The 'Plein D’Amour' version of The Guess Who defends their place in storied legacy

By Lee Zimmerman 

Few bands have as intriguing — one might say, unlikely — a history as The Guess Who. In retrospect, they might have been considered a supergroup of sorts, given that they housed the twin talents of singer and keyboard player Burton Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman, both of whom went on to further glories. Together, they scored a string of chart hits, among them “American Woman,” “These Eyes” and “No Time,” plus no less than five Top 10 albums in their native Canada and one, American Woman, that climbed to the top of the charts back home and broke into the Top 10 in the United States. Other albums affirmed that the band were adept at doing more than turning out the hits.

The original incarnation of The Guess Who disbanded in 1975, but credit drummer Garry Peterson with maintaining the band — and the brand — for years. Currently, the group also features Derek Sharp (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano), Leonard Shaw (keyboards, saxophones, flute, backing vocals) and the two newest members, Michael Staertow (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Michael Devin (bass guitar, backing vocals), both of whom joined in 2021.

New releases from the band have been decidedly slow in coming. Their last album, The Future IS What It Used to Be, came out in 2018, but prior to that, there had been no new offerings since Lonely One (a repackage of Liberty from the year before) in 1995. The last album up until then was Now and Not Then, from 1981.

That changes with the new album, Plein D’Amour; it’s bound to take longtime fans by surprise given that it maintains a progressive posture more reminiscent of Queen or 10CC than the band’s traditional heartland heroics.

Goldmine recently had the opportunity to speak with Sharp and Peterson about The Guess Who’s current activities and the new album.

GOLDMINE: First off, congratulations on the new album. It’s a masterful effort and no doubt it will catch some of your longtime fans by surprise.

GARRY PETERSON: We’ve always been influenced by our heroes. And of course, that started with The Beatles, and progressed through the whole era of British rock, on and up through Queen.

DEREK SHARP: As we’ve been telling people, we’re kind of fans of that stuff. And with the band we have now, it just made sense to do it, because we have five singers in the band.

GM: Those influences are pretty obvious in the new music.

GP: Not only that, but Derek and I are approaching 20 years of working together. And hopefully, we’ve grown musically in that time, which I believe we have. And Derek has always done a lot of writing, both before our time together, and ever since. So, this is kind of the culmination of all those efforts coming to fruition now in this music that we’re putting out.

GM: It’s been a while since you’ve had a new album out, right?

GP: Five years to be exact. Not since 2018.

GM: Nevertheless, this incarnation of the band has been together quite a while. Maybe longer than any other version. Is that the case?

DS: I think pretty much, like maybe by a mile.

GP: Derek’s been the singer for... 17 years at this point?

DS: That puts it in perspective. Plus, our keyboard player, Leonard, has been with the band approaching 30 years.

GM: That’s impressive. Those early hits defined the band early on. What you’ve done now is kind of a rebirth, a rebranding, and very definitive chapter in the group’s evolution.

DS: We hope so. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do, as opposed to just continuing to celebrate the past. We’re still moving forward. I understand why somebody might not want to do that, because in some other bands, there’s a vintage appeal. And because let’s face it, it’s a lot of work. But, you know, Gary and I have been talking about this for years. This is what we love. This is what we do. So, we do it.

GM: So at any point, was there any thought given to perhaps rebranding the band or changing the name or coming up with some sort of name that recognizes the past, but also defines what you’re doing now?

GP: I can answer that pretty easily. If you do your history, you realize that The Guess Who is kind of unique in the way that it’s had four or five successful versions with different members. There was no one definitive band, unless you just want to say the people that recorded “American Woman” are the definitive version of The Guess Who. I suppose you can make an argument for that, because that’s a huge song. But there were also other big hits, especially in Canada, that were quite successful. And so it’s a bit tough to categorize this as a one-hit wonder band. You might want to do something like you’re suggesting, but, really, we’re just a continuation of a long legacy.

DS: When we made changes in the band, we made them with people from Winnipeg, where the band started, OK. And as the band evolves, we forayed forward into the great unknown, and we started getting people from Toronto, from the eastern part of the country. And now we have all evolved to get replacing members kind of from everywhere in North America. Unlike before, we’re not confined to any one area.

GP: We started at home, but now we’re going further afield. And that will naturally change the sound of the band.

DS: Wherever. In another five years, we’ll all be from Thailand.

GP: That’s right. Who knows? They’ll still be a Guess Who.

DS: If you don’t evolve, it disappears. We play some 60 shows a year. That’s a lot of people who see and experience us. It’s maybe half a million people. I don’t even know. But these people are rediscovering stuff that may have been on the periphery of their musical reference before, and it just kind of reintroduces the music every time any band that’s out there is performing. And that’s what we’re doing. We do it for everybody else. We’re celebrating an old legacy and also continuing on with our art.

GP: One thing you have to realize is that once you’re a musician, and you’ve dedicated your life to it, you’re not just thinking, well, we recorded “These Eyes” and “American Woman,” and that’s it. That’s not the end. Because if you’re a true artist, you’re going to paint another picture. And another, just like you’re gonna write another song. That’s what we do. We have the need to create new portraits.

GM: I was speaking with somebody the other day, and he was in a band with a similar sort of scenario. And he said to me, you know, younger fans come up and say, “We never would have heard this music had it not been through your dedication to going out and playing these songs in concert.” They never would have heard the songs at all at this point.

GP: That is sad because there’s no true outlet for older bands doing new music.

DS: You have to join in with the younger ones. That’s who you’re competing with. And the people our age, maybe those of us who really love music, spend time exploring but most people, by the time they get a little older, they get busy and time goes by faster. When you’re young, like say when you’re 15 years old, your whole life is about music and the songs and the bands you love.

GM: There is a little bit, or maybe not a little bit, of ageism involved, where people will try to define you by age and try to push you to the margins. So the fact that you continue on and make this brilliant new album is very commendable. I know I wasn’t expecting it. I think you have the opportunity to really trumpet this new chapter in the band’s trajectory and reintroduce yourselves to speak.

GP: You hit the nail on the head. We want people to say, “Wow, this is something I want to listen to!”

GM: You’ve obviously had a lot of shifts in the membership over the years. So, when a new member joins The Guess Who, is it a little intimidating for them? They’re joining a band with a history and a legacy. And all of a sudden now, they’re the new guys. Is it a little scary for them and is there a break-in period, where they literally have to get in tune?

DS: Recently, the people that have been joining this band, like Michael Staertow, who played with Lou Gramm from Foreigner, and Mike Devin, who played with Whitesnake and Rudy Sarzo played with Quiet Riot, they’re not really intimidated by coming to this band. They’re seasoned professionals. Rudy himself said that when he came into the band, his comment was, “This is the story of my life playing this musical soundtrack.” It’s the sound of his life because a lot of these people that are coming into the band grew up listening in some form to this music. So, I think that rather than being intimidated, it’s probably a more euphoric kind of feeling of being able to play the music, and then go on and create new music for this band. It’s kind of like a tradition.

GM: Still though, I’m sure they want to measure up to the standard.

GP: That depends on the type of person you’re hiring. We purposely have reached out to people that have their own legacy. And the reason for that is, because they’re already proven. Whereas if you get somebody that’s not known, or you don’t know the person, you have to go to that period of discovering who they are. Being a skilled musician is only one part of the puzzle.

DS: Everybody knew Rudy has his own personality. He has his own following. And Michael had worked on his own presence by playing with Lou all those years. Same with Michael Devin. It’s a small circle of people. I guess maybe that’s a good way to answer it, as opposed to me going into Toronto and finding some great guy who I think is really good and then bringing them into a new situation because they haven’t been touring around the world. That it would be intimidating. But if you do it all the time, it’s not.

GM: That’s a good answer. So out of curiosity, have any of the alumni of the early bands come back and seen the band or had any comment on the current band or the new music?

GP: I don’t know that anybody from the old days has seen the new band. I know that Burton had often called this band, at least originally, the clone band. I think there’s some acrimony there. When you go on our Facebook page, we have a mission statement that says we are here, not only to create new music, but to celebrate all the old music and the people that created it. So that’s kind of our attitude. I don’t know that anybody has said anything or has the platform to say anything about whether they’ve seen the band or what they think of it. I have never found anything. Also, none of us live in the same place anymore. We’ll congregate, and then we play a show and then we leave. So you don’t really have the occasion to meet up, even to have your own family come to shows. But the answer, I guess, is that everybody is certainly welcome. If you’re an alumni, why not come up and play with us? We never had any problem with stuff like that. But you have to be in the right place at the right time in the right circumstance for that to happen. So I don’t think there’s a lot of chances of that happening. In the meantime, we’re creating new music and hopefully we can maintain the band as it exists. And if not, we go to plan B, and C and D, and E.

GM: You have a huge mission to accomplish, because you’re not only keeping the legacy alive, but you’re moving forward, reaffirming what you do. And so you have a link to the past, you have a link to the present. And you obviously have a link to the future as well. That’s a big mission to encompass all of that.

GP: It’s a big mission, but it’s an enjoyable mission.

DS: I don’t know whether you can describe a better job.

GM: So, finally, what can you tell us about the title of the new album, Plein D’Amour?

DS: It means “full of love.” It’s like, all you need is love. Only it’s in French, because it sounds so much cooler in French.

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