Montreal heavy metal pioneers return to the stage to celebrate 45 years of music

The '80s Montreal heavy metal band Sword is set to return to the stage at Club Soda for their 45th anniversary show.

Cramped in a discreet Montreal South Shore basement, the four members of ’80s Canadian metal band are rehearsing with the same intensity they did four decades ago.

Guitar virtuoso Mike Plant is calling the shots, as he hits his strings with laser-sharp precision as the rest of the band carries the song with unruffled ease.

“I think you just missed a fill,” Plant casually tells intrigued drummer Dan Hughes, after stopping the song.

Standing bemused in front of his bandmates, Sword’s charismatic lead singer, Dan’s brother Rick Hughes, watches the scene with a chuckle and picks up the song with his intense vocal delivery tinged with an unmistakable sense of melody that makes him one of Canada’s most versatile rock singers.

However, as we meet the band, there’s a sense of urgency to their rehearsal.

Sword will celebrate its 45th anniversary with a homecoming concert at Montreal’s Club Soda on Saturday, Oct. 18, and they are taking the upcoming gig very seriously.

It’s safe to say that since the band formed in their teenage years in 1980, the French-Canadian quartet behaves like a closely knit family, where enjoyment of the moment takes precedence over the constant pressure of impressing record labels and demanding audiences.

“After all these years, we’ve acquired maturity, and we can work differently compared to the old days. We can say things now compared to our early days, when you couldn’t say certain things without offending someone. There were boundaries that don’t exist anymore,” explains Plant, who performed with many other Quebec artists over the years.

Band co-founder and bass player Mike Larock agrees that the years have made it easier for them to work together.

“It wasn’t always easy, but, you know, you have four different tempers and four different personalities, so it’s not always fun. But, at the end of the day, it’s music that keeps us together and the love of music and the passion and the music that we play and that we wrote,” he said.

Trio of metal records

Despite their longevity, the band only released three studio albums.

Their debut, Metalized, earned rave reviews in the heavy metal music press and did relatively well within the constraints of a genre that didn’t get much airplay on commercial radio back then.

Their follow-up, Sweet Dreams, earned the band a solid fan base around the world and saw them tour, supporting the likes of Bon Jovi, Motorhead, Alice Cooper, and Metallica in 1988.

But the 1990s were not kind to heavy metal, as new sounds emerged from the excesses of the late ’80s hard rock scene, characterized by pop-oriented melodies, industrial use of hair-spray, and bad boy antics that destroyed the hard earned credibility of earlier bands, like Sword, who was inspired by respected ’70s artists like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, or Judas Priest.

Sword would go on a 15-year-long hiatus.

Decade-and-a-half in the wilderness

Rick Hughes took time away from the band to try a more commercial sound with his band Saints and Sinners, before returning to his francophone roots.

He was a regular on TV shows, such as La Fureur, La Voix (French Canadian version of The Voice), several musicals, and became a back-up singer for rock and roll bad boy superstar Eric Lapointe.

Hughes, however, never strayed too far from his friends in Sword. As ’80s metal returned thanks to a wave of nostalgia in the early 2010s, the band resumed playing at European music festivals, where the genre never faltered.

For Mike Plant, it was the spark that rekindled his creative streak.

“With the Internet, we had a page and the fans were writing to us and there was a lot of demand for new material, and we decided to do that,” he said.

It took several years for Sword 3 to come out. The band says Plant took over much of the creative process.

“Mike really took this one at heart and everything you hear on the album, even some drum parts and the way I sing some parts is Mike’s ideas,” explains Rick Hughes.

The band doesn’t have a new record to promote its 45th anniversary show. Mike Larock explains that these days, the individual members are focused on their family lives.

The long hair is gone, and the musicians look more like doting grandfathers than bikers.

“We’re just doing a couple of shows [or] festivals a year, depending on the demand,” said Larock.

Rick Hughes is the more active of the four, and he’s about to release a new solo album called Redemption. It was produced by John Webster, who’s best known for his work with Aerosmith, AC/DC, and Motley Crue. The sessions were held in Vancouver and Los Angeles, where Hughes found himself working with some recording legends.

Among the legends were Amy Keys, who worked with Quincy Jones, Sting, Toto and Stevie Wonders, The Doors’ Robbie Krieger, and Ozzy Osbourne’s former musicians Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Alrdrige, and Night Ranger’s Brad Gillis.

“It all went very smoothly, naturally, and I thank my lucky star on this one,” says Hughes.

The singer says he’s very comfortable running the two careers at the same time.

Sword keeps him in the heavy metal groove that’s in his DNA, while his solo work covers a much broader vocal range and musical spectrum.

As for Sword, the band says they don’t plan to tour much for now

“We’re doing well at home. We don’t want to be on the road touring for months, go into small clubs and start over. No, no, no. We’re not into that. If everything goes well, and the next couple of years, maybe we’ll record another of album just to have some new material, ‘So, what do you say guys? Let’s do it,’” said Hughes.

Rick Hughes’ new album comes out this week, and tickets are currently on sale for Sword’s show at Club Soda.