There is no moss on Gordie Johnson. He is not only is frontman for Big Sugar, bassist for Widemouth Mason and frontman for Grady but has started a brand new project with Big Sugar drummer Stephane Beaudin — Sit Down Servant. It is a steel guitar powered gospel, blues and dub duo which
comes to Scores, Oct. 29.
“I just go where the mojo takes it,” quipped Johnson from somewhere in Saskatchewan, where they are in the middle of a tour which began in Halifax with guitar shredder Joe Satriani.
“ It’s going really well. Audiences love it, probably because of the contrast. I mean there are so many shredders who would love to open for him, but Satch is going to have that covered, so unless it’s Steve Vai, why bother? What are you going to do,” he asked.
“ I only play guitar on one song and Moog bass pedals. I play pedal steel guitar and I’m playing everything from gospel to jazz standards to Police songs, sometimes in the same song. It’s really broad,” he said.
He has enjoyed the tour with Joe Satriani.
“It’s been great. He sits and watches us every night, so no pressure,” he chuckled.
“ He has no ego at all. And all of his people have been great to work with. He inspired me to reach a little higher,” he said.
“ That is the furthest thing from our minds. This isn’t a low budget Big Sugar show. I don’t even sing on many songs because the pedal steel guitar is God’s closest equivalent to the human voice,” he said.
The band came together after Gordie Johnson had just come off a Big Sugar tour and was recovering from surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, when an agent called and asked if he wanted to open for George Thorogood.
Unfortunately all of his other bands were busy.
“So I basically started talking about a gospel, blues and dub band. It all came together including the name, while talking to this agent and talking out of my ass,” he said.
The agent wanted to hear some music first though, so Johnson called up his engineer and Beaudin to come to the studio, they recorded three songs right away and sent it to him over the Internet.
They recorded the rest of their first album in abut two days after that, so quickly in fact, that Johnson can’t remember what three songs got them the gig.
“I just wanted to sing gospel music and the music that inspired me while growing up, ” he said.
“I just wanted to go where my imagination takes me because anything you dream is possible. I don’t really care what people think of it, I just hope it will take people on a mental journey. But this music is mesmerizing to play, I can’t even imagine what it it like to listen to,” he said.
They not only opened for Joe Satriani and George Thorogood, but even backed up rapper the Ghetto Boys.
“ They really like the bottom end of the music,” he said.
He hadn’t played steel guitar much, other than to add a little bit of it to Joel Plaskett’s album.
“I could play what was needed,” he said adding he began to take it seriously while recovering from surgery.
“I was recovering from a debilitating hand injury and just wanted to have my hand on an instruments and do something to take my mind off the focusing on the fact I might never play guitar again,” he said.
“ I found a great mentor. This cat who lives in Medicine Hat. His name is Billy Jones. He was a pedal steel guitar player in the 1940s. He played with Spade Cooley and on all of the Stompin’ Tom records. He comes right out of the Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys era. He should be legendary, but he lives a quiet life. So I tracked him down at his house, set up my steel and just watched him play,” he said adding he was immediately blown away.
“It was like Luke Skywalker meeting Yoda for the first time and trying to figure out how to get the X wing fighter out of the swamp. He really gave me a boost to take it seriously and play it right,” he enthused.
He is excited about bringing this project on tour.
“We’re already recording another album and we’re going to studios on this tour to record songs as well,” he said.
Sit Down Servant play Scores, Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. Matthew Robinson will be opening the show. Tickets are $20 in advance.
