Alan Doyle: Happy Man

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:02  
The Women of ill repute with your hosts, Wendy Mesley. And Maureen Holloway.

Wendy Mesley  0:07  
So hey, Mo, I think Alan Doyle, who obviously is our guest this week, I think he might be the happiest man in the country. He's like, so happy, happy, happy.

Maureen Holloway  0:17  
Even his biography describes him as a perennial merrymaker perennially making marry, yeah,

Wendy Mesley  0:24  
it's true either way, great big. See, that was his band turned Canada into one big kitchen party and from Newfoundland he knows all about kitchen parties, or on his own, with a new album out that's called Welcome home.

Maureen Holloway  0:36  
But perhaps like the cloud, he smiles on the outside but weeps on the inside.

Wendy Mesley  0:44  
We can try and get him to confess to that morning, but I don't think you

Maureen Holloway  0:48  
know, we were just talking about Newfoundland it might be the nature of Newfoundland, which some people would say is one of the bleakest places to live, but the people respond with warmth and laughter and music. That could be key.

Wendy Mesley  1:03  
Yeah, it's also so beautiful. So I don't know like,

Maureen Holloway  1:07  
maybe we'll have to have

Alan Doyle is a Canadian musician, actor, writer and producer formerly with great big See, Alan has been on his own for the past eight years, although I don't think Alan has ever on his own. Not today.

Wendy Mesley  1:28  
There'll be Yeah, national treasure. We're gonna get into that Alan about. Yeah, you never visited the mainland until you went on tour in the 90s. So so there you go. I

Maureen Holloway  1:37  
wish we were in a pub within a with a pint with you. Because that's what everybody imagines. When I've spoken in the pub. Yeah, have you? Yeah,

Wendy Mesley  1:45  
well, we did an interview ages ago, which was in a pub, but I don't think there was anybody else like drinking seriously was just just you and me. Yeah, we were kind of, but you were so I don't know, you were talking about pissing in a bucket or whatever, as a kid. And, and you were like, ah, yeah, it's like, great. And my mom was this and my dad was this, uh, you're just so so. So this is where you're supposed to confess to secretly being like, very, very unhappy.

Maureen Holloway  2:15  
To the inside. So let's go back to the very, very, very beginning, just because I found it really interesting that you were the first Canadian born in your family. Although your family's been in Newfoundland forever. By pre Confederation.

Alan Doyle  2:29  
Yeah, it's a wacky stat for most Canadians. But I'm a first generation Canadian. No, dad were born to a different country. Right. They were and, and I think, in retrospect, that has been sort of a an incredible influence and blessing for a generation of, of artists, and storytellers. And dancers and book writers and painters, from here, you know, in the, like, we I think we punch above our weight in the arts in Canada. You know, and I think it's primarily because we have a story that's different. And the history of our kind of coming to Canada is very recent, like, it is very, very, very recent, you know, like, it happened in our parents lifetime, you know, and where I grew up, you know, in this little fishing town, in on southern shore. I mean, Canada was Tommy Hunter and hugging in Canada, like that didn't know anything else. Like, you know, what, oh, how was I supposed to know? I mean, I've heard that I was from that country, but I'd never been there. And I didn't know anything. I didn't know anybody from there. And I had cousins somewhere up there, but I'd never met them. And if that was true for me, like as a teenager in the 80s, it was certainly true for the Cago people in the 70s. And it was probably true for writers and painters like Christopher Pratt or whatever in the 60s. I don't know, you know, I don't want to put words in their mouth. But like, we have our own thing. Mary Walsh always talks about it about how one of the reasons we're so eager is that we could be number one we could be number one, Newfoundland Labrador. She

Maureen Holloway  3:53  
was the first person on our podcast, Mary. Mary Walsh was our first guest Rick Mercer was the first man that we had on a year ago. And we were just talking to Misha Berger, Gasman Lee.

Alan Doyle  4:05  
Yes, yes. I mean, if anyone didn't need to hyphenate her name.

Maureen Holloway  4:10  
And she said, Hey, you're right. There is an embarrassment of riches the tip to to the other end of the country and not just Newfoundland. I'm going to include the Nova Scotia maritimes but Newfoundland especially. So what's new album about says Welcome home, which is kind of an interesting sentiment at this point.

Alan Doyle  4:30  
Yeah, that's the song really about the sort of the almost sickness little of Newfoundlanders for when they're driven away from here. We've been doing it like even before Confederation with Canada I mean, it's been the it's been the our greatest, our greatest and most regrettable pastime is people who had leave here to go find work and and the pool to come home you know and that how was until Joe goes I can you tell a Newfoundland and in heaven because he's dealing with electronic

And and me and Tom power. We both got when the big member of Snowmageddon happened? Uh, no, four or five years ago, just before the pandemic, I guess. Yeah. And I was had a gig on the mainland and I got back as far as Toronto and I didn't get home. And Tom power was in Toronto, I don't think he was doing Q yet he was doing the other show. And I remember Tom, Tom was like, we both knew what time it was going to be in Newfoundland, like, everyone's gonna be snowed in stuck home for like five days, like, this is going to be awesome. And we were missing, we used to joke, we're the only two fellows in the world trying to fly into a state of emergency.

Maureen Holloway  5:37  
Because you don't want to miss out, you want to miss out

Alan Doyle  5:39  
and I missed that I'm deep regret. So welcome home is like, you know, that song is really just speaks to that. And then the whole record is kind of the way we recorded it. And the joy of it all is really sort of a response to being stuck in this room, by myself for two years. And making music here, lots of it by myself, or over the Internet. Like we're doing this chat. And when, you know, as I said, it's the next record I make after we got we got out of the pandemic, I'm putting everyone in a great big studio and we're all gonna go to their getter. And we're all going to play a live off the floor. And this is gonna be hell old school, you know, abandon a room because I just, you know, kind of missed everybody.

Wendy Mesley  6:18  
I find the duality really interesting. Because you, you're so proud of where you're from, and you're so full of love for everybody who lives on the island. And yet, I was surprised to read how much you love touring like it's, yeah, that you love and we can get into the whole mainland. thing versus the the Newfoundland thing, but that you love touring. Like how, why do you love touring so much? You say something

Maureen Holloway  6:45  
about the structure of it all? Well,

Alan Doyle  6:47  
I mean, there's two parts to touring, right? There's many parts of it. But there's the two big parts, of course, are that you? And this is a direction quality quote from a very young wife, Jim Cadiz. I remember sort of pretending that it would sound cool. If I said, Yeah, man, we got to play like, aren't 20 gigs next year. So not trying to sound like that was some kind of hardship to cut. He went, Yeah, but you get to play music 120 times next year. And I was like, Oh, yeah. And that's okay to love that, you know. So yeah, the two parts are that are the traveling right, which, for some people would be a hardship. And then the other part is the fact that you get a gig at the end of the night. So the first part of it the traveling, you know, I grew up with, like his, in this little town, surrounded by hills on three sides and the ocean on the other one, and we had one station in the 80s, you know, on. And so the world for me was like outer space, you know, like, we didn't have a Kirkland St. John's, like, let alone like St. John's I got to go like six times before I was a kid, you know, we didn't have a car, you know, like, and the thought of getting to see Montreal or like, you know, Calgary or something was like, talking about going on prices, right, and winning the lotto or something, you know, like, who gets to do that, you know, like, and last week, I had a gig in the Alps in Switzerland. I did.

Maureen Holloway  8:11  
Don't doubt it.

Alan Doyle  8:12  
And he's like, I was just like, walking around. And me and Cory and Kendall clan urbanas. We took the day at the end of it. And we went to Lausanne and Geneva. Here we are wandering around to, you know, assholes from Newfoundland and I looking at the back. And it's like, on the back of a few songs. And so the travel of it is no hardship to me. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to go to new places. And I'm also thrilled to go back to places and have favorite places there. You know, like going to Montreal and going like, okay, Hurley's here we go, I know where to go, this place over here is good. I know where to go. Just go with me. And that's such a great privilege, you know, to fly into New York and go, I know where to go. And to have these great cities of the world where you have your own little sort of path through them. You don't I mean, like, it's so awesome, and then go to new places is great. And then the Great Big Sea boys would always say that I was like a touring robot, you know, like no one has ever been physically better built for it than me because Elon can get 12 minutes sleep and a 15 minute cab ride, you know, and wake up totally refreshed, and they can still do that. Oh my god. Yes. I'm pro

Maureen Holloway  9:16  
I can sleep through a root canal. It's it's a gift. Oh,

Alan Doyle  9:19  
easily. I fell asleep. I fell asleep in an MRI. Yeah. Oh,

Maureen Holloway  9:23  
really? Long bond. Planning. Wow,

Alan Doyle  9:26  
I was gonna be one of the things that would kill me one of these days is that I burn at such a high rate. Like, I always think of my self as like a battery. I operate really well at like, 85% and over, but a second it gets like to 83 or 82 I fall asleep.

Maureen Holloway  9:41  
That sounds familiar. I've never heard you describe that way. But

Alan Doyle  9:45  
I watch my friends who like fly fish and stuff or like play chess or do things around 60% And they're still awake and enjoying their lives. And of course I can. But then so that's the travel part. But the other part of course is you know, you get to play a concert every night. You know, if you're doing what I do for a living, and you have a set of music to play in front of a full house, if that's 50, or 50,000, whatever, and you don't love it, like, that's not like thrilling and terrifying and all that, then you really shouldn't be doing this for a living. Like, you know, you really, really need to stop. Like, if that's not awesome, please don't do it. I find it more exciting now than ever really, because, um, you know, I'll be 55 this year. And, you know, I always been very grateful and appreciative that I get to do this for a living and, and my brother has recently started saying, I Alan was like, Mmm, getting better record coming out getting another tour around, it's gonna take couple years to do it, you know, and he's like, gonna be GSLB 55 When we get going or whatever, and my brother says, Alan, but I know you don't want to, but you might have to start letting yourself believe that you might actually get away with this imposter syndrome, right? They're gonna fake they actually get to play music for your whole life.

Maureen Holloway  11:00  
You might keep fooling them. It

Wendy Mesley  11:02  
makes me think of Mick Jagger. So Mick Jagger had 50 or whatever he was, it was it was a youngster like you and he was he was asked so like, when you're when you're at MC, you're not going to be singing You're gonna fuck yeah, I'm going to be saying, I'm going to be out there. I'm going to be whatever. So not that he's anybody's great hero, but it sounds like you got another 20 3040 years and yeah,

Alan Doyle  11:23  
Willie Nelson says retire from what?

Maureen Holloway  11:28  
I feel that as long as the stones are touring, there's it's totally everyone else's carte blanche. I love that. There's also community I mean, so I went to see the sky diggers. Josh fan listens to a friend and they have a crit they had a Christmas concert on and Jim Cuddy came on and Devin Cuddy and, and from BareNaked, ladies, keyboard player, I mean, everybody, there's a big community right, you know, you know all of them, right. They know all of you. They played the pugs, of course. The fairy tale in New York. You opened for them in Glasgow, many times? Yeah. Yeah, I guess that would be a gnat. That would be a natural marriage, but still, what year

Wendy Mesley  12:07  
was he? There was Shane there over the

Alan Doyle  12:10  
years with the Pogues a few times. And then there was a time when Shane used to tour the band called The Pope's was Shane McGowan. And the Pope's and we were the opening band and a bunch of those are Great Big Sea and oh, yeah, many, many, many times with the Pope's and festivals and then just to us for many, many gigs, and there was always an adventure.

Maureen Holloway  12:29  
He was a character. Wow.

Alan Doyle  12:33  
We did, we did play one time at the Celtic connections festival in Glasgow, which is a wonderful festival that happens in late January record around now. It's actually is actually happening right now in Glasgow. And it happens in the various music venues around the city, the big theatre or the Opera House, whatever they call it, and then there's few smaller, like black box kind of gigs for small foci things and then they have one big beer garden. They used to anyway called the fruit market and it's very much like something like the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto or something you know, like that kind of like an open market. We might go by, you know, vegetables or whatever, like with a almost like a train station. You know what I mean? And they used to do they would do it like a big beer garden in there. That was the pope shaming one of the Pope's and that one and GBs was the opening band. And there was I think there was like some big soccer game or something that afternoon or rugby or something. Anyway, they it was it was a scene in there like long before we got up to play and they were well into the cops, as they say over there. And it was you know, I think it was like 4000 Soccer labs. Right rare it might have been three girls in the whole place. And anyway, they all went through the sea Shane Corson before they come on this little band but they're a little button accordion and shorts gonna come on fishing songs and like I was like, we're gonna die here that a this is but of course we went out and played and you know, we survived and we played our set without them like no, I would tell you that we won them over but we should most certainly did not. Of course not. And we got off stage and the promoter came over and said

Maureen Holloway  14:12  
Oh, no. was

Alan Doyle  14:14  
like What do you mean? He's like we can't find no no, you gotta go back on. He's like no, and we did went back on and play for like another half an hour I thought they were gonna kill us but

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  14:29  
the women of ill repute

Wendy Mesley  14:31  
so now you play sort of country like you're not you're not still wearing the shorts and you don't have the accordion and they're well maybe there's there's some accordion but there's less according there's less fiddle apparently. And it's more intimate. Like what does that mean? Are you are you like changing? I mean, obviously you still love Newfoundland you still love touring, but it's kind of a different music on your on your new album. This

Alan Doyle  14:52  
one is really the first record that I really ever let myself sort of look inward. You know, and I'm always such a sucker. You No for, for a good night out. And to be the grand gesture, you know, in the night out, you know that like, I have always not been reluctant to but been less inclined to sort of sing deeply personal songs about things like in a mid tempo kind of way that lots of other people do all the time, you know, but I you know, I'm certainly more known for the Big Bird burners and the in the big, you know, Kaylee party songs and we got a couple of those on there as well, but I just figured it was time and maybe it will be the only time where I kind of let myself you know, just okay, man, you know, people will listen to you if you sing a song to them now like that's, that's not 165 beats a minute and, and has a hey, hey, hey, chant in the course.

Wendy Mesley  15:46  
Well, not to put that down because you've been doing that your whole life. It's great,

Alan Doyle  15:49  
man. I love it. And it's fun. It is the thing that comes the most natural to me to do those kinds of songs, those big burn burner, you know, happy crowd songs. I still I still love them the most. And I still love the accordion in the middle the boats. My mom plays piano accordion Of course. And like because well I'm from the button accordion world out here in Newfoundland, you know, so it's odd for me to like piano accordion more than button accordion, but I always have and because my mom plays it, she still does. And when I was a kid, like in the 80s I loved Trad music from here because everyone did and my family played it and we all loved it. But you know much music said and and I love Def Leppard and Van Halen, too, you know, like an end? Like any kid with a van and then, but I remember this pivotal moment when John Cougar put out lonesome Jubilee, remember that record? Like the check it out and cherry bomb and paper and fire and all those, just this guy who had been on you know, I had lots of John Cougar records and all that. Then he puts up this record that has like fiddles and mandolins and accordions and stuff in it. And I was like, Are we are we allowed to do that? Can I do? Like, I was like, I couldn't do that, like, you know. And so it was very influential that that whole record and that time, combined with, you know, lots of local influences and stuff. So

Maureen Holloway  17:07  
ever since Dylan went electric fans have tried to hold their idols in place don't change. I fell in love with you for that. Don't turn into that.

Alan Doyle  17:18  
Yeah. It's the hardest thing as any kind of legacy artist is to continue to grow and be honest with what you want to do. That's thrilling you at the time, without losing any of the people that that you you got, because you did a different thing. You know, I don't make a big deal about it or anything, but it's like playing beer garden. Celtic pub anthems is still my favorite thing. I still, you know, and so there's a there's a few of those on the record as well and including the title track Spirit of the West, you know, and a couple of bands like that were very influential as well in that they could do the big party anthems and any closer look at them and you go like, wait a minute, that's that's a deeply meaningful song. Pick any birth if you want in home for arrest, you know, one of the great pub anthems of our time, you know, like the gas heater is empty. It's dank is a tomb and the spirits we drank and ghosts in the room, and I'm knackered again. Come on sleep take me soon and don't lift my head ludwell Bells noon. i That's a beautiful stanza of writing. Now, it happens to be in the biggest guzzler in Canadian history. But you're a fool if you don't think that's an amazing piece of writing. Because it is so is

Wendy Mesley  18:29  
this as close as we're gonna get to a confession. Do we listen like super carefully to every every word in the in the new album and look for a sad moment. There

Alan Doyle  18:40  
is a couple of confessionals in there. Yeah, but you seem to get fine.

Maureen Holloway  18:46  
All right. Okay. You can be coy for now, I want to ask you about Oscar Isaac. I mean, okay. Always. Like you multitalented He's incredible. Yeah. He's a songwriter as well, as a performer. I knew this from Llewyn Davis, which blew me away.

Alan Doyle  19:02  
That's him playing guitar like he's incredible guitar player. He's great. I met Oscar when I did the Robin Hood movie in 2009.

Maureen Holloway  19:09  
Well, that was such an auspicious time for you wasn't it was incredible. Was he in that Oscar Isaac was in the Oscar place, Ken?

Alan Doyle  19:18  
Yeah, that's where I met Oscar. He was playing King John in the film, right. And that's why I always tell the stories about getting the Robin Hood gig because it was was me and a bunch of famous people. You know,

Maureen Holloway  19:29  
also, I mean, that was tight with your name below. And you played Alan, Alan a Dale. Como seriously is Alan Doyle. How could you?

Alan Doyle  19:38  
How could it not get that gig? I'm probably probably related to him. No, no, it was awesome. Oh, my God. It was fantastic. And you got to meet you know, people, of course, Russell, who I knew very well, at the time, and then, you know, got to work with Cate Blanchett and Ridley Scott and, and Kevin Scotty, who played the other married man. I'd known them a little bit from past as well. mazing and then, but of course, like, you know, William Hurt was in that movie, and a couple of people who become really famous since you know, Oscar is one of them. And Matthew McFadden was in that movie.

Maureen Holloway  20:12  
Wow, he, oh, wow, I need to go back and see if he plays the sheriff.

Alan Doyle  20:18  
I used to live draft Street from him. And then in Richmond Hill for three months,

Maureen Holloway  20:21  
he's, he's having a lovely, lovely moment isn't this. So

Alan Doyle  20:26  
get surrounded by these incredible people, some of whom are on camera, some of whom were like, you know, doing all kinds of technical stuff, or whatever. They're the greatest people in that genre of entertainment in the world working on that movie. And Oscar was one of them. And then shortly after Robin Hood wrapped, I think it was around. So we shot that movie in 2009. And I think 2010, Oscar went on to do another movie called 10 year or 10 years. And it's about a rock star guy who they go, they go back to the 10 year high school reunion, one of the characters has become a rock star, and Oscar plays that guy. And it becomes revealed in the film I'm not recommend for anyone, but that these big hit songs about a girl from high school girl that he never got to go out with. And so Oscar was working on that movie. And we had spent a lot of time on the Robin Hood set sort of just, you know, learning how to make music on our computers in our trailers and, you know, just hanging out and playing guitar and singing songs and stuff. And he called me one night in 2010. And he told me that he'd been working on this movie, I convinced the director and the producer that he should write the song, that is the hit song that the character plays. And then he asked if I would help him do it. I was like, I'd love to do that. Sure. So I said, When do you need it? And he said the day after?

Yeah, so I was like, Oh, okay. I was like, put on a pot of coffee. So we worked on it sort of remote just back and forth. For kind of overnight, because he was in New Mexico, I had to go to Toronto to sing the anthem at a at a leafs game. And then we got. So I got up and I was doing promotion for a record or something. Anyway, it's 2010, some Great Big Sea thing. And I went to, I flew to New Mexico, flew to Albuquerque, and went up in a hotel room with Oscar for about eight hours. And we wrote and recorded the final version that's in the movie in that hotel room. And then it's in the movie. And then I've always loved that song. Like I say the version that's in the movie is just Oscar and the guitar. And it's beautiful and all that but I just I always thought it would be cool to have that song kind of fully imagined with the band and stuff. And so I finally got around to doing it. Yeah, it's on the new record.

Maureen Holloway  22:40  
It's on the new record. What's the title called best?

Alan Doyle  22:43  
I never had best I never had good times and the bed you were the best time ever had.

Maureen Holloway  22:50  
What a story if you don't have any stories? A lot. You're a performer. I mean, there's no point slotting you is singer, songwriter, writer, because you are all those things, but you are a performer. Do you want to continue being an actor? Oh,

Alan Doyle  23:07  
I play concerts for the rest of my life. So happily, like I'll do any any gig in the arts, that's fun to do write a book musical. I don't care, whatever. But I mean, if someone came through the door right now and said, You got to stop doing all that. And you just get to play concerts for the rest of your life of a that's cool. That's fine. Like interesting. I worked on my first musical. Two summers ago, we wrote and musical called telltale harbor for the Sheraton festival. And then I played one of the roles and so I got to act on stage for the bulk of the summer in and love doing and it was great fun. But you know, I've just been lucky, especially since I got that Robin Hood gig that my friends here in Newfoundland that's just sort of coincided with Alan HAKO. And the boys getting Republican oil and then frontier and then SON OF A Krishna with American. And so between all the this gang of friends of mine who are also talented, they're always doing something cool. And sometimes they end up being in the show with them or looking at son of a crutch. For example, myself and my friend, Keith, score that show so we do the music, because it's really fun because it's set in the 80s. And it's all it's all traditional, like Newfoundland uptempo music or things that sound like hit me with your best shot.

Wendy Mesley  24:11  
I love that you love Newfoundland so much. And I love it too. I've I've only been there three or four times and a couple times for work. But you talk about like, just the beauty and it is bleak. And nobody, I've never been there in the winter. I have I have it's bleak and beautiful. And maybe maybe I could head to the pub and I would have an amazing time. But it's also beautiful. And I love how you talk about Signal Hill. And it's so beautiful as part of like it's part of St. John's it's like two minutes to get there. And you walk up the back part and it's just and you look out to the the ocean and I just but then getting there. It's like seven $800 to fly to Newfoundland. It's like ridiculous, closer

Maureen Holloway  24:53  
to Berlin and Newfoundland than you are to Toronto. Well,

Alan Doyle  24:56  
I was like, say three days ago I was in Geneva and those significantly closer to my house than than it would be if I was in Vancouver. Yeah, where I'm sitting right now is closer to Moscow than it is to Tofino.

Maureen Holloway  25:09  
Yeah. But depends on which way you go, right.

Alan Doyle  25:14  
One of the things I love about St. John's, as you say is that you can leave, where I'm sitting right now in the middle of downtown St. John's. And you can walk into the wilderness, like, not to a park or to like you can walk into the wilderness where eagles and bears live, like from where I am sitting. And you can watch whales jumping, and there's not many cities, you can do that. Right. I mean, you know, we can walk from the bank, you know, to an eagle's nest,

Wendy Mesley  25:41  
you know, and there is the sense of community. I mean, you know, we do a little bit of prep for the research for each person that we interview, and it talked about how I think it was the guy from the horseshoe said that, yeah, we have some band from Alberta, and there's maybe two Albertans. But we have a band, we have the Great Big Sea or whomever you from, from Newfoundland, all the Newfoundlanders that go, all the

Alan Doyle  26:03  
all the different matters. That's Jeff, right. That's Jeff, Jeff, who runs the horseshoe. And it's one of my favorite quotes from him was like, you know, Alan, when we have a band from Edmonton, all the Albertans don't show up.

Maureen Holloway  26:16  
Well, it's that community. It's a phenomenal community built in isolation. Again,

Alan Doyle  26:21  
I think it goes back to what Mary said, you know, that we were our own thing. Not that long ago, right. But we were our own thing. We were literally a generation ago, we were our own thing. And and so I think, you know, up until very recently, we kind of feel like, you know, my grandfather would still when he was alive, he would, he would say, so you're going to Canada? Yeah. You're going up to Canada, like what are they like? And they're very nice. Yeah, I heard that. You know, like, What about like, mean, again, like, Canada, for people in my grandparents generation? Might as well have been in Malta, you know, I mean, Jordan never gonna get to go there. Like, you know,

Wendy Mesley  26:56  
what was what? 5758? What, when does it happen? Joey small. Basically, there was only 1440.

Alan Doyle  27:03  
Gordon just passed away, right? Oh, yeah. Like Gordon was born in the 20s. I think. So Gordon, Gordon told the story of when he was 16, I think or 17, or something, when he went to get on the boat and went to North Sydney. So this would have been in case it would have been in the very early 1950s, maybe 1950. In discovery, when he got that art, Sydney needed some kind of identification,

Wendy Mesley  27:26  
like a passport.

Alan Doyle  27:30  
And, you know, I think one of the reasons that we tend to stick together across the country is that we have, we have something that's our own, and we're still crushed by being by being in the UK. And, and we like to sort of promote each other as best we can. And, and I think it's served us really well, in the last 25 years or 30 years, especially, you know, we've been so disproportionately represented in the entertainment and journalistic world of Canada that it's like,

Wendy Mesley  28:02  
and you don't go to Hollywood, I'm sure if I thought more, there must be some work on to Hollywood, but you tend to get like the home. Many,

Alan Doyle  28:09  
we have a holy road here. So Hollywood, Hollywood. It's not the same. There's a big achievement to leave here and get to Toronto and make it work. Now, that's hard. So you know, it's just a thing that we're used to leaving, you know, and that's the whole Welcome Home song is that, you know, if it's harder on the leaving or the left behind, you know, that's the question and that we struggle with all the time, you know, and, but as for me, as you say, you know, I'm, I'm lucky to be in a band for living, so I get the best of both worlds. I always go in somewhere and I was coming home. Fantastic. So I said, I said during the pandemic, actually, when I accidentally said I didn't mean for it to be a quote, but people have reminded me, I said it. I'm one of those suppertime singalongs that I said, during the pandemic, what do you miss? And I said, I miss coming home. I haven't come home in a long time. I've been home.

Maureen Holloway  29:00  
No. So you have to go away to come back. And yeah, that is a natural segue role. And we're gonna play welcome home right now. And Alan Doyle, but it's pleasure as always to see you. We all feel like we're late. The whole world feels they're all Canada feels that Oh, yeah. He's a good buddy.

Wendy Mesley  29:18  
He's a national treasure. So

Maureen Holloway  29:21  
thanks. Congratulations on the new album.

Wendy Mesley  29:24  
We'll see you in a bar. So in the pub.

Maureen Holloway  29:29  
Okay, I have a little great big C story. Okay, go ahead. Okay, it again, it's more about me the great big C but when I was expecting Rome and I was pregnant with Ronan or youngest, and so a Aiden would have been about five and so we decided to go on a on a road trip. And we didn't go to new flat. We we drove all the way we drove up through Quebec City down to New Brunswick and all around Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and it rained every damn day. And so we had a cassette of a cassette of great big See, and we played that and Aiden just wanted you know what, when they're that age, they just want to hear the same thing over and over and over. So, so we listened to create big C for the 10 days that were there and because every day we'd get up it'd be raining we see let's just drive somewhere else and listen to the listen to music. There was always say music loved it, but and so flash forward 18 years later, or you know, 15 years later 13 And I'm in Halifax with eight and we're looking at universities, right? He's all grown up now we're looking at schools for him. In Great Big Sea is playing in Halifax. We're looking at Dell. And I said, oh, let's go see. Sure, but I'm not going with my mom.

Wendy Mesley  30:42  
Well, that only lasted for five or 10 years. Oh, yeah, I

Maureen Holloway  30:45  
know. I know. But anyway, yeah, I know. It's just a lovely man. And it's true every time you do feel like he's he's your best buddy. He's Canada's best buddy. I

Wendy Mesley  30:54  
have a real soft spot for him which probably shows but I do want to listen very carefully. Oh, yeah, there's a couple of confessions but he said that they're very well hidden which they should be in and he should enjoy himself like life is to be enjoyed. Yeah, as much as we do enjoy yeah and even Mick Jagger is uh you know he's still partying at 80 or whatever he is and so I'll enjoy will be to and voice

Maureen Holloway  31:22  
well you know when you happy you live longer right? So if they say I'm happy okay I'll be happy he'll you'll be around forever God got help.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  31:32  
Women of ill repute was written and produced by Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley. With the help from the team at the sound off media company and producer yet Val graver.