The Tragically Hip is considered one of Canada’s greatest bands. If you don’t like the Tragically Hip, there’s a good chance you don’t love Canada. Mike Downie is Gord Downie’s older brother. He’s also a very well respected and accomplished writer, producer, and director. He has worked on The Dragon’s Den, The Passionate Eye, Blue Rodeo – The Scenes in Between…and many more.
We talked with Mike Downie, the writer, producer, and director, about his four-part series on Amazon Prime, The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal before the big screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
HNMAG: I know it has been seven years, but I first want to pass on my condolences. It’s something you never get over.
Mike Downie: Well thank you, I appreciate that Shawn, I really do.
HNMAG: Congratulations. You’re screening something tonight.
Mike Downie: We are screening the first two episodes.
HNMAG: Are you the oldest of five children?
Mike Downie: I’ve got an older sister Charlyn, then me, then Paula, then Gord, and then Patrick.
HNMAG: Were you born in Kingston?
Mike Downie: No, my parents are from Toronto. Charlyn, Paula, and I were born in in Oakville, and then my parents moved to Kingston. Dad got a job in Kingston in 1963, and Gord was born a year later, the first Kingston Downie child, in 1964.
HNMAG: You look much younger than that.
Mike Downie: Hey, thanks a lot.
HNMAG: It was amazing how you got these passionate great Canadian interviews for the doc like Bruce McCulloch, Dan Akroyd, Jay Baruchel, Justin Trudeau, and Denise Donlon. She brought up that many Canadian performers were deterred to use anything Canadian in the title of the songs because it would hurt sales. Did The Tragically Hip prove that to be a Myth?
Mike Downie: We’ll never know. They decided that they just wanted to be authentic. To tell stories that they really believed in and really thought would be good songs. One thing that comes across with the band at every stage is their self-confidence; they really believed in themselves and what they were doing. They really never questioned these kinds of commitments, to sing about things and to write lyrics about things that really seem to matter to them whether it’s David Milgaard or, something about Tom Thompson, that sort of mysterious Canadian piece of history. What I liked about what Denise said was that they just didn’t care about that industry backlash. Midnight Old is a great example. They’re just so Australian. How can you not be interested in that? Would they have been more famous if they’ve been more neutral? So maybe less Australian and maybe less inspired to write about things like the environment. I, I can’ t imagine that that would have worked any better for them.
HNMAG: The Tragically Hip had the authentic integrity and are loved by Canadians because, they told real Canadian stories without any nationalistic BS. ,In terms of film and TV, we’re not quite there. How do we encourage that kind of real, authentic Canadian storytelling in film and TV in Canada?
Mike Downie: That’s a tough one. Here’s the thing: I feel like with film and television, it’ s a very expensive canvas; the writing and the acting is so difficult. It is so difficult to craft a story that that works for you different groups of people. We’re right beside America that has ten times the population, probably greater than that when we look at a cultural product like film or television. LA or New York attracts people from all over the world and we’re right beside it. We’ve definitely had success. Music moved a lot further, a lot faster and one of the reasons is because it starts with somebody often with a guitar, in their room, developing their craft. With film and television it’s a little trickier to move up that learning curve. I’ve been making documentaries for over thirty years. Canadians do a great job in documentary. It suits us a little bit more but on the other front, bigger budgets would help. It’s a super complicated question man!
HNMAG: In 2004, a CBC series declared the greatest Canadian of all time was Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather Tommy Douglas. If we did that again, does your brother top that list?
Mike Downie: (laughs) One Hundred percent! Terry Fox was second on that list. He was ahead of Sir John A. McDonald, Don Cherry, Alexander Graham Bell, Wayne Gretzky. My brother Patrick and I, got to know Darrell Fox pretty well over the years. We got together a couple years ago, and we filmed a little segment with Pat, and I and Darrell. Most of the segment was really just kind of bragging about our brothers. Darrell really saw Gord as a peer of Terry Fox. It’s not for me to say but when Darrell Fox says it, that’s really that. We confirmed that there were a lot of similarities between our brothers. Yeah, Gord would be right up there, you know you get my vote.
HNMAG: On March 24th, 2007, The Hip played El Rey Theater in Los Angeles which holds around seven hundred people. Almost everyone attending wore something Canadian like a maple leaf. I was like we’ve moved part of Canada to L.A. It was a really crazy experience. Even more moving was the Man, Machine, Poem tour, in the summer of 2016. It was a celebration of tears. We knew it was the end, it was finite! Is that a unique moment in history that had never happened before and probably will never occur again. A special but tragic kind of Farewell Tour?
Mike Downie: It was so unique and so courageous by Gord, and so loving by the rest of the band who really wanted it to happen and knew that it was going to be a great challenge for them. It was just such a beautiful thing. That’s why by the time the tour worked its way across the land and got to Kingston on the last day of the tour. The whole country tuned in because they had really recognized that this was so incredible. The love and the adoration of the fans, felt like they’re giving him back something a lot had been taken from him by then. You got to remember he had already had two brain surgeries, and radiation treatment. It had left a real mark, With a terminal diagnosis, so much gets taken from you, like your future, obviously, but also the way you are in the world because you now know that it’s very limited. So much had been taken from Gord, and then you watched night after night, that things were being given back to him. I visualize it as him kind of inflating almost like he’s getting taller and fuller and powerful. Robbie says he was the old Gord by the end.
HNMAG: Another band along those Canadian lines of being successful in Canada and loved by Canadians is Blue Rodeo. You made a movie in 2000, Scenes In Between.How did that come about?
Mike Downie: It was a friend of mine, Chaz Hayes who sold the band on the idea of doing a documentary and got CBC interested. I got connected to Chaz and then we got connected to Jim Cuddy. I knew Jim through golf and playing some hockey. We met a couple of times and really hit it off and then we went down to New Orleans. It was Mardi Gras. New Orleans plays a really important part in the Hip film, for Road Apples and again for Day for Night. I got to go down there with Blue Rodeo, We arrive and film them in the same studio, where Day for Night was recorded. It was really special to me, and it’s quite a good little film that we made about them making that record. We got into a little bit of what they were all about, Jim and Greg.
HNMAG: Can you talk about the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund?
Mike Downie: It was something that we started with the Wenjack family in 2016 while Gord was still with us. Right around the time Secret Path was coming out. It was really meant to take some of that energy that was being released from Secret Path to create something more permanent in a charitable organization. Today we have several important programs. One is Legacy Schools. We’re in over 7,500 schools that are signed up as legacy schools. Educators committing to bringing reconciliation into the classroom to provide them with resources and put them into this network where they can learn some best practices. We are trying to move into the curriculum as well so that teachers who want to teach locally have some resources. Education is a huge part of the fund and then the other part of the fund is really legacy spaces. Organizations and corporations sign up to become a Downey, Wenjack Fund legacy Space. They set aside a physical space, a board room or sometimes the entry level of their building. They create this legacy space where this is where reconciliation is meant to happen there’s a poster of Chanie and a poster of Gord. They often add their own indigenous artwork. They work with local indigenous groups to flush it out more. It’s meant to inspire these organizations to find their way and to remind themselves of their commitment to reconciliation. With reconciliation, it’s going to require all of us in one way or another, finding our way onto our path which will be unique to each of us. Whether it’s as an individual, as a family, as an organization. You have unique gifts to bring to it and you need to find your own way to it. It can be very helpful to have a little bit of hand-holding, to get people to that place of saying, let’s make sure that your steps forward are, respectful, and correct. Hopefully, we do it to help create a country where, Indigenous people can someday be really proud to be a part of.When Gord made that announcement at the last show he ever performed with the Tragically Hip, to say what he did in front of the Prime Minister. I think that meant a lot to a lot of Indigenous families and leaders.
HNMAG: What would you like viewers to take away from The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsals?
Mike Downie: I’m here to tell my brother’s story. The story of the Tragically Hip and the high school friends of mine. To inspire, hopefully, another generation of Hip fans who will watch the film and then dig deep into their catalog. There’s fourteen studio albums, waiting for them. Every one of those albums has many gifts, many song gifts on it. The Tragically Hip should be a part of this great Canadian institution of music lovers. I’m certainly one of them.
If you are not as familiar with The Tragically Hip, there is no better place to start than No Dress Rehearsal. You can catch all four episodes now playing on Amazon Prime HERE . If you’re not a subscriber, this is a good reason to start, even if that’s with a free trial. The documentary series is inspiring, informative, and honest. There is no one more qualified to direct the series than Mike Downie. Yes, his brother Gord was the frontman and lyricist for the band. That gives Mike a close and unique perspective. Mike Downie is also a great filmmaker and has the talent to facilitate passionate conversations.