by Benjy Eisen

In 1988, the Cowboy Junkies reached perhaps the commercial peak of their career when they released The Trinity Sessions, an album that would sell over a million copies and make them superstars of college dorm rooms. To a lot of people that’s where the journey ended, but to the Cowboy Junkies that was only the beginning. There’s no “Behind The Music” story here – the band switched record labels a couple times, but continued to put out albums, tour the world, and make music. Not only have they continued to make music, but they’ve expanded upon the signature sound that first made them famous.

The band just released album number 11, Open, on May 15 and are getting ready to embark on a summer tour that includes a stop at The Whitaker Center’s Sunoco Theater on June 25. Open is an album that delivers the same hauntingly beautiful, ambient music that has defined the Cowboy Junkies, while also showing off a heavier side. Margo Timmins still sends chills with her brooding lullaby-like vocals, but brothers Michael (guitar) and Peter (drums) Timmins, along with bassist Alan Anton, provide a sonic bedrock beneath that is both louder and more colorful than a typical Cowboy Junkies offering.

Speaking from his home on Vancouver Island in Canada’s British Columbia, Anton remarks, “A lot of people know The Trinity Sessions and they haven’t followed us since then and they come out to a show and they’re mostly surprised by the depth of the music. They didn’t really expect all the stuff that’s going on. From The Trinity Sessions you have an idea that it’s a quiet kind of thing, but we kind of rock out on our live shows.”

A lot of people have also pegged the Cowboy Junkies as a melancholic band, playing soft appeals to the depressed from rooms painted black, curtains drawn. Although that image isn’t exactly one that the Cowboy Junkies would shy away from, it’s just one image from a much larger vision. When talking about other bands, Anton references The Velvet Underground as being a vital influence early on, as well as the Beatles and Bob Dylan. “We’re all music fans first and musicians second. We’ve been listening to music since we were 10 and when we were 10 it was 1971 and the ’60s were just booming musically, so that’s the music that we were listening to at the time.”

The Cowboy Junkies have been able to take their influences and use them as a background to craft something new. In the process, they’ve managed to create a patented sound to which they might as well own the copyright. Rather than keeping up with the times, the Cowboy Junkies have transcended time altogether, creating a music that is unique enough to exist by itself, without context or generation. “When we first started the band, we didn’t write any songs. We just had the idea that we would jam and find some music, get some music together and find, in the case of the first album, old blues song lyrics [to put] on top of it. So we tried to match lyrics that fit the mood of the music, and on Trinity Sessions it was done in the same way. It was covers, in that case, country songs,” said Anton. “It was after Trinity Sessions that we realized that we do have our own sound and we pursued it from there. So it just sort of happened. We didn’t have a conscious idea that you’re going to play this way and you’re going to play this way and, then together it’s going to sound like this. It’s just the personality, the way we played our instruments that it happened to come up that way. I think it’s mostly an accident, but it’s a guided accident.”

While the Cowboy Junkies’ signature sound may have been the result of serendipity, the fact that they’ve been able to maintain a level of success and happiness is no accident. Part of their key to longevity has been a successful approach to touring. When talking about the tours, Anton continually remarks that the band is out to please themselves as well as the fans: “I would say that the number one priority for us would be to make it fun for us because when you go out on the road for as long as we go out — six or seven months — it can get pretty tired, the whole process of being out on the road and you want to really look forward to that two hours that you’re playing every night. If you don’t look forward to it then you’ve got a problem. We have to keep ourselves amused and happy first.”

One of the ways they do this is by constantly changing the setlist; they take about 40 songs on the road with them, only playing about half that amount in any given night. They write the setlist about an hour before each show, taking into consideration the vibe of the place they’re playing (“that’s very important, the environment of the venue”), and what they want to play that night, more than they do the audience’s requests. Anton is careful to point out that this isn’t out of a disregard for the audience, but rather a desire to carefully ensure that each show is fun and that the fun carries over into the audience. “If we [took requests] we’d be playing ‘Sweet Jane’ every night and ‘Common Disaster’ and all the other songs that they know that they heard on the radio or whatever and that gets tired real quick.”

Apart from changing up the setlist, another way they keep it from getting tired is by changing up the songs themselves. The solos are improvised, songs can get stretched out, and some even get rearranged altogether. This is what Anton means when he says they have to keep it interesting for themselves. Ironically, these are the same things that keep it interesting for the fans. “They’ll hear the new album live, which is always exciting for them and then we’ll bring up songs we haven’t played for a while and the fans know all our songs so they get excited when they hear stuff we haven’t done for a while.”

Nobody knows for sure what songs exactly will get played when the Cowboy Junkies bring their “guided accident” to The Whitaker Center, but one thing’s for sure – there’ll be no pyrotechnics, dance routines or outlandish props. “If you see us on stage you’re not going to see a lot,” said Anton. “You’re going to see a bunch of people playing their instruments.” In addition to the core band, you’ll see Jeff Bird, a multi-instrumentalist that frequently tours with the Junkies, along with a touring keyboard player brought on board for the tour. You’ll also see a professional light show meant to match the mood of the music, but Anton reiterates that the show is really all about the music: “What we focus on as far as presentation is the sound. We want the sound to be absolutely perfect.” Although he might like to pretend it’s a guided accident, the truth is when the Cowboy Junkies play an “absolutely perfect” show at the Whitaker Center on June 25, it’ll be no accident when the crowd leaves impressed.