Pop Life

This week we deep dive with two musicians… from buying costumes in bulk from the Ice Capades to playing in a Greek show band, my guests today have done it all. Later Alice Cooper is on the line to have a look back at his storied career… and the difference between Alice Cooper and his creator… but first Kim Mitchell swings by the Pop Life bar. 

If you grew up in Canada you know the songs "Patio Lanterns", "Rock and Roll Duty", "Rockland Wonderland” and if you’re like me, his band Max Webster was the first big rock and roll show you ever saw live. I remember they opened for Rush, were the loudest thing I had ever heard to that date and played my favourite tunes from their albums, all of which I had memorized. 

The first time I interviewed Mitchell was more than thirty years ago just after he left Max Webster for a solo career. I mumbled my way through the interview, in awe of speaking to him. I did better this time.

Today we meet two musicians at different stages of their careers but bound by the passion to create new music. First we meet Donna Grantis. Calling her a guitarist sells what she does a little bit short. Call her a rock goddess. Guitar Player Now wrote: “Trading blazing solos with the late Purple One on a nightly basis, she proved her mettle, and earned a place in guitar history.” Best known for performing and recording with Prince & 3rdeyegirl, we talk about her first guitar, working with a musical genius and her new album “Diamonds & Dynamite.”

Then, rock superstar Sting stops by to talk about his musical “The Last Ship.” It’s the story of a young man who returns home after seventeen years at sea to find his town, a shipbuilding town like the one Sting grew up in, is about to lose its jobs and sense of identity. We talk about writing the show and the importance of remembering the community he came from.

This week on the Pop Life Podcast Richard welcomes the only actor in history to have more than 500 on-screen credits. He’s Eric Roberts, Golden Globe and Oscar nominee for films like King of the Gypsies, Bob Fosse's Star 80, Runaway Train and my favorite The Pope of Greenwich Village. He’s prolific, making multiple movies every year in everything from blockbusters and independent films, to short films and student movies. He’s a colourful conversationalist with stories about everything from working on a kid’s TV show called Bum Bum and His Buddies to grocery shopping with Hollywood legend Sterling Hayden and why, he says, Shelly Winters was a bad girl.

This week on the Pop Life podcast we meet two musicians from very different genres who have shared their stories in very public ways. 

Damhnait Doyle, the Juno-nominated songwriter and performer, talks about her new album Liquor Store Flowers and why she thinks the music industry needs to support musicians who quit drinking.

Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman has performed internationally and won a shelf-full awards. She has also been frank about the issues in her life regarding her marriage and health. Her memoir title says it all, Something Is Always On Fire: My Life So Far. She swung by the Pop Life bar recently for a frank and funny conversation.

You know my guest's voice as Iago in the original animated Aladdin. Or maybe you did a spit take when he told the filthiest joke ever at a Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner three weeks after the September 11 attacks. He's Gilbert Gottfried and he's one of our favourite guests ever.

This week I’ll tell you about a movie that kept me up all night and why I have a grudge against Danny DeVito. Also, Billy Eichner, star of the new, photo-realistic Lion King, swings by to talk about his love of Nathan Lane and playing Timon in the new version of the classic story. Then Midsommar director Ari Aster and star Jack Reynor talk about making one of the year's creepiest films. Finally, Danny DeVito answers our quick questions.

Richard speaks to two guests about someone he never got to meet. When David Bowie passed away in January of 2016 just days after releasing an album and celebrating his 69th birthday, I read a tweet from Simon Pegg that summed up my feelings. “If you’re sad today, just remember the world is over 4 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.” Richard's guests today not just lived at the same time as David Bowie but knew him and worked with him. Donny McCaslin, the bandleader on Bowie’s final album Blackstar and photographer Mick Rock who produced and directed the seminal music videos John, I’m Only Dancing, Jean Genie, Space Oddity, and Life On Mars.

On this week's Pop Life Podcast celebrity chef and cookbook author Nigella Lawson stops by the bar to talk creativity in the kitchen and in life. Then Moon Zappa talks about growing up with one of the most creative artists in rock and roll, her father Frank Zappa.

Author, activist and television personality Rick Steves is America's leading expert on European travel. In conversation with host Richard Crouse he reveals the most important accessory to take on vacation with you--empathy. Then superstar opera singer Measha Brueggergosman drops by the Pop Life bar to answer some quick questions.

Today we meet two men who followed in the footsteps of their famous fathers but created their own unique paths, novelist Martin Amis and puppeteer Brian Henson.