SPILL FEATURE: 30 YEARS OF HEMI-VISION – A CONVERSATION WITH GORDIE JOHNSON OF BIG SUGAR

30 YEARS OF HEMI-VISION

A CONVERSATION WITH GORDIE JOHNSON OF BIG SUGAR

Big Sugar’s 1996 album Hemi-Vision is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The band has been playing shows across Canada to celebrate the occasion. The two-set performance sees them playing the classic album in its entirety for the first time ever. After watching Big Sugar’s show at The Palace Theatre in Calgary on February 1st, I chatted with frontman Gordie Johnson over Zoom about the tour, 30 years of Hemi-Vision, and some exciting upcoming news.

“It’s interesting to come back to it this many years after and look at the entire song list and do the entire record,” Johnson says. “We didn’t do that the first time when we were on the Hemi-Vision tour because we already had a few other records, so we were playing other songs as well. We never played the entire album.”

Initially, Big Sugar had no plans for a 30th-anniversary tour of Hemi-Vision. “We were out celebrating another old record called Five Hundred Pounds as our friend Jack White asked us if Third Man Records could put it out on vinyl, even though it’s a 30-yr-old record, and we were like, ‘Yeah! Of course you can.’” Johnson recalls. “We released a 25th-anniversary Hemi-Vision vinyl, but that was during COVID, so people were ordering it online and buying it by mail order, but we didn’t have the opportunity to really go out and celebrate that record at all. We were out on the Five Hundred Pounds tour, and we did a show with Gov’t Mule in Buffalo, NY, and we always would play together during the night, and I said to Warren [Haynes] ‘Well, what do you want to hear Big Sugar play tonight?’ He said, ‘Play some more of that Hemi-Vision stuff.’” Big Sugar ended up playing an entire set of Hemi-Vision, and the crowd was blown away. “WOW!! I mean, the crowd response was crazy, and the online response too. People were going, ‘We want a Hemi-Vision show. Can we have one too?’ My agent asked ‘If we get requests for Hemi-Vision shows, will you do Hemi-Vision shows. I said ‘Sure. Why not?’ The next thing you know, I am out here for a month doing Hemi-Vision every night.”

Songs from Hemi-Vision. such as “Diggin’ A Hole” and “If I Had My Way,” which are two of Big Sugar’s most iconic songs, have been played countless times on tour. “There are always songs from Hemi-Vision that you have to play,” Johnson states. Meanwhile, some songs rarely or never get played live. The 30th anniversary Hemi-Vision tour gave Big Sugar the opportunity to play these tunes. “I don’t remember ever playing ‘Rolling Pin’ live. I could be wrong. Maybe there is somebody that could prove it was on a setlist, but I don’t recall ever playing it.”

While reflecting on the recording of the album, Johnson shares how the bassline of “Diggin’ A Hole” was created. “Something everyone probably doesn’t know is that I play the bass on ‘Diggin’ A Hole,’” Johnson says. “Garry Lowe and I used to just hand the bass back and forth, no ego, no nothing. Whoever had the best touch for a song was the guy who played it. Sometimes I would play a part of a song, and then Garry would play the other part. You can’t really tell when you listen back because we both had the same approach to bass playing.” The recording of “Diggin’ A Hole” was sitting around with no bass for a while, as Big Sugar was never satisfied with whatever they would come up with. “We needed a bass part, so one day I just picked up the bass, plugged it into the harmonica amp of all things because it was already mic’d up, pressed record, and tried something out. That ends up being the bass part on ‘Diggin’ A Hole.’”

Alternatively, the vocals and harmonica for “Diggin’ A Hole” were done in one take altogether. “Kelly Hoppe, our harmonica guy, wasn’t around for the tracking of the bed tracks, and he was like, ‘I know what I’m supposed to play, but I don’t really know where and how am I gonna know where to play,’” Johnson recalls. “He had his harmonica mic, and I was like, ‘We’ll sit out here, and I’ll just sing, and I’ll show you where the parts you will sing and then the parts where you play.’ We did that just as a guide. We only did it once, and we went, ‘That sounds good. I think that’s finished.’” There was lots of pressure to get rid of the harmonica and change the vocals. “Bands didn’t have a distorted vocal on records. That became a thing later in the ‘90s. I’m not gonna say we invented it, but you didn’t really hear that on people’s records ever. We just did that because sometimes you would hear that on old blues record from the ‘50s and ‘60s. We weren’t trying to be like Trent Reznor or something, but the record company was very concerned, ‘Can we get a version that doesn’t have a harmonica on it,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, it also won’t have a vocal on it then because they are on the same track.’ They’re like ‘OK. Can we get one with a clean vocal?’ I’m like, ‘No, we can’t, because there isn’t one, and I’m not gonna do one.’”

The double neck guitar you see Johnson playing in the music video for “Diggin’ A Hole” was also featured in another classic Canadian album. “The double neck guitar that is on Hemi-Vision was given to me by Alex Lifeson of Rush, and it’s the same guitar that is on A Farewell To Kings,” Johnson smiles. “That’s pretty cool, isn’t it.”

A trademark of Big Sugar’s sound is the use of the harmonica, with several of the tracks from Hemi-Vision utilizing the instrument. “Here’s a secret: I hate the harmonica,” Johnson laughs. “Harmonica guys, they fail to just stop blowing. Take it out of your mouth once in a while; that would be a start. Not a fan of harmonica. Now I love some great harmonica music, but we’re talking about the masters of the craft like Little Walter, Sunny Boy Williamson, and Junior Wells. I just loved the dude who played the harmonica. Kelly Hoppe was my best homie back in Windsor, Ontario. He had given me a lot of encouragement to play the guitar and get into the blues. He made me my first blues cassette tape to listen to. When I had the chance to get him in the band, I was just stoked to have him in the band. He’s like ‘What will I do in the band?’ I’m like, ‘Whatever you want. You can play harmonica, the saxophone, the acoustic guitar, sing along, or you can just dance if you want to.’ I didn’t care what he did. I just wanted to have that dude around. It was never a conscious decision like, ‘You know what would be awesome is some blues harmonica.’ That is never my answer to anything, and yet some of my best friends play the blues harmonica, so they must be really good for me to like them.”

Johnson collaborated with multiple songwriters for Hemi-Vision. He co-wrote songs with Andy Curran, Andrew Whiteman, Dan Gallagher, Kelly Hoppe, and Patrick Ballantyne. “I just wrote with people because I liked their work, and we had a good conversation going on about how to write songs,” Johnson shares. “Believe me, the record company at every turn was always trying to get me to sit in a room with somebody to write hit songs for my records. I’m like, ‘Led Zeppelin never did that. Jimi Hendrix didn’t do that. You guys are thinking of somebody else. The bands that I listened to didn’t do that.’”

Big Sugar has some big plans upcoming. The band has been working hard on a new album for quite some time. “It has been barrel-aged and fermented,” Johnson says. “Some of these songs are 10 years old, and some of them are more recent. It’s a record where sort of all the songs fit together. It is one piece of a larger storyline that runs through the whole thing. It’s a little bit of a prog record in a way, not strictly because there is also a lot of reggae in it. With just a three-piece band, the guitars are exposed, and it’s a lot more guitar playing on the record as opposed to the guitar fitting into an ensemble.”

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