George Thorogood and the Destroyers first crossed into Canada in 1978 and has maintained a strong following ever since. ‘I can think of one thing that might have something to do with it. Canadians like beer.People who watch this band are beer drinkers,’ he says.Photograph by: Handout photo , Universal Music Enterprises
Courtesy - CalgaryHerald.com
“My father said to me, ‘George whenever you get a chance to get out of work take it.’”
Thorogood’s easy sense of humour was definitely at work on this phone call, but he is serious about certain things.
“I always tell my associates, I never underestimate the value of a good night’s sleep. And I eat right. If you put good gas in your car it’s going to run better. If you don’t abuse the car, you are going to last longer.
“All my heavy stuff happens on the stage. It’s always been that way. I’m so tired after a show that I can’t do much more.”
Thorogood has been, in his past, a pretty fair country baseball player, so he knows how to stay fit. But when it came to a career choice, music was an easy pick.
“I saw the look in an audience’s eyes when I hit the first chords on Who Do You Love and I saw the reaction when I managed to hit a 13-hopper up the middle and there were five people watching. It was an easy thing to decide where my future was.”
That said, these days he can take baseball or leave it.
“It’s big business now. There are no characters any more. There aren’t any people like Bill Lee, there’s no room for them. I went in the clubhouse of a big league ball club a few years ago and everybody was on a cellphone.
“About 20 years before that I was in the clubhouse of the Pittsburgh Pirates and everybody was playing cards and cutting jokes and telling stories about the first time they saw Willie Mays or had a chance to play with Stan Musial; it was just a great atmosphere. Now you could hear a pin drop in the place. This ain’t baseball.”
As for hockey, which he has also played a bit, he can’t take the stoppages in play for commercials and contests.
Of course, he says, when asked a dumb question, he is playing the hits in his shows.
“Crosby, Stills and Nash went on stage, in 1974 mind you (the band was only a few years old then), and asked the crowd ‘would you like to hear something new and someone yelled out, ‘No!’”
But he says, “it won’t be the same show people saw a couple of years ago. We have made adjustments like any other business. I can’t go down every single detail, I can’t remember half that stuff.”
After 40 years, Thorogood still pays homage to his musical inspirations.
“I discovered Robert Johnson and Hank Williams almost exactly at the same time. I said then that this is the greatest music I am ever going to hear. If you are going to play the music right, these are the two artists you must get to know. These are the two roots of what it is all about. Blues and country; combine them and you have rock and roll. Anybody who argues with that is an idiot.”
George Thorogood & the Destroyers play the Jubilee Auditorium May 6.
Ticket info: ticketmaster.ca