The Tragically Hip guitarist Paul Langlois talks about life after Gord Downie – and the odds of reviving the Hip

“When he died, the rest of the guys in the band, myself included, just went into a fog. As we all know, grief is a monster that is in control. You don’t control it.”

Published Mar 28, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 5 minute read

Tragically Hip guitarist Paul Langlois, left, is touring Ontario with his solo band and his old friends in Skydiggers (Josh Finlayson, centre, and Andy Maize, right). They come to Ottawa on Saturday, March 30 for a show at Bronson Centre Music Theatre. PHOTO BY HEATHER POLLOCK. Photo by Heather Pollock /ott

Guitarist Paul Langlois is best known as the rock-solid rhythm guitarist and gruff-voiced background singer of The Tragically Hip, the legendary Can-rock outfit that lost their enigmatic singer, Gord Downie, when he died of brain cancer in 2017.

Langlois and Downie were best buds for decades, and Langlois said he went into a fog after the death of his bandmate. Then came the pandemic. Gradually he found his way back to music, as he explains in this interview, and began writing songs, including one stormy, squalling track called Don’t Leave Me Brother.

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Langlois is now performing with a band made up of musical friends from the Kingston area, and touring as part of a double bill with Skydiggers. A handful of Ontario shows are planned.

In this lightly edited interview from his home in Kingston, Langlois also shared some memories of Downie during the final Hip tour, and weighed the chances of reviving the band with a new singer.

Q: You wrote and released Guess What, your first solo album in a decade, last year. Where did the inspiration for that come from?

A: Well, it took inspiration because it certainly wasn’t on my mind at all. I got offered a gig a couple of years ago by this guy I kinda know who needed a band. I hemmed and hawed but I decided to do it. It was August 2022, and I had my (Kingston) buddies in the band and it went well. We had a lot of fun so I thought I would take a couple of months to write. I had to set a deadline because that’s the only way I can write songs. With a deadline.

Q: What was going through your mind when you were writing the songs?

A: Everything that goes through the head of a 58-year-old man. It was the passing of time, Gord (Downie) dying, kids growing up and moving away. And some hints of relationship commitment, and sticking to it. I’ve been married 33 years this June. I’ll be 60 this year.

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Q: The song, Don’t Leave Me Brother, is about your relationship with Gord. Tell me about that one.

A: I ended up helping look after Gord in the months prior to the tour, and the song is about how everything fell away. I walked in one night in the winter — I hadn’t seen him in two months since his diagnosis and he’d had a couple of brain surgeries and he had a big beard — and we were both kind of a revelation to each other. I stayed because he wanted me to, and I was happy to. It was a real gift. You’re really in the present when you’re looking after someone who’s so ill.

Q: That was before the final tour. How did he manage to bounce back enough to perform?

A: He really wanted to do the tour so I called the other guys and told them. It was starting from scratch, but we found out he could still sing. He couldn’t remember names or lyrics, which was sad for him because that was his thing, he remembered everyone’s name. But we came up with a fix: We got a bunch of teleprompters on stage. He could hang a melody and he had the phrasing. That didn’t leave him. It was amazing that he recovered enough to be at his best during the tour, and that’s just because he was able to take four treatments of this drug that stopped the tumour for a month and a half. Then he had a good year, getting the Secret Path (album) done, doing a couple of shows with them and doing so much with the Downie-Wenjack Fund. He was so wanting to do that.

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Q: How did his death affect you?

A: When he died, the rest of the guys in the band, myself included, just went into a fog. As we all know, grief is a monster that is in control. You don’t control it. We didn’t really go through it together. None of us had any enthusiasm whatsoever for the band. I didn’t have any enthusiasm for doing anything because our great big vehicle was gone. That lasted a couple of years, and then gradually everyone came back to it.

Q: Are you in touch with the others now?

A: Yeah, we found each other a few years ago and we’re in pretty consistent communication. Everyone does their own thing musically, but there’s lots of Hip stuff, like re-releases and finding old recordings, so that keeps us going. For the box sets, we’ve been finding the extra songs that never made it to the albums, sending them around and everyone listens. Jonny (Fay, drummer) takes the lead on that because he’s in Toronto and that’s where most of the old tapes live.

Q: Can you imagine a point where the Hip might carry on with a new singer?

A: Um, I don’t think so. We did two songs (with other singers), one with Feist at the Junos, and another with William Prince for Buffy Sainte-Marie’s 80th birthday. They were two very unique opportunities. One might even think the four of us could do an instrumental record, but I think everyone is pretty okay with not doing that. With Gord, there was always consensus. Now everyone is like ‘Never say never,’ but at the same time, doing it at any sort of big scale makes everyone feel icky. We had 30-plus years with the same guys, and everyone is comfortable with riding along our path because that path was very special to all of us. It was just a pile of luck and commitment and hard times and really great times and we all worked hard at it, so it feels like, ‘Let’s leave that back there.” For now anyway.

Q: What’s next for the Paul Langlois Band? Are you back in the music biz?

A: We’re not going away. We will make another record at some point in the next year or two, and we’re going to keep playing. Festivals are my favourite. We really enjoyed the festivals we did last summer so we’ll keep trying to get on those bills.

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