When Pete Agnew thinks of Thunder Bay, he laughs — the kind of laugh that comes from experience and just a hint of exasperation. “Last time we tried to fly in,” he says, “the weather lived up to its name.”
The band had finished a remote show and were trying to make it back through town before heading home to Scotland. But the plane couldn’t land, the connections fell apart, and what should have been a quick trip turned into a two-day ordeal of ticket delays, reroutes, and airport limbo. “Thunder Bay is very fresh in our minds,” he admits. “Not for all the right reasons.”
This time, Nazareth is taking the bus. And after more than fifty years on the road, Agnew still sounds like a man who can’t wait to climb back on stage.
“When you’re first coming out, it’s all that frenzy — the charts, the crowds, the noise,” he says. “Now it’s different. You’re coming back to fans who already love the songs. They want you to be good because they want to relive it. So it’s more relaxed, and it’s still just as much fun. Every night feels different because it’s always new people in a new place.”
It’s hard to think of another rock band that’s weathered time quite like Nazareth. Formed in Dunfermline, Scotland, in the late ’60s, the group’s sound has always refused to sit still. “We never stuck to one thing,” Agnew says. “Two albums in a row might sound like completely different bands — and that was the point.”
If there’s one thread that tied it all together, it was Dan McCafferty’s voice — the unmistakable rasp that made “Hair of the Dog,” “Love Hurts,” and a dozen others instantly recognizable. “You could replace a drummer or a guitar player, but you couldn’t replace Dan,” Agnew says. “Nobody could impersonate him. He was one of a kind.”
He pauses, a little softer now. “Dan and I met at school. We grew up together. The band worked because we were all friends — and even the younger guys now are from the same town. We’ve all lived the same kind of life. That’s what keeps it going.”
Agnew himself never planned to be a bassist at all. In the early days, he and McCafferty shared vocals until their bass player quit. “The guys said, ‘You play guitar — it’s only got four strings, you’ll manage.’” He laughs. “So I did.”
What followed was decades of music-making and experimentation. “I did all the harmonies on the albums — four different voices, four lines — and a lot of the acoustic guitars and keys,” he says. “It’s a lot of work, and nobody really notices, but I’m proud of that.”
He’s still using the same Alembic bass he bought in Montreal in 1977. “I tried it once and thought, ‘This is the best guitar I’ve ever played.’ I’ve never used anything else.” Canada, he says, has been good to them — maybe even a little too good. “We had so much radio play here, people thought we were Canadian. With Joni Mitchell being from Saskatoon and writing ‘This Flight Tonight,’ it counted as Canadian content. We were getting played on the radio all the time.”
That airplay helped Nazareth gain national recognition. “We did a tour with Donald K. Donald — and we sold out faster than Elvis. That was a big one,” Agnew grins. “My wife’s a huge Elvis fan. I couldn’t wait to tell her.”
The affection clearly runs both ways. “Canada had a soft spot for us,” he says. “And we’ve always had one back.”
When the band recorded “This Flight Tonight,” they didn’t expect Joni Mitchell to love it — but she did. “We met her in the A&M Studios in L.A. the day it came out in Britain,” he recalls. “We played it for her and she couldn’t believe a rock band had done it. She was absolutely blown away.”
Ask him for a hidden gem, and he doesn’t hesitate. “Holiday,” from Malice in Wonderland, was played endlessly on the radio but got lost in record-label chaos and distribution problems. “It never made it into the shops. You couldn’t buy it. So people think it was a huge hit — and it was, in their heads. Just not in my bank account.”
Agnew still laughs at the surprises a lifetime in music can bring. “We were in Tokyo once,” he recalls, “and we walked into a bar where a band was playing one of our songs. We’re standing there going, ‘Wait — what is that?’” The song was “Bad Bad Boy,” sung by a Japanese woman, and the crowd loved it. “You’ve got to hear the original to know how mad that was,” he says, still laughing. “That one takes the cake for best cover version ever.”
Throughout it all, Nazareth has continued to create new music. Their current singer, Carl Sentance, has now been with the band for more than a decade, and Agnew says the chemistry still feels right. “We’ve done a couple of albums with Carl now, and the fans have really taken to him. The music still changes — we never do the same thing twice.”
He laughs when asked if he still practices. “Never,” he says flatly. “I don’t sit around playing bass for hours. I’ll work out parts when we’re recording, or play acoustic at home, but that’s about it. I’ve never been one of those guys who practise scales all day.”
Agnew’s also been managing the band himself for more than three decades. “We got burned by management a couple of times,” he says. “So I took it over — the tours, the agencies, all of it.” The idea of slowing down doesn’t really come up — though if he ever finds the time, he’d love to record a solo album. “Probably something more laid-back,” he says. “I don’t really listen to hard rock. I love Little Feat, Randy Newman, and Warren Zevon. That’s more my taste.”
He still loves the rush of performing. “The gigs are what make it worth it,” he says. “I don’t care if I ever see another Holiday Inn, but I still love the shows.”
Nazareth rolls into Thunder Bay on October 14 for their Canadian Farewell Tour — a night that will mark both a homecoming of sorts and another chapter in a story that refuses to end. For Pete Agnew, there’s no finish line, just another stage, another crowd, another night of music shared with people who’ve been part of the journey all along. Nazareth’s farewell to Canada isn’t a goodbye so much as a thank-you — a nod to the country that gave them gold records, radio play, and memories that still make him laugh. When the lights go up in Thunder Bay, it won’t feel like an ending — just another encore in a story that keeps rolling on.
