Jeremy Taggart and Jonathan Torrens on Canadianity

In 2019 I had the opportunity to sit down with former Our Lady Peace drummer Jeremy Taggart and Jonathan Torrens, well known for his years of work in Canadian television on shows like Trailer Park Boys and Mr D. The two Canadians host a podcast called Canadianity and have even published a book, Canadianity: Tales from the True North Strong and Freezing. Through their podcast the two have been able to share what is great about Canada and being Canadian. Through the years they’ve established a community of like minded people they called the Buds (pronounced bawds in a true Canadian accent).

Did you ever expect the concept of Canadianity to evolve into the community that it has?

Jeremy Taggart: I mean, we hoped and we dreamed but this has actually exceeded those expectations. 

Jonathan Torrens: I think we started using the word Canadianity as a joke and then, as I say in the book, we asked our listeners to define it. We were overwhelmed with their definitions of what Canadianity meant to them. And we realized that we inadvertently put a name to something that we’re all feeling. It’s just, the act of being nice and being kind, putting other people first. We make the podcast in a vaccum, it’s just a weekly phone conversation. It takes coming out and doing live shows and coming out like this and having a couple hundred people show up. And all the good will around the show.

Here’s an example; the other night in Calgary a woman had tickets and she couldn’t make it at the last minute so she sent out a tweet saying ‘we can’t make it does anyone want my tickets?’ Within half a dozen minutes there were half a dozen people waiting for her tickets and people saying “can I take your book for you and get your book signed since you’re not able to make it?” There are always stories of good will around the Bahds. Bahdism is actually real, as weird as that sounds.

Taggart: Honestly, the more we talk about it and the more we pay it forward, people are very accepting and people are at these shows. There was a kid in Ottawa. He’s like, ‘I don’t even have any friends but I came here to see you guys and I can’t believe how much I enjoyed it.’ The people that I met were really nice and it was a great thing for him to kinda be out and in public and not be afraid or feel socially awkward.

Torrens; People say they’ve never felt more welcome among people they don’t know.

So far as the community, how have the bawds shaped the phrase Canadianity? How much of it was your idea and how much of it was a reflection of what you saw them sharing?

Torrens: We kinda started using the word in the context of nostalgic reference to TV shows we used to like or commercials, famous Canadian brands that don’t exist anymore. But I’d say the heart came from the bawds to a degree, wouldn’t you?

Taggart: Yeah, there’s this stuff that they do, stupid games Canadians play, being out, you know. What was the guy who did that one game that they played where he came on stage and told us about it? Where you throw something in the air?

Torrens; Yeah, an ogger

Taggart: An ogger. Throw an ogger in the air and like, if it just misses ya, that’s the game. Like, hardcore crazy. One guy almost died where it’s like, yeah, this guy’s here, lived to tell the tale because he was there. The ogger I guess missed him by like this much. Honestly, it’s the more kinda rural living characteristics that define Canadianity to me. As opposed to what we’ve seen on television and what we see during breaks of hockey games.

Torrens: But the neat thing is shortly after we started the podcast a guy from Winnipeg named Derek said ‘you guys should have t-shirts’ and we’re like okay, how would that work? What would those cost? And he’s like ‘no, I own a graphics company and it’s something I’d like to do because you guys provide me with a lot of entertainment.’ Somebody from Ontario named Mike was like ‘you guys should probably have a website, can I make that for ya?’ And he still runs it to this day. We just found out last night that he’s been paying for the domain name and all this stuff for the last year, like it had never occurred to us before. A woman named Ricki from Vancouver transcribes the episodes because she wants to offer that service to other bawds.

From the spark of the idea, when I first heard you guys tossing around different stories, because you come from such different walks of life but you’ve each seen so much of Canada, I thought who better to write a book about Canadianity than you two guys. At what point did it turn from an idea to ‘okay, let’s start putting ideas on paper, and you actually started to write a book about this?

Taggart: Well we were approached by Harper Collins. I met a guy named Doug Richmond who did Anchorboy with Jay Onrait. Both of us were on the Jay and Dan pod and Doug had heard some stories and thought they were funny. He thought that, as soon as, I don’t know if he mentioned it to us or if we mentioned it to him, but as soon as we said we’d make a book about Canada, kinda like a bathroom reader meets a, what’s the thing that they call it?

Torrens: Canada for dummies?

Taggart: Yeah, but what it looks like on the cover.

Torrens: A campfire notebook?

Taggart: Yeah. Like that thing, that feeling. As soon as he heard it he’s like, okay, I’ll send you the deal tomorrow. Like, we’re done, there were no negotiations, they were all in. And that was it. He believed in the stories and he believed in our perspectives and thought people would find it interesting. And he was right

Torrens: But the challenge, as you can imagine, is to write one narrative that makes sense with two very distinct voices. I think we really spurred each other along because he would show me what he had written and it would remind me of an experience I’d had in the place that he was writing about. Canada as a topic is pretty broad, so once we figured out every chapter would be a province that just gave us buckets that we could put stuff in. I think the real happy accident was when we realized we could use bawd ambassadors in every place to give their hot, local tips. So there is actually some takeaway. Because obviously we have the most experience in the places we’ve spent the most time, which is why we were careful to say ‘this is not a definitive reader, this is not the Canadian Encyclopedia, these are our experiences.

How do you feel the book has been received by non-buds. Because the buds love it, obviously they’re gonna love it right from the get-go, but the people who have never even heard of Canadianity.

Taggart: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s buds that are buying it or if the buds made it a best seller the first week. I’m not sure if it’s people from the buds, we did a lot of press promoting it. A lot of people who have been here have said their friend dragged them to the show and they had no idea who we were. Every time those people have said ‘man, this is great, this is something that should be happening more. And the book is kinda the same thing. I can’t see someone finding those stories boring or badly written. It’s honestly no different than the podcast and I think because we’re similar but also different that we kinda cover a lot of range in terms of types of people. I found the same thing with being in OLP that when we wrote the music we tried to make it a universal feeling. Not just bass, drums and guitar in a box. Every instrument had its own signature thing and had to stand out on its own. So therefore you’re kinda giving a wider range and giving yourself a chance. And that’s what we’re doing with this book. We tell our tales in our way and I think it’s interesting enough that people can kinda relate to it.

Torrens: It’s just bawds bein’ bawds.