Standing in the lobby of the Olde Walkerville Theatre, you can almost smell the history in the velvet curtains and the worn floorboards. It is the kind of room that demands respect, but on Mar. 10, it is going to get a heavy dose of Highland noise instead. We are talking about Mudmen, a band that has spent two decades defying every logical expectation of the Canadian music industry.
When two brothers from Alvinston and Petrolia decided to fuse a rock rhythm section with the piercing wail of the bagpipes, the industry laughed. They called it a gimmick. But those brothers, Robby and Sandy Campbell, were not looking for a novelty act. They were looking for a fight.
And they won. Here we are in 2018 and the band is marking a 20-year milestone that most indie acts would sell their souls to reach. This upcoming Windsor show is not just a concert; it is a victory lap for a group that refused to let their instruments be relegated to parades and funerals.
“Over the years there have been bands that have used bagpipes in songs like Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney and Glen Campbell,” explains piper Robby Campbell. “But other than us, there hasn’t really been a band that really stars in it, especially with a little bit of edge. We’ve been called pioneers and this and that, but when we started out the pipes were really a forgotten instrument.”
Campbell is right about the "edge." Most pipe bands feel like a museum exhibit, but Mudmen play with a blue-collar grit that feels more like a barroom brawl than a Highland games competition. They took an instrument that was essentially a historical artifact and plugged it into a Marshall stack.
The sonic challenge of mixing pipes with a rock kit is a nightmare for any sound engineer. The pipes are loud, stubborn and physically demanding. But the Campbells found a way to make them the centrepiece rather than a background texture.
Formed in 1998, the band emerged from the small-town roots of Alvinston and Petrolia with a chip on its shoulder. They have churned out nine studio albums since then, including their 2016 effort, *Old Plaid Shirt*. It is a discography built on sweat and a refusal to follow the trends of the Toronto indie scene.
You know the hits. Tracks like 5 O'Clock, Saturday and Drink and Fight have become staples of the Canadian pub circuit. They are songs designed for a specific kind of Friday night—the kind that ends with a headache and a story to tell.
And then there are the covers. Their rendition of Spirit of the West's Home for a Rest is a mandatory inclusion in their setlist, alongside a blistering version of AC/DC's It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll). It takes a certain level of confidence to tackle Bon Scott’s legacy with actual pipes, but Mudmen pull it off without looking like a tribute act.
But the road to 20 years was paved with plenty of skeptics who thought the Campbell brothers were losing their minds. In the late 90s, the idea of a bagpipe rock band sounded like a punchline to a bad joke.
I remember the comments we had when we first started – people thought we were crazy. My brother’s ex-bosses came up to him one time and said ‘when you said you were going to do this rockin’ bagpipe thing, I didn’t think your wires were touching and you had a few screws loose. I thought you guys would end up homeless and end up living in the ditch.’
“I remember the comments we had when we first started – people thought we were crazy,” Campbell remembers. “My brother’s ex-bosses came up to him one time and said ‘when you said you were going to do this rockin’ bagpipe thing, I didn’t think your wires were touching and you had a few screws loose. I thought you guys would end up homeless and end up living in the ditch.’”
That "homeless in a ditch" prophecy never came to pass. Instead, the band found a loyal audience that appreciated their refusal to be polished or polite. They are one of the few acts that can play a biker rally one night and a corporate gala the next without changing their shirts.
The music business is a mess, a crumbling infrastructure of streaming cents and fleeting attention spans. But Mudmen are thriving in the wreckage. They are currently prepping a new album for release later this year, proving the creative well has not run dry.
To mark the anniversary, they are also moving into the literary world. They are working on a book that promises to be as unvarnished as their live shows.
“The book’s going to be called 20 Years In The Mud and our good buddy Ron MacLean is going to foreword it for us,” Campbell says of the project. “I think we’re going to make some steam with this when we’re done, with all the stories and pictures to back it all up. We’ve also been talking about inserting a little DVD sleeve with it with a little video evidence showing us shaking hands with the Queen and stuff like that.”
Having Ron MacLean in your corner is the ultimate Canadian seal of approval. It speaks to the band’s status as a cultural fixture, even if they remain outsiders to the mainstream radio charts. And that footage of them with the Queen? It is a reminder that these guys from Alvinston have seen things most rock stars never will.
The physical nature of the book is important. In a digital world, Mudmen still believe in things you can hold—plaid shirts, pint glasses and hardcover pages. It is a chronicle of a band that survived on its own terms.
Windsor has always been a key stop for the band. The city’s working-class energy matches their own, and Campbell has a deep well of memories from the local circuit. One particular story involves a supernatural encounter at a local landmark.
“The Dominion House is always a fun one to play at, and it’s supposed to be one of the oldest running hotel taverns in Ontario,” he says. “When we finished our show that night, the owner asked us if we wanted to stick around and watch a ghost hunter television show check out the basement because the place is haunted.”
The Dominion House is a relic of another era, a place where the walls feel thick with the ghosts of a thousand Saturday nights. It is exactly the kind of place you would expect to find Mudmen after a gig.
“So our show was done and we’re loading the van and four of our guys end up being filmed on this show. It’s kinda’ funny, they were having a great time until they started singing Ghostbusters – that’s when they got kicked off the set. We have a lot of fond memories of Windsor,” Campbell says.
Getting kicked off a ghost-hunting set for singing a movie theme song is the most Mudmen story imaginable. It is irreverent, slightly chaotic and entirely authentic. They do not take themselves too seriously, even if they take the music very seriously.
The Olde Walkerville Theatre show on Mar. 10 is the centrepiece of their Old Plaid Shirt 2 Tour. It is a chance for the Windsor crowd to see the band in a venue that actually has the acoustics to handle the wall of sound they produce.
If there is a critique to be made, it is that the pipes can sometimes drown out the nuances of the guitar work in a live setting. But let’s be honest: nobody goes to a Mudmen show for the nuances. They go for the power.
Tickets for the 8pm show are $20 online or $30 at the door. It is a small price to pay to witness two decades of stubbornness and Scottish pride distilled into a single night of rock.
The Mudmen are a reminder that you do not need a major label or a trendy look to survive in this industry. You just need a couple of pipes, some thick skin and a refusal to end up in that ditch the bosses promised. They are still here, still loud and still wearing the plaid.
