April Wine - Brian Greenway
By: Lori Smerilson Carson | Photos: Chris Schmitt
When a song sticks in your head, that’s a go to. With so many hits songs that April Wine has created over the years from “Sign of the Gypsy Queen” to “Just Between You and Me” to “Oowatanite”, there are a plethora of go to’s. Now, Florida fans have the opportunity to experience their favorite tunes in Tampa on May 24th at the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre opening for Triumph on their Rock & Roll Machine Reloaded tour.
Catching up with Guitarist Brian Greenway at the beginning of the tour, he divulged what he and bandmates Lead Vocalist Marc Parent, Bassist Richard Lanthier, and Drummer Roy Nichol will be performing, a bit about April Wine and their past, and what fans can look forward to.
SFL Music Magazine: How did this tour with Triumph (The Rock & Roll Machine Reloaded) come together?
Brian Greenway: Well, we had known them over the years. Myles (Goodwyn) was good friends with Gil (Moore). I knew Rik (Emmett) and Gil as well, so I guess when they wanted to get a band, an opening act, our name came up. I’m just speculating. I wasn’t in the room, but I’m glad it did. I think it’s a great package.
SFL Music Magazine: What can people look forward to with the new April Wine show?
Greenway: We’re just going to give what we always give, right?. We have forty, fifty minutes to open on a relatively large stage. Well, a big stage, a Triumph stage, and we’re all friends. We’ve done one night of the official tour, and we did two nights in Florida a week ago so we got all the bugs out (he laughed). We had been playing a lot, so we were ready to go. For them, after thirty years of playing, they’re performing really well and they’ve got a spectacular show.
SFL Music Magazine: Looking forward to the Tampa show. You are the longest member since 1977.
Greenway: Yes.
SFL Music Magazine: April Wine has released sixteen studio albums, have been inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame (2009), the Canadian Music Hall of Fame (2010) and Canada’s Walk of Fame (2023). What would you say is the key to April Wine’s success and longevity?
Greenway: I think just the songs themselves are good memories. They don’t date themselves. They translated well from generation to generation. From radio going through many different peeks and valleys of styles and genres. The songs always seem to stick around. As The Stones once wrote a song, “Not Fade Away”.
SFL Music Magazine: What would you recommend to an up and coming band, a new band?
Greenway: Give up now! It’s too hard. Go back to school (he laughed). The old Rodney Dangerfield school. It’s still good. I would say, know the business because it will get you if you don’t know it. Don’t trust anybody, but trust everybody. Know your craft. Study it well. Anytime you buy a pedal or some kind of sound pedal or whatever, a modeler, know what it can do! Don’t just get it, turn it on and go, oh yeah, ok, and then you try to do something else and you don’t know how to do it. So, you’re not getting your value. I’ve done that too many times. And practice. Learn any kind of music. Learn all styles of music. There’s only two kinds of music, good and bad.
SFL Music Magazine: What do you mean?
Greenway: Well, I mean, I’m not a big fan of accordion music (he laughed). Some people are not a big fan of bagpipes. Other people love them. So, it's what you like. I mean, what’s bad? If it’s bad because it’s not something you like, it’s not bad. It's just you don’t like it. But there is bad music. I just won’t name anything to protect the guilty (he laughed).
SFL Music Magazine: What would you say inspired you to become a musician? A guitarist?
Greenway: Well Lori, as my age group, we are all big fans of The Beatles, but before that, I was a fan of The Beach Boys. I was a fan of just performing which looking back at my life later, I said, geese, when I was seven or eight years old I remember doing little performances. Just spontaneous performances for the family. I guess was a fan showing off or maybe performing was just in my blood and I didn’t know it. Both my folks were in amateur theater, in opera. So, there was a performance gene there that I guess I picked up.
SFL Music Magazine: You just took it forward?
Greenway: Yeah, and being shy maybe I just wanted to be noticed. Look at me! But don’t look at me, I’m shy.
SFL Music Magazine: There is a great story from 1977 where April Wine was a smoke screen for a charity event that was billed with an opening act called The Cockroaches who turned out to be The Rolling Stones. For those who haven’t heard the story, how did that all come about?
Greenway: The Stones wanted to do a small venue and record it. Eddie Kramer was producing it, but they could not obviously advertise it as The Stones, so they used April Wine as a smoke screen in the local club in Toronto called the El Mocambo. The famous El Mocambo. Been around for a long time, and of course the more people that know a secret, it's not a secret anymore. I think they did two nights there because that was three months before I joined the band. I wasn’t able to see that. It probably would have been quite something. I would have embarrassed myself earlier with The Stones then later in ‘78.
SFL Music Magazine: What happened in ‘78?
Greenway: Oh, I can’t say. Umm, no. We played a show with The Rolling Stones as the headliners, The Atlanta Rhythm Section and Journey. Aynsley Dunbar and I, the drummer, proceeded to drink lots of pina coladas after our shows and he said, “let's go down and meet Mick (Jagger) and Keith (Richards). You know them?” I said, no I don’t. He says, “come on, go down to catering and have a look,” So, I remember walking into catering and walking up to the table. Then my mind went blank from pina coladas. Later in life I quit drinking, so now I’ve been eleven years sober and I love it! Now, if I don’t remember, it’s just human (he laughed).
SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything new for fans to look forward to?
Greenway: We’re not doing anything new right now. We reinvented the band after Myles passed away when we brought in Marc. Marc Parent is our lead singer that Myles chose to take his place. We went back and relearned all the songs. Me teaching them to Marc and how they worked, and the history of the band, how to project it. Because you’re not just joining the band as a member. You're now replacing a member and you’re hired in to replace him, as him because your vocal style is very close to his coincidentally enough, and your ability to learn guitar parts and play like him is uncannily eerie as well. So, we spent three months just working on that. Then the rest of us, once we found out that we were playing the songs wrong too because over the years your arrangements tend to slip. Little things just like owning a car. You buy it new and little by little it gets old, and you don’t realize it until you get a new car again. But based with Marc learning the songs fresh, and he’s saying, “no, you’re not doing it right.” We questioned him and he said, “no you’re wrong, listen.” So, we did. So, we all went back and learned it. It was fun doing it that way. It was refreshing the band which hadn’t been done in, well shoot, forty years.
SFL Music Magazine: How did Marc come to know Myles? How did it happen that Myles chose him?
Greenway: He originally auditioned for the band or was going to when Myles wanted to leave and retire in 2014. Marc, a young child, just born. So, when it happened again in 2022, Richard Lanthier, our bass player suggested we maybe try and get in touch with Marc again, and we did. He came in and did the audition and said, “yes.” So, we brought him in, he passed the audition and paid us all the money to join the band that we demand from people. I’m just kidding. The standard fee is a dollar. There it is, and people accepted him which I really like. He’s very friendly on the stage and performs very well. Him and I got along very well.The chemistry is good. This chemistry is the best chemistry the band has had since probably 1978,’79.
SFL Music Magazine: I’m sure that transfers onstage.
Greenway: Yeah. We’re having fun! It shows.
SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything else that you want people to know about the upcoming show?
Greenway: If they know the songs, they’re going to have a good time. Even if they don't, they're going to have a good time. So many people have said, “oh, I didn’t know you did that song.” We say, yeah, we didn’t know we did it either.
SFL Music Magazine: Anything to add?
Greenway: The show is good, I’ve seen it. It looks impressive! Everyone is sounding good onstage. It’s a great package together. Two rock bands. Sometimes you go to a show and you say, oh, I’ll skip the opener, but please don’t skip us because we’re a good rock band and it’s a nice show to watch.
