♪ >> Welcome to Canada Files .

I'm Valerie Pringle.

My guest today is Randy Bachman.

A legendary guitarist and rock-and-roller.

He formed a band, The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Had billboard #1 hits with both of them which is a rare feat.

Randy hosted a radio show called Vinyl Tap for 16 years which then inspired two books.

He's beginning his 7th decade of touring, these days with his son,Tal.

>> Randy Bachman!

>> Hi.

>> Hey!

I get the feeling that you just can't stop.

Having too much fun.

You're going to tour, die with a guitar in your hand.

>> Yup.

It's what I do.

It's what I wanted to go growing up in Winnipeg.

That's all I wanted.

I started playing music when I was five.

>> You were a prodigy, really.

>> Apparently I was-- starting violin at five.

Then at 12 -15, asked to join the Winnipeg Junior Symphony and all this stuff.

That was kinda okay.

>> That was kinda of okay.

>> Well, it was but when you're 10, 11, 12 you want to do things like other guys.

Your teachers say you can't do that.

Take care of your fingers.

You can't play baseball, etc.

Because if you stub your fingers you can't play the violin.

Then I saw Elvis on tv and that was it.

What's that.

It's rock and roll and it's named Elvis.

What's that name?

Elvis!

You never heard that in Winnipeg.

Elvis Presley.

I couldn't even remember the name.

But it was the music that bam-hit me.

It was the guitar player, Scottie Moore.

I stopped playing violin immediately.

>> It seemed to me you picked up guitar and from all the stories you've told your brother you couldn't put it down--night and day, light and dark, 24/7.

>> Elvis awoke this hunger in me had been there for a long time.

It was something brand new and rebellious.

Because I was a little goody two-shoes.

I couldn't play baseball or hockey because of affecting my fingers and stuff.

I had to get up every morning and practice violin for half an hour before and after school.

So I had this discipline of practicing, at the ages of 5 - 10 before you could go outside and play.

So I had that in me.

It was kinda forced on me.

Because my parents are poor Winnipeg growing up people.

The $3.00 a week, whatever they paid for my lesson was a big deal!

So I did all the practicing but by the time I hit 14-15, I'd hit my tipping point.

Done my 10,000 hours of knowing music.

The great thing about violin is all you played is melody.

So I'd get a guitar and I figured out later, I wasn't reading music playing violin.

I was just--my teacher would play it first.

Here's Tchaikovsky, Chopin and she'd play it.

I'd play it and she'd go, "Wow!"

I was playing by ear.

So when I'd start to hear music on the radio, I just found the notes on the guitar.

I became a lead guitar right away because that's what you play on violin.

Then at 15, I was lucky enough to meet a guy, Lenny Breau.

He was 16, had just moved to Winnipeg, had no friends.

I became his friend.

I flunked grade 10 and 11.

I spent 2 years with him every afternoon.

I learned a vocabulary on guitar that I'm still dipping into for the rest of my life.

>> The magic seemed to happen for you.

Because you started and played in bands.

But when you got together with Burton Cummings and Guess Who, just took off.

So that was sort of a perfect combination with hits like, "This Eyes", was the first one.

Tell me the origin story for "American Woman".

This is one of your great stories.

>> We had been touring the States.

When you have one hit in the States, all they want to hear is one hit.

So you try to play something else like that.

You end up playing 15-20 minutes and you start the set maybe "Shakin' All Over" .

'Cause that was our old first hit, then "These Eyes".

and that's all you got to play.

This was in the late '60s so every time you go into the US, you've got a green card, they want to draft you.

Vietnam is going on.

We're going to a town to play-- there's nobody between 18 to 35, our age and there's no men there.

Women are coming and looking at us.

We're 18, 20 year-old guys.

We're a rarity in these towns.

We had a gig in Canada, in Kitchener-Waterloo.

A bonspiel, a curling rink.

I break a string.

I had no roadie, no tech, no spare guitar.

So Burton Cummings said we're going to take a break while Randy changes his string.

I had no tuner, nothing.

I get on my knees in front of this piano.

The lights are dark on stage.

I'm kneeling in front of this electric piano.

I'm putting the string on my guitar.

On my knees, going bauum-baum tuning my guitar to the piano.

doon, doon, doon, doon...

I start to play that riff.

The audience is talking amongst themselves.

Their heads snapped and they look at the stage.

I go, "Oh my gawd.

I can't forget this riff!"

I can't stop playing it so I stood up and go like this.

The drummer and Jim Kale, the bass player, comes on stage.

Burton is way up in the back of the hall.

When we would take a break, as a band, we knew the next song that we're going to start our next set.

We'd start to play and that would be a call for everybody to come instead of hey we're starting another set.

We start to play this song and Burton doesn't recognize it.

Because he's never heard it before.

Somebody says, "Why aren't you on stage with the band?"

He looks and we're playing.

He runs on stage, "That's a great riff!

What is it?"

I said, "Sing anything so I can remember this riff."

He sang, "American woman, stay away from me."

Because all these American women were kind of grabbing at him and us as a band.

It became the next...

It happened on stage, a magical thing.

>> Of course, it was total magic!

>> Then he said the next night, let's do it again.

I had to try to remember the riff.

He said, "I want to put in something like-- I don't want your war machine.

I don't want your ghetto scene."

I said great!

Fabulous.

We always wanted to write a one-chord song.

Like "Whole Lotta Love" or "Hey!

Bo Diddley".

Our songs were copying Brian Wilson, Baccarach, David, The Beatles.

Who had zillions of chords in the song.

So this was our one-chord song.

We had no idea.

It went to No.1 in the world.

Then you had Cash Box , Billboard and Record World .

No.

1 in all three trades.

It got #1 before radio realized it was kind of an anti-war song by Canadians saying we don't want your war machine thing.

Because we were on such a roll having "These Eyes", "Laughing", "She's Come Undone", "No Time".

"No Sugar Tonight" was the double A side of American Woman .

So both songs were listed as No.

1 at that time.

It was an amazing time for us.

We were making $750 a night.

Suddenly our price jumped to $10,000 a night and I had to leave the band.

>> Why did you leave the band?

You didn't drink, do drugs or smoke.

So there was a conflict.

>> Why I left is right there.

It's called your gall bladder.

I was having a gall bladder attack every night.

Didn't know what it was!

If you've ever had a kidney or gallstone, or given birth to a child.

Because my daughters had both.

They said they're all just as bad.

Gall bladder attack is just unbelievable.

Like the knife turning here in the middle of your stomach.

And you're on the road.

My road manager would take me to the hospital.

They say we got to keep this guy overnight.

Give him something to drink, take an X-ray.

We've got to drive the next morning to the next town.

We got another gig... another gig.

Finally we had 4 or 5 days off.

I said to the band I've got to go home.

I've got to go back to Winnipeg to my doctor and see what's wrong with me.

I don't know what's wrong.

It's terrible.

So I went home and he said you've got gallstones and need a gallstone operation.

Don't eat this or that.

You can have sugar-free jello, saltine crackers, skim milk and lettuce.

I had to eat that for two months waiting for my operation.

>> But if you were sick, why couldn't you go back?

Why the split with Guess Who?

>> We were tens of thousands of dollars in the hole.

I needed an indefinite amount of time off.

Because when they put you on this diet, you're not an emergency anymore.

They schedule your operation for 6-7 months away.

So you've got to stay at home and not eat the foods you've been eating like greasy cheeseburgers and stuff.

The band was in the hole.

Suddenly they started making $10-12,000 a night.

I...wasn't into that lifestyle going to that music.

They were into the new lifestyle of the late 60s.

>> The band was into a rock&roll life but you were not.

>> A Mormon.

Had kids.

>> Yeah.

I was married at the time.

>> My son, Tal,was born.

My wife was expecting the next child.

It gets to the point that your kids don't know who you are.

>> So that was a bit of hard time after Guess Who.

>> Some famous guy said somewhere, "The centre cannot hold, things fall apart."

I don't know who said it.

Socrates or somebody.

Life, love and drugs gets in the way.

Things get in the way and it's inevitable.

You can't change what's going on.

>> But you reformed-- just to move the story.

Bachman Turner Overdrive.

You re-formed another band.

Then... >> It's called franchising.

Have you seen Dragon's Den ?

Franchise!

This worked.

I'm going to do it again.

>> With more huge success.

>> I was very lucky.

After a year at home and that issue was taken care of.

I'm at home doing nothing.

I would find my body would rev up every night 8 or 9 o'clock.

Like if you know a football or hockey player, every Sunday night at 4 o'clock --boom, they're ready to play in the Friday night football or Saturday Hockey Night in Canada.

Your body kicks in.

My wife said, "Look, whatever you got to do, start another band.

You're driving me nuts.

You're up at 2 in the morning, playing records downstairs.

You're playing guitar to records.

Go play with a band."

So I started another band and it took awhile to get going.

We had to do 300 gigs a year on the road for 3 years in a row.

That took its toll on my marriage.

I was determined to make it again.

Then the same thing happened!

You played the same songs in the beginning.

Nobody gives splssst about it.

Two years later, you've got three albums in the top 50.

One's No.

1.

One's 18, 48.

Your single's No.

1.

There's two other singles on the charts.

You go, what happened?

We're playing the same songs.

>> Something works.

>> There's just a turnover of who likes what.

Radio giving you airplay.

You build up a momentum.

Then you had to have that.

There was no MTV , MuchMusic or anything.

There was no videos.

It was you've got to go here and there.

And hope they remember you and put out another record or they're going to forget you.

We were supposed to put out an album every two years.

We put out three albums in the first 1.5 years!

Suddenly they were all in the charts selling millions of copies.

>> The best BTO songs were... "Takin' Care of Business"?

>> Probably.

>> Did the pizza delivery guy really play on that recording?

>> That's a long story.

>> Can you make it short?

>> I started to write the song in '67 to copy "Paperback Writer".

It was called "White Collar Worker".

Fast forward 5-6 years, I'm in BTO.

We're playing in North Vancouver, crossing the bridge.

Daryl Burlingham--you probably knew him from Music here.

Daryl B from CHUM and Vancouver CKLG radio.

He's on the radio as I'm crossing the bridge to go to North Vancouver.

We're playing 6 nights in a club.

Daryl B and CFUN radio, we're taking care of business.

I went oh, what a song title!

Taking care of business.

That's amazing.

We did it live on stage.

It was the same feeling as years before doing "American Woman".

You're open and channeling this thing.

The angels of song are shooting ideas at you.

You go thank you!

This is amazing!

You're kind of open for where the song's going.

The song was a hit that night.

We recorded it 2 weeks later.

While we were listening to the playback, a guy knocked on the door.

He had pizzas.

We had been in the studio at that point for 14 hours.

Down the hall, Steve Miller is in B.

War is in Studio C. They probably ordered pizza.

We're going down to sleep.

He came back 5 minutes later and said I got rid of the pizza.

He's standing there and I said, "Yes?"

He said, "I've been listening to the song for 10 minutes outside the door.

It sounds like it could use a piano.

I said we're just guitar, bass and drums.

I might get Little Richard and Elton John to play on it later.

He said, "I'm a piano player.

Can I have a shot?"

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "I don't deliver pizza unless it's the end of month and I can't pay my rent.

That's why I'm here."

I said, "Okay, we'll give you a shot."

We put a mike--he played the piano one track & he went home.

Actually delivering pizza and we went back to our hotel.

The next day, the head of our label flew in.

When he came in and heard the album, I said to the engineer, "Don't play the piano track.

Leave it off" We hadn't even heard it back.

The guy played it and we left.

Halfway through the song, the engineer pushes up the volume control of the piano.

The head of our label, Charlie, says, "What is that?"

"BTO with the piano-- that's magic!"

"Elton John owns a lot of real estate on AM/FM radio."

"He's all over the airwaves."

"You guys having piano will get you some of Elton's real estate on Top 40 radio."

"That's what we want."

If you think you're doing fine now with album music on FM, wait 'til you get Top 40 music.

You're going to double your income and audience, etc.

He put the song out with that guy playing piano.

That was a break for him because he became Bette Midler's musical director on her first N. American tour.

When I was lucky enough to play with Ringo Starr All-Starr band in '95, the tour ended in LA.

At the Greek Theatre, where the LA Philharmonic rehearsed.

Their pianist was Norman Jerkey the same guy.

I got to see him again so that's the story of the pizza guy.

>> You've had Billboard #1 songs with two bands, which is rare.

How do you explain that--your incredible charm and talent?

>> I don't know.

Because if I knew, I'd do it again.

I've been trying since then.

>> There's that famous Leonard Cohen line, "If I knew where the hits came from, I'd go there more often."

>> I watched Hallelujah on the plane coming here.

It's a great song and I have a similar story.

Here's what my son said.

A documentary is being done now.

Me getting my Gretsch guitar back after 47 years being stolen from the Holiday Inn in Don Valley near Phase 1 Studio.

He said this guitar was magic for you.

It was quite an amazing thing.

To get the guitar back was like somebody knocking on your door and saying, "Remember your little dog named Tippy that got run over by a truck when you were 10 and broke your heart?"

I've got Tippy's grandson--I've had some litters.

Here's Skippy You go, "Wow, this is just like Tippy!"

I got my guitar back after that period of time.

>> How long was your guitar missing?

>> 47 years.

>> Then what happened?

>> Because of the COVID shutdown, we couldn't do gigs.

My son, Tal, and his partner, Koko, lived in Vancouver.

She got shut down.

She had a beauty salon-- hair and makeup for a movie.

She said, "We're shut down.

We've got 3 sound & camera men.

Why don't you and Tal do a YouTube?"

"Don't know when you'll do a gig again."

"We're still being paid."

This is two weeks into COVID.

We didn't know it was going to be years.

We started to do that.

On one of the live YouTube-- we did this every Friday called Bachman Bachman, The Train Wreck because it was.

Down the side of the screen is a black column saying, "nice pants, bad hair day, wrong key for the song."

One of them said, "Found your Gretsch."

I said to Tal, "Call this guy".

The guy lived in White Rock.

We were in Victoria.

We used to live in White Rock.

We called this guy, William Long.

He showed a video of a guy named Takeshi singing "Jingle Bell Rock" in a nightclub.

He doesn't know any English, sings phonetically.

He's like a Japanese Brian Setzer.

Sings rockabilly with my Gretsch rockabilly guitar.

I look and it's my guitar.

Because Tal's partner, Koko, is Japanese, she contacts the Japanese guy to set up a Zoom.

He shows me my guitar.

I'm in tears because he's got Tippy.

My little dog that's been run over--his grandson, my guitar.

He says I'm an honorable man.

I had this guitar for 4 years.

It spoke to me in music store.

Said I'll help you write music.

So I bought the guitar.

I've written many hit songs with this for the people who win Japanese Idol, Japan's Got Talent .

This guitar is magic and I'll give it back to you.

I go, "Wow!

I'll give you a brand-new Gretsch."

He said, "I don't want a brand new Gretsch.

I want his twin."

You want a 1957 Gretsch with black DeArmond pickups that hasn't been modified or repaired?

Yes.

Okay.

We get off the Zoom.

I make one phone call to my friend in Loveland, Ohio.

Gary's Rare Vintage Guitars.

He's got three of them.

We do another Zoom and say we've got the twin sister.

We're guitar brothers-- we can't even talk to each other unless Koko is there to translate.

I'm going to bring the twin sister and we're going to trade.

I said I would send it.

He said, "No, I'm not going to put this on a airplane."

"You must come to Japan."

I gave him the hug and the twin guitar and got the twin back.

I put it on.

The guitar felt my heart beat and me breathing.

I put my arms around it to play and it was amazing.

We played "Takin' Care of Business" which was fantastic!

>> Wow.

>> I got it back.

>> You're a guitar hoarder, yes?

How many guitars do you have?

>> How many shoes or purses do you have?

<< Not as many as guitars you have.

>> I always say that to a woman when she says how many-- how many pairs of shows you got?

Because of this lost Gretsch, I collected Gretschs.

Every one that came.

I had 350 of them.

I sold them to Fred Gretsch, Now the Gretsch museum in Savannah, Georgia I talked to Fred last week.

He's thrilled.

Everybody going, as a destination to Savannah, GE the Gretsch Randy Bachman Museum.

So that was a fantastic thing for me.

>> Think about the choices you made.

What were the right ones?

>> Who knows.

If I had taken care of my medical thing, and went back to the Guess Who, and everything was lovey-dovey kumbaya, there never would have been a BTO.

I might have never written "Takin Care of Business".

Which is my party song.

And "You Ain't See Nothing Yet".

Which everybody knows around the world.

That might have never happened.

We got invited to Woodstock and didn't go.

We had just done the Seattle Pop Festival a month before which is three days of glorious sunshine with the same bands.

Nobody filmed it because it was perfect pop festival.

They filmed Woodstock because it was a disaster.

It had been raining for four days.

Wasn't enough toilets or water.

Everybody was coming there.

I looked at the news and said I don't want to go.

Joni Mitchell didn't go-- she stayed in her NY hotel room.

Neil Young and the guys went out at the beginning as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young-- it was their first gig.

There's a lot of crossroads that you come to that you don't go here.

But if we had gone to Woodstock, we wouldn't have gone to Chicago and recorded "American Woman".

Because we recorded it right after we wrote it.

All these things, I look back and go what if we had gone to Woodstock.

We wouldn't have had American Woman.

We would have been famous because The Who were and everybody else.

It would have been a different kind of famous--I don't know.

>> What do you think your greatest talent is?

>> I think a work ethic.

Every time I came to a crossroads, or an opportunity to slow down and people said you were in a band that hit No.1 as a single and it's time to pack it in.

I say screw that.

I'm not.

I'm starting another band.

So we do another band and it happens.

Then I turned 60 and someone says time to retire.

I say no way and get a radio show at CBC that runs for 15 years.

I'm not stopping.

The rock is keeping on rolling.

Even now, I'm doing a tour with my son, Tal.

Koko is on drums.

She's an incredible drummer.

We're doing a Bachman Bachman living room tour.

We're doing some train wrecks.

People can send requests.

We don't know what they're going to send.

Try to play and sing them.

We'll do some of our hits.

Some of our new Bachman Bachman album we wrote during COVID.

All kinds of songs about the world, where we're going and what happened to us.

How we all lost loved ones.

How we...nobody had any control in the last 2 - 3 years.

Where you worshipped, ate or went.

You can't visit your parents who are sick because you can't go near them.

We see this happening because we travel all over the world.

So the music reflects a lot of that.

Some of the best music I've ever written because it's from inside and things I was experiencing and directly writing about that.

>> Does it rankle you that you're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

>> No.

I gave up on that long ago.

I had this discussion yesterday with Larry LeBlanc, who is a Canadian stalwart.

He's been our press agent since 1964-5.

He and I were chatting yesterday.

He said, "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is still chosen by Jann Wenner."

The guy who owned and started Rolling Stone Magazine .

He never liked BTO or Guess Who.

>> But The Simpsons loved BTO.

>> Yes >> I think because BTO was on an episode of The Simpsons is-- >> That was legendary for me.

The Simpsons were so real at that time.

They were like the Archie Bunker cartoon.

He was the grumpy Archie Bunker.

When I went to do the show, they wouldn't let me be in the room with the other voices.

You will be in awe when Yeardley Smith does your voice and the other guy is doing the other voice.

We've got to do you alone.

Then you can see them later.

You got to go out and say, "Hello Cleveland, Springfield!"

No, that's for two people.

Now do it for 20, 2,000 people.

Hello Springfield.

When you do that, they film you.

Then they cartoon you for the cartoon.

They actually get you doing it.

>> Who needs the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when you've been on The Simpsons .

>> I'm in the Canadian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.

The Junos and the Walk of Indy because of the Guess Who & BTO.

I'm very grateful for that.

>> The question that we end these interviews with is, what does being Canadian mean to you?

>> It kinda means everything.

The Guess Who were blatantly called the beaver patrol , which has many meanings.

We had the red maple leaf.

BTO--our big gear, the middle has BTO & a Canadian maple leaf.

It set us apart from everybody else.

When we left Winnipeg on one of our trips, Steve Juba, a nice Ukrainian guy was the mayor.

He gave us little maple leafs to wear on our lapels.

We were going to England.

Wherever you're going in the world, tell them you're Canadian England, Germany.

Tell them you're Canadian.

When you go home and your mother's doing your laundry, you're eating her cookies and mowing your own lawn, taking out the garbage, it's wonderful to go home.

Be a normal guy.

Because when you're on the road, you're a machine.

No matter what happens, you've got to get out there at night.

With a sore leg or back, the flu or a cold, and do 100% because someone's paid $2.00 or $200.00 to see a perfect rendition.

Or hear their songs like they're in the memory.

When that is done, you go home and fall apart-- do normal things.

It's great to be a home guy, have a home to go to.

The home being Canada, Winnipeg or Manitoba or West Kildonan where we grew up.

Wherever the family is, you realize that's where home is.

>> Life is sweet.

>> Yeah, thank you.

>> Randy, thank you so much.

>> It's been great.

>> Great to see you.

>> See you in a year, okay?

>> I'll have a No.1 in a year.

I'll be back.

Rotten Tomatoes#1.

>> We'll be back no matter what.

>> Okay.

Thank you so much for watching Canada Files .

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