Vancouver’s long-running Celtic-rock quintet turns 25 in fine form

With the partial exception of 1990’s “Home for a Rest”, which became a radio staple only after it was a concert favourite, Spirit of the West has never really had a hit. But the popular local band has enjoyed something considerably more valuable: a loyal audience. That’s why, when the Celtic-rock quintet celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend, it’ll pack the Commodore Ballroom for two nights—a feat many international buzz bands might find hard to match, and one that impresses even founding member John Mann.

“I think we’ve been lucky,” says the close-cropped singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actor, checking in from his False Creek home. “But I also think the bands that manage to survive this long have something that separates them from everything else. We never really had a single, but in terms of concerts we pretty consistently did better than the bands that did have singles, and a lot of those bands have just fallen by the wayside. I guess you just have to have a sense of yourself, not just follow whatever’s going on musically.”

It’s conceivable that a little bandwagon-jumping was going on when Mann, Geoffrey Kelly, and J. Knutson formed Spirit of the West back in 1983. Only a year earlier, the Pogues had pursued the bright idea of combining Celtic trad with a drunken rock ’n’ roll roar, and their success meant that the Spirit boys’ mix of bodhran (Celtic frame drum), Irish flute, and strummy guitars went over just as well in punk-oriented bars as it did in the folk clubs.

“When we started out, we were quite folky,” Mann recalls. “We were trying to write as best as we could about things that were going on in British Columbia, hence the name. And around Expo 86, the band became more politicized.”

It was a time of labour unrest, of Downtown Eastside hotel evictions, of Bills Vander Zalm and Bennett. It was also around that time that Mann became romantically involved with Mecca Normal singer Jean Smith, who remains an influential figure in the Vancouver rock underground.

“She was—and still is—a really political person, a political being who really walks the talk,” Mann says of his former partner. “And the effect of her views on me in turn affected the band. We started looking at the world differently—and certainly from more of a left-of-centre viewpoint.”

This revolution also affected the music. With Knutson out and a new, electric rhythm section in, the songs became both louder and more nuanced. Over the course of albums like Faithlift and Weights and Measures, pop, prog, and postpunk elements surfaced in the band’s music; the give-and-take between Kelly’s deep traditional roots and Mann’s more experimental inclinations remains its most distinctive characteristic.

These days, though, Mann’s getting his avant-garde input from a different source: his son Harlan, who plays with local underground act Search Party.

“Maybe it’s just youth, but they’re not stuck in the verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure at all,” dad notes. “Their time signatures just go ”˜Blam!’ and explode into something else, and to me, it’s just so refreshing. There’s a whole new idea of what music is, and maybe it’s because they have access to everything.”

Inspired by what the kids are up to, Mann’s looking forward to continuing his own musical career. Along with Kelly, he’s compiling a Spirit of the West boxed set that will include new songs as well as long-time favourites and the occasional rarity; the looming anniversary, he says, is causing both of the original Westers to look back at the same time that they’re pondering the future.

“In the best-case scenario,” he says with a laugh, “it’ll allow us to kick around for another five or 10 years, and in my mind that would be brilliant. We still sell really well at the shows, and we still enjoy creating, so we don’t see any need to pack it in.

“There was a time,” he adds, “when we started beating it to death by trying to force it to make a living for us. And it was at that point we kind of took a step back and said, ”˜This is going to kill us if we keep doing it. We can’t take every shit gig that gets offered, just so we can pay the rent,’ or whatever. That’s valid too, but you don’t want to suck the joy out of your music by doing that. I mean, we’ve gone from playing hundreds of shows a year to where now if we play 30 in a year, that’s a lot. And it’s good.”

Spirit of the West plays the Commodore Ballroom on Friday and Saturday (March 14 and 15).