The Sadies Follow Polaris Nod by Recording with Tragically Hip's Gord Downie

Currently in the running for the 2010 Polaris Music Prize for their album 'Darker Circles,' the Sadies aren't resting on their laurels. While a lesser band might be basking in the (somewhat muted) adulation of a nation, or envisioning ways to fritter away Polaris' $20,000 purse, should they be fortunate enough to win, the hardworking Toronto-based band is out doing what they do best: making music honestly and away from the spotlight.

Hell, guitarist Travis Good even disputes that the well-worn, instantly-recognizable foursome has any sort of name-brand recognition.

"I don't know if we're relatively large," he told Spinner after an outdoor performance at the Wolfe Island Music Festival. "We are relatives, though." [Brother Dallas Good is the band's principal vocalist.]

Looking tired but happy after a rousing closing set on the first evening of the festival, which saw the Sadies end with a medley of "ten songs in ten minutes" that included a rousing semi-cover of Van Morrison's 'Gloria,' Good smokes his cigarette slowly and deliberately while extolling the virtues of Kingston, Ontario, which is but a ferry ride away.

"I love it, it's close to where I live," he said. "I live about an hour away from here, in Hastings, and we play in Kingston probably twice a year. [We] record here. It's a nice spot."

That the Sadies record in and around the Kingston area is specifically important. 'Darker Circles' was recorded in nearby Bath, Ontario, at the Tragically Hip's studio there. Furthermore, the next record the Sadies appear on may also be birthed from the same place.

"We've been recording with Gord Downie a lot for a record in Bath -- a ton of sessions there. It's a great studio, a great town," Good explained. "There's no dates set for it or anything, we're just chipping away at it. It's fun. We have about eight songs now, we'll just keep going. We have no finish line, we have no date, we have nothing -- we're just going to record until we run out of ideas, I suppose."



The prospective fruit of that labour, Good added, may not ever see the inside of a record store. He just wants to go in with the goal of making music and see what happens.

"It's going pretty smoothly," the guitarist reported. "Everyone brings something to the table. Gord's got tons of lyrics, and so we jam and then we end up hitting the record button and seeing what happens. Some of it might make the record, some of it [might not], that's what's nice about not having any schedule or deadline. We've never really done that.

"When we record with other people, it's always, 'Okay, we've got to make a record and it's going to come out on January 17th,' or whatever. Like we've got to have it done by then, and we go and we rush to the finish line. And it's nice to have that, it makes you work hard and everything, but it's also very luxurious to be able to go at your own pace."