They’ve sold well in excess of 150,000 copies of their 13 independent releases.
They’ve become one of the Canadian roots circuit’s most lucrative acts. They’ve performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, resulting in a nationally televised concert special.
They’ve played the Grand Canyon, the Grey Cup, the Disney Institute and Second City. They’ve had a number one song on America’s syndicated Dr. Demento radio program, and their music has been played on the space shuttle.
They are the Arrogant Worms, Canada’s favourite musical comedy trio. And like those underdog contestants on Survivor, they have outlasted, outplayed and quite literally outwitted hundreds of promising roots music upstarts to arrive at yet another milestone: their 20th anniversary.
They’re celebrating with the release of their first-ever best-of album, Hindsight 20/20, a collection of 20 audience favourites. And they’re supporting the release with a tour of Western Canada that includes a date March 18 at the Sid Williams Theatre in Courtenay.
Hindsight 20/20 literally begins and ends with the Worms’ show-stopping signature song, The Last Saskatchewan Pirate, a brawny tale of a displaced Prairie farmer who becomes a pirate on the Saskatchewan River. Here, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra version is paired with a novel new dance remix of the song that’s sure to rock dance floors wherever comedy dance mixes are popular.
Other favourites on the album include Carrot Juice is Murder, a mournful protest song about the killing of veggies; Canada’s Really Big, an alternate national anthem that asserts, “It’s not what you do with it / It’s the size that counts;” Jesus’ Brother Bob, the ultimate sibling rivalry song; and Celine Dion, a creepy ode to the Charlemagne chanteuse.
The Arrogant Worms first met as students at Queens University, where they were all participants in the Queens Players theatre troupe. At the time, Mike McCormick was pursuing a masters degree in engineering, and Trevor Strong was working toward a BA in psychology. Their pursuit of respectable careers started to go sideways, however, when they were asked to perform sketches and songs on a Sunday late-night radio program for the campus radio station.
A pair of humourous songs, including one about cross-border shopping, was later played on the CBC, and the positive reaction prompted the group to start performing live — at which point the comedy sketches were dropped from the routine and replaced by more silly songs.
Original members John Whytock and Steve Wood both left the band in the early years —- overwhelmed as they were by severe cases of common sense — and were replaced by bass player and fellow Queens Players alumnus Chris Patterson.
Thus began a slow but steady ascent up the ranks of the performing arts scene that has utterly defied the sometimes-you’re-hot-sometimes-you’re-not trajectory of the average roots music career. While potential new Bob Dylans have risen and fallen from favour with alarming regularity, the Worms have continued to sell out several-hundred-seat theatres for more than a decade.
They’ve also racked up an impressive list of more novel achievements … World champion figure skater Kurt Browning skated to their song Christmas is Almost Here on a nationally televised holiday special. Astronaut Chris Hadfield played Dangerous onboard the space shuttle Endeavor. Baby Poo was used in one of those pop-up novelty greeting cards. And the lyrics to The Last Saskatchewan Pirate appear in the Grade 9 English textbook Sight Lines 9.
The last couple of years have seen the Worms perform a second show with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, sell out a debut performance with the Calgary Philharmonic, and play to a series of packed houses from Victoria to Toronto.
The Arrogant Worms perform March 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Sid Williams Theatre in Courtenay.
Tickets are $40/regular, $35/members and $10/children, sold either at the Sid (250-338-2430) or online at www.sidwilliamstheatre.com.
— Heather Kitching Publicity