Chords for Cowboy Junkies

Welcome back to the Mountain Stage, Cowboy Junkies. _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ [Dm] _ _ [Am] _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ [D] _ _
[G] Tell us about, first of all, how the band [D] formed and then the whole [A] first trinity, if you would.
Well, how did the band form?
We formed in about, I think, 84.
Alan and Mike had been playing in bands for a number of years prior to 84,
and they had sort of come to a [N] crossroads in their careers and weren't sure what to do,
so they moved back to Toronto with the idea of going to New York.
But in the interim, they were in Toronto, they rented a house, and were jamming in the garage,
and my brother Pete rented a drum kit and was [Eb] jamming with them.
My [Dm] brother John would come over and [Ab] jam on his guitar, and it sounded good, I guess, to Mike's ears.
So it didn't actually grow out of a family band, it turned into a family band.
It turned into a family band, yeah.
Michael was the first brother, and then Alan was not related, but they were together, and then they brought that back.
They had two bands in the early 80s, so [G] punk rock bands.
And _ then it started to sound good, [C] so Mike asked me if I wanted to sing,
which was sort of odd for him to do, because I wasn't a singer.
[F] There's a distant memory _ _ [C] Montgomery, I remember
_ _ [G] Tells a verse on the desert floor [C] like a signal fire
_ _ _ Now [F] I'm wailing _ on the radio
[C] A dozen things on my mind
And [G] number one _ is flashing out
These [C] dreams of mine
_ But he [D] asked me, and I said yes, [F] and we became Kilby Junkies.
And then we put out White Soft Earth Now, which was our [Am] first record,
which was done to [G] one microphone, recorded with one microphone, in our garage.
And when it came time to do the second album, which was Trinity Session,
we wanted to use the same recording technique, but we needed a more acoustic environment,
so we went into the Holy Trinity Church and recorded for a day,
and came out with a record called Trinity Session, and our whole lives changed.
This Trinity revisited, you brought in some other people,
and I read that it was people who said that the [E] original Trinity Sessions were instrumental in things.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, 20 years later, that Trinity Session is turning [Abm] 20,
so we wanted to do something special, and we came up with the idea of going back into the church,
which, ironically, all the record companies we were ever with had always wanted us to go back
and re-record Trinity Session, and we always said no, but now it felt right,
especially since we were no longer on a record company label,
and we went back in and invited some friends, Natalie Merchan and Vic Chestnut and Ryan Adams.
_ They came [G] in, and we just sat around and played again, and it was great.
I think what we realized was [Cm] the [A] beauty or the genius of [F] Trinity Session,
both the first and [G] second, is due to the acoustics of the church.
It's an [A] amazing, amazing room.
Did you use a multi-track [F] the second time?
Yes, [Gm] _ [C] for sure.
That's what I thought.
[Am] _ _ [F] _
_ [G] _ _ [C] _ _ _ [Am] _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ [C] _ [A] So few bands stay together [F] this long.
So few marriages [G] stay together this long. Exactly.
[Am] So few of anything.
Is [F] there a reason [G] for that?
Or just you [C] guys like each other, you've been able to work and [A] have enough separation
that you're not [Eb] killing on each other's nerves?
[G] Well, you know, it's weird.
I [C] think, I mean, I don't really know,
[A] but I think the reason we've stayed together [G] is we still really [C] love what we do.
[Eb] When we play together, whether it's live or whether we're in our clubhouse,
which is what a studio is, _ it's a lot of fun.
We still really enjoy the music.
And we sort of know if we allow our fights, which we do have,
if we allow them to get so complicated and messed up,
it's going to ruin the one thing that we really love to do, which is play together.
And so when things get kind of ugly, _ somebody usually steps in and figures it out.
And I think, again, because we're family and Al's been with us,
I've known Al since university school, so he's like a brother.
Communication is easy.
And somebody always steps in and sort of says,
you know, why are you being such an idiot?
And figure out how to make it work.
Final question of what about the future now?
You're always working on something new and you're still interested in moving on?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's funny.
We've gotten to this place where we did the whole big label thing and that was great.
And then it wasn't so great.
And now we do everything ourselves.
And we're just like this such a well-oiled machine.
We all have our jobs that we do and know how to do them.
We're very heavily into the whole Internet thing.
We're just about to launch Layton Recordings, which is a downloading site,
which will have a lot of music.
We're always recording.
We create equipment.
So we're always recording, but you don't always have a place to put them.
So we'll put them on Layton Recording.
We also record a lot of people in Toronto, a lot of fellow musicians that, again,
don't have the money to record.
So that will go.
It'll be a place for [F] music that we think is good.
But, of course, we're also working on another album.
[A] We've got a few songs together.
On this tour, we're playing them live and figuring out how they're working.
[F] We're always working.
[D] That's one thing.
[F] _ _ [G] _ _ [F] _ [G] _ _
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[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [F] _
_ _ [D] No, no, no, _ _ _ no, no, no.
[B] _ _ [N] _ _ _