Cam Fuller - The StarPhoenix

May 5, 2005

TANGO SIERRA CD RELEASE PARTY
9 p.m. tonight

The Roxy

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Hollis Brown of the Saskatoon band Tango Sierra is a rocker in reverse... Overcoming everything from addiction to his position on the outside of the music industry, he's become friendly with Tom Cochrane and attracted Red Ryder co-founder Kenny Greer to produce his debut album, This Is It.

Brown's story sounds as much like a screenplay as a biography. He's an Ohio-born American and a former paratrooper who came to Canada to beat his addiction to crystal meth more than 15 years ago.

"I did my last hit of meth, smoked my last joint and drank my last beer at the bus station in Vancouver, June 20th, 1988,'' Brown says.

In addition to his wife Jackie and devotion to God, Brown credits Saskatoon itself for straightening out his life. He grew up in Florida and San Diego but doesn't have a shred of nostalgia for the sunbelt.

"I've lived in paradise and it was hell,'' he says. The cheap and abundant supply of crystal meth was his curse and almost his undoing.

"I was lucky I was able to come to a place where it wasn't. Saskatoon, the people here, the opportunities that have opened for me, it's incredible, really.

"I love it here, I really do. It's a great place to raise a family.''

He's distressed that the same drug has finally arrived in this part of the world. If the temptation was here when he was trying to beat his addiction, he doubts he would have made it.

"That's the hard part, seeing it grow here.''

Back in Florida in the early '80s, one of the biggest bands around was Red Ryder. The athems Lunatic Fringe and White Hot were all over the radio and Brown was one of Red Ryder's biggest fans. Imagine his surprise, then, to encounter a Red Ryder concert in Yorkton in 1989. It was a special time for Brown because he'd been straight a year. He snuck into the band's soundcheck and met Cochrane for the first time. He reconnected with Cochrane in 1999 and they've been in touch since.

"I'm sure I used to bug the tar out of him, sending him every crappy demo I made, but he is one of the most patient and polite guys I've ever known."

Brown had always enjoyed singing in church and some of his friends had urged him to join their band. He was reluctant because he felt uneasy with the prospect of going into bars for gigs. When he felt he was strong enough, however, he took up the guitar for the first time. He downplays his skills, saying it helps to be surrounded by accomplished players like his lead guitarist Paul Edmondson, but the key to doing it was just doing it.

"It's attitude. If you let yourself get old and stuck in your ways, you become stagnant and you get old... In rock 'n' roll, I'm fossil fuel, but I don't feel that way.''

Brown is attracted to the transforming power of music, saying it connects us with one another and lifts us up.

"It's food for the soul. Music can take a bad day and turn it into a good day."

Getting Greer to produce his album is something even Brown can't believe. Greer produced The Tragically Hip's first album and others by Lawrence Gowan and Amy Sky.

"That's one of the most amazing stories I can think of. It blows me away.''

It started with a demo tape that Greer reacted positively to.

"He said 'you got guts, this is gutsy. I like it. I've got something to work with here.'"

The band and Greer spent a week of songwriting at Jan Lake in the fall of 2003 and recorded at Greer's studio, Stable Sound, in Ontario - a studio located literally next to a stable. If you listen closely, you can hear a horse kicking in time, Brown claims.

Greer, meanwhile, did much more than produce. He played steel, slide and electric guitar, bass, keyboard and some percussion. He also engineered and mixed. He also co-wrote two songs. Fans of Greer's work will hear his trademark playing, says Brown.

The finished product is a 12-song album of rock with definite classic overtones - shades of Pink Floyd here and Led Zeppelin there. Eschewing formulaic love songs, Brown writes about life's journey, politics and survival. His religious influences are obvious but not overplayed. It's rock by a Christian rather than Christian rock, Brown says.

"If the singer of a rock band is a Buddhist, is the band a Buddhist band?''

By day he sells cars at SMP, a job he loves. But he and his bandmates in Tango Sierra -- Edmondson on guitar, Frank Kelly on bass, Ken Kitchen on keyboards and Sam Dufour on drums -- take the job of rocking out equally seriously.

"We've always wanted to be an original rock band. We didn't want to do covers -- they're too hard to learn,'' he laughs.

Brown says look out for the CD release night. With the band fired up and Greer coming to town to play along, the show is going to be "awesome."

"He is an amazing artist and he's a rocker and the rest of us are rockers too...''

Opening for Tango Sierra is Greg Hargarten's Ricasso. Hargarten did the artwork on This Is It. Tango Sierra will also play an all-ages show with Greer on Friday at 8 p.m. at Diefenbaker Drive Community Church -- pizza and pop for a buck. On Saturday, they're in Regina at McNally's Tavern.

© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005