We’re all tired of hearing about uncertain times. As the world around us is slowly finding a new normal, certainties become even more precious to cling to. Like Ottawa drivers forgetting how to drive in the year’s first snow. Or the Leafs getting eliminated in the first round. Touchstones we can all count on.
And the Sheepdogs putting out great rock records.
That’s exactly what the boys from Saskatoon did in 2022 with Outta Sight, their seventh full-length album. Building on their tried-and-true foundation of classic prairie rock, they delved into additional ’70s influences from Santana to the Allmans in this wider-reaching collection. While fresh, there’s a distinct sound that is entirely Sheepdogs.
Since the album’s release, the band has been touring relentlessly across North America and Europe, but there has been an obvious hole in their tour map—Ottawa. That wrong is finally being made right this Saturday at the National Arts Centre and features the newest Sheepdog in the pack, Gatineau’s own Ricky Paquette, who replaced guitarist Jimmy Bowskill last summer.
We caught up with bassist Ryan Gullen to chat about all things Sheepdogs, including their new local addition.
Apt613: I was looking at your tour dates, and you’ve been practically everywhere in the past year. You’ve done the European tour in the spring/summer. You basically did a coast-to-coast North American tour over the fall and winter. Everywhere except Ottawa.
Ryan Gullen: What’s funny is that booking a tour post-pandemic was a really tough thing. Everybody wanted to tour. Musicians make a lot of their money off touring, and touring’s a big part of what a lot of people do, as far as business and making a living and just promoting music. And so, once the pandemic ended, just a million shows were going on. We wanted to play places and get the venues we wanted, but in some cases, it was tricky because there was so much going on.
In the case of Ottawa, we really wanted to do the NAC this time, and that was the only date that would work with our schedules. So we worked back from that, and similar to a few of the West Coast dates as well. In some cases, some venues had just opened and they were still figuring out how they would come back from the pandemic.
So we had to be creative in how we structured this tour. But it is pretty funny that we were in England right out of the gate before Ontario. Tonight is our 86th show on this tour, so it’s been literally all over the world and then it’s all gonna end in Ottawa. Ottawa’s always been a really great place for us, so it feels serendipitous in a way that we would be ending it there.
The new album seems a little more open in terms of the different influences. “So Far Gone” had me reminiscing about “Lay Down Sally,” “Didn’t I” had more of a classic Santana feel, and then “Rough Rider ‘89” is an interesting mix of James Gang funk off the top, but then morphs into a Jerry Reed-ish country solo. Maybe it’s because you guys were jamming together in a room that you had that kind of creative energy just flowing all over the place?
I think it was about being in the moment and not overthinking it too much. We could have set out to record it differently since not all of us live in the same city anymore. So we could have set out to do different parts in different studios or write songs over Zoom. But we all really wanted to do it together and felt like that was going to help the process. And we could just focus on one song and be like, “let’s just try this” and “let’s do this.”
We didn’t overthink it too much, and we weren’t trying to necessarily put together a cohesive album where we want all the songs to be this certain way. We just looked at each one individually and as a result, different things came out of that. Having that variety is fun, too.
We are a band very much rooted in ’70s rock and roll, but we also don’t want to put ourselves in a situation where we’re just making the same song over and over again, or we’re just trying to chase the same thing.
Now you finally come back to Ottawa with Ricky Paquette in the lineup. How’s that transition gone?
When Jim decided that he was going to step away from the band in the middle of the summer, and knowing that we had this massive 50-plus date North American tour starting in September, we weren’t really sure what we were going to do.
But our former guitar tech had met Ricky while doing a show at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto. So we reached out to Ricky and he jammed with us one day, and it was a perfect fit. It was one of those things where it made sense from the get-go, and it’s been amazing. Obviously, it’s very tough to not have Jim in the band. He was very much a big part of the band for many years and to have to go on a tour without him after we made the record together and stuff was a little weird.
But having Ricky join the band on this run has been incredible, and he’s an amazing player. He’s a great person and really brings great energy on stage. He’s just literally one of the nicest, kindest, sweetest people I’ve ever met in my entire life.
It’s been amazing. And the fact that he’s from the Ottawa area is great too, because, for the first part of my life, I lived in the Ottawa Valley, in Deep River. I have a bit of a connection to the Ottawa area too, so I feel a good Ottawa energy within our band right now.
The Sheepdogs wtih Boy Golden is scheduled to go live at the National Arts Centre on Saturday, January 28 at 8pm. For more details about this event and ticket prices, click here.
