THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Lustre Parfait, the long-mythologized collaboration between Gord Downie, the iconic frontman of The Tragically Hip, and Bob Rock, the legendary producer perhaps best known for Metallica’s Black Album, has finally arrived after more than a decade in the making. Inspired by their brotherhood in rock ’n’ roll, the 14 songs that make up this album are electrified and resplendent, a deep dedication of reverence to the magnitude of music itself.
Downie and Rock’s collaboration began when they first worked together on The Tragically Hip’s World Container (2006) and We Are The Same (2009). It was after the second outing that Downie asked if Rock had music he could write lyrics for. The sonic spaces that Rock would provide led Downie into the depths of his notebooks, armed with the musical clues to find the brilliance mapped therein. On Lustre Parfait, charged with the full strength of his spirit and the magic of collaboration, Gord tugs on the heartstrings of the mind, with such perfection: ‘All I want / All I wish / Is for a heart I can give/ First word / To final wish / A heart I can give.’
Compared to the raw intimacy of Downie’s posthumous solo releases — 2017’s letter to loved ones Introduce Yerelf, and 2020’s ghostly goodbye Away Is Mine — Lustre Parfait presents a gift of unbridled energy from one of Canada’s most eternally cherished voices. Rock says: “First and foremost Gord was my friend, and having the opportunity to work with him on these songs was one of the biggest highlights of my professional life. I am grateful that I got to witness his genius in such close proximity.”
Words by Gord Downie and music by Bob Rock — the fireworks in that statement alone reverberate vastly. Contributing guitars, keyboards, and percussion, the multi-platinum-selling, Grammy and Juno-winning, Canadian Hall of Fame-inducted Rock inspires indelible performances from Downie with his vibrant musical imagination and deft production touch. Renowned for a stunning and diverse discography that ranges from Mötley Crüe to Michael Bublé, Rock ignites electric melodies of rock n’ roll grandeur beneath Downie’s peerless lyricism. Flanked by co-producers Jamey Koch and Adam Greenholtz, Rock leads a cast of contributing musicians that intuit the depth of his ideas, emulating the pomp and bombast of The Rolling Stones or the earth-shocking cacophony of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band with profound perspective.
Opening track Greyboy Says is the album’s rallying cry. The physical combustion of poetry and power, the song is filled to the rafters with searing electric guitars and incomparable wails of wisdom. Greyboy Says is alight with Gord’s heartrending lyrics of resilience and Bob’s incomparable sonic theatrics. It was the last they recorded together. Gord shines through when he sings “You can do it, and if you can’t I’m here” — an impossible assertion of his everlasting closeness. Meanwhile, Rock’s mastery of brash post-punk energy inspires one of the most memorable performances of Downie’s career.
“Because of what he wrote, I had to make the music better. That says a lot about the way that Gord wrote the lyrics. I can’t interpret them, I only have what I hear in his words,” remembers Rock. “The first line of the chorus is ‘Greyboy says – do what you love’ and I think that sums up the song. Greyboy is somebody that has wisdom, that brings positivity, and belief in the future, to go out and find it, to not be scared or sidetracked by all the things life throws at you.” The song arrived with a video featuring archival footage of recording sessions with Downie, cut with Rock performing the song in studio with guests Dexter Holland and Noodles from The Offspring, along with Abe Laboriel Jr., the longtime Paul McCartney drummer, and Jamey Koch on bass, who both feature on the album.
The Moment Is A Wild Place is an epic ballad that will contend with the greatest songs in the eternal canon of Downie. The shimmering and cathartic seven-minute-plus track is shot through with Rock’s wall of guitar sound as Gord sings to the heights of his agility, his voice hearkening back to halcyon days, his lyrics as simple yet profound as any he wrote during his time — “They keep saying, ‘Just live in the moment / What they don’t say / Is the moment / Is a wild place.” A beacon in defiance to the paradox of being alive, now, The Moment Is A Wild Place is a magical gift from the collision of rock ’n’ roll giants, and a heartrending artifact of Downie’s singular ability to capture a moment.
“It’s special because of what he talks about,” Rock reflects. “The lyric was written before Gord was diagnosed with the sickness that he had. ‘They say you gotta live in the moment.’ It causes you to look back — and I get choked up every time I hear it still. I think most people will be moved by it. It’s one of Gord’s finest moments.”
In The Moment, Bob’s patina of chiming guitars and atmospheric synths gives Gord ample space to unfurl words tailored for our time (“Let’s kill / War with / Our happy hopes / And comforting myths”), delivered in a pristine and everlasting rock n’ roll gesture (“Just be / Yourself / Or be Johnny / Or be Johnny Cash”). “I’ve always been a fan of long pieces of music. Setting a mood and going someplace, just taking you somewhere,” Rock says. “The music was based on that journey, this rising tide of chords, crescendos in the chorus. Somehow I stumbled on this magic chord, a simple minor to a major progression, and it moved me. And Gord reacted to it. It’s absolute perfection in terms of songwriting and in terms of what he did.”
The Raven And The Red-Tailed Hawk is a rave-up rocker brimming with chiming guitars, galloping drums, and a combustive chorus that underlines the pair’s affinity for pop-punk abandon, heard before in The Tragically Hip’s Fireworks, or Rock’s work with The Cult and in The Payola$. Steeped in Downie lore, delivered with his unparalleled expression — images of the raven “round the housefire’s afterglow,” and parking lot skipping stones — The Raven And The Red-Tailed Hawk instills hope, with a picture perfect refrain of resilience landed from up above, when needed most: “Some days, I can’t do it / Sometimes I just can’t do it / The only way around is through it.”
“The Raven And The Red Tailed Hawk was the first song that Gord and I completed,” says Rock, recollecting the recording sessions that began in 2009. “It was a special moment for both of us, as at that point… we saw the future!”
A soaring, august ballad to rival Downie’s greatest epics — The Hip‘s timeless Bobcaygeon flashes to mind — The North Shore is replete with Gord’s picture-perfect to-the-letter lyrics, personifying the dramatic haze of late summer (“Summer lowers its flag now / Gently brushes the floor”) with Rock’s starry cathedral of piano, and electric and pedal steel guitars. Told from the perspective of young lovers, “teen angels” on some nearby north shore — be it Kingston, where Gord grew up on Lake Ontario, Bob’s homeplace of Vancouver, or Maui, where the duo recorded a swath of their 14-song collaboration — The North Shore sails the winds of inspiration that carry Lustre Parfait into innumerable magical corners, each brilliantly flecked the harmony of their poetry and power. “That’s the beauty of the whole record,” says Rock, “and The North Shore is one of my favourite songs on it. When it’s based on inspiration, there is no plan and you don’t know where it’s going, and that was really exciting.
“I had the music to ‘The North Shore’ around for a very long time,” he continues. “I think when Gord came to Maui when we did The Tragically Hip records, he stayed on the north shore of Maui, so we were joking that there was a north shore of Vancouver, it seemed there was a north shore of every culture and every country. But in the end what Gord wrote, it’s not about any north shore at all, but just this beautiful story of a couple with his incredible imagery as the backdrop.”
Watch my video interview with Bob Rock HERE.
