Ian Thornley has been leading Big Wreck on and off (mostly on) for more than 30 years now. Founded in Boston by some Berklee College of Music students in 1992, Thornley brought the band back to Toronto and had an excellent run that stretched from 1997 to 2o03. Then came a breakup, a solo career with three more albums, and finally a reunion in 2010, which resulted in five more albums. A sixth, The Rest of the Story, is coming to stores on Oct. 24.
I had a chance to speak with Thornley from his home studio.
Alan Cross: You’re now more than 30 years into a full-time music career. Did you ever imagine this would be the case?
Ian Thornley: Well, I didn’t imagine it wouldn’t be the case, but I never thought that far ahead, to be honest with you. I never thought I’d still be grinding 30 years in. I didn’t think it would still be fistfights in the mud to scratch out a living. If I had thought of it back then, I would have thought I’d be moving on to producing other people and doing other projects — music for film, or something like that.
Going on the road now is a little more difficult each year, and staying out for extended periods of time. We have a little guy at home now, and my daughter has grown. It gets harder being away from home, and sleeping on a bus is difficult. But I still adore music. I’m still obsessed with it. And I’m trying to get better at it. Any way I can keep practising music and keep doing it for a living, I’m gonna do it.
AC: The first Big Wreck album (In Loving Memory Of…) came out in 1997, right at the tail-end of the golden age of the compact disc. Everything about the business has changed since then. Loaded question: How have you adjusted?
IT: It’s not like we were really successful and really loaded and had a bunch of money and then someone suddenly turned the tap off. Our main source of income has always been the road, playing as many shows as we can. We sold a bunch of that first record just before people stopped buying records. I’ve since adjusted my expectations. I think a lot of musicians my age who lived through that, there’s a shot you gotta take. It’s a big piece of humble pie when all the bands that were just before us that really hit — they’re still out there playing shows, whereas we… Well, the last couple of years, we’ve been slowly growing back up again.
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Having said that, there was something kind of freeing about it because I didn’t have to serve a master. I didn’t have to keep rewriting (Big Wreck hits like) That Song or The Oaf. I don’t have to bow to any previous expectations about what Big Wreck means.
AC: How has your approach and sound changed over all those albums?
IT: I think it’s become more refined. The process is still the same. There are little shortcuts that we can employ now, like my phone. I can hum something into my phone when something just falls in my lap, and I’m, “OK, that’s something.” Sometimes I’ll sit here on the computer and start mapping a song out, or sometimes I’ll just record something on my phone and leave little breadcrumbs to visit later. But it’s still waiting for a drop of inspiration. And then you craft it.
As craftsmen, I think we’ve gotten better. I think I’ve gotten better. And I’m better at recognizing a good idea from a not-so-great one. Back in the old days, a lot of the ideas I’d stumble on would turn into something different in the garage the next day when we started beating it around. Sometimes, though, the inspiration can get blurry, lost, when you start pushing it in whatever direction. And then you end up laying it down and you say, “No, I don’t think this is gonna work.”
AC: How much time do you spend chasing that guitar tone you hear in your head?
IT: It’s part and parcel with the chase for the perfect chorus or the perfect verse, a grouping of words, a grouping of notes. The things that make your hairs stand up and give you chills. Today, I think it’s all about the silly rhyme and “Ooo, that was a good hook.” It’s not about all the things that keep me up at night, which are things like the guitar tone. I think it’s all important. Half the juice going into the studio and recording is that, because that can often inspire a different part, or how a phrase gets laid down. Most musicians are reactive and you react to what you’re hearing.
Same thing with a microphone and an effect you put on your vocal. You’ll sing different, treat the mic differently, depending on what’s going on. If you move a mic a centimetre (one way or the other) in front of an amplifier, it changes the sound drastically. Every once in a while you trip over some magic. There’s no plug-in for that. There’s no app.
AC: This album, The Rest of the Story, was recorded at Noble Studios in Toronto, which is a really good studio.
IT: We got lucky. We were going to release three EPs but then decided to do one EP and a full album. We booked the studio for two weeks to get basic tracks for 17 or 18 songs. But Dave (McMilliam, bass) and Sekou (Lumumba, drums) go through their tracks in about five days. Nick (Raskulinecz, producer) said, “You’re going to need to get a truck to get your guitars and amps down here because we’re going to get to use all these goodies.” We ended up cutting a lot of guitars there.
AC: Why is the album called The Rest of the Story?
IT: I just figured it was a good tie-in to Pages, the EP that preceded this. We were going to have Pages 1, Pages 2 and Pages 3, but it became an entity unto itself.
AC: Any surprises?
IT: The surprises are something that happens every single day while you’re in the studio. That’s why I’m the first one in and the last one to leave. And the good stuff starts to happen when someone says, “What if…?”
AC: What’s next?
IT: We gave a few shows on the books for the rest of the year and we’re heading out the first quarter of next year. We’re going out with Live Across Canada, which should be fun. I don’t think we’ve played with them before. And we have some other ideas that we’re discussing as well.
The Rest of the Story is out Oct. 24. This interview was condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
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