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The Co-Dependents are complex, but how they feel about music is anything but.
“A drum kit used to sound like a drum kit, which it should sound like, but in the ‘80s suddenly a drum kit sounded like everything but,” says Steve Pineo, guitar player and vocalist for the Calgary-based band.
“When they started messing with the natural sound of things it leaves me cold, it doesn’t have the same kind of soul and I know the other guys in the band feel the same way.”
The Co-Dependents will appear in Medicine Hat on Sept. 26.
The band got together after singer Billy Cowsill moved to Calgary and started playing gigs at Mecca, an infamous truckstop on the outskirts of the city.
Cowsill, best known as frontman for the ‘60s pop group The Cowsills and the voice behind the psychedelic anthem Hair, was doing a show with bass-guitar player Tim Leacock when Pineo showed up.
“I went to see them play because I was a big fan of both those guys and I ended up sitting in,” Pineo remembers. “We played for a while and they said, ‘We’ve got something here.’ “
Joined by Ross Watson on drums, the group quickly became the Co-dependents a name that reflects both the band’s humour and Cowsill’s past.
“Billy was taking some psychology and music-therapy classes, and it’s no big secret he was in recovery for drug addition, so it was a sly black sense of humor thing,” he says. “Our motto is ‘We’re the band that buys into each other’s bulls—t.’ “
In the five years since, the Co-Dependents have made a name for themselves as a fan favourite and are one of the hottest tickets on the concert and festival circuit.
With countless years of music experience between them, Pineo says the four musicians have a natural connection to the retro-rock styled music they play and to each other.
Having a former rock star with a legendary voice as a frontman doesn’t hurt either.
“Billy is a very solid leader, there are some people that really command the stage, who drive the bus, as they say, and sometimes you just get a natural blend,” he said. “We have very solid leadership and we’re doing that kind of ‘50s and ‘60s rock and country with a lot of respect and a lot of authenticity, it’s fun to play and people respond to it very well.” The group’s debut album, Live Recording Event, is a 16-track CD recorded at Mecca that captures the band’s energy and talent with covers of Devil Woman, Far Away Eyes and Secret Agent Man. The album met with massive – though not mainstream – success, and has been selling steadily since its release in 2001.
By choosing their songs carefully, Pineo says the group puts their own stamp on cover numbers and presents them to audiences in a new way.
Both Pineo and Cowsill are established songwriters – Pineo wrote Paul Brandt’s hit Canadian man – but Pineo says their original work needs to fit in with their classic covers.
“To me it’s not really about who wrote it, it’s about whether it makes sense with the show,” Pineo says, adding the band’s style “goes from the birth of rock and roll right up to flower power and then stops.”
“The kind of music that we do is the kind of music that’s meant to be played live. It’s not concept music it’s dance music,” he says.
“People relate, especially young people, I think every time we play just try and be ourselves and we know that people will like us.”
The Co-Dependents play Sept 26, as the Medicine Hat Folk Music club’s first concert of the season. Individual tickets are $20, and season
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