Did You Know? | The Good Brothers is actually the name of Dallas' and Travis' father's band.
The Sadies
Sat, Aug 9 (1pm): Stage 1.
“I suppose some people don’t travel well,” remarks Dallas Good, who provides The Sadies with half of the psychedelic, lush guitar sounds that have become their trademark. “In the case of The Sadies, we do travel well, and we travel often.”
The past 10 years have seen the Toronto band undergoing countless coast-to-coast tours, not to mention frequent visits to Europe and the U.S. That rigourous road schedule has paid off, cementing The Sadies’ reputation as one of the most exciting live bands in Canada... and giving the band plenty of opportunities to live up to it.
Good modestly says their sound doesn’t “reinvent the wheel,” but it sure does stir up lots of interesting bits and pieces of country, psychedelia, surf, punk rock, and rock ’n’ roll. Their stylistic flexibility allows them to play huge folk festivals to small clubs, or tour as a backing band and collaborate with the likes of Neko Case, John Langford, Blue Rodeo, and The Tragically Hip. in store for this year is a project with John Doe of L.A. punk legends X, and a busy summer hitting the Canadian festival circuit after years of filling tours with small-venue shows, The Sadies now play to thousands of people on almost every date.
“The last 10 years have shaped our career,” Good says. “We’ve just pushed on and worked hard and we’ve done everything to the best of our ability. The majority of my occupation has been in this great country of ours, and in so doing, we’ve been able to develop an audience, and we’re happy on this playing field. Things aren’t getting any worse. And that’s important.... We suffer from no visions of grandeur, and we’re not out there thinking that it’s all the luckiest thing that’s happened. We don’t look at it as something that we deserve or that we’re born into. It’s merely ‘we do what we do,’ and we have struggled in small clubs with very few people, and personally I don’t see any leaps and bounds in our career.”
Talking to Dallas Good, I get the impression that their growing popularity, reputation, and audience size hasn’t affected the reasons why The Sadies still step out onto a stage every night—and they still throw themselves into their instruments at vevery single performance. “There are a lot of factors that make up dedicating your life to music,” Good says. “You basically have to change your lifestyle and accept that it’ll be different for the rest of your life. People work jobs for 15 years that they don’t really like doing, and other people do jobs that they love doing for 15 years and they don’t make a fucking cent. That’s why I say, ‘Things aren’t getting any worse.’ We’re just happy to have a fanbase that gets it.”
