Dave Bidini, co-founder of Canadian band Rheostatics, in his home garage in Toronto’s west end on Sept. 17, 2025.JALANI MORGAN/The Globe and Mail
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The author and Rheostatics singer-guitarist Dave Bidini shared stubbies with Stompin’ Tom, wrote a book on Gordon Lightfoot, played shinny with Gord Downie and recorded a Rheostatics album inspired by the Group of Seven.
Sitting with Bidini in his garage on a brilliant early fall afternoon, the true-north paraphernalia around us is astonishing. A rescued seat from the greens in Maple Leaf Gardens sits in one corner; a Lightfoot hockey jersey hangs in another. A life-sized poster of former Blue Jays catcher Ernie Whitt is a presence. In the middle of it all is a pile of snow tires.
If Ottawa is the capital of Canada, this hoser’s paradise is the capital of Canadiana.
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Over cans of craft beer, we talked about the forthcoming new Rheostatics album, The Great Lakes Suite, an artsy double-album affair of songs, spoken-word passages and improvised rock that celebrates the Canadian-American freshwater system.
The band’s 13th studio album, due Nov. 21, features Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson prominently, while incorporating guest contributions from Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq, musician/filmmaker Laurie Anderson, storyteller Chief Stacey Laforme and poets Anne Carson and Liz Howard.
Rheostatics’ The Great Lakes Suite is out on Nov. 21.Chris Wahl/Supplied
The album is a doozy. Where did the idea come from?
It came to me as I was falling asleep, which is where so many great ideas come from. My first e-mail was to Alex Lifeson. We had been looking for an excuse to do something together for a long time. I asked the band, and we had a rehearsal. We realized nobody had recorded it. So, we had another session at Blue Rodeo’s studio, this time recording it. It was all improvised. We listened to it and realized it could be an album.
Were the spoken-word passages dubbed afterward?
Mostly. But a couple of times we composed live to them.
Why wasn’t co-founding Rheostatics singer-guitarist Martin Tielli involved?
It’s more of a question for him. We booked a session for Martin in Hamilton, where he lives. He didn’t show up. He did tell us he was thinking of easing off music, and that he supported the idea of Alex being involved.
Bidini’s garage is filled with old Rheostatics band and performance posters.JALANI MORGAN/The Globe and Mail
Was the process of making The Great Lakes Suite and the Group of Seven album similar?
Not really. The lane we travelled on the Group of Seven record was the storytelling of the narrator, artist Winchell Price. It’s thematically consistent. With The Great Lakes Suite, we tried to live in the abstract. People will tie it together however they want to tie it together. We wanted to be a little less obvious this time.
Where did the track featuring Gord Downie speaking come from?
It came from a Lake Ontario Waterkeeper event. The organization is now called Swim Drink Fish. We asked the family, and they said to go for it.
How did Tanya Tagaq’s involvement come about?
It was important to have Indigenous representation on this record. We tried hard on that file. When she came into the studio, Alex Lifeson had no idea what he was about to witness. It was great to see a legendary Canadian musician reacting to such a great Canadian talent.
The Great Lakes are mostly shared by Canada and the United States. Did the current political status between the two countries figure into the album?
Not in the beginning. The sessions predated Trump’s second presidency. But as North America started to morph into what it is now, for sure. Symbolically, the Great Lakes are hugely important as shared bodies of water. One of the plans was to perform this album in as many Great Lakes cities as we could. But people in the band have different appetites in terms of going to Detroit, Chicago or Buffalo at this moment.
Bidini explains that “Bumper-sticker nationalism is not interesting to me. Understanding Canada is a long process.”JALANI MORGAN/The Globe and Mail
The term ‘elbows up’ was a brief patriotic catch phrase, but you are literally, as a beer-league hockey player, an elbows-up guy. And metaphorically as well, as a writer and musician.
Totally. When the ‘elbows up’ thing took hold, I feel like a lot of the country understood what some of us have understood for all these years, which is celebrating what is right in front of us and knowing the places that are right outside our front doors.
That’s a little softer than elbows up.
Bumper-sticker nationalism is not interesting to me. Understanding Canada is a long process. We have to explore a lot of different corners. And at the end of the day, at the end of your life, you probably will not know it.
Is your music part of your exploration?
This album doesn’t address in a catchphrase or in a slogan what the Great Lakes mean or what Canada means. It’s more evocative. Like that feeling when you’re driving in the Prairies, it’s the wheat fields and the beautiful blue sky. You’re experiencing the feelings in the moment. You’re not trying to articulate them.
JALANI MORGAN/The Globe and Mail
With relations strained between Canada and the United States, do you think that kind of awareness is heightened now?
Canadians experienced the country in record numbers this summer. And they’ll come back having had a sense of what Canada is. And it will be different for everybody.
In the same way people will experience The Great Lakes Suite?
You know, Don Kerr said playing on this album was the closest he’s come to being a jazz musician. It’s non-linear. It’s abstract. It’s improvised. I think that’s the appeal for all of us. I mean, it sure beats having to remember a bunch of lyrics.
Rheostatics play Toronto’s TD Music Hall Nov. 21 and 22.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.