Cowboy Junkies: Music Is The Drug - The Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Welcome to the 50th episode of "Music Is The Drug", and we're marking the occasion with Michael Timmins and Alan Anton discussing perhaps the Junkies' best known recording, "Sweet Jane", from "The Trinity Session".

A song that was in the repertoire as far back as "Whites Off Earth Now!!",  we look at the reasons why "Sweet Jane" and the Velvet Underground have always been Junkies' touchstones and hear just what songwriter Lou Reed thought of the band's recording of the song that takes us right back to the day he wrote it.

To listen to "Sweet Jane", click here.

To order "The Trinity Session", click here.

To order "Such Ferocious Beauty", click here.

To listen to "Such Ferocious Beauty", click here.

To order "The Barn Demos" CD and writing notebook, click here.

To make sure you don't miss out on each weekly episode, remember to subscribe to "Music Is The Drug" at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest...

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from them, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here. 

Copyright 2023 Latent Recordings.

Welcome to the third part of our special series of podcasts to mark the release of Cowboy Junkies’ new album, “Such Ferocious Beauty”.

With the help of music from the album, some demos and an excerpt from an as yet unreleased track, this time we’re talking to Alan Anton to get his take on the record, its writing and production and playing it live.

To watch the video for "Hard To Build. Easy To Break.", click here.

To watch the video for "What I Lost", click here.

To order "Such Ferocious Beauty", click here.

To listen to "Such Ferocious Beauty", click here.

To make sure you don't miss out on each weekly episode, remember to subscribe to "Music Is The Drug" at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest...

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from them, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here. 

Copyright 2023 Latent Recordings.

"Music Is The Drug" is back for a fourth series and we're starting out by talking about a brand new song, "What I Lost" from the band's upcoming new album, "Such Ferocious Beauty".

A co-write by Michael Timmins and Alan Anton, they take us through the writing and development of the new song and explain why it's the first song to be aired from the new album.

But don't waste your time reading this, dive in to the podcast. You're going to love it...


To watch the video for the song, click here.

To make sure you don't miss out on each weekly episode, remember to subscribe to "Music Is The Drug" at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest...

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from them, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here. 

Copyright 2023 Latent Recordings.

Taken from "At The End Of Paths Taken", "My Little Basquiat" is a song that still has its place in the Junkies' live set some 15 years later. built around Alan Anton's bass groove and featuring on of Michael Timmins' favourite guitar solos,

Mike and Alan are here to tell us all about writing the song - or their versions of it anyway - and just what part the 1976 Montreal Olympics had to play in its completion...


To make sure you don't miss out on each weekly episode, remember to subscribe to "Music Is The Drug" at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest...

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from them, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

To listen to "At The End Of Paths Taken", click here.

To buy "At The End Of Paths Taken", click here.

To order "Sharon" and "Songs of the Recollection", click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here. 

Copyright 2022 Latent Recordings.

Going back to Cowboy Junkies' first album, "Whites Off Earth Now!!", in this episode, Michael Timmins and Alan Anton take a look at the whys and wherefores behind the inclusion of Bruce Springsteen's "State Trooper" on a record that otherwise concentrates mainly on earlier blues performers like Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker.

Dark, brooding, intense, Springsteen's opus to a police encounter on the freeway might well have been dictated to him by Johnson from the other side, wondering where the crossroads went and why there are all these six lane highways instead.

For the band, recently slimmed down to a four piece following the departure of John Timmins, this is the sound of them handling that extra space and settling into some of the principles that have defined much of their music ever since. In this episode, we explore how they got there and the vital role of producer Peter Moore in helping them capture it.



To make sure you don't miss out on each weekly episode, remember to subscribe to "Music Is The Drug" at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest...

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from the band, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

To listen to "Whites Off Earth Now!!" click here.

To order the new albums, "Songs of the Recollection" and "Sharon", click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here.

Copyright 2022 Latent Recordings.

Some songs never quite make it onto albums not because they're not up to standard, but because they simply refuse to fit in with all the other songs. In the olden days, they'd get scooped up and used on the b-side of a single or 12", but in the modern world, they tend to have to wait until a band is ready to issue a 'rarities' stye record.

"Ikea Parking Lot" is one of those songs and when you listen to it, you can see why. Eerie, atmospheric, even harrowing, what song would you put it before it or after it? So it was that it found its way into the public domain on the fourth CD in the "Notes Falling Slow" box set - and Cowboy Junkies' musical story is richer for having it out there for people to hear.

Michael Timmins and Alan Anton take us through the song, from arguments over the title to the joys of living in a cold climate, from how they find those haunting keyboard sounds to embracing - or not - the inner Geddy Lee...


To make sure you don't miss out on each weekly episode, remember to subscribe to "Music Is The Drug" at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest...

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from the band, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

To listen to "Notes Falling Slow", click here.

To order the new albums, "Songs of the Recollection" and "Sharon", click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here.

Copyright 2022 Latent Recordings.

"Breathing" is a song from the "Ghosts" album that was released by Cowboy Junkies as the world began to slip into Covid lockdown in March 2020.

Deeply personal, strikingly minimalist, powerfully emotional, we'll just leave it to Michael Timmins and Alan Anton to explain it all to you...


"Music Is The Drug" is available wherever you get your podcasts. Please remember to subscribe at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest.

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from the band, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

To order "Ghosts" on vinyl, direct from Cowboy Junkies, click here.

To listen to "Ghosts", click here.

To buy "Sharon", click here.

To buy "Songs of the Recollection", click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here.

Copyright 2022 Latent Recordings.

"Renmin Park" is surely the most unusual album in the Cowboy Junkies' canon, an album that grew from a trip Michael Timmins and his family took to China. Using ideas and field recordings from his time out there, collaborating with Chinese musicians and writers, leaning heavily on loops and grooves put together by Alan Anton and producer Joby Baker, it's a record that sounds unlike. anything else by anybody else.

In this podcast, Mike and Alan explain the thought process and the recording process behind the album, the way it invigorated their creative thinking and how it became the jumping off point for what then became the Nomad Series.

Take a listen - we think it will inspire you to dig out your copy of "Rennin Park". It's well worth it. 


"Music Is The Drug" is available wherever you get your podcasts. Please remember to subscribe at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest.

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from the band, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

To listen to "Renmin Park", click here.

To order "Sharon", click here.

To buy "Songs of the Recollection", click here.

To buy "Renmin Park", click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here.

Copyright 2022 Latent Recordings.

Having beguiled the world with their first three albums, as Cowboy Junkies approached "Black Eyed Man", they felt it was time to change things up a little, breaking up much of  "The Caution Horses" band, bringing in new musicians, different instruments and a different approach to recording.

"Southern Rain", the opening song on that album, exemplified that change in style, having a more up-tempo feel, introducing Ken Myhr on guitar and showcasing more of the band's classic rock sensibility than had previously been the case.

Michael Timmins and Alan Anton talk us through the writing of the song, the reasons for the change in emphasis, why escape is not so simple after all and reveal just what is the bass player's go-to lick when all else fails...

"Music Is The Drug" is available wherever you get your podcasts. Please remember to subscribe at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest.

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from the band, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

To listen to "Southern Rain", click here.

To order "Sharon", click here.

To buy "Songs of the Recollection", click here.

To buy "Black End Man", click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here.

Copyright 2022 Latent Recordings.

Back in late 1999, we were thinking less about partying and more about whether or not the modern world was going to collapse at midnight on December 31st, ravaged by the Y2K bug. Sean Connery solved that one for us, as Alan Anton points out in this podcast...

But the dawning of a new millennium was also time for a little reflection on life, the universe and everything, personally and globally, and that mood was caught perfectly in "Thousand Year Prayer", a song from "Open".

A meditation on thankfulness, love, the natural world and the way we've ravaged it, Jimi Hendrix and calling it all a draw with God, Michael Timmins helps us find the way through the song, along with Alan Anton.


"Music Is The Drug" is available wherever you get your podcasts. Please remember to subscribe at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser and all the rest.

"Cowboy Junkies - Music Is The Drug" is hosted by Dave Bowler, author of the authorised biography of the band. To order it from the band, click here.
To order direct from Omnibus Press in the UK & Europe, click here.

To listen to "Thousand Year Prayer", click here.

To order "Sharon", click here.

To buy "Songs of the Recollection", click here.

To buy "Open", click here.

For the ever expanding "Music Is The Drug" playlist on Spotify, click here.

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here.

Copyright 2022 Latent Recordings.