Last year was a very busy year for APRIL WINE; the Canadian rock band undertook major tours of Canada, the UK, and Europe; here opening for BTO, and overseas opening for URIAH HEEP. The band will be busy again this year with a North American touring, starting April, as openers for TRIUMPH, who have reunited for a 50th Anniversary tour. In speaking with guitarist Brian Greenway a few weeks back, we talked about the tours last year, the band since Marc Parent has joined, the upcoming tour with Triumph, and Brian’s favorite guitar players. Enjoy the read; leave some feedback (and a like), and check out the band w/ Triumph in a few months!
Last year you went out with BTO, Uriah Heep, and then you went out with Uriah Heep again. So, that was a few big tours there. With the BTO tour and some of the shows you did, what were some of the highlights for you guy?
Well, across Canada, doing arenas in the summertime, it doesn’t get better than that in my books. That’s the kind of thing I love doing. Good exposure. It was fun every day because you make friends with, the band, the crew, and you love doing that. If you don’t like where you are, it changes the next day, like the weather does. But all in all, I love life on the road that way. So, for me, it was a great time.
I noticed when you guys had started out this with Marc and the whole idea of the band continuing with being based around the songs, the popularity of the songs, I kind of got that because I was at the St. Catharine’s show, and not just so much the energy, the audience got it, everybody was into it, every song got a good response, I think.
Yeah, including the lighting the phones up before “Just Between You And Me” when Marc said, “for the memory of Myles pull up your phones.” People love the songs. It’s like, for me, it reminded me of a time in my life. Well, it does that for everybody too. It’s a memory that the audio jogs. It’s a piece of your life. Without music, I imagine, you wouldn’t have that. But it’s like if a smell reminds you of something, a song reminds you of something, it takes you to a place that it was enjoyable. It’s a nice place for your brain to be in, your mind to be in.
Could talk a bit about Marc and what he’s brought to the band with his energy and that. Because, from that show, I gathered that, and anybody that’s seen the band over the last year, quickly puts aside any of the moaning and groaning about, ‘Well, there’s no Myles and this and that’. There’s a lot of energy on stage, and he does the songs so well, and it’s a really good vibe.
Yeah, when Marc first joined, him and I got together for about three months, just one-on-one, and went over all the guitar parts, the vocal parts, because he had a good way of sounding like Myles to begin with in his voice, and that’s what sold Myles on it, because a friend of his, called him Myles one day when he was listening to one of Marc’s demos, and the guy said, “Oh, you’re listening to one of your new songs.” and Myles said, “No, that’s the new singer.” and that sold Mark right there with Myles. I sat down with Marc, and we went over every song and learned them just like the record was, and every little part, and telling him the little inflections of how to play the song rather than just learn it yourself, because you weren’t there when it was recorded, I was, so I could say, ‘hey, this is what we did’. And that way it sounds pretty authentic, rather than somebody that says, ‘Hey, let’s learn an April Wine song’, and it’s like, Okay, you don’t have the parts all together.
So then when we got into rehearsal with the rest of the guys, he starts playing a song and someone said, ‘No, you’re not playing it right’, (Richard or Roy was saying). And Marc said, ‘Oh, no, I’m playing it right. You’re playing it wrong’. (laughs) It was pretty ballsy for the new guy to say. But that’s Marc – No filters. And he was right, because over the time, the last, I don’t know how many years, the band had drifted. And any band will do that, perhaps if they’re not careful. The arrangement changes slowly, but sure, it’s like your car getting older and older, you don’t realize it, and all of a sudden one day it falls apart. Well, songs don’t fall apart, but the arrangements changed, and little pieces were sloppy here and there. So that got us to tighten it all up; all four of us go back and listen and do it. So, when we hit the stage and we marked for the first show in ‘22, the band was really ready, because we had rehearsed for about six months. We were primed.
It’s interesting. I saw you guys in 2018 when you played Niagara Falls, and it was a good show, but I don’t know if it lacked energy or what it was, but then when I saw you guys last year, the energy level is up a lot more, and…
Yeah. Myles, towards the end of it, he was taking his time on stage. He really didn’t want to be there, you know!? He wanted to be off the road. He didn’t like the traveling anymore. His diabetes was getting to him, and it wasn’t fun for him. So, yeah, it got to be a bit of a drudge at times. The shows slowed down, lack of energy, like you said. So, it was very noticeable when we, Boom(!) hit it with energy again, like we used to have.
You were over in Europe with Uriah Heep and that. You guys toured with them in 82.
Oh, yeah.
Do you have any memories from back then, and then re-meeting up with those guys, which is obviously a very different, both bands are very different now as far as lineups go.
Yes, they are. Geez, you know, I really don’t have much of a memory of back then. (lol) Those are the days we were all drinking pretty good. I don’t drink anymore. Nobody really does in the band. And so now, yeah, I can remember stuff. But back then it was a party. And I think we only did a couple of shows. I don’t think we did, I remember we did Des Moines with them. We might’ve done something in Canada with them, but it was pretty much a one-off. So, it’s hard to remember those versus you’re doing, you know, 15, 20 nights in a row with them together, and you get everybody and say hi every day.
I found a few in the archives from ’82, maybe about a half a dozen or so, Texas and California….
I don’t remember those!
How did the shows go in UK and Europe? Because, obviously you guys hadn’t been over there since the early 80s, right?
43 years. 43 years! One fellow in Germany actually held up a sign that says, ‘I’ve waited 43 years to see you. I don’t want to wait 43 years to see you again.’ It was good reaction, considering we’re the opening act for the headliner, Uriah Heep. It was their tour. But because we hadn’t been there, people were quite excited to see us. They remembered, the reaction was very strong. We were hoping it would be. We’re trying to reopen that market, because we hadn’t been back there. Myles didn’t want to travel very far anymore.
Did you get to meet up with those guys much? I know, like, Bernie is Canadian guy.
Oh, yeah, Bernie…We saw them every day. We hung out before the show, after the show. Bernie was quite a character. They all are. Mick’s very quiet, but he, and everybody in the band was nice. They’re typically British.
Now, this tour you got coming up, you’re going out with Triumph. Is it going to be a longer set, or is it still going to be a 45-minute set for you guys?
It’s 50 minutes. Get out there and play one hit after the other. So, it’s going to be a powerful show for us.
Back in the late 70s, early 80s, you had Rush, Triumph, and April Wine that were the three biggest bands that made it into the States and that had headline tours and that. Do you ever recall doing many shows back with them?
I remember being in Texas with Triumph. A couple of outdoor shows. Texas was always a good market for Canadian bands. Before I got to know them later in years, Myles and Gil became good friends, and I would see Gil every now and then around with Myles. Rick, I sort of met back in the ‘80s, when we toured and that, but I live in Montreal, and he lives in Toronto, so we didn’t really hang out and see each other. We’d call each other up and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing’. We just saw each other on the road, so I hadn’t seen him in a long time. Other than on something like this or YouTube or TV thing. I’m looking forward to renewing acquaintances with them all.
Yeah. It’s a long, it’s a fairly long tour, is it not? Like, there’s a lot of dates on it.
Yeah, and getting added to it starts somewhere around the 21st of April and ends up around the first week of June.
Wow, and I assume you’ll be doing a lot of places you haven’t been to for a long time.
Yes, some going back in Canada. We just crossed the country with BTO last year, but not the same venues. Into the US, we’ll be hitting places we haven’t been in a while, or not in those size venues either, so I’m really looking forward to that. The band’s really up for it, and I think it’s a great package together – Two serious rock bands from that era. That’s going to blow some socks off people. It’s a good audience, it’s a good setup.
If you look at the year, you have you guys with Triumph and you have the Guess Who, you have Rush….
Isn’t that something!?
A lot of those Canadian bands from that era is like suddenly back out there.
It’s going to be a very good year for Canadian music on the world stage!
Is there anything in the works as far as getting back to Europe or the UK again?
Well, we just came back in November. Nothing right now. It’s a little early for that to perhaps transpire. The festivals for the year are taking place in Europe. The way the world situation is, I don’t think it’s going to change anything. Music is music, you know, it’s going to happen. We’ve got to wait until we get invited to go anywhere, that includes the rock cruises that happen out of Florida. I’m looking forward to doing some of them; we did one last year too. So it’s early, it’s January. The bigger the shows, they tend to want a book a year or so in advance.
The last April Wine album was 2006. What, if there might be anything recorded – either live or studio, that you guys might be able to have in the works?
Well, there was a live album recorded of Myles’s last show in March of 2022, and that has not been released yet. It’s been mixed, and all set to go, but there’s no label. And I’m not the one controlling it, April Wine Entertainment is, and that, of course, was Myles’s company. Now that’s being shared by his estate. So, I’m sure once the estate gets settled, there’ll be other plans that’ll be in the works.
Have you, over the years, since that last album, have you kept on writing? Do you have, like, anything kind of stashed away for a solo album or anything?
I’ve got lots of parts of stuff. I was pretty disillusioned when… I spent three years working on that album back in the ‘80s, and nothing happened, you know!? And it wasn’t to do with music. It was to do with that there was no promotion. Once the music’s finished recording an album, what happens after that It’s nothing to do with music. It’s all sales. It’s all contracts. And Atlantic Records, they sat on it for six months before they released it, and then they didn’t do any promo. So I was quite disappointed with the whole industry. And April Wine was there, It came back, and I said, Well, you know, I’m going to stick with this. Something better comes along, or I’m writing. But I was, you know, I got writer’s block in this. I was kind of hurt by it all, and it’s not the first time any musician has had that happen. A lot of stronger people get up and do it, but I didn’t have an interest. There was nobody interested in me saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you do another record? Here’s some support for it’. If I have support, that works, but to try to do the whole thing on your own, man, that’s tough.
It’s too bad, because it was a good album. Those solo albums kind of fall by the wayside, right? And I was surprised, I guess, because they really kind of put a lot of emphasis on guests and stuff on your album.
Yeah, we had Andy Newmark on drums. Surprisingly enough, so did Myles. We had Aldo Nova, we had some guys from keyboard player from Corey Hart’s band. We did it up in Le Studio with Marty Simon and Paul Northfield. It had all the ingredients. It had money being spent on it. It looked like it was going to really be ready for something, and then nothing. It was pushed over a cliff with no parachute.
You did do the TV special. Is that something that could ever be put out as a live album?
I don’t know. That belongs to CTV, CFCF in Montreal. Bill Merrill, who was the head of that department, CFCF in Montreal at that time, had a mandate for them to do, I think, with five shows every year to do it, and he asked me if I wanted to do one. I knew him from living out here in Hudson. And I said, Yeah, do it. So, we had some good people. We had Nanette Workman on it, Jerry was in the band. We had Jeff Smallwood on guitar. It was a fun show to do. It’s been played a few times. I don’t know…, because they own the rights to it, so I don’t know what their plans are for it. But I don’t have personal management, so I got no one going out there, Hey, we should do this, good that, you know. And I just don’t think of that stuff. I’m at home. I’m a homebody. I stay at home with my dogs and my wife. With COVID, ‘everybody keep six feet away’; I kind of liked that.
I’m a bit of a recluse anyway. When I stopped drinking 11 years ago, that whole lifestyle I had of going out to bars and going out jamming just stopped. I found a nice woman, I got remarried. I was happy being a homebody. It’s something you do as you get older that you really want to have. The things at home are what’s really valuable and what makes you whole.
I’m amazed now, I’m content to go to bed at 9 o’clock many nights.
Lol! So do I because, well, or 10, because my chocolate lab gets me up at 6 o’clock every morning. Yeah. And if I don’t get up, he sticks his nose under my neck and worships me up. I love it.
The last album you guys did was Roughly Speaking. What do you recall of that? Because you guys took a very different direction on that album.
Well, that was done at Myles’ studio. It was his own label. I forget who was distributing it. Oh, yeah, it was Unidisc, I guess. And he was producing.
You guys only had like eight songs on there. It was more of a blues album, which makes me wonder if it was more of a Myles’ solo album.
Ah, maybe that was the start of it, yeah, because you know the Forever For Now album that was originally going to be a Myles Goodwyn solo album.
What had you thought of it at the time(?), because it kind of came out and really kind of disappeared pretty quickly.
Yeah, well, radio wasn’t playing it, and we really only sold it the shows. Or I don’t know how Unidisc promoted it. I didn’t have the deal. Myles was signed with the record company, not the band. So, he would never let Privy do anything. So, at that point, everything was pretty secretive.
But do you keep up with any of the, like Unidisc has all those reissues coming out? I know they put out Attitude on vinyl, and they cut off four songs, which is kind of odd.
Oh, did they? That’s weird. Which ones did they cut off? I didn’t know that. I didn’t even bother, because I wasn’t getting anything from it, so it didn’t concern me to even bother checking, because it was doing nothing. We have all those colored vinyl records, I guess that’s from Unidisc too, in merch at the shows. And I don’t know how many sell, but there’s an industry out there for vinyl.
Frigate is the only one they haven’t done, I guess, from that period.
Yeah, I didn’t know if that was them or if that was Capital..I’m not sure back then, because like I said, we weren’t the ones signed to the deal. It was Myles who signed to the deal, and then he would have us as April Wine.
I guess Unidisc has bought up everything, because they’ve done all the Moxy albums, the Teaze albums, Foot and Coldwater.
All of Aquarius!?
Yeah. Aquarius, and the label that Foot and Coldwater were on – Daffodil
There was a band that was really good. I liked that band.
They’re almost like a British-influenced band from the early 70s, with the Hammond organ and that.
That big hit they had with “Make Me Do Anything You Want” was so ahead of it’s time in production sound. It took everybody in this country, I think, musician-wise, by surprise, how good it was and how great the guitar sounds were on it. And a great arrangement.
I read some of those early reviews from the early 70s. They compare them to the British bands. Did those British bands have an impact on you?
Oh, yeah. But for me, I was sort of bitten by the blues way back in 1966, 67. The first time I heard John Mayall’s album, Bino Record, album with Eric Clapton on it, I thought that was just the end of the world. And then Cream and Hendrix. I went and saw Jimi Hendrix in Montreal in ‘68. I sat third row in the center in front of him, live.
I said, wow, man, this is so good. I was influenced by guitar players. And because of that, when other bands would come out that didn’t have such an insane guitar player like Clapton, Hendrix, whatever, I wouldn’t listen to them. Even when Led Zeppelin came out, I said, nah, I’m not too sure about Plant’s voice. And even when U2 came out, it was the same way. And Genesis, past two or three years now, I’ve been listening to old Genesis saying, why didn’t I pick up on them way back then? It’s because it wasn’t a heavy blues guitar.
I’ve actually picked up all those Steve Hackett, because every year he goes out and tours a different Genesis album. And he releases a live show from it. So, I’ve picked up all those.
I saw him last year. I saw him last year in Montreal. I forget, but I think he was doing The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. It was really good.
I saw him in Toronto two years ago. I was kind of curious how those British bands would have impacted you guys back then.
There was another band I really liked too, was Procol Harum. Back in the day, especially around the Shine On Brightly album and the Salty Dog album, because I was fascinated with Robin Trower’s guitar playing in Procol Harum. He had a very wicked vibrato and very, very passionate in the playing, combined with blues-style riffing over classical-style patterns with a keyboard with Matthew Fisher and Gary Brooker. When he went to do his Hendrix-style thing later, I said, ‘Wow, that’s so different’. But he says, ‘Well, that was how I was all along. I was sort of forced to do the Procol Harum thing’. But he did it well. And he was a bit of a mentor. Now it’s people I love listening to. I love listening to Mark Knopfler. There’s all kinds of people that, just guitar players that are really good now. It doesn’t matter what they’re playing. I just listen and go, Wow, there’s so many different styles of players out there. Sometimes I think that I can’t play at all. I like Richie Blackmore, too. He was quite an influence. And we got to play with Deep Purple in 2005 when Steve Morse was on guitar. Steve Moore. I was just talking about him today. Myles and I were invited up to, we did three shows with him in Toronto, London, and Ottawa. In London, Ontario, we were invited up to play the encore with “Smoke on the Water”. That was quite something. Talk about – How many times did you hear it (?), now you’re on the stage with the band playing it. It was just, Wow, you’re looking around and you’re playing it, you’re trading licks with Steve Moore. It’s quite something.
As far as the upcoming tour, any surprises? Or is it just going to be hits?
I think it’s just going to be the hits. That’s what people want to hear, you know. A lot of times the band plays what they want to hear, it doesn’t go over well. You’ve got to play what the audience wants to hear. They bought the tickets, they voted, they want to see you, they want to hear those songs.
- Thanks to Marco Magin and Mike Taylor for photos from the European tour (Marco – first 2 galleries from Stuttgart & Frankfurt; Mike – 3rd gallery from Hannover) .
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