THIRTY YEARS OF GOING PLACES WITH TAVERNS AND PALACES
AN IN-DEPTH CONVERSATION WITH RON HAWKINS OF LOWEST OF THE LOW: PART ONE
Itโs been 30 years since the release of the epic 17-song masterpiece Shakespeare My Buttโฆ, the debut album from Torontoโs beloved Lowest Of The Low. The current iteration of โThe Lowโ consisting of Ron Hawkins, David Alexander, Lawrence Nichols, Michael McKenzie and Greg Smith, is ready to commemorate the anniversary of this fabled recording on December 10, with the live album release of Taverns and Palaces. Recorded in 2019 at two Toronto musical landmarks, The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern and Leeโs Palace, this double-live album consists of 22 tracks, eleven recorded at each venue. Lead-singer and a founding member, Ron Hawkins, took time from his busy schedule, preparing for upcoming concerts in Buffalo, NY and in Toronto, Ontario, to talk to Spill Magazine about Taverns and Places.
The first Lowest Of The Low full-length live album was the 2001 release Nothing Short Of A Bullet, recorded during the bandโs 2000 reunion tour. Taverns and Palaces, which consists mostly of newer material since 2001, blended with some older favourites, perhaps helps to bridge the gap for any listeners not familiar with the newer material from Lowest Of The Low, recorded since this initial live album. Taverns and Palaces is the second release through Warner Music Canada along with Yes Boy Records, the first being the impressive 2019 AGITPOP, produced by Grammy-winner David Bottrill.
โThereโs some stuff off AGITPOP because weโre coming off that record and the newest thing is usually one of my faves. I think โNew Wave Action Planโ is one of my faves, โNight Of A Thousand Gunsโ as well. I get on Facebook and I challenge people, Iโm like โAGITPOP is the Lowest Of The Lowโs best album, fight meโ, because I feel so good about it. Itโs an awesome sort of bookend with Shakespeare. Iโm so close to Shakespeare My Buttโฆ, we played it for so long and itโs such a part of our myth that itโs hard, I feel like every other record doesnโt stand a chance, a fair fight, you know? But for me, AGITPOP is as close as we will probably get to making something that I think is as special as that record for people. I think we knocked it out of the park on AGITPOPโ.
Taverns and Palaces takes a few diversions from some the studio versions of the bandโs songs. Included in the 22 tracks are two covers and a few other pleasant additions to some Lowest Of The Low classics. Also appearing on two covers on the album is Skye Wallace, lead of The Skye Wallace Band, who opened for the Lowest Of The Low on their 2019 tour, in support of AGITPOP. The Legitimizers, a horn section that appears on AGITPOP and plays with the band at some live shows, also contributes on a handful of songs. Ultimately, these additions really inject a great bluesy soul vibe into the recording.
โโEternal Fatalistโ has a big diversion in the middle, which we often do that live, to take some songs and kind of take a little spontaneous step. Sometimes itโs just me throwing some spontaneous cover that I start singing and the band just kind of goes โOk, this is where weโre going (laughs). Weโve got โBankrobberโ dub, which is from a (The) Clash song that we throw into the middle of โEternal Fatalistโ. That got recorded, which is great. Thereโs also a couple of covers on there, thereโs a Paul Weller cover from The Style Council (โWalls Come Tumbling Downโ), thereโs a Portugal, The Man cover (โFeel It Stillโ). There was such a great opportunity for our horn section that we use off and on called The Legitimizers, and I always joke that theyโre called The Legitimizers because no matter what we do, if theyโre playing behind us, it sounds legitimate.โ
โโBitโ was a song that I wrote when we recorded Hallucigenia, so like โ93-โ94, and it was probably around when were were going to make Hallucigenia, but I could never finish it. I had thirty seconds or something, and I had always intended to make it a full song, and maybe write another chorus, and turn it into a song, but it never came to me. Dave said to me โMaybe thatโs what it is, maybe itโs just a little bitโ. So we called it โBitโ. It actually wound up on a single, when Hallucigenia came out, a B-side on a single. We decided to wire those two songs together (with โLetter From Bilbaoโ). There seemed to be a nice flow there.โ
Leeโs Palace and The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern are two Toronto music destinations. Great smaller venues that have hosted live music for over one-hundred combined years. Lowest Of The Low have played these concert spots and toured extensively across Canada over their career, preferring the warm closeness of these smaller venues over the larger, less intimate settings.
โWe used to do a lot of shows in Vancouver at a place called The Town Pump. It no longer exists, but man. Some of these things are just hard-wired to the romance of our rise when our band was starting out and was taking off. We would play these places. Thereโs a handful in Toronto, Sneaky Deeโs, Clintonโs and there used to be a place up on Bloor Street called The Blue Moon Saloon, which was just a tiny place, but we would play in the corner and they were crazy shows, people standing on chairs and dancing on the bar. Barrymoreโs in Ottawa. We used to play Amigoโs in Saskatoon. So many great venues.โ
โThereโs a certain limit, and I feel that Leeโs Palace is the biggest stage that we feel that we can do our thing the way we want to do it. Massey Hall was a thrill, and itโs a great hallowed hall. It just doesnโt feel the same as all the clubs we came up in. Much to our agentโs chagrin, we would always choose staying in a town and doing all these nights at a smaller club rather than do the bigger venue and get out of there. They were like, โItโs not really efficient.โ. We got to choose some things, we worked really hard to get here to choose how to do it.โ
Thatโs the Lowest Of The Low in a nutshell, doing things how they want to. Theyโve never been a corporate sellout or conducted themselves to suggest that itโs not all about the music. Thereโs something inherently special about this mandate of the Lowest Of The Low. After more than thirty years, are there another thirty years of giving their all to give the gift of their music? Another 30 years of playing live music and entertaining could very well be in the cards.
โLawrence and I are always saying the minute that we feel that the audience isnโt getting the Lowest Of The Low experience is the minute weโll stop doing it, because, we donโt want to be those guys that are just carting out the old tunes and cramming the jukebox down your throat and just phoning it in. We would never want to do that and I donโt think weโve don’t that in a single gig yet in our entire career. Steve (former member Stephen Stanley) was a very important part of our band and that chemistry between me and Steve on stage was very important to the band and to a lot of people. I donโt tamper with that shit. I one-hundred-percent understand the magic and that mojo and the witchcraft, whatever it is. But I think we have a new sort of mojo that works as well for those people who want to come with us.โ
โWe often got in trouble all of our career, we got in trouble for falling on the wrong side of the music industry because we made decisions that were right for us but maybe werenโt the smartest business plan from a record labelโs point of view. At my age now, Iโm so glad that we stuck to our guns because we have a story that is our story. We didnโt compromise on things we didnโt want to compromise on. It mightโve meant more records, it mightโve meant more money, but Iโm quite happy with how things panned out. If we feel like weโre giving people the show they came to see then weโll probably keep doing it as long as we can do it. The minute it feels like we arenโt doing that, and granted, people arenโt generally good at gauging that themselves, maybe people will have to tell us.โ
Stay tuned for Part 2 of our interview with Ron Hawkins of the Lowest Of The Low.