A legendary punk group that has spanned the country many times is coming to Prince Albert on Monday, Aug. 5.
Montreal’s Ripcordz will be headlining a three-band set at the Spice Trail with Tadoma and Prince Albert’s TV Casualties presented by Threadbare Productions.
Paul Gott of the Ripcordz explained that the band is still going strong after nearly 40 years.
“We started playing basements in Montreal in 1980, kind of inspired by the first wave of Punk. We never stopped playing because it’s still just as much fun now as it was back then,” Gott said.
“Our style has got a little heavier. So people know Rancid. We started out something more like the Clash but more like rancid and we kind of been evolving a little bit, but we often describe ourselves as a rock’n’roll band . We’re noisy, we’re fast, but we’re not too fast,” he explained.
The band has gone through several lineup changes with Gott being around from the beginning.
“I mean, basically we’ve kind of turned into kind of a collective at this point in time. I mean, we’ve played I think 11 shows so far this year and we’ve had seven different lineups for it because you know we’re bandits out there to have some fun and you meet people and enjoy ourselves,” Gott said.
The lineup for the current tour is Gott on guitar and vocals, Alexandre Gauthier on bass and vocals and Josh Taugher on drums.
“ We don’t make money. So everybody gets jobs and all that stuff. That is kind of necessary for all the members who do go on to other things. We actually stay in touch and we’re friends with them. So you know when needed whenever we’re playing shows, we see who’s available,” Gott said.
The lineup for the tour had its first show in Vancouver on July 27 and Gott explained it is a revival of a lineup from a couple of years ago.
This is the band’s first time playing Prince Albert and Gott said that is something the band looks forward to.
“There’s like so many shows and people get cheated and smaller towns we just find like people are more enthusiastic and they’re more curious, which is good. And we just have a lot more fun and we get to explore Canada,” Gott said.
He explained that the band had played 3,000 shows with all but a dozen in Canada. Gott explained that the band will be traveling from Lethbridge and leave early in the morning.
“So we get to Prince Albert early in the afternoon, let’s say around 2:00. So we can just walk around Prince Albert and discover it and you know, have some fun just meeting people and hanging out and probably find a pub somewhere and have a beer,” he said.
He explained that they like to absorb a bit of local culture when they are on a tour stop.
“This is gonna be the first time we’ve ever been there. So that to us was fun,” Gott said.
“It’s a new place that we have played before. I made a special poster for with the King Kong with the Mohawk climbing the Prince Albert Grain Elevator,” he said.
The band has made many friends traveling across Canada multiple times.
“The nice thing about having gone across this country probably like 20-25 times now is that we have met so many people and sometimes they’re the same band, sometimes people move on to other bands, but we make friends. That’s kind of what we do. We just hang out and talk to people,” Gott said.
For example on the bill for the Prince Albert show is Tadoma, who the Ripcordz played with in Humboldt last year but who also features Corri Barnes who was in Spy 66 who they played many shows with in the 1990s.
“And now also I put the them on the new compilation that I just put out, the Punk Canada Compilation and 66 Aces. His other band is going to be on the next Punk Canada Compilation,” Gott said.
“We do what we can also as a band, we try to be kind of a unifier across Canada,” Gott said.
Gott explained that they do this by taking many photos at their shows that they use for album covers and on the band’s social media.
“There’s like tons of pictures of people from across Canada, so people are going to see what people in other cities that like the music look like and they get a sense of the other scenes and we hope that it sort of becomes a bit of a unifying factor across Canada,” Gott said.
The show was originally scheduled for Prince Albert Brewing Company (PABCO) but was moved to the Spice Trail due to renovations currently occurring at PABCO.
Doors are at 8 p.m. with bands starting at 8:30 p.m., advance tickets are $10 and $15 at the door.
