Caught by the fuzz

>> Julie Doiron gets nabbed (again) by Eric's Trip

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

Julie Doiron is taking a break from winning Junos, playing big stateside shows and working with the Hip's Gord Downie to rejoin her beloved indie alma mater Eric's Trip. While her boy bandmates played in a Calgary skate park, Doiron also took some time out to tell the Mirror about how this Trip got started.



Mirror: So is this your way of celebrating the five-year anniversary of your break-up, or what?

Julie Doiron: I don't know! (laughs) It's just an opportunity to play the songs again because everything we're doing individually is so different from Eric's Trip, and we actually all like each other so we just thought it'd be a fun thing to do. Rick White started asking us last June, a year ago, if we wanted to do it and I don't think Mark Gaudet or myself was ready. Then Rick and I did a Christmas show in Toronto last December and there was this anticipation before the show that we would do something together. We ended up playing seven Eric's Trip songs and it was really nice.

M: Does this reunion end after the tour, or--

JD: We don't really know, and I hate to talk about future plans because if it feels like we have to do it then we probably won't, but we've talked about how it would be fun to do a seven-inch or another tour. It's something we could do every once in a while if the mood fits. For now there's nothing planned, and we're all busy doing our own things so it would never take over that.

M: But the fans must be loving it.

JD: The response has been great--I don't really understand it. People are definitely coming out and they seem genuinely excited to see us. And we've actually been playing really well, it seems, except for last night. It was our fifth show in a row, we were all tired, and each guitar player kept breaking strings. It was sort of up and down but apparently it sounded good out in the audience, people loved it. It was a typical Eric's Trip show.

M: So a typical Eric's Trip show is a bit rough?

JD: (laughs) Yeah, except for our last tour in the States, the one we broke up on, we were really hot, really tight and professional. We were selling out venues, but we were being paid $100 a night, so that was hard to handle. If we had kept going in the States it would have been huge, but we didn't and that's okay. But every time I tour the States people ask me if Eric's Trip will ever go through again.

M: Your solo material seems like a complete reversal, all low-key and acoustic.

JD: It was just out of necessity. I would love to have a rock band, but if you're playing on your own and writing songs quietly after bedtime, you end up writing songs like that. I certainly never think too hard about what kind of sound I want, I just do what feels right. But the world needs a rock band to come and mess things up a bit, and I don't know when that will happen. Hopefully soon.

With Moneen and Les Macchabées at Cabaret on Sunday, Aug. 26, 9pm, $14