It's been nearly 20 years since the Lowest of the Low's debut, Shakespeare My Butt , came out. The band has put out several records since, and you've been enjoying a successful career with the Rusty Nails and solo. Why reissue your first record?
It was sort of happenstance. It had recently gone out of print, so the rights reverted back to the band and we could choose to simply reprint. But it had also just gone gold, and since it had been nearly 20 years, we thought we'd celebrate it by reissuing it and doing a few shows. Besides, we were never really happy with the way it sounded - the recordings were meant to be demos - so this gave us a chance to remaster it.
It's amazing that a 20-year-old record full of demo recordings has aged so well with critics and fans. How do you relate to your 25-year-old self?
It almost feels like someone else. I'd just broken up with my then-girlfriend after eight years. I was spending a lot of time walking around Toronto, drunk, thinking of the city and my place in it in cinematic ways. It's sort of embarrassing now, but it definitely fuelled my writing. With my most recent solo material, I'm playing much smaller rooms for much smaller audiences, which suits me fine. I feel like the DIY, guerrilla version of who I was back then. That said, having such a popular album is both a gold medal and an albatross. Anybody who plays music would love to have an album with legs, one that people quote and speak highly of. On the other hand, we spent a lot of time writing tunes we felt were better, but at shows people would be yelling for us to play the old songs.
At the time you'd also recently moved downtown from the east end. Was this a big deal, too?
Crossing the Don River was like committing a cardinal sin, back then anyways. Now much of Toronto, including the east end, is gentrified. But when I grew up, near Greenwood and Gerrard, it was still very much a blue-collar neighbourhood. We were all very proud of where we came from, which could at times breed a certain clannishness. At the same time, there were places like The Only Cafe, where people would be playing chess and discussing politics.
Shakespeare references The Only, as well as Bathurst Street, the Carlaw bridge, the Don and other Toronto landmarks. Why were you so specific in your lyrics?
Toronto was my romantic sidekick. Like I said, I was viewing life in cinematic terms, so if something big took place in Sneaky Dees or while riding along Bathurst, I wanted to document it in that setting. But it doesn't really matter if you know the reference. We had a lot of fans come up from Buffalo, and a few of them did a Lowest of the Low tour of Toronto. They'd go to the Carlaw bridge and wonder why there was nothing there to see.
After Shakespeare came out, you decided to sign with a major label. Next thing, you're offered opening slots touring with Bryan Adams and the Barenaked Ladies, both of which you turned down. Do you regret these decisions?
No. Well, the thing is, the band was very self-reliant, so we didn't enjoy being told what to do by industry executives who thought they knew what was best for us. They looked at us like we were insane when we turned down these gigs, but this was music we mocked and rebelled against. This was also at a time when we turned down Molson's offer to use Salesmen, Cheats and Liars in a TV ad. The offer began at $70,000 and went up each year. Our manager was urging us to take the money - think of the van we could buy, the records we could put out - but there was no way.
Celebrating with a reissue also meant playing together, not an easy task for a band known for its tumultuous breakup. Are tensions high?
Not at all. Any skeletons we had were dealt with in 2000, when we had our reunion tour. I remember that time, we'd all met for lunch to discuss the idea of a small tour and we were eyeballing each other, wary and second-guessing. Then it became clear any problems were long in the past. We fought like a family. After all, we'd basically spent four straight years together in a van in our mid-20s, a time of your life when your initial coping mechanism is to choke each other.
Is there a new Low album in the works?
An album? We don't know. Right now we're taking it slowly, not making any promises. We're playing Buffalo and also doing a Toronto pub-crawl mini-tour in the spring, plus likely some shows throughout Ontario and likely Winnipeg, but guys in their 40s don't really want to get into a van and tour the country.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Special to The Globe and Mail