Things you didn’t know about Jim Cuddy (and you really need to know)

For over three decades, Jim Cuddy has been a part of the soundtrack of many Canadians’ lives. From his work with Blue Rodeo to his four solo albums, included the recent successful release ‘Constellations’.

For the average fan, there are a few things you may not know about the crooner:

Why Jim Cuddy refused to give up his day job outside of Blue Rodeo

I was prop person for commercials and the idea of making a living making music was so remote that even when we were succeeding and selling records it was just so obscure. I just thought this is great I am glad we are doing this. I really liked my job, who I worked with and the money was good and I had just started a family. I didn’t give the job up until January of 1990! So, we probably had sold about a million and a half records at that point and I truly didn’t calculate my life changing at that point. On top of that, I didn’t give up my union card until 1995! I thought I was going to have to go back to the job because the music success was going to fade out .

He missed his daughters birthday so she told him he has to get his ear pierced

I missed my daughter’s 14th birthday, so she told me we are getting piercings. She said that she was going to get her belly button pierced and that I was going to get my ear pierced. It’s funny because anytime the earring comes out, I’ve flipped out about the hole closing and have ever put wire through my ear, anything I could do to keep the hole from closing. It’s interesting though it was more painful than I expected for the piercing to actually heal after I got it.

Jim Cuddy’s one and only rap video

In 2012 Canadian rapper Classified released the song “The Hangover” which featured Jim Cuddy and Kayo. “I help put together the Juno Cup hockey team each year that sees musicians vs hockey players. It brings together people from all genres of music and we get to know each other and he was there one year. I actually ended up doing two songs with Classified. “The Hangover” one was interesting because I actually didn’t know the entire content until I saw the video. He is such a great guy and a great artists and I was very happy to have had the chance to work with him.”

Sam Roberts would be part of his dream musician hockey line-up

Jim is part of the group that picks the teams for the Juno Cup that happens each year that pits NHLers vs Musicians. “Sam Roberts is a great hockey player so I would have him, my two sons Devin and Sam and then Chad Brownlee. I will put myself in the line up and then put Alan Doyle (Great Big Sea) in net and that would be my starting 6.”

Before Blue Rodeo, he was in a band with Greg Keeler called ‘Fly To France’

We were in a bit of a spin at that point we were the ‘Hi-fi’s’ in Toronto and then we changed the name to ‘Red, Yellow, Blue’ which was actually just a circle square and a triangle and he [Greg] felt like we didn’t need a name that we could just be represented by symbols, and this was before Prince. I thought it was impossible (laughs) . When we were in New York, we were walking by a store and it had a vintage poster that had ‘fly to France’ on it and we thought it was kind of clever and we named it that. It really was the worst name (laughs). As ‘Fly to France’, we made a demo and a record company called and said they liked it and they wanted to put it out. We were so excited we had a record contract but of course it ended up not happening ..but imagine if we would’ve been stuck with that name!