Great Big Sea's Alan Doyle Interview

CGG: How did you guys get involved with Daffodil Place, the cancer organization?

Alan Doyle: I was approached by a group of people to sit on the board of a cancer hospice in the capitol city [of Newfoundland], that would serve people from all over Newfoundland’s Labrador province that I’m from when they had to come to the capitol city to receive long-term cancer treatment. Newfoundland’s Labrador is a huge place that’s very sparsely populated, so there are not many centers. In fact, there’s only one center in the whole province where you can get long-term radiation, long-term chemotherapy, and that kind of thing. So you have to come to St. John’s [Labrador’s cancer hospital] no matter where you’re from. Sometime it’s a 12-14 hour drive, sometimes it’s a flight, so it’s really expensive. So this board came up with the idea in the local chapter of the community cancer society for a hospice, basically a residence, and a support facility in St. John’s called “Daffodil Place,” which would serve people who had to be in there for months and months at a time.

CGG: So do you know anybody specifically with cancer? Or did you have one experience with Daffodil House that really touched you?

AD: Well I grew up in a little fishing town but it’s really close to St. John’s, within like a half an hour’s drive. But my mother’s family is from the south coast of Newfoundland, which is a five to six hour drive to St. John’s. And when I was growing up I mean at five or six different times in my life, my house would be filled with relatives from the other parts of Newfoundland that were in town to get something done. Maybe it was a broken foot or whatever and they had to test it. But in some other cases, it was for cancer treatment. So as a kid when I was very young, I became aware of how hard and difficult it was for people from the rural parts of the province to be in Newfoundland, and have to come to St. John’s to receive treatment, and how expensive it is for a lot of them because a lot of them stay in hotels for five and six weeks at a time. So having cancer is not bad enough, it also costs you an arm and a leg just to receive free treatment. So that’s what Daffodil Place is all about. What we’re doing is we’re making a 24 suite facility that will offer rooms, it will offer three meals a day, transportation to and from the treatment centers, and support staff for an annual fee of about $20 a day. 7.5 million bucks is required, and we got almost six million dollars raised in just over a year.

CGG: How did you guys raise it?

AD: Different ways. It’s mostly from approaching everything from major gifts from their corporate community, and some of those were quite big donations. The provincial government gave a big donation. But the coolest things have been the small things, like little kids in grade 10 who are shaving their heads for the hockey team and raising 1200 bucks. And my aunt, Maude, who is of course a Newfoundlander but of course like many women of her generation-- Aunt Maude is in her 60s or maybe even in her 70s I guess at this point—but many gals of her generation in Newfoundland married American soldiers. And she ended up living in Staten Island for years and years, and now lives us just near Albany—Saratoga Springs. And anyway, she heard about the whole thing, and she got members of friends of hers from different parts to make apple juice and use it to collect coins for six months. And then she was planning a trip a few months back to go back home to Newfoundland for the first time in a number of years, and when she brought all the cans together and got the checks together, she raised almost 3000 bucks for Daffodil Place. So it’s been really sweeping; and it’s been not just from Newfoundland but from Newfoundlanders all over North America, which has been a really cool experience to see how the Newfoundland spirit doesn’t leave you no matter where you live.

CGG: So we were reading how your band said that you couldn’t have made your music if you hadn’t come from Newfoundland because of the inspiration you got from your hometown’s cliffs, water, and trees. Can you tell us a little more about how that nature and environment has inspired you?

AD: The environment is a big part of it because Newfoundland is a really rugged place, and you’ve got to be a very strong person to live there. And that’s not only true of Newfoundland, it’s true of most places where you need a survivalist mentality. So Newfoundland is beautiful, and it’s rugged, and it’s gorgeous; but it’s also an island stuck in the middle of the North Atlantic. So it can be quite a challenging place to live. And the people there are a result, the people who have stuck it out are hearty. And a lot of the songs that we sing are from that tradition of making the most of difficult times, and of great songs of celebration. And music for us growing up was always a thing you did to entertain yourself and to include people. The best one there was the guy not who could sing the highest note or the lowest notes, but the guy who got the most people to sing along. The best accordian player was the one who could get the most on the dance floor. So that hasn’t left us, and nor has that whole feeling of inclusion; and I’ve always loved that. And I don’t know any other place that does that as much as Newfoundland culture.

CGG: So is there any environmental advice that you can give America coming from the place that you’ve come from? What could you tell us to make our nature more rugged and purely beautiful like Newfoundland’s?

AD: Newfoundlanders have made their living from the environment that’s around them. So that inherently gives you this kinship and this respect for the ocean, for the whole works, for the beaches, for the river. You need them. You need them to be healthy. So I always have simple advice for people, and not just in America but from anywhere. It’s like, guys, walk! It’s five minutes down the road, walk! Or it’s like, I almost hate to say it, but having gas prices be extremely high is not all bad. It should cost a lot of money to drive your car 500 kilometers a week. It should cost a lot of money. And if you live 140 kilometers from where you work, that’s an issue. But it’s simple for me because I live in a small city. I live in St. John’s and you can walk everywhere, and I do. And in the same way, even when I’m in a place like Manhattan, the amount of people from Manhattan walk. I think so at least! I always love going down to Little Italy, it’s my favorite part of Manhattan; so yesterday the band walked down and we had pizza at Lambardi’s and then we walked back. And you can walk. I think, honest to God, you can walk from Battery Park to Central Park in less than an hour. You spend some time in the Midwest, or northern parts of the United States, and how did these towns—I mean, of course we know how these towns started; they started with the invention of the car so they didn’t need to walk—but I think people will learn. I think people are more and more aware of what’s required in their own backyards to make things cleaner and to make things simpler. And everyone I’ve talked to that are walking instead of driving, bar none has like it more. And it’s great.

CGG: So I hear you talk about how your music is so upbeat and joyous and happy. But what would you say is the main message of your music? What’s one thing that you want people to take away from your music?

AD: One thing that I’d like people to take away from a Great Big Sea concert is that they had a great evening. And I’m completely unabashed about that. I want people to show and leave, and feel better than they did when they got here. And I’m very glad that the songs we sing are often very optimistic, because the Newfoundlanders are very optimistic people. They are. And if you live on a rock in the middle of the North Atlantic you have to be. It’s kind of funny traveling around to different parts of the world—they’ll remain nameless. But if your flight attendant changes your parking spot, people go to therapy for a week and a half. So I’ve lived it, and it’s not a big deal.

CGG: So we were quite impressed with the fan-base that you guys have. The audience was amazing, so it looks like America has been receiving you guys pretty well out here. So how would you say your experience in America and in New York has been so far?

AD: Well it’s been pretty good. First time we ever played in America was in New York. I don’t know if it was ten years ago, but it was somewhere around there anyway. And America’s been just like it was in Canada and just like it was in New York. For us, we’re not the kind of band that gets on MTV or something one night and then the next day sells a million records. I feel like every fan we’ve met. And it’s not the fastest way to do it—making fans and making time—but it’s kind of the one that lasts the longest. In this day and age where really fans have become by far the most powerful thing in the music business, they can make you or break you in a second. And I feel so happy and I’m glad that our path so far has been so personal and so one-on-one. So we’re very honest too you know. We’re not some sort of construct or something. So it’s not very hard to do it every not because hey, it’s just us.

CGG: Your guys’ audience was so diverse. It looked like they came from everywhere and were also all different ages. So who would you say your main fan-base is?

AD: Honest to God, it’s been that way. Traditional music in Newfoundland and in northern Canada has sort of always been community-based, because it comes from sort of small communities. So everybody does everything. There’s a dance in the community hall, and you’re there when you’re six and you’re there when you’re 86. And the teenagers are sneaking out the back and blah blah blah, and there’s always drama that goes on all the time; and it’s fantastic. It’s a great spot to have a musical apprenticeship because it was all about sustaining some kind of celebration. But it’s also very real, and very unconstructed, and very unschooled, and very unanalyzed. Just sing some song you like, play something on the piano you like, or on the accordian. It’s like, this is a song I wrote yesterday—cool. This is a song my grandfather sang—excellent. This is an Elvis song—awesome. So yeah.

CGG: What’s one piece of advice that you can give young people to inspire them to do their own thing, and follow their dreams, and basically do what you guys are doing. What’s one thing that you can say that really kept you guys going this long?

AD: I’m always cautious about giving advice. I am. But I set out from a very young age to have happy days. And I have, and I’ve been lucky (knocks on the wooden table.) But it’s been by design a little bit too. And I’m from a place where people are generally generous, and they’re generally giving, and they’re generally happy. So I have a very pleasant disposition, generally. So I feel completely unqualified to give people advice who come from places that aren’t like that. But if there was one thing I could say to young people, I would say be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself, because you might be able to lie some of the time to some people, or fool some people; but you can never lie to yourself. And nothing in my experience, nobody and nothing can make you happy. Only you can make yourself happy. It comes from inside and you have to want to be a happy person; and you have to be prepared to be honest with yourself about what you’re doing or who you’re with. It starts there.

CGG: You mentioned during the concert that you’re training for a triathlon. Are you actually training for a triathlon?

AD: (laughs) No. Yeah I am, can’t you tell? No no no. I exercise fairly but no. There is a race that-- the newspaper in St. John’s called The Evening Telegran—they do a race called the tele-ten. It’s a ten mile race. I’m doing it next summer. It’s going to challenge me a bunch.

CGG: How old were you when you guys came together?

AD: We all met in the downtown music scene of St. John’s. It’s really vibrant and a real great way to pay your way through university. It’s a really small sailor town with a big night district for the size of it. The downtown music scene of St. John’s is great because there are so many bars and a lot of music came out of the history of it being a sailor joint-- where rowdy dudes get off Portuguese ships, come in on mass, and gals would run down the hills because Portuguese sailors would come in on mass! But that’s where we met. We met in the downtown music scene right while they were going to university—Memorial University of Newfoundland. And while they were going to classes and all that stuff we paid our way through university down there. And there’s a bunch of young people playing traditional music. There still is a lot of people playing traditional music in that scene. But we were in different bands. I was playing by myself but we were sort of the four most ambitious. So we met in our early 20s in downtown St. John’s.

CGG: And what advice would you give to other young musicians who are just starting out?

AD: It’s changed. It used to be you just had fun and people liked it. But I don’t think that anymore. I honestly believe that right now it’s more possible than ever to have a career now making music than it has been in a long time, but it’s also going to be the hardest job you’ll ever have because it’s really challenging right now. For one reason: the rules change almost every day. It’s like what was really important a week ago now is useless. It’s like; well hold on to your copyright because music is free. It’s like; put all your efforts into your records and the show will be a bi-product of it; but no no no, now it’s all about something else. So it’s a really challenging time to make a living playing music. But with the tools that are available to you, it’s probably more possible than ever. Like it’s really likely that people will find out about you.

CGG: We know a lot of your songs are all about nature and love and feelings. But how do you feel about using music to convey a political message?

AD: Well, in Newfoundland, in traditional music there’s a lot of history of protest songs, and a lot of history of yelling someone’s demise. I don’t know, for me personally, music comes from such a place of celebration for me that I don’t tend to write songs about that. And I don’t tend to be drawn to other songs. Even though God knows some of the greatest songs in music history are about that. It’s kind of a little bit not my bag. But there’s a new song on the record called “Company of Fools” that kind of pokes at fakers.

CGG: And just to wrap up, what advice could you give to young people who are looking to get involved in organizations like Daffodil Place, but who aren’t necessarily approached like you were, but still want to get involved in something more grassroots?

AD: I looked at your website today and I thought it was so awesome. I was like, this is perfect. And I’ve said it a million times, and especially from a small city or like from small town, it’s like you have no idea until you get involved with a project like Daffodil Place how doable things are. And how much will there is around you to do something good. It’s amazing; I’m flattened. I can’t believe it. But it takes an initiative by someone or something or some group to do it, and all of a sudden this goodness just flows out of people because they just want to be led to it. And it is so doable to make a huge difference in your school, or in your town, or in your city, or on your hockey team, or on your whatever. I swear, if the whole Daffodil Place thing has taught me one thing, it’s that I had no idea previously how achievable positive change can be. I swear; it’s amazing. Apple juice cans from Aunt Maude!