London/ Cambridge Ontario based Celtic rock band the Mudmen’s bagpiper Sandy Campbell will talk your ear off if you let him.
He and his brother Rob have been performing together for many years and as the Mudmen since 1998.
in that time they have had a lot of amazing experiences and met everyone from hockey stars like Wayne Gretzky , rock and pop stars like Tom Cochrane and Sara McLachlan , politicians, an assortment of Governor Generals, children’s TV star Mr. Dressup and even played for the Queen of England.
The Mudmen return to Lethbridge, April 8 to play Soundgarden with bandmates vocalist/ guitarist Mike Meacher, bassist Dan Westenenk who both joined the Mudmen in October, drummer Jeremy Burton (who has been with them for a year and a half, and of course his brother and co bagpiper Rob Campbell. Unfortunately guitarist and multi instrumentalist Anthony Albanese had to stay home from this St. Patrick’s Day tour.
“He just had a baby, Sandy Campbell said over the phone form a tour stop in Revelstoke, which turned into a two day gig.
“Our lead singer plays some pretty amazing guitar though,” he said.
“We’re doing pretty good as a five piece,” he continued.
“ It’s a big expense to take six people on the road,” he added, noting it isn’t the first time the band has lost members to fatherhood.
“ A lot of them were planned. One of them was an accident. Our singer stepped up, learned French and moved to Montreal. He did the right thing,” Campbell said.
He noted over the years the Mudmen have become more versatile, from primarily playing noisy, rowdy bars to playing national family friendly events like Canada Day in Ottawa in 2010 and country music festivals like the Dauphin Country Festival. They played at the 19823/ 84 Edmonton Oilers reunion celebration, wrote the new Hockey night in Canada theme song and shared stages with Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Paul Shaffer, William Shatner, The Guess Who, Gordon Lightfoot to name a few
“We’ve always looked up to bands like Great Big Sea and Blue Rodeo who can do that, he said.
“We’re very versatile,” he said, adding they are enjoying playing theatres for audiences who are there to hear the music.
“I’ve never understood the concept of wanting to make people’s ear bleed from volume,” he said.
“I prefer gigs where the volume is loud enough so you can still talk to the guy next to you,” he said, noting the band is versatile enough to be able to read the crowd which helps determine their set list.
“It depends, at the beginning you start to feel out the crowd. The Revelstoke crowd wanted to party, so there weren’t too many slow songs,” he continued.
He said the band, especially he and his brother have survived lean times, but have always stayed true to their working class roots even when they were signed to record label EMI.
“We’ve had to give up a lot to do this. I’ve worked in construction, I’ve been a bricklayer and worked in foundation repair, which is a job not many people want to do. Some of those spaces can be pretty tight. We’ve worked on a farm picking pickles for Bicks Pickles and thrown a lot of hay bales. We’ve done it all. We’ve met a lot of people. And people like Ron McLean and Don Cherry talk about us,” he said.
“Wayne Gretzky was a really nice guy. And we’ve played for governor generals Adrienne Clarkson and Michelle Jean. We played Canada Day and the Queen was sitting right behind us. We shook her hand,” he reminisced.
“We’ve had some bad situations. We’ve worked a lot but we’ve had a lot of fun,” Campbell said.
“We’ve lived in three factories. One because we could rehearse there and another because we got ripped off,” he said, adding the band has a million stories, which they will soon compile into a new book. He expects it as well as a new CD will be released in Fall 2017.
“We’ve released an album about every two years,” he said, adding the next CD will be their eighth.
He noted the band has played Lethbridge many times. Several times for local music Todd Lacharite as well as gigs at Essies and Casino Lethbridge.
The Mudmen and the Lethbridge Firefighters Pipes and Drums play Soundgarden, April 8 at 8 p.m. The Lethbridge Firefighters Pipes and Drums begin the show at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $20
