Are the Same came back and all the background vocals are gone. Particularly when you’re talking to the producer about background vocal ideas while they’re recording them when you’re not there.”
“It was a tough pill to swallow but you know, geez, you look in the perspective of what happened afterward and that is absolutely meaningless to the day we found out what Gord’s diagnosis was. All of a sudden you circle the wagons. Loss is very life-affirming. It’s very love-affirming, and there are more important things than making sure that you get your own way. We learned that over the years. Five guys trying to make unanimous decisions. Sometimes there’s an unpopular decision that gets through there, but we learned how to keep it in perspective.”
“We wouldn’t have done any of this without the support of the fans over the years that followed us, that’s what it’s all about. And that last tour that we did, I’ve said it before, but that’s what it was all about. Getting that back from the audience means so much.”
In a world where the music industry is ever-changing, The Tragically Hip’s story serves as a reminder of the power of persistence, friendship, and staying true to one’s vision. Sinclair expresses concern for younger artists who may not get the same opportunities to evolve and find their voice amidst a landscape of quick fame and short-lived singles. “Music is such an important thing for people,” he says. “I just hope younger artists get the support that we got throughout our career.”
