What: The Grapes of Wrath
Where: Upstairs Cabaret
When: Friday, 7 p.m.
Tickets: $22 (Lyle’s Place, Ditch Records, TicketZone.com)
The re-formed Grapes of Wrath are older and wiser, says vocalist/ bassist Tom Hooper. It’s been three years since the Grapes reunited since splitting back in 1992, citing “musical and personal differences.”
Today the folk-rock trio — with drummer Chris Hooper and vocalist/guitar Kevin Kane — are working together in harmony, both offstage and on. This year they performed extensively and released an album, High Road. There are plans for additional touring and possibly releasing another single or an EP.
“There was no big major, huge reason why we broke up at the time. I put it down to, you know, immaturity,” Hooper said this week.
Now in their 40s, with wives and children of their own, the band members are able to put things in better perspective. Hooper added: “You realize what’s important in life. Holding grudges and all that kind of stuff, it doesn’t get you anywhere, basically.”
Renowned across Canada for their chiming guitars and airy vocal harmonies, the Grapes of Wrath charted in the late 1980s and early ’90s with All The Things I Wasn’t, I Am Here and You May Be Right.
After the band fell apart, Kane went his own way, with the Hooper brothers and erstwhile Grapes keyboardist Vincent Jones forming a new band, Ginger.
In 2010 the three founding members of the Grapes of Wrath reunited at the Surrey Fusion Festival.
Past acrimony and lawsuits were set aside in favour of recapturing the old magic. They’ve continued ever since.
It’s about friendship as well as music. The Hooper brothers and Kane have known each other since 1977, growing up in their native Kelowna.
“It would have been a shame if we hadn’t gotten back together again, because me and Chris and Kevin go back to when we were little kids.
“We have all these [home] movies we made together. And every time I showed my kids these movies, I felt sad. Because we weren’t talking back then. But now it’s good,” Hooper said.
Several years ago, Hooper was in his studio, having a few beers and writing a new song. He decided it sounded like a vintage Grapes of Wrath composition. And he imagined “this sort of fantasy thing” about the old band getting back together and releasing the tune.
That dream came to fruition. The song, Good to See You, was released as the first single from their new reunion album. It entered the Canadian Top 40 charts, the first Grapes song to do so since You May be Right in 1991.
Good to See You is, in some ways, about the band’s reunion, Hooper said. It ends with the lines: “Funny how the years just seem to come and go. Been a long time, but it sure is good to see you.”
He’s got other side projects on the go. Hooper regularly plays acoustic shows at the Bard and Banker pub in a duo with Matt Johnson, the drummer for 54-40.
He also fills in as the keyboardist for 54-40 — he played the Roundhouse show with them earlier this month.
Hooper lives on Saltspring Island with former Lava Hay singer/guitarist Suzanne Little. Their sons, Shane and Owen, are also musicians who play and record.
If their father has any advice for them, it might stem from his philosophy regarding the Grapes of Wrath. These days, Hooper says he tries to keep his eye “on the big picture” and focus on the positive.
“I think the fact we [in the Grapes of Wrath] can all play music as a career is a pretty damned good thing. We shouldn’t complain about that,” he said.
