By Steve Hubrecht
Invermere is ready to rock this weekend when legendary musician Kim Mitchell takes the stage at the Mountain Music Bash.
Mitchell made a name as a member of the band Max Webster in the 1970s, before hitting another gear when he launched his solo career in the 1980s, churning out a series of platinum, double platinum, and triple platinum albums in a span of just a few years, grabbing multiple Juno Awards along the way and eventually being inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Almost any Canadian with a penchant for classic rock is familiar with his biggest hits (if not by name then certainly to hear them) including the massive 1984 single ‘Go For Soda’, his equally huge 1986 single ‘Patio Lanterns’, and his 1989 hits ‘Rock n Roll Duty’ and ‘Rocklandwonderland’. Unless you keep your radio tuned only to country music stations, you’ve doubtlessly heard these tunes many times. But who needs the radio when you can listen to these songs live?
Mitchell is the headline act during the Bash, which is at Eddie Mountain Memorial arena on Saturday, May 17.
Mitchell may be a pedigreed rock star, with the accolades to back it up, but talk to him on the phone and he sounds every bit like an average Canadian, happy to be doing what he loves for a living.
“Live music is one of the few things where it just doesn’t matter who you are, how much money you make, how your day went, or anything else. You come to the show, and for a few hours none of that matters … you let it all go and just ride on the music,” Mitchell told the Pioneer. He concedes that may sound a bit corny, but insists for him it’s true. “I really like to transmit that musical energy to an audience.”
Mitchell grew up in Sarnia, Ontario, not far from Detroit, and his first musical inspiration was the smooth tambourine-tinged, “walking bass” Motown hits from that city, playing over the radio when he was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s.
He joined a high school band, and when he was just 17 years old, he quit school and moved to Toronto to further his music career. “It’s (quitting school) not something I recommend. I got really, really lucky and it worked out for me, but honestly when I left Sarnia, I figured I’d be back by the time I was 22 or 23 to work in the oil refinery,” he said.
That almost did happen within the first few years of moving to the big city. His band broke up and Mitchell got ready to return to Sarnia. Just before he did, a friend called offering him a job in a show band playing five nights a week for a frontman “who was kind of like a Greek Tom Jones,” explained Mitchell. “The pay was $150 a week, which was a lot in those days, so of course I said ‘yes’.”
This lead to a year-long stint for Mitchell and the show band on Rhodes, the largest Dodecanese island in Greece, backing up that frontman, who had family-owned business interests there.
“It was an amazing experience,” recalled Mitchell. He went from struggling to make ends meet as a young musician in Toronto to living on a sun-kissed isle in the sky-blue Mediterranean, where his biggest decision each day was, as he describes it, deciding which way to go for his morning stroll.
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Mitchell came back to Toronto and founded Max Webster. The band met with modest success, then Mitchell decided to go solo in 1982. A few years later ‘Go For Soda’ came out and was all over the airwaves, even charting south of the border.
The song came about when Mitchell was at a party with his friend and co-writer. “I was not really digging it (the party) and so I asked my friend ‘want to go buy some wings’?” recalled Mitchell. “My friend said ‘sure, let’s go for soda. Nobody hurt, nobody cries’. And it just kind of struck me, and it became the tune.”
‘Patio Lanterns’ was also written quickly. Mitchell was driving around in a van. His co-writer mentioned that he had a few lyric fragments, but not a finished song. He shared them with Mitchell as he got out of the van. “Right away I could hear the melody to go with those words in my mind,” said Mitchell. “So I pulled out my guitar and wrote the verse right there in downtown Toronto.”
When it came time to record the song, Mitchell wasn’t satisfied, and even wanted the song left off his next album. “I just knew I could do it so much better,” he explained. But others involved in the recording disagreed, the song stayed on the album, and became perhaps his biggest hit.
Mitchell doesn’t churn out mega-selling albums any more, but says he’s more than content touring Canada, playing to enthusiastic crowds in big cities and small towns. When not on the road he lives in an older neighbourhood in Toronto’s West End. It’s a mostly normal life, and Mitchell likes it that way: walking his dog (who recently passed away), exercising, paying the bills, running errands, and trying to eat healthy.
“I do the same things everyone else does. The only thing that is different is I’m a bit older (Mitchell is 72), so I need to do vocal exercises every day (to keep his voice in rock singing shape). But I’m still here and I’m still grateful,” he said.
Despite confessing to being “older” Mitchell still puts in high-energy performances and has a great stage presence.
“I never phone it in,” he told the Pioneer. “I’m about customer service in rock and roll: people come for a good show, and that’s what I give. There’s a magic to it, to having people sing along to your songs.”
Local band Humongous Fungus will open for Mitchell. Doors open at 5 p.m. Mitchell plays at 8:30 p.m.
