Trooper - Trooper

I found a copy of Trooper’s debut from 1975, and this was my first time hearing the album in its entirety. Even though it contains two of the band’s best-known songs, “General Hand Grenade” and “Baby Woncha Please Come Home,” I was surprised the record didn’t go gold here in Canada. The band’s next four albums would all go platinum, with the latter two even going double platinum. What a run.

The debut was produced by Randy Bachman and released on Randy’s Legend Records, although it was distributed by MCA Records  - the label Trooper would eventually move to and stay with during their commercial peak. I have always liked Trooper, and like just about every Canadian kid of a certain vintage, Hot Shots was part of the soundtrack of our formative years. I’ve had a lot of fun digging into some of their earlier albums and hearing deeper tracks I’d never encountered before.

For whatever reason, the debut seems to be the forgotten Trooper record. I can sort of see why. Aside from those two singles, the rest of the album feels a bit like a bait and switch. Ra and Brian were still finding their legs as songwriters, and I’m not sure how much influence Randy had on the material, but a lot of the album sounds remarkably like BTO. At times it was uncanny. “Roller Rink”* is the best song Fred Turner never sang.

That said, BTO never pulled off a seven-and-a-half-minute blues-infused jam like Trooper did with “All of the Time.” Not my favourite track, but boy howdy, Brian Smith got a chance to stretch out a little.

Ra McGuire had a truly great rock voice. Holy smokes, the guy could have given Ian Gillan and Ronnie James Dio a run for their money if the band had leaned harder into a more hard rock direction. Goodness me, what a set of pipes. And of course every band needed a guitar slinger, and Brian Smith was truly one of Canada’s great unheralded players.

Trooper was built around the Smith-McGuire dynamic and songwriting partnership. It’s no wonder Frank Ludwig had trouble establishing his presence after joining the band a year later on Two for the Show. He was a talented guy who could write, but it would have been hard not to play George to their Lennon-McCartney.

The kernels of what Trooper would become were already on display in “General Hand Grenade” and “Baby Woncha Please Come Home.” There was something there that felt cool and new, but the rest of the album was mining the same blue-collar hard rock vein where BTO had struck gold — the problem was, they weren’t BTO.

That said, I’ll give props to “Love of My Life,” sung by drummer Tommy Stewart. It’s a five-minute, balls-to-the-wall barn burner with Brian Smith and Randy Bachman trading solos on the left and right sides of the stereo mix.

This was still a pretty solid rock record, and at times it was surprisingly heavy  - in a good way. I was kind of shocked by how much they were copying BTO, something Randy perhaps should have tried to rein in. Of course, this is all armchair conjecture. I get to view this through the lens of history, kind of like playing the Ghost of Christmas Past. 

After all, my journey to the debut comes fifty years after the fact, and it’s hardly fair to say they didn’t sound like Trooper. They were Trooper. The Trooper I grew up with simply didn’t exist yet, but there were glimpses of what was to come — and man, it was good.

* I wonder if “Roller Rink” was a homage to the old Stardust in Whalley? Or maybe the Lynden Skateway & Bowl in Washington? Randy used to live in Lynden, and who knows — maybe his house was there in ’75 while working with Trooper. I only went to the Stardust a couple of times (once for sure), but man, we crossed the line to Lynden a lot when I was a kid. Probably four or five times, lol.