Big Sugar are super busy this summer season with a ton of Festival dates, including Wild Mountain Music Fest (in Hinton, Alberta, and one of our favourite places to go), but we managed to catch up with Gordie Johnson by telephone and talk to him to find out what’s going on in the Big Sugar Camp.
nMC: hi Gordie thanks for taking the time to speak to us today.. so just how busy are you guys?
Gordie Johnson: Super busy! (laughs). We’re not only doing a slew of festival dates, but getting ready to record our new album in Texas end of August/beginning of September.
nMC: New album! Great news. How’s that going so far?
GJ: great actually. We have a half dozen new songs we’ve been ‘road testing’ on every live show for the last few weeks.
nMC: how’s that going? How have they been received by the audience?
GJ: very well actually. We have quite a few die hard fans who love the idea of new songs, and the more casual fans don’t mind some ‘new stuff’ tossed into the mix of our more recognizable hits.
nMC: a new album, and a new band member – Rey Arteaga has joined Big Sugar – tell me about that.
GJ: Yes. Rey’s great. Over the decades of Big Sugar history there have been several incarnations, several people come and go. Mr Chill retired, and DJ Friendliness is pursuing more of his solo music and I respect that. Rather than try to plug the holes, we just let the sunshine through, and brought in Rey. He’s been playing with us for a bit and I’ve worked with him in Texas with other projects so it seemed a natural fit.
nMC: when do you anticipate the new album being read for release? Can you say?
GJ: (laughs) Well, it depends on how busy I am (laughs again). With this new record there is no middle man… We all stayed up way to late, and had a good time writing together. We’re recording it live off the floor so to speak – all of us in the same studio at the same time and just recording. I’m also doing the production and the engineering.
(Gordie writes for and produces many other artists including The Trews, Joel Plasket, Colin James and more)
nMC: that’s super busy!
GJ: (laughing) Yes. I’ve got a little time off right now. Today I’m trimming horses hoofs.. officially on vacation but going to need a vacation after my vacation. As for the album we’re anticipating by the end of 2017.
nMC: do you have a name for it yet? Anything you can tell us?
GJ: (chuckles) Officially, we have a couple of ideas… we’ll leave it at that.
nMC: well can’t wait to see it and hear it. In meantime, safe travels and we’ll look forward to hearing a few of the brand new songs this weekend at Wild Mountain Music Fest! See you soon and thank you!
GJ: see you soon, my pleasure.
Check out more about Big Sugar including their tour dates, on their Website, and follow them on Twitter for some great vintage guitar pics (posted weekly by Gordie) among all the great band news. Check out their video for Digging a Hole live below.
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