The cause was terminal brain cancer. They released 13 studio albums, one live album, one EP, and over 50 singles over a 33-year career.Gord Downie, the lead singer for the beloved Canadian alt-rock band the Tragically Hip, died Tuesday at the age of 53. The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as the Hip, were a Canadian rock band formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, consisting of vocalist Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker (known as Bobby Baker until 1994), bassist Gord Sinclair, and drummer Johnny Fay.
Story highlights Singer Gord Downie was diagnosed with. But now the part of their name that has the most resonance as the Hip rocks its way across the nation one final time is 'tragically.'“It’s like going to a therapist and recovering memories you didn’t know you had,” says Baker.Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie is displayed on a screen during a public viewing of the band's final concert in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Both Baker and Langlois said “Saskadelphia” rekindled some forgotten memories — even about the music they recorded.Tragically Hip's Gord Downie Sings Goodbye With Grace (Too) While more fashionable bands have faded into musical footnotes, the Hip has enjoyed a 32-year career and domestic deification.
“We got sent them — maybe four of them out of the six — the end of last summer. There are a couple that I don’t even remember doing.”The Tragically Hip tweeted out the sad news this morning that their frontman Gord Downie, 53, died Tuesday night with his children and family by his side.“I wasn’t expecting much,” he says. He had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an incurable form of brain cancer, in December 2015.“Some of these songs we hadn’t heard in 30 years. Canada is in mourning after learning that The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie, who defined what it means to be a Canadian in many aspects of his life, passed away last night at age 53.
“I thought he was going to come in and push us around in the studio: ‘Do this, don’t play that, change the sound of your amp,’ and it was none of that.“He said, ‘I just love you guys. We’d write a song in the dressing room or at sound check, and then we’d play it that night.“We’d see how it went and what needed to be done to it to fire up the audience.”They were also trying to impress producer Don Smith (known for his work with Keith Richards), who worked with them on “Up to Here.”“Don was rock royalty for us and, like rock royalty, he’s a weird, strange-feathered beast who is an idiosyncratic weird dude,” says Baker. It sounded like the young us.”The lapse of retention surrounding the sessions can be forgiven: the duo says life at the time was very much a blur due to incessant touring in Canada and the U.S., as the Hip promoted its successful Canadian debut album “Up to Here” with energetic gigs and wrote “Road Apples” whenever they could spare a minute.Baker says the band would often write songs and perform them later that night, such was the pace as they worked to ensure that they didn’t fall into the worrisome “sophomore album jinx.”“We were all very conscious of the sophomore curse and so we spent a lot of time writing. How good could they be?“So I was more than surprised it just flew out of the speakers and I was like, ‘Wow, how did this not get on “Road Apples”?’ It was way more rocking than I was expecting. I just thought, well, I haven’t heard these songs in a long time, they didn’t make the record.
To some extent, it was the loss of self-identity. It’s the loss of your career. He’d look at some words that he hadn’t written and he’d be like, ‘What?’“And we were more than occupied with trying to come up with good riffs to try and impress the rest of the guys.”Throughout their career, the band released 13 albums and sold over 10 million albums and was a source of Canadian pride.Then Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2015 and the clock was ticking.Although there were future plans made — such as the continued existence of the Bathhouse, the Hip’s recording studio just west of Kingston — Downie was upset over things that were beyond his control.As for Gord Downie, both Langlois and Baker say they’re aware of the singer’s impact but keep it in perspective.“On some level, I think we’re all aware of that, but it’s not something I focus on or think about too much,” says Baker.“For me it’s much more personal: the loss of a friend. He had just taken over the lyrics — he was leaving us in the dust, lyric-wise — and it was obvious and a reasonable thing that he wanted to sing his own words. “He was as into it as any of us.
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