Musical comedy trio The Arrogant Worms are touring Western Canada to celebrate their 20th anniversary and are including Merritt in the party.
Offering tuneful, silly escapism, the Canadian troupe will perform at the Merritt Civic Centre on March 20 at 7:30 p.m., the last of the Nicola Valley Community Art Council’s 2010-2011 concert series.
What began as a hobby, performing songs and comedy sketches on the late night campus radio program at Queens University quickly gained momentum and soon the group had dropped the sketches and were performing their humorous songs live. Now after 20 years and 13 albums, the Arrogant Worms (Mike McCormick, Chris Patterson and Trevor Strong) are celebrating with the release of their first ever best-of album, Hindsight 20/20, which is a collection of 20 audience favourites.
I had the opportunity to chat with Mike McCormick and here’s what he had to say:
Q: How does it feel as you’re about to begin the tour?
A: I feel old, but it’s fun. Our early kick off was in Kingston and that was kind of looking back on 20 years. There were a lot of people that came out that I hadn’t seen in years and we pulled out some songs from the first album that we hadn’t played in a while.
Q: Have you played in Merritt before?
A: No, somehow we have missed Merritt all these years. Probably because we were going too fast on the Coquihalla and just flew right by it.
Q: How do you feel about doing a show in the Country Music Capital of Canada?
A: Well, we have a few country songs, though our music is parody. Our producer and many of the studio musicians that we’ve had on our records have been country guys. It’s been interesting because certainly when it comes to the studio part, country music is all about precision. And so when these guys get to play our stuff, which is all about comic timing and breaking rules, they love it.
Q; Is your fan base primarily Canadian?
A: Primarily, but somehow through the wonders of the internet and other things, our music gets to other countries. For some reason we’ve been adopted by the Scouts and so often at an international jamboree the Canadian contingent will sing a couple of our tunes around the campfire. We did tour England a few years ago, and I remember we did one show and right in front of me was a table of young adults that were big fans through Scouts. They were from Liverpool and we were singing one of our songs, ‘Carrot Juice is Murder,’ and they were singing in full throttle with these Liverpuddlian accents.
Q: Being Canadian is a theme in a lot of your songs. It seems like this is important to you.
A: Oh definitely, it’s what and who we are and we celebrate it. The thing that I think has always made it interesting is when you compare it to our friendly neighbours to the south. We played Canada Day on Parliament Hill and we played the song ‘Canada’s Really Big’ in front of the Canada Day crowd, about 150,000 people. The song pokes fun at everything that is held dear about Canada. Can you imagine an American doing that on the Fourth of July? They’d be killed! Here we played it and people thought it was funny.
Q: When you first started on late night radio at Queens, what would you have said if someone told you’d be here 20 years later?
A: HA! There was never any thought of this even being a pastime for much past university, let alone an actual career, let alone one we’d actually be able to make a living at.
Q: What is it about your music that has defied the sometimes you’re hot, sometimes you’re not phenomenon?
A: I think we have been able to find a unique niche that appeals to a certain segment of the population and we’ve stayed true to it. Many times you find bands that start out comic but they want to be taken seriously. We have never been that concerned about being taken seriously. And I will say modesty aside, our shows are always strong.
Q: Where did the name, The Arrogant Worms come from?
A: It came from drinking in a bar and there’s nothing more interesting than that.When we started every band in town, were the adjective nouns. We basically came up with a list of adjectives and a list of nouns and started putting them together until we found something we thought was funny. And as we kept drinking beer, they certainly became funnier. That’s how it ended up.
Q: What do you love about what you do?
A: I still like the fact that we can go out in front of a group of people that we mostly don’t know, sing a bunch of goofy songs that were written because we thought they were funny and have the audience come along for the ride. I think this show will be the best we’ve ever done in Merritt. I guarantee it. Merritt has not seen the likes of us before.
