The word ‘unique’ can often be bandied about when describing a particular band or artist. But, when referring to Cowboy Junkies, whose signature sound over three and a half decades and 25 albums has remained distinctive and individualised, it is wholly appropriate. From their ground-breaking recording, THE TRINITY SESSIONS, to their recently released full covers album SONGS OF THE RECOLLECTION, their ability to combine elements of folk, country, rock and blues, both on original material and well-chosen covers, remains unmatched. It was a great pleasure to chat recently with Margo Timmins, who talked freely about the band’s early days, their collective love of playing live, and their longevity.
‘Staying together in the band was always more important than winning the argument. So, we always seemed to be able to solve it, before we became like Oasis,’ she joked.
Your recently released album SONGS OF THE RECOLLECTION was your first full covers album. Did the enforced downtime of 2020 have a bearing on that?
Yes, I don't think it would have happened otherwise. It was a project we had been talking about for a long, long time, a complete covers album. It took a lot of time because it wasn't as simple as ‘Okay, let's get together and do some songs.’ It took so much time going through the archives and listening to so many songs and then trying to find different versions of those songs. That’s why I don't think it would have happened without COVID, which gave us the time.
What is the band’s process in selecting suitable songs to cover?
When you choose the song, you're choosing songs that you love and grew up with and meant something to you, that's always the first step. The process is then what do you do with that song? More often than not when we are doing a cover, we may find that we are not doing it in any way that offers any value from the original. We’re not a covers band, so we are looking for reinterpretations rather than simple covers and if you can’t do that what is the point? That happens quite a lot. I might love the song, the boys can play it and I can sing it, but the last question is always ‘what is the point?’ That often leads to songs being shelved and sometimes we might go back to them in later years. For example, we recorded Thunder Road and when we first attempted it, I couldn’t find my way into the song. It’s such a big song to take on. We shelved it but brought it out a number of years later, maybe I was a little bit older and wiser then, possibly a better singer.
You have also just released your ‘lost album’ SHARON, thirty-three years after it was recorded live at the iconic Sharon Temple in Ontario. What was the deciding factor in not releasing it back in 1989?
SHARON was our next recording after THE TRINITY SESSIONS. We were then in the business with a record company and the expectations that go with that. What the record company really wanted was Trinity Sessions again. We weren't averse to doing another album off the floor like that, but we also didn’t want to redo THE TRINITY SESSIONS. And of course, that was always the conflict between us and the record company. So, we said, ‘okay, we'll do it off the floor, and we'll see what we get.’ We went to Sharon, which we knew had this amazing sound and quite a history. We recorded the album and we liked what we heard, but it was too similar to TRINITY SESSIONS, it was just more of the same, and we just didn't want to become that type of band at that time. So, we said ‘no’ and, luckily, our first record contract gave us a lot of power and we had something to bargain with. Instead, we went into a studio and did THE CAUTION HORSES, which is sort of SHARON revisited but in a studio.
Your debut album WHITES OFF EARTH NOW!! mainly featured blues covers. Had you also been interested in country music prior to the recording of THE TRINITY SESSIONS, which followed?
You know, it's interesting but in Canada, country music was not a big thing like it was in the States, especially in the southern States. We did not grow up with country music. We grew up with folk music, early Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Dylan, so we would focus on folk and rock and roll. Mike and Alan and I are all 60s kids so later in the 70s when punk came along, it was like,’ Oh my god, we love this.’ Toronto had a huge punk scene at four or five different clubs. All the bands came through, we saw all of them in small clubs like The Edge. Everybody played The Edge, we saw The Cure and The Police there, they all pulled up in their station wagons. That era was huge for us as young teenagers. It was punk that told Alan and Mike that you don't have to be a big rock star. You can just pick up a guitar and just do it, that was the message. That's when they started to pick up guitars and started making noises and soon, they had a couple of bands together. Hunger Project was their first band, very punk-oriented and then Germinal which was more sort of jazz instrumental. That led to Cowboy Junkies and our first album WHITES OFF EARTH NOW!!, which took us into the States. We toured for months on that album in our station wagon and while we were driving around the States we were listening to Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle on the local radio stations, and reading articles about who influenced them. We started listening to all this music with different ears, going back to artists like Patsy Cline. So, this discovery of country music happened to all of us at the same time simply because we were all listening to it in the car on the road. That opened up a whole new world of music to all of us and vocalists who were just phenomenal. The fun thing was traveling around looking for gigs and going into these towns that had huge used record stores. We'd be finding all this new stock and having so much fun listening to it. What none of us realised at that time was that it was really helping us also become the band we became by dipping into that sound.
Had there been a degree of music snobbery on your behalf previously when it came to country music?
Oh, yes, one hundred percent. Country music was for hicks, not for sophisticated people like us. But it was so mind-expanding and hit us at exactly the right time. Punk gave our generation the permission to go where you want to go, listen to whatever you want to listen to, do what you want to do and who cares what anybody thinks. So, when we came home from that tour we wrote THE TRINITY SESSIONS, which had more of a country vibe to it because of the point we were at just then.
So, what were your expectations recording THE TRINITY SESSIONS, and was it simply a self-indulgent project based on where you were all at musically at that time?
Well, firstly we were a Canadian band and Canadian bands really weren't on the map then. There were a few but not really a lot of young bands. Our expectation was just to put out a record that we liked. We had put out WHITES OFF EARTH NOW!! ourselves, we sold it out of our band house and through the mail. Before rehearsals every night, we would fill the orders and mail them out the next day, and that's what we expected from Trinity. Especially in 1988 when Michael Jackson was at the top of the charts and big production was what was out there. Certainly, THE TRINITY SESSION was anything but that. Our intention was just to create a good record. We walked into Trinity Church with that expectation that day. If we hadn't gotten what we wanted, we would have just walked away. We had no record company, there was no time limit. We would just have gone and recorded it again elsewhere if we didn’t like what we got, there was no pressure that way. However, once we set up the sound, the whole thing took about seven hours. Most of it was just trying to find the right position for the mics and the musicians. We found that, because there were no overtakes or overdubs, if you made a mistake, you screwed it up. I can remember as if it was yesterday, singing I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, hearing it floating around the room and thinking ‘don’t screw up.’
Not only did it launch the band’s career, but its success allowed Peter Joseph Moore, who produced the album, to leave his nine-to five-job and launch his career as a full-time producer.
Peter has always been there and still is when we take our stuff to him to mix or master it, depending on what it is. You know, he has a very unique ear, so he's been important, very important. He’s been with us forever.
Your lifespan as a band has been extraordinary with no line-up changes over thirty years. You seem to have taken control of your own destiny and operated on your own terms throughout those three decades.
It's not that we haven't had our troubles and our differences, of course, but I think at the end of the day, we love playing as a band. You know, the Junkies is the four of us playing and if you change one of us, not to say it'll be better or worse, but it would be different. Even now, after all these years, when we get on stage and play, it's the same if not better. I don't mean musically, I just mean getting the feeling we get from the appreciation, the joy, contentedness, whatever it is, It's the same as when we were young people playing in the garage. And I think at the end of the day when we had differences, the music always won out, you know: staying together in the band was always more important than winning the argument. So, we always seemed to be able to solve it before we became like Oasis. We always seem to be able to solve any problems and nobody's ever quit.
With four individual parallel lives outside the band has it been difficult to schedule your regular tours?
Everybody has children but I was the only mom. So, when my son was a teenager and before that when he was a young kid, we set up a sort of routine where we would go out and play Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then get home. In that way, I could keep an eye on my son and luckily, we have always had an easy-going relationship. That’s what we did pre-Covid and now we’re back on the road and my son is part of our crew as well as having another day job when we are back home. We are actually touring more now, out for two weeks at a time with a six-week gap in between. We’re heading to Europe soon for a month, which we haven’t done since my son was a little baby when he also came on tour with us.
Collectively do you still get the same buzz from your live performances?
Yes, we do. Playing live is really why we make records. It doesn't really make much money for you, but it gives you the income to tour, and that's what we do. We are a live band. That's where our joy is and as we've gotten older and moved further away from the industry and business side of things, it’s actually got better.
Looking back at your career, are you happy with the way things have worked out for you individually and for the band?
I think I'm really happy with the way they went. Joining a big record company and getting that early money gave us income and freedom, it also bought my house, which was nice. More importantly, it also gave us our audience. We reached a lot of people and remarkably they're still there. We wouldn't have been able to reach out and have a power machine pushing us out there and putting us on radio without a label behind us. So, we created this audience that is fiercely loyal. I'm always amazed that they keep coming back to our shows. What I would tell my younger self is that if you have bad managers and hangers-on, you need to let them go and not keep them around too long. We also had a period when we tried to manage ourselves and that didn’t work out, we needed a manager then. Those things could have been managed better but that’s all hindsight.
Finally, given your surname, I presume that you have Irish Roots?
Yes, we do. Our ancestors all came over on the boat, I'm not sure exactly when but it was in the mid-1800s. They came over to make a better life here, apparently. Some succeeded, and some didn't. The story has it that a lot of them went to Northern Ontario and got into prospecting and mining.
Cowboy Junkies play at The National Concert Hall, Dublin on 17th November 2022.
Interview by Declan Culliton