My mom, my brother and I had moved from Moncton, New Brunswick to Bonnyville, Alberta in August of 1985.
The first seeds of the Mike Plume Band were planted a couple weeks later in September of ’85, when I met Ernie Basiliadis at high school football tryouts in Bonnyville, Alberta.
I had just started playing the guitar and he had just started playing the drums.
We formed our first band (along with a bunch of other high school pals) and played around town at every high school dance and talent show that would have us.
I lost touch with Ernie when I graduated from high school in 1987.
I wanted to get out of town and I promptly hit the road the first band that rolled thru Bonnyville who was looking for a guitar player.
A guitar player?
I’d only been playing the guitar for a little over 2 years at that point. What the hell was I thinking? Anyway, that lasted 2 months.
Fired.
The next band that I joined was looking for a singer.
That lasted 2 weeks.
Fired.
The next band that I joined was also looking for a singer.
I wasn’t fired from the band, but, we were fired from a gig because the club owner said I couldn’t sing.
I know a lot of people who would agree with him.
Whatever, that was the end of my stay in that band.
What’s yer hurry here’s yer hat.
Anyway, I went home and tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life.
All I knew for sure was that I wanted to be in a band and go on tour.
In 1989, I was teaching guitar lessons in Bonnyville and one of my students was a 13 year old kid named Derek Mazurek.
In November of 1993, I put out my first album, “Songs from a Northern Town” and began to tour around Western Canada.
Ernie went off to college (I think).
Regardless, wherever he was, I lost touch with him.
In ’94, I was looking for a guitar player and offered the gig to my guitar student, from way back when, Derek Mazurek.
He said “No.”
He said “No?”
He said “No.”
Mazurek, who, oddly enough, was playing in a band at the time with Ernie said he would fill in until I found someone.
Derek and Ernie said they knew of a guitar player from Fort McMurray Alberta.
Enter Dave Klym.
The gig was his by the second or third note.
The band that Derek and Ernie were playing in fell apart.
Mazurek now in need of a gig took the bass spot the second it opened up.
I again lost touch with Ernie.
He does that sometimes.
In February of 1996, I released my second album, “Jump Back, Kerouac” and continued to tour around Western Canada.
In May of 1996, and for the first time in 9 years, Ernie was back on drums.
We did our first official gig together in May of 1996.
In 1997 we put out two albums “Song And Dance, Man” and “Simplify”.
Somehow, in 1997, we managed to play just shy of 200 one niters all across Canada and Europe.
In 1998 we made our first jump into the USA.
We toured like fools in a hurry and played another 225 shows.
We also recorded a new album called “Steel Belted Radio”.
In 1999 we played 249 one niters.
“Song And Dance, Man” was released in the USA in June of ’99.
In 2000 we played another 220 shows.
Unfortunately, in April of that year, Derek Mazurek had decided to make his exit from the band.
He decided to see what living a life in one town for more than 12 hours at a time felt like.
Somehow, and really without a choice, we trudged on.
Enter old friend and former band mate of Ernie’s.
Meck Myers on bass guitar in May of 2000.
We recorded “Fools For The Radio” in November of 2000.
We released it on September 11th, 2001.
For the next year or so things slowly started to unravel.
In April of 2002 I told the guys that I wouldn’t mind if we slowed things down for a while.
We did our last show on October 25th 2002 in Wakefield Quebec.
I was tired and in desperate need of a break.
Exhausted.
Confused.
Broken hearted.
So, after, give or take, 1200 shows in 8 years, we called it a day.
Dave, Meck and Ernie continued on without me.
They called themselves the Populars.
They recorded a couple albums.
But like the MPB, success remained elusive to the Populars
Meck left the Populars in May of 2006.
Enter Ben Wilson on bass guitar.
Over the next 6 years I played, at the most, 100 shows and released a couple albums, “Table For One” in 2003 and “Rock And Roll Recordings, Volume One” in 2004.
To quote Steve Earle, I was, “Too young to quit and too old to hire, these days a man can afford to retire.”
Confused but quite certain that I didn’t want to be in the music business anymore, we left Nashville in May of ’03. We moved to Toronto.
My wife and I had a daughter (Ruby) in July of ’04.
I found out what it was like to live in a town for more than 12 hours.
I liked it.
I liked it a lot.
We did a reunion show in Bonnyville in July of ’04 for no other reason than the hell of it.
What a blast.
We did a second show in May of ’05.
Two hours long.
No set list.
No rehearsal.
Nothin’ but net.
Like falling off a rock.
Like rolling down a hill.
Like showing a card trick to a dog.
My family and I moved back to Tennessee in August of ’06.
Suddenly I was back in the business of writing songs for a living.
A couple of phone calls in the early part of 2008 lead to the idea of maybe doing a new record.
We did another show in Nashville in May of 2008.
Original lineup.
First full show in over 8 years.
It was like we’d never stopped playing.
In May of 2009, we recorded the “8:30 Newfoundland” album.
It looked like things were going full steam ahead.
But…
In August of 2008, Dave decided that he wanted to see what life was like in one town for more than 12 hours at at time.
Once again, we trudged on.
In June of 2009, “8:30 Newfoundland” was released.
The video cracked the top 20 on CMT and currently has north of 200,000 Youtube hits.
In March of 2013, I wrote a song called “So Long Stompin’ Tom” as a tribute to Stompin’ Tom Connors who had passed away the day before.
The song caught fire and went viral.
Everything snowballed.
Really quick.
A week later, I was singing the song at Stompin Tom’s memorial in Peterborough Ontario.
Crazy times.
In June of 2013, we released the album “Red and White Blues”.
The band now consisted of Ernie and Ben along with Ryan Barwin on pedal steel and Jeff McLeod on piano, B3 and accordion.
When the schedule permitted, Jenny would join the band to sing harmony and play acoustic guitar.
In November of 2013, I released a song called “On Remembrance Day”
In December of 2013, I released a Holiday album called “Back Home For Christmas”.
From then until now, I’ve toured sporadically.
I don’t play much anymore, but I do enjoy it when I do.
Better than the reverse, I guess.
Next year, I’ll be 50.
Man, where did the time go?
Mike Plume
March 28, 2017