Retrospective Reviews: Gowan's 'Strange Animal'

“I hope everyone has a year in their life that is so pivotal, that so much happens, it feels like an entire lifetime. For me, that was 1985.” On January 15, at the peak of pop-music's most excessive decade, Gowan's first single from his second LP, Strange Animal, was released by Columbia Records.

“We were going to put out the album about a month later,” recalls Gowan, whose 1982 self-titled, YES-inspired debut went unnoticed in Canada. “At that point, I thought only shoplifters would steal Strange Animal and that was fine,” he laughs. “Anyway, 'Criminal Minds' had been out for a week. Because of the lag between releases, I'd been playing with Jerry Lee Lewis and Bo Diddley as a piano player at the back of the band. So I was playing an antique auto show in Montreal with Ronnie Hawkins and it was around January 22. At the end of the first set, I see a large group of people gathering on the piano side of the stage, and they're all asking in French, 'Are you that guy? Etes-vous 'Criminal Mind?' and I couldn't believe it. And that's when Ronnie came over to me and said, 'You just played the last gig you'll ever do with me,' and that's when I knew the album would be something. Of course, it didn't occur to me that I had this gigantic mullet with a big orange chunk in it, so I was definitely recognizable." Within days, “Criminal Mind” was getting number one requests on radio stations across the country. “My management called and said, 'Get ready to tour, fast! You're playing Maple Leaf Gardens on March 12, opening for The Kinks.' And I said, 'Are you kidding? The last gig I did in Toronto was at The Gasworks! Isn't there anything in between?' It was all sudden and very exciting. People knew all the words. It was astounding.”

Gowan's additional singles, “(You're a) Strange Animal,” “Guerilla Soldier” and “Cosmetics,” would take Strange Animal to triple platinum in Canada, while also earning seven Juno nominations and two wins for Best Album Graphics and Best Video for “Criminal Mind,” the vision for which was largely Gowan’s.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Gowan grew up an odd kid in Scarborough, ON. His affinity for piano took him to the Toronto Royal Conservatory before forming 70s-prog-piece, Rhinegold, which soon dissolved. Signed to Columbia, his 1981 debut Gowan – heavy but sonically straight-forward – was a big sales flop.

“I underplayed it all on my first album but then I realized you have to be a larger-than-life character to connect with people. The Strange Animal songs lend themselves to that. I didn't feel at all inhibited. They were a little more esoteric and pulled you in from a different angle to find whatever commercial element they had. In order to facilitate that, I decided I’d become a kind of cartoon character,” Gowan says. So he began to embody the spirit of the 80s: a waving mullet, layers of symbolism and a Culture Club aesthetic. “Gowan is almost whoever you want him to be,” he says. His brand of mystical, theatrical UK-indebted progressive rock was softened by piano melodies, animated by mythologies and darkened by fear.

“Strange Animal came from the non-success of the first album. I had to delve internal things because the failure wasn't something I took lightly. At the time, I had been reading a lot of Herman Hesse books, so that internal conflict and eventual resolution was at the heart of a lot of the songs on the album. The album and that whole year came to represent the whole human range, the whole arc of existence, for me.”

Grabbing Peter Gabriel’s rhythm section, Jerry Marotta and Tony Levin, Strange Animal’s producer David Tickle also arranged for Gowan to record at the studio home of Ringo Starr, formerly owned by John Lennon, in the French Riviera: “Let’s face it. There are very few people who get to record at The Beatles’ house. Being a Beatles fanatic, I thought if I just record this album then die tomorrow, I’d be happy.” Initially hesitant and uncertain, Gowan’s confidence was boosted by Starr in the next room.

“Every once in a while, Ringo would pop in and ask how it’s going,” he recalls, “About 6 weeks in, ‘Cosmetics’ was on, and Ringo came in and said, ‘Every time you start playing this one, I’m dancing in the kitchen,’ and I thought, ‘Well, God damn it! If the guy who made Sgt. Pepper’s and Abbey Road is getting off on this, then there’s a bunch of people will like this record. And after that, it took its own character. I grabbed onto it with both hands and legs like a guy holding a lamp post in a hurricane.”

“Cosmetics” became the first track on the album: “That’s the most superficial thing, and then the album ends with the darkest, most honest song ‘Criminal Mind.’ It walks you through that inner adventure, from superficial to profound and brutally honest. ‘Desperate’ vacillates between light and dark. ‘City of The Angels’ is about being allowed entry into some hypothetical society where you flourish and become everything you dreamed of becoming. Then there’s ‘Walking on Air’ and ‘Burning Torches of Hope.’ But then life steps in on side two with ‘Keep the Tension On.’ Nervous anxiety begins to rule. Then ‘Guerilla Soldier’ where someone takes it into their own hands, then ‘Strange Animal’ then ‘Criminal Mind.’ Oh, the drama of it all. It was funny: I really hoped people would listen long enough get to ‘Criminal Mind.’”

Columbia, however, wasn’t sure ‘Criminal Mind’ would be a commercially viable first single. “But I thought we could make a great video for it, in 80s terms,” says Gowan, “The song showed my ties to Genesis and YES and even darker stuff like Elton John’s Funeral for a Friend. So eventually they relented and because of that song, the whole album suddenly made sense to people.” Moreover, the director, Rob Quartly, invited Gowan to have significant input on the video’s production and design.

“In the 80s, TV had really become the centre stage of the music business and I had a tenuous grasp on the visual counterpart to music. Rob asked me if I had any ideas for the video and I said, I am so glad you asked! I already wanted Gowan to be a comic book character. There’s a part in the video where he says ‘I AM’ and turns into a cartoon, and that was my biggest pleading for the video. It cost an extra ten grand back then but it’s the greatest moment in the video ever. And ‘Strange Animal’ was made the same way and that was my level of involvement all through the 80s. By the end of the 80s, people had grown tired of cartoons and big hair; grunge came in. But the songs on Strange Animal are still played because they still connect to people, and I’m so lucky I have the chance to keep playing them,” Gowan reflects.

The keyboardist for STYX since 1999, Strange Animal now has two lives: sometimes STYX will do covers, and sometimes Gowan will perform as Gowan. In 2010, he re-issued Strange Animal on its 25th anniversary. This year, Gowan was awarded a SOCAN Classic Award for three of his songs, two from Strange Animal, hitting Canadian airwaves over 100,000 times as a testament to the album’s longevity.

“People ask how I can play the same songs every night. It’s easy! Why? There are nuances of meaning and layers to how those songs connect on any given day. They resonate differently now that I’m in my 50s. I love saying I’m in my 50s because I’m still doing what I love to do. And that’s something about music: if you remain sensitive to the innate power it has, it can enrich your life in astounding ways.”

Adria Young is a writer living in Halifax. She's on Twitter.