The Cruzeros play at BCCMA Hall of Fame Awards Show
HodgePodge by Charlie Hodge
It just keeps getting better and better.
Unless you’ve been dead or sleeping under a rock the past two weeks, you must be aware The Cruzeros have been named to the BC Country Music Hall of Fame. Yet the news gets better. This week the band has been asked to play at the induction ceremonies. The BCCMA Hall of Fame Awards Show will be held on October 5th at the Clarke Theatre in Mission B.C.
“We’re over the top with joy. What an honour. This is very cool,” Cruzeros singer/songwriter Barry Mathers smiles. Playing the awards show means The Cruzeros must come back to life again and renew their musical bonds. The band changed career shifts a few years back into other musical venues with Barry Mathers and Rachel Matkin helping form Dirt Road Opera while Curtis Tulman and Gary Smyth formed Cowboy Bob.
Seems the band’s reunion has caught the interest and excitement of many music vendors and fans. The Cruzeros have agreed to perform at the Creekside Theatre in Lake Country on Saturday, November 30th. That concert is part of a reunion tour to celebrate their Hall of Fame award. It will be dedicated to the memory of guitarist and long-time Cruzeros Gary Smyth, who recently passed away and is dearly missed.
I started managing bands, running light shows, coaching and doing public relations work with musicians in the late 1970’s. One of the first I was blown away with was Barry Mathers. Amazing vocals. I soon learned what a talented songwriter he is. We worked together (or I worked with him in a variety ways) for several years and he just continued to hone his musical skills.
Meanwhile, I was managing and doing lights etcetera with other groups and ran into some fine fellows in a band called Kickwillie. I immediately was drawn to a talented saxophone, harmonica, guitar playing character named Curtis Tulman. It took no time for me to realize that Mathers and Tulman needed to join forces.
I told Barry about Curtis. I told Curtis about Barry. They didn’t listen – at least not right away.
‘Constant change is here to stay’ is an adage fit to describe bands. There are often changes in rock or country bands over the years. Barry was in such a band. So was Curtis. I kept bugging them to meet each other. They finally did and the rest is history, literally.
The Cruzeros are one of the most successful musical groups to have come out of Kelowna. From the launch of their first album in 1996 to their final tour in 2008 they were known as one of the hardest working and most highly decorated independent bands in the country rock music genre in Canada. Being inducted into the BCCMA Hall of Fame is their most recent of many accolades, the first of which was a JUNO nomination in 1997.
“Having your first album nominated for a JUNO is a pretty heady experience – and what a way to break onto the national scene,” Tulman, recalls. “Barry and I worked real hard for ten years before getting that break. Sometimes it takes that long to become an overnight success! In those formative years we built a recording studio, raised families and toured the local circuit incessantly. Music was a full-time job, and the going wasn’t always easy, but we loved every minute of it!”
Those “formative years” were from 1985 to 1995, when Barry and Curtis formed the top forty cover band Sea Cruise, which became hugely popular on the pub and nightclub circuit in the Interior of B.C. The band went through some lineup and name changes, from Sea Cruise to The Cruise and eventually, after a tour in Mexico, The Cruzeros. It was during this era that the group recorded and released several home-produced singles, which were picked up by local radio and also aired on television through videos produced by the BC Music Project. This made them locally famous, but their eyes were on a bigger prize.
“It was always a dream of ours to ‘make it’ in the music business – to have our music hit the national airwaves,” Tulman confesses. “It took a lot of hard work, more than a bit of luck and talent to get there. Barry was a great frontman and an amazing songwriter, and we had this incredible chemistry on and off the stage – we were an awesome team. When our chance to ‘make it’ came we were ready – and we jumped on it.”
The chance to ‘make it’ came in the form of a FACTOR grant in 1995 which funded the bands’ first album. They hired Vancouver producer Bill Buckingham and for the rest of that year divided their time between recording in Vancouver, touring the home circuit and spending time at Children’s Hospital where one of Tulman’s children was in a battle with cancer.
Tulman reminisces, “Those were very challenging times. On the one hand we had this incredibly stressful family situation – our respective families were very close – and on the other hand was the exhilaration of producing a real record in a big-time studio. The odd panic attack did occur, but the dream and the dedication were as strong as ever. Our families were so proud of us and so supportive – and so was our community, so we kept at it. The songs Barry had written were incredible, and we had the good fortune to pick the right guy (Bill Buckingham) to produce them. We built the album, we took our shot, and hey – it worked out!”
It most certainly did ‘work out’. The self-titled album was released in 1996 to widespread critical acclaim, spawning half a dozen top forty hits nation-wide and earning The Cruzeros a 1997 JUNO nomination for Country Group of the Year. Two other albums, El Nino and Scandalosa were released in 2000 and 2005 respectively also to critical acclaim and heaps of accolades, including a Canadian Indie for Country Album of the Year, B.C. Country Music awards for Group, Album and Songwriter of the Year, and Canadian Country Music All-Star Band awards for Special Instrumentalist of the Year. All that plus a slew of singles on the national charts and several videos on CMT are why The Cruzeros are worthy of their Hall of Fame status
“It’s the songs that did it,” says Tulman. “Barry wrote these great songs, and we took a lot of care with the production. There are never any guarantees in this (music) business, but we were fortunate that the listening public across Canada embraced what we had to offer – and for that we will be forever grateful.”
Tulman also acknowledges how grateful he and Barry are for the support of their local fans who cheered them on for years before they ‘made it’, and who were so proud of the guys when they did.
“We are also blessed to have such great friends who helped in so many essential ways, like Charlie Hodge who introduced Barry and I to each other way back in 1984, and who was a strong advocate for them joining forces. And there was Chris Butlin who helped manage the band, provided administrative and logistical support, and even drove the bus and ran the stage sound on several occasions.”
Tulman and Mathers also recognise how vastly important their core musicians were towards the success of the band.
“We were lucky to join up with some wonderfully talented players over the years, like Gary Smyth (lead guitar), Jim Ryan (bass & keyboards), Rachel Matkin (vocals), and Jay Swetlishoff (drums). They became the core of our sound on the records and the impact of our presence on the stage,” Mather applauds.
I am even more excited about the upcoming ‘Reunion Tour’ when learning that the best guitar player in the Okanagan (if not the province) will be joining the band – guitar sensation Scott Thielmann. Thielmann’s history with the band goes back decades and whose virtuosity appears on their last album. Scott’s skills simply stupefy. What a tremendous addition to an already wonderful musical experience.
