Sloan’s Chris Murphy gets set to play a “pretty killer” mixtape with the Trans-Canada Highwaymen
Canadian alt-pop icon admits the supergroup with Steven Page, Chris Murphy, Moe Berg, and Craig Northey would have seemed unthinkable back in their ’90s heyday
The Trans-Canada Highwaymen, left to right: Moe Berg (The Pursuit of Happiness), Craig Northey (Odds), Chris Murphy (Sloan), and Steven Page (formerly of Barenaked Ladies).
The Trans-Canada Highwaymen play the Kay Meek Arts Centre’s 20th Anniversary Gala on November 23
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN inconceivable, some 30 years ago, that a guy from Sloan would one day call a guy from Barenaked Ladies his bandmate. Preposterous, you’d say, like Anne Murray hooking up with The Diodes.
And yet, on Saturday, at the Kay Meek Arts Centre’s 20th Anniversary Gala, Steven Page (formerly of BNL) and Chris Murphy (still with Sloan) will climb onstage with their partners Moe Berg (Pursuit of Happiness) and Vancouver’s tireless Craig Northey (Odds) as the Trans-Canada Highwaymen. Yes, it’s a “supergroup”. A super-duper-group, even.
“I’ve been with the same four guys in Sloan since ’91,” says Murphy. “And there’s a lot of baggage in everybody’s Plan A. There’s no baggage in the Highwaymen. it’s nonstop laughs. It’s so fun.”
Stir reaches Murphy at his Toronto home just two days before his 56th birthday, and right after he’s prepared lunch for his two teenaged kids. This is clearly an older-wiser Chris Murphy, although he’s candid about early impressions of some of his fellow Highwaymen.
“I was trying to be a cool kid and would have been harrumphing the look of them,” he laughs, recalling BNL’s first visit to Nova Scotia in 1991. “With the shiny shirts, sandals, and the fuckin’ shorts or whatever. Like, gawd, you guys look disgusting. But they were fuckin’ amazing. So good that they made everyone in Halifax look like amateur hour. The rest of us are there with our tongues sticking out trying to do ‘Louie Louie’ and these guys are playing circles around us, fuckin’ breakdancing, just making us all look like chumps.”
As for the Odds? “I always thought they were a bit lightweight,” chuckles Murphy. “They didn’t come from enough of a punk background or whatever, I don’t even know what. Looking back, they made immaculate pop records. That’s what I want to make now. But at the time, certainly when we started, we were just rolling around on the ground and throwing guitars in the air, and they were wearing shoes and suit jackets or something, so I was, like, ‘these guys are grown-ups.’”
These days, Murphy adds, he considers Northey a hero, a mentor, “and the coolest fuckin’ guy I ever met.” Which brings us neatly to the Trans-Canada Highwaymen and their typical live set, which they’ve been touring since the band started swapping instruments in 2017, and which includes the Odds’ “Someone Who’s Cool” along with “Underwhelmed”, “Brian Wilson”, “Hard to Laugh”, and another two or three of everyone’s most-loved songs. “A pretty killer ’90s mixtape,” as Murphy puts it. Given the cheerful lampooning of his own youthful, indie-rock snobbery (we were all guilty…), there might be some cosmic significance to the band’s customary closer: “I’m An Adult Now”.
But wait, friends, there’s more! In 2023, the TCH folded their own half century of CanCon dominance into the classic space-time burrito and produced Explosive Hits Vol. 1, in which Murphy and company offer an enthusiastic K-Tel-style sampling of late ’60s/early ’70s chestnuts like Edward Bear’s “You, Me, and Mexico”, Paul Anka’s “(I Believe) There’s Nothing Stronger than Our Love,” and deep cuts like the solid BIM classic “Can’t Catch Me”.
Explains Murphy: “We have all in our way contributed to the Canadian songbook, as it were, so we thought it would be fun to pay homage to April Wine and the Guess Who,” although half the fun is discovering who pays homage to what. Murphy sounds like he’s waited his entire life to tackle one of the most sublime pop hits of the era: Michel Pagliaro’s “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy”.
“It’s basically a Beatles cover,” he contends. “I’m so jealous of it. Its great. It’s fantastic. I’m a Beatles fanatic but Pagliaro—or Gerry Rafferty, ‘Right Down the Line’—they’re kinda George Harrison-y, breezy, but better than George Harrison’s solo stuff if you ask me.” Murphy’s take on the Poppy Family’s “Which Way You Goin’ Billy” is no less devoted. “It’s crafty and crazy, it does that weird modulation in the middle. I miss the song craft of the ’60s and ’70s, even the ’80s—I don’t hear it in most modern music.”
Naturally, the Highwaymen’s set is otherwise peppered with some of their Explosive Hits! and such rare gifts as Page’s “extended scat solo” on the Guess Who’s “Undun”.
“Oh, it’s amazing,” Murphy promises. “It’s a highlight. It’s unbelievable. When we play ‘Undun’, I guarantee you people will go nuts.” The band further guarantees that people will laugh. In short, it sounds like almost 56-years-old grownup Chris Murphy has been waiting a long time to crowbar himself into a half-decent fuck band, not to mention find a Steven Page or three who’ll spend time making dumb jokes with him onstage.
“Moe will just have one or two lines, ’cause he basically can’t get a word in edgewise,” he chuckles, “but then he’ll come in with one zinger that just destroys us all ’cause he’s so funny. The Sloan guys are my brothers, and I love them, and I love Sloan, and I want it to go forever, but these guys, the Trans-Canada Highwaymen, they really want to entertain. They’re willing to entertain. My life is great. I want to make sure my teenagers are happy, and it’s not always easy, but other than that, I got everything. My band is intact, we make money, and now I have this fuckin’ hilarious thing with these other guys that basically allows me to double dip. I’m so lucky. A pretty sweet gig. I recommend it.” 
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