Cowboy Junkies: Music Is The Drug - The Podcast

When you first put "Pale Sun Crescent Moon" in the CD player back in 1993, the opening strains of "Crescent Moon" alerted seasoned fans to another development in the Cowboy Junkies' sound.

With Michael Timmins and Alan Anton, this episode explores how and why that change came about but we also delve deeper into "Crescent Moon" itself, a siren song of sorts, giving its author a window on a different life to the one envisaged in "200 More Miles' -  we've done a podcast about that one too you know...

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 buy "Pale Sun Crescent Moon", click here.

To listen to "Pale Sun Crescent Moon", click here.

To order the new album, "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.

From the "Sing In My Meadow" album, we're enjoying a hefty chunk of nostalgia in this episode as Michael Timmins and Alan Anton help us take a closer look at "Late Night Radio".

With a lyric rooted in Mike's childhood, it's a lyric that all of us of a certain age can identify with in one way or another. From listening to the baseball game to trying o find that one great song that disappeared into the there and was never found again, come with us, back to the analog age...


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 "Sing In My Meadow", click here.

To order the new album, "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.

It's not often that songs come in "his and hers" versions, but "Come Calling" from Cowboy Junkies' "Lay It Down" album did just that.

With the help of Alan Anton and Michael Timmins, we'll trace the song's evolution from the writing sessions on Rock Island in Ontario through to completion. We'll look at the real life story that underpins the lyric and explain just why the band produced two such very different versions of what was essentially the same song yet which demanded such different treatments.


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.

"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 buy the band's new album, "Songs of the Recollection", click here.

To check for upcoming tour dates, click here.

To listen to "Lay It Down", click here.

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

For more info on Cowboy Junkies, click here.

For tour dates, click here. 

Copyright 2022 Latent Recordings.

We're heading away from our usual song approach with this episode and instead devoting this podcast to "At The End Of Paths Taken" to mark the 15th anniversary of the album's release in April 2007 - where did all those years go...

Rather than look at specific songs, we're taking an overview of the album as a whole, one where the band went in for radical change as far as the writing and recording of the album went, introducing a new producer and strings to the overall mix, both to dramatic effect.

With the help of Michael Timmins and Alan Anton - plus some rare recordings from the writing and recording sessions - we'll chart the album from its conception through to its release.

As well as that, we talk about a possible live future for a record that is something of a hidden gem within the band's catalogue.

If you haven't heard it in a while, hopefully this will give you a reason to dig it out again. You really should, it's one of the band's very best records.



To make sure you don't miss out on each weekly episode of "Music Is The Drug", remember to subscribe at your favourite podcast provider - Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser, Audible, MixCloud 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 order the new album, "Songs of the Recollection", click here.

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

To buy "At The End Of Paths Taken" on CD or vinyl, 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.

We're trawling through dark waters in this week's episode of "Music Is The Drug", as we look into the story behind "Murder, Tonight, In The Trailer Park" from "Black Eyed Man".

One of their hardest driving songs, certainly as far as their early albums go, Alan Anton guides us through finding the baseline that propels it, as well as the urgency that working on the clock in a commercial studio could add to things.

And not content with that - ***SPOILER ALERT*** - sifting through the clues, Michael Timmins is going to tell you just whodunnit, which is more than his bandmates knew...

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, Audible, 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 "Black Eyed Man", click here.

To buy "Black Eyed Man", click here.

To buy the new album, "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.

Welcome back for the second series of "Music Is The Drug", the Cowboy Junkies podcast.

According to Michael Timmins, "Good Friday" is one of those songs that "just descended" on him, written very quickly on a day when, for a brief moment, the world was suddenly connected and everything made sense.

That feeling is crystallised in a song that has a special sparkle to it, a real joyousness. But it wouldn't Break Cowboy Junkies if it wasn't undercut by something more questioning, in this case in the form of Mike's guitar solo which we also discuss in the podcast.

Alan Anton guides us through the recording of the song and its parent album, working with legendary producer John Leckie and spending weeks in the hallowed halls of Abbey Road, chasing the ghosts of Beatles past...

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, Audible, 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 "Miles From Our Home", click here.

To buy the new album, "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.

Completing our look at Cowboy Junkies' new album, "Songs of the Recollection", we're turning the vinyl over today and talking about the tracks on side B, with the help of Michael Timmins and Alan Anton.

The songs under the microscope in this episode are "The Way I Feel" (Gordon Lightfoot), "I've Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You" (Bob Dylan), "Marathon" (Vic Chestnutt) and "Seventeen Seconds" (The Cure).

Beyond that, we also look at which artists' songs might have made the collection but didn't and Alan takes us back to 1970s concert going, a time of dry ice and Spinal Tap style rock theatrics...

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 order the new album, "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.

To mark the release of Cowboy Junkies' new album, "Songs of the Recollection", we've put together a two part special about the record.

In this episode, we're covering the thinking behind the album and then the songs that go to make up the first side, for those of us till thinking in terms of vinyl. With the ever present help of Michael Timmins and Alan Anton, we'll be covering the second side, and plenty more besides, in our next episode.

But in this first part, we'll be uncovering the thinking behind the covers, how the album was put together in a time of pandemic and why these particular songs were selected.

For those with their scorecards handy, the songs we're checking off today are Five Years (David Bowie), Ooh Las Vegas (Gram Parsons), No Expectations (Rolling Stones), Don't Let It Bring You Down and Love In Mind (Neil Young).

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 order the new album, "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.

"Mountain" was the climax of 2007's "At The End Of Paths Taken" - an album we'll be revisiting in detail in a special edition in April. With the help of Michael Timmins and Alan Anton, we'll be tracing the development of the song  through to its conclusion, employing a few rare recordings along the way.

Looking at how it has some of its sonic roots in The Beatles' "Revolution 9" and Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon", we'll cover how the song gradually mushroomed into the tour-de-force maelstrom that pulled all the threads of the album together.

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 the new album, "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 "The Trinity Session" this week, and one of Michael Timmins' first solo songs for the band, a hymn to a life on the road and the band's hoped for destiny of being part of the chain that takes the music and passes it on down to the next generation.

With Mike and Alan Anton, we look at how the song was pieced together from impressions gathered when they were on the road, in the station wagon, looking for gigs to support "Whites Off Earth Now!!"

Covering the way those early road trips taught them how to be a band and ushered country music into their musical mix, this episode takes the song all the way through to "Trinity Revisited" and the way that Ryan Adams picked up the torch with his performance of the song.


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 "The Trinity Session", click here.

To listen to "Trinity Revisited", click here.

To buy "The Trinity Session", click here.

To order the new album, "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.