The Cowboy Junkies have long been one of my favorite bands. So, I was thrilled last year when I got to interview bassist Alan Anton. Now, I'm equally thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with Michael Timmins, who along with Alan and siblings Margo and Peter, round out the line-up of this multi-platinum group of indie legends. The topic of conversation focuses on their latest effort "21st Century Blues" which is described as "an album that is as passionately, intelligently and eloquently anti-war in its intent as anything rock music has come up with in 50 years of trying."

We all saw what happened when certain artists like the Dixie Chicks spoke out about the Iraq war - instant backlash, and in some cases were shunned by corporate radio. The Junkies have never been a radio darling, so the airplay backlash is really not a threat. But, still its a risk these days for artists to speak out. The Junkies are not only speaking out, they have recorded what is probably the most poignant anti-war/anti-violence disc in years. They went out and licensed some great songs from John Lennon, Richie Havens, U2 and others and have added a couple originals to create "21st Century Blues.".

What was the impetus for this cd? Why now?

The album kind of came about by chance. We were interested in doing a recording project that wasn't necessarily geared towards our original songs (we had released an album of original material, One Soul Now, in June 2004), but we also wanted a context for the project. We had written December Skies and This World Dreams Of during the One Soul Now sessions and we had been performing Isn't It A Pity on the road throughout 2004 and we realized that there was a certain commonality in the themes of those three songs. The Iraq war and our species renewed vigor in turning to violence at the first sign of any difference in world/societal/cultural views (whether it be the Western powers lobbing cruise missiles in to city centers or Islamic fundamentalists flying planes into buildings) was definitely playing on our collective consciences. Also, the topic of conversation with people that we were meeting in our travels around the world seem to always be turning to this renewed (or maybe it was just hitting closer to home) bloodlust. So the idea of doing an album about violence, greed, war, fear and loss made a lot of sense. It seems kind of feeble in the face of such huge problems, but we felt the least that we could do was to try and communicate a desire for peace. Kind of like throwing a Chuck Berry disc into a space-time capsule and hoping that the aliens who discover it will understand.