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Arts·Q with Tom Power

'I can't be a second-rate Guess Who': Randy Bachman on starting Brave Belt and BTO

The Canadian rock legend sits down with Q’s Tom Power for a career-spanning conversation. Bachman shares why he left The Guess Who at the height of their success and how Neil Young helped him start his new band.

The Canadian rock legend sits down with Q’s Tom Power for a career-spanning conversation

Vivian Rashotte · CBC Arts ·
Randy Bachman wearing over-ear headphones while sitting in front of a studio microphone.
Randy Bachman in the Q studio in Toronto. (Vivian Rashotte/CBC)

For more than 60 years, Canadian rock and roll legend Randy Bachman has been takin' care of business and working overtime.

Starting out in Winnipeg with just a dream and a guitar, Bachman co-founded not one but two of the most successful rock bands to come out of this country: The Guess Who and Bachman–Turner Overdrive.

Now, at 81, Bachman is looking back on his incredible life in music with a new BTO single, 60 Years Ago. In an interview with Q's Tom Power, the guitarist and singer reflects on what  happened after he left The Guess Who in 1970, immediately following the release of their biggest hit, American Woman.

WATCH | Randy Bachman's full interview with Tom Power:

"I was branded as an idiot in Winnipeg and in the press," Bachman says about his departure. "I got slammed in Rolling Stone and Creem and all the magazines at the time. [They said] that I was thrown out of the band because I was too straight. So I'm bent on proving you can make it without being bent or drugged or whatever."

Bachman says his divisive relationship with his bandmates was more like a fraternal dispute. "You don't hate him, because you're brothers, but you have this thing you never get over."

Starting over on his own, Bachman wanted to prove the critics wrong and find success in a new group — but he knew he didn't want it to be compared to The Guess Who.

"I'm in Winnipeg with no band," he recalls. "I'm going crazy, I want to do something…. I can't be a second-rate Guess Who. I can't match Burton Cummings's voice. What I do is start over and do something different."

Turning to country rock music, Bachman founded his next band, Brave Belt, with some help from fellow Canadian music legend Neil Young.

"Neil said, 'This is really great. I'll set you up with Mo Ostin,'" Bachman says. "So I fly to L.A. and I meet Mo Ostin [at Reprise Records] … and Neil gets me a record deal there."

Watch or listen to the full interview with Bachman to find out how he ended up founding BTO after Brave Belt eventually got dropped by its label.

The full interview with Randy Bachman is available on our YouTube channel and on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Randy Bachman produced by Vanessa Nigro.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vivian Rashotte

Vivian Rashotte is a digital producer, writer and photographer for Q with Tom Power. She's also a visual artist. You can reach her at vivian.rashotte@cbc.ca.

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