ST. JOHN’S – There’s a question that’s been following St. John’s singer Tim Baker for years — through a solo career, through moves out of the country, and through his move back home to Newfoundland and Labrador.
When were Hey Rosetta! going to get back together?
The indie rock group had become legendary in some circles, particularly their home province, to which they kept a close connection.
“People have been asking forever, ever since we closed our doors, when we’re going to get together and do it again,” Baker said, sitting in a cafe owned by bandmate Phil Maloney.
“I got asked a few months ago and I couldn’t think of why not.”
Most of the seven band members are back living in or near St. John’s, and Baker himself recently returned from living in Berlin. Things had changed a lot in the nine years since they last played a concert in St. John’s, but the timing was somehow right.
“I played some of the old music again, you know, just played on guitar — I hadn’t played it in a long time — and didn’t feel the resistance and the distance with it that I had over the last little while, and thought, this could be a laugh, really.”
“This could be really fun and beautiful and nostalgic.”
So, after an all-hands meeting, all seven of Hey Rosetta!’s members agreed to sign back up. They’ll play four concerts in St. John’s in February, followed by one in Montreal and one in Toronto.
“It just kind of takes someone saying out loud, and I think it was Tim, ‘maybe we do this,” said Maloney.
“We’d kind of whispered it amongst ourselves years ago, like, what would it take? … You sit down across from each other, and you say, ‘well, would you do this again?”
Baker continued recording and performing with a solo career. But for Maloney, this upcoming concert represents a crash landing back into professional performing.
“I think it’s going to be terrifying,” Maloney said. “The very first song of the first night is going to be terrifying. But I feel like, by song three, then it’s just going to be like floating through it.”
As a band, Hey Rosetta! thrived with a rich seven-piece sound. The shows featured horns, a cello and violin, along with piano, guitar, bass and drums.
Although not strictly Celtic-inspired Newfoundland music, Baker says the band was still firmly rooted in St. John’s.
The group scored several local awards in Newfoundland and Labrador, regional awards at the East Coast Music Awards, and were shortlisted for the Polars Music Prize in 2009.
Baker’s not sure yet whether the reunion will lead to more — everyone seems to have a lot more responsibility than they did almost a decade ago, with jobs and businesses and families.
“But I felt like that doesn’t mean we can’t get together and play some shows and have fun and celebrate what it was, what it meant to us,” Baker said. “What it meant to other people and just see how it feels.”
To a generation, particularly in St. John’s, Hey Rosetta! meant a lot. Despite four albums and many out-of-province tours, the band returned nearly every year to play a Christmastime concert — just in time for hundreds of Newfoundlanders living away to return for the holidays.
“It became this beautiful tradition,” Baker said. The band really wanted to return with a Christmastime concert this year, but Baker said they couldn’t find any available venue space.
“Not just to get together, but to do it justice,” he said. “You know, there’s a pressure to it. I think that’s one of the reasons it’s taken so long to happen.”
“It was a precious thing to many people. It was a precious thing to us, and to be able to do it justice, it’s a little scary. But here we are.”
