LOST TOGETHER
A CONVERSATION WITH GREG KEELOR OF BLUE RODEO
Blue Rodeo is one of the most beloved bands from Canada. Their flawless blend of country, rock, and folk, beautiful vocal harmonies, and incredibly sincere songwriting have touched the hearts of countless Canadians. Recently, I chatted with Blue Rodeo member Greg Keelor about the upcoming documentary Blue Rodeo: Lost Together, and his career.
Blue Rodeo: Lost Together makes its world premiere at the Whistler Film Festival on December 6, 2024. The documentary looks deeper at the story of Blue Rodeo’s extraordinary 40 year journey. “I think the origins of it came from [director] Dale Heslip and his associates,” states Keelor. “They make documentaries for a living, and I think they just sort of felt it was time for Blue Rodeo to have their own documentary. It’s sort of flattering. I never thought that I’d have a documentary made about us . . . I’ve seen the whole thing. It’s very sweet. I quite enjoyed it.”
Keelor is very eager and excited to share the documentary with audiences. “It will be very interesting to see people’s response to it. Whistler is a very beautiful part of the country, and it’s nice to be involved in a film festival that takes you to such beautiful geography. I think that this documentary is going to be a fan favourite. I think our fans will love it, and it will be very enjoyable to get some feedback.”
Reflecting on the memories of working with Blue Rodeo, Keelor laughs, “The memories of an old touring musician are slightly obscured. For much of it, I’m just being reminded of things, and that’s highly entertaining for me. Like, ‘oh really, we did that? Oh my God, yeah, now I remember that.’”
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Being in a band like Blue Rodeo that lasts for over 40 years is a remarkable achievement. Few bands even make it to five, let alone 40. “It’s always felt a little special even from the incarnation of Jim [Cuddy] and I just singing together,” shares Keelor. “That has always been something that we both really enjoyed. I’m a little in awe of the story . . . As a songwriter, I just love stories, and being in a band like this, it’s such a great story. There’s a great drama to it all and there’s a great study just in humanity, people co-existing and living and trying to be creative, and learning how to compromise. The sort of specialness of the band has been learning life’s lessons in an artistic cooperative group. I think we all feel very lucky for the phenomenon of success because it’s such a rare thing. And 40 years, it’s sort of absurd in this business, and there aren’t too many bands that do it. I think of The Hip documentary [The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal]; that’s an amazing one because they were together for so long. And they were from high school. Like Jim and I went to high school together, we never played music together in high school, but we did go to high school together. They were in high school as a band, and they survived all that time together. So again, when you watch that doc you just see what an amazing cooperative it is. I guess part of it, surviving like that, is the affection that you have for each member and the respect that you have for each member.”
Throughout their long and highly acclaimed career, Blue Rodeo has become one of Canada’s most successful acts, becoming a household name nationwide. “Success is a strange thing,” comments Keelor. “It just sort of happens. You try to give all these reasons for it, and I don’t know if they all hold up. I think it’s just the phenomena of fate and so many successful stories seem fated. They turn left at one street rather than going right and they meet. Or they’re standing at a train station, and Mick Jagger meets Keith Richards. That moment, out of just the infinity of time and space, here on this planet, two post-war British kids meet, and all that great music and success just sort of pours out of them in their meeting. So, there’s so much in success that is ‘in that world.’ Sort of the mystery of fate and what brings you to those moments.”
Blue Rodeo has received many accolades, including winning multiple JUNO Awards, receiving a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, and being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Earlier this year, Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor added another monumental achievement to their illustrious careers as they were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Receiving this honour means something very special to Keelor as he says, “I never would have thought of myself as being in this Hall of people who I admire and idolize and been inspired by . . . Our career has brought us all these nice things because we were lucky enough to write these songs, and they have meant a lot to a lot of people. Like we’ve become part of the fabric of a lot of lives . . . I’m an older man now, so I’m a little more sentimental. I’m getting near the end of the game. So, to get something like that with all these legends, there’s so many legends in there, and people who, just by the pure artistry of their lives, had inspired me and given me sort of a map. To have Sarah McLachlan sing ‘Dark Angel’ just blew my mind . . . It can be overwhelming if I actually sit down and think about it. So, I try not to think about it.”
As a songwriter, Keelor finds that he has grown a lot in confidence since he first started out, explaining, “I guess you have more faith in the outcome of what you do. Like I’ve always had a bit of an imposter syndrome, and sometimes, when I would sit down and start writing songs, I would just feel like, ‘ah, I can’t do this. I’m no good. That last song I wrote, that’s probably the last song I’m gonna write.’ And I’d have to get over all these insecurities and voices in my head that were telling me, ‘you can’t do this. You’re not doing this.’ I still have some moments of that.”
Something interesting about Blue Rodeo that some might not know is that the band actually appeared in the film Postcards from the Edge. “Meryl Streep was doing this movie, I forget the name of it, and her chauffeur, the guy who drove her to work every day, liked Blue Rodeo,” explains Keelor. “So, he played our music, and when Mike Nichols approached her about this movie he wanted to do, and she had to sing a song in the movie, she says, ‘you know, I like Blue Rodeo these days.’ So, we get this phone call. Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols want to come up and audition us to be in this movie. It was sort of surreal. So, we went to the Diamond Club in Toronto, which is now the Phoenix. We went to the Diamond Club, and we sat and played the song with Meryl Streep for an hour, and we got hired. We went down to Hollywood for a week. It was like Gene Hackman, Shirley MacLaine, Mike Nichols, and Meryl Streep; it was just an incredible group of people hanging out there. And yeah, we did the movie, and we played the wrap party. It was our great Hollywood moment.”
Along with Blue Rodeo: Lost Together, Blue Rodeo has lots of exciting upcoming news for fans. “We’ve got sort of a 40 year greatest hits thing coming out,” states Keelor. “Then we’re gonna have another thing; a collection of songs that aren’t heard that often. And then we’ll probably put out a new record. Who knows? It might be the last.”
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Photo Credit: Dustin Rabin
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