Canadian alt-country pioneers Cowboy Junkies will return to Australian for the first time in over 20 years in January and February 2023.

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The band’s 2020 tour was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but now they’ve booked their tickets down under and they’ve got a whole new album to share too.

Anyone who has followed Cowboy Junkies’ three decade-long journey knows the band has always remained true to its unique artistic vision.  In the late 80s, the band proved that there was an audience waiting for something quiet, beautiful and reflective.

Cowboy Junkies first found success in 1988 with their second album The Trinity Session, the quiet and moody album was recorded in a church around a single microphone, and featured their take on Dreaming My Dreams With You which turned the country power ballad into a peaceful and reflective ode, plus Blue Moon Revisited, and their takes on I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Walking After Midnight and Sweet Jane. 

Over the next three decades the band released 17 studio albums. They even re-recorded their breakthrough album- heading back to the same church with guests Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant and Vic Chesnutt.

Formed in Toronto in 1985 with siblings Michael Timmins on guitar, Margo Timmins on vocals, Peter Timmins on drums, and Michael’s lifelong friend Alan Anton on bass, the band has remained true to themselves and unlike most long-lasting groups, has never had a break up, endured a line-up change, or taken a hiatus.

The band’s new album Songs of the Recollection is scheduled for release on the 11th March 2022, and it’s a collection of covers including songs by David Bowie, The Cure, Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot.

Michael Timmins recalls how in their youth the band members used to play music from their record collections to each other.

“We grew up sitting around the record player listening to each other’s record collections and having our minds blown. This was the passion that we shared. Our goal has always been to create music that took hold of the listener the way that this music took hold of us. These are some of the songs and some of the artists that found their way into our lives and eventually into our repertoire over the past fifty years.”

Featured on the new album is Five Years (David Bowie), Ooh Las Vegas (Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris), No Expectations (Rolling Stones), Don’t Let It Bring You Down (Neil Young), Love In Mind (Neil Young), The Way I Feel (Gordon Lightfoot), I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You (Bob Dylan), Marathon (Vic Chesnutt) and Seventeen Seconds (The Cure).

The band’s 2023 Australian tour will kick off at Brisbane’s Tivoli Theatre on Tuesday 31st January before heading to the Recital Centre in Melbourne on Thursday 2nd February, and then a second Melbourne show the following night at the Athenaeum Theatre, on Sunday 5th February they’ll play the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, before heading to Adelaide for a show at The Gov on Wednesday 8th February.

The tour will have it’s final show on Friday 10th February at Perth’s Astor Theatre.

Tickets are on sale now. 

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