The Sheepdogs in the cover of The Rolling Stone magazine.

AJ Lee

For those of you who haven’t heard of them, The Sheepdogs are a band hailing from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Dynamic yet down-to-earth, with a lush, full grounded groove, transcendent harmonies, and sweet big double guitars, The Sheepdogs have been riding the high of becoming final contestants in Rolling Stone magazine’s “Choose the Cover of the Rolling Stone” contest this year.

The only Canadian band to be shortlisted into the top 16 bands by Rolling Stone, they have fought successfully to make it to their current position: it is down to just them and one other musician. The winner of the contest will be the first ever unsigned band to grace the cover of the illustrious magazine (eat your heart out, Dr. Hook).

I had the chance to speak with two members of the quartet just before their Wednesday show at the Biltmore with The Sadies. Driving like hell to get in from their Invermere show, The Sheepdogs were delayed four hours by the mudslide that closed down the Trans-Canada highway. Despite the time crunch (they had yet to soundcheck), they were calm, focused, and kept their sense of humour as they sat down to speak with Vanmusic and Global TV correspondent about their recent experiences. Ewan Currie (guitar and vocals) and Ryan Gullen (bass and backing vocals) gave us the scoop.

“Sheepdogs”: what’s the story behind the name?

E: I wish we had a good story for that, because we get asked at every interview about this; it’s just a name we came up with. There’s no funny story, there’s no hidden meaning.

R: A lot of people attribute it to our long hair and beards and stuff, but that came after the name, kinda thing.

So how’s it been going for the last couple of months? Has awareness of the band been growing?

Yeah, it has. The attention and publicity from the competition has been very widespread, all over the continent. Not just in Canada, but in the States and other places as well—but especially in Canada, and it’s been tremendous, because we always felt like we had a good product, a good band and sound, but just… nobody knew who we were. It’s been a wonderful thing for us.

What kind of publicity has been generated…are you getting more calls, playing at new venues, getting calls to be on radio shows, that sort of thing?

R: Yeah we’ve been getting a lot more radio play, which is something, because we play music that’s kind of derivative of older music. So for the longest time we got a lot of people saying that there was no place for us necessarily in mainstream radio. We’re getting lots of radio play, lots of festivals this summer, and a lot more attention, mainstream attention, which is really cool for us.

What were the initial reviews of your band in the beginning?

E: They were good reviews; the problem was just getting the reviews. You know, we came from Saskatoon, which isn’t exactly known as any kind of cultural Mecca, necessarily, but when people saw our band they always seemed to respond really enthusiastically to it, and what reviews we did get were always positive to glowing, so it was really just a matter of getting the extra attention that this competition has given us.

You said you weren’t getting a lot of radio play because you weren’t mainstream enough…

R: Mainstream radio is very specific, I guess, in what they want….

E: Mainstream radio sucks. It sounds really crappy, and we don’t sound like the turds that they play on there, so that’s basically why we weren’t getting played.

This contest, how did this all come about?

R: Our music was submitted to Atlantic Records by the person who is now our manager, and they [Atlantic Records) were doing this competition. So it wasn’t something that we entered. They had heard our music and thought we sounded good, so they put us in a pool of 1200 other bands from all over North America, and we were selected by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top 16 of those 1200 bands involved in this competition.

And at the end of the day, if you win, you could be on the cover of the Rolling Stone? First unsigned band on the cover of the Rolling Stone. How do you feel about that?

E: We’d feel pretty damn good I gotta think. You want to talk about publicity and attention; that’s an extra huge serving of publicity, and it’s great. It’s like a big cultural touchstone for rock n’ roll too.

Could it make or break you?

E: Um, I suppose in theory it could make us, in conjunction with a lot of other work, and doing all of the shows that we’ve been doing. It wouldn’t break us because we were a band without this competition. It allows us more opportunities to continue doing what we’re doing and it makes it more feasible for us to do things that we’re wanting to do because it just means more exposure, more album sales—stuff like that which is stuff that we struggled with before.

Does it put Saskatoon on the map?

R: I think a little bit…I mean a lot of people are hearing about Saskatoon—especially in the States—for the first time, and maybe exploring other bands and things like that.

E: I’d like to think that Rowdy Roddy Piper, being born in Saskatoon, really put it on the map first.

What if you don’t get on the cover?

E: Life goes on, we still got lots of great attention from it, lots of new fans, and we’re doing better than we ever have. We’ll just keep going, keep making albums, and making music.

This is your full time job, you don’t do anything else?

E: No, we still have other jobs too.

R: I work with people with disabilities, the other guys in the band work as well . But we haven’t been home hardly ever, so haven’t worked a lot in the last little while.

How long have you been on the road?

R: Off and on, I guess, since January. The band we’re playing with tonight, The Sadies, we started on tour with…then the contest was announced, and the tour was cancelled [due to Dallas Good of The Sadies suffering a compound fracture of his leg], and we had some time off then. But along with the contest we’ve been trying to get out as much as we can so we’ve been all over the place for the last little while.

Tell us about your appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show.

E: It was pretty cool. I mean, finding out you’re going to be on Jimmy Fallon is pretty exciting. Instead of playing one of our own songs we had to make up a song about an audience member in about 20 minutes. So you get 2 minutes to interview her, 20 minutes to come up with a song. It actually went really well. People liked our song and we won a little audience applause-o-meter.

R: We were up against our competition in the contest, so we beat her out, and that felt pretty good.

Do you know where you guys are in the contest now?

R: No, they’ve kept everything very secretive, so we don’t really know. You can kind of gauge, there’s things like Facebook “likes” I guess, but as far as knowing…we have no idea. We don’t know where we stood in previous rounds, they don’t want us to know that information.

E: Feels pretty good though; the response we’re getting is just awesome. Feedback is really wonderful, it really bolsters our confidence.

And you played Bonaroo recently?

R: Yeah, it was awesome.

E: It was really great. Huge crowd, and then also being there for the weekend, being able to go check out Buffalo Springfield, My Morning Jacket, and stuff like that. It was tremendous.

Did you have Canadians supporting you there?

R: Yeah there were a lot, and you can see in the video that there’s a bunch of people with Canadian flags, and people were chanting, “Sheepdogs” right before we went on. We met people just walking around who were from all over Canada who had heard about us—and the States too—and who were excited about us playing.

E: And people who thought I was Jim James from My Morning Jacket.

There’s a movement among some Vancouverites I’ve heard of to consider this contest a Canada vs. the US thing [the Sheepdogs’ competition is American]…it’s a like a metaphorical Stanley Cup.

E: Yes! Although we’re trying to…the obvious parallel when you’re on to the rioting—I mean obviously we don’t want that. But seriously, I like that. I like the Canadian pride thing that’s been going on.

And so the contest closes Friday at midnight, right?

R: Yes, midnight Eastern time, so that would be 9 pm Vancouver time.

So people should get their votes in before then?

E: Yep, and if you voted previous rounds [that’s fine]; you can vote every round in this—people can vote multiple times, so we’re just telling people: bring it.

Do you feel a lot of pressure from the fans?

E: No not really, I mean, because we’ve been grinding it out for a long time, and everything that’s been going on with this competition has been such a wonderful treat, you know. When you’re used to hearing, “No, you can’t play this festival,” “No, you can’t have this money or grant,” and now… all these doors have been opened, and we really appreciate it, because of those tough times.

What’s next after the contest? Dream gigs, big plans?

E: We’re opening for John Fogerty, which is pretty cool. You know, just tour, build fans, put out a new album—cause it’s time for that—and just keep on doing the same things we’ve always done.

How long have you guys been together?

E: 2004 we started.

R: Coming up on 7 years.

What would you say would be one of your assets as a band?

R: Perseverance.

Have you had any sort of surreal moments throughout the process of this contest?

R: We met Crosby and Nash at the Rolling Stone offices; we just happened to be there. That was pretty surreal, that seemed really strange. But it was very cool.

E: Just watching David Crosby walk in was like, “Whoaaaa…” There he is. There’s that mustache.

You guys seem very down to earth about all of this.

E: Uh, yeah, well I think that the way we started our band, just grinding on for a long time, just has set us in good stead, no danger of getting bigheaded. Anyhow, it’s not like we’re travelling in Lear jets and getting paid fat stacks of cash. We’re still crashing in the van and driving around, and so it’s not like it’s a huge radical change. We’ve done these cool things, but we still hustle, you know, we still work.

The Sheepdogs will be returning to Vancouver to perform in Stanley Park on July 16th. For more information on Sheepdog’s upcoming performances, check out their website at http://www.thesheepdogs.com