St. John s. Hallett, McCann and Power were playing together in a band called Rankin Street, which evolved into Great Big Sea when Doyle joined in 1993. The challenge for us was to reinvent these songs and make them accessible to young people. We felt that there was more energy and life in these songs than there was in most of the pop music we were hearing at the time, so we tried to play traditional songs with the zeal and energy of a rock band. That s why it feels natural for us to sing pop songs right next to traditional songs, and to have all these radically different styles in the same band. Up went double platinum there, as did 1997 s Play .
People go to one of our concerts, and they come back to the next one and bring two or three friends.
There s no special effect more powerful than 5000 people singing the same song at the same time. This album is well on its way to becoming the band s third multi-platinum Canadian record. In 1999, Great Big Sea was nominated for a Juno Award as Best Group.