Interview by Kris Peters
Iconic Canadian rock outfit The Tea Party have been mesmerizing fans around the world with their innovative music and captivating live shows for over three decades now.
While their musical output has always been in a league of its own, it is on the live stage that The Tea Party have excelled, delivering knockout performances every time they grace the stage and transfixing audiences with their almost laconic approach that never fails to entertain.
After being absent from these shores since 2019, The Tea Party will make a welcome return this June for the Trip (tych) 25 Tour, celebrating 25 years since the release of one of the band's most recognised and loved albums.
HEAVY sat down with drummer Jeff Burrows recently to talk more about the tour and an album that will go down in rock music history.
We start by asking how much focus Trip (tych) will have for the shows.
"With this tour, it's not a top to tail album sequenced show," he explained. "We're gonna play 8 or 9 - including some of the deeper cuts that we've never played before - mixed with some other B sides and deeper cuts, and of course some of the hits."
We ask what has changed with The Tea Party since they were here last five years ago.
"I think… I can honestly say it's an appreciation for where we're at," he measured, "what we've been afforded, the types of shows that we get to do. We've been doing this for over thirty years now and ask me thirty years ago if I thought I'd still be able to travel abroad and play shows in front of people who love our music and sing along with us, I never thought that would be possible. I think more grateful, communicative and the fact that it's easily the best job - if you have to call it that - in the world. There's no complaints here. It doesn't even really get harder. It kind of gets a bit easier, because we don't worry now about… back in the day we would cross Canada in a van - we've crossed Canada 13 times in a van before we were even signed - and we didn't know if we were making it to the next town. Canada's alot like Australia. You're going from Perth to Adelaide in a van, that's essentially Vancouver to Calgary in a van, and it's brutal. There's overnight drives after the show where you're still sweating because there was only one hotel. There's no showers at these tiny little clubs, so things get a little bit easier as you get a little bit older. I dunno, I think we've moved in quite well (laughs)."
In the full interview, Jeff talks more about the upcoming tour, playing songs from the album they haven't performed live before, how Trip (tych) has stood the test of time, how significant the album was in The Tea Party's career, how their sound changed from their 1991 debut to Trip (tych) and more.