This business of music comes down to two things, muses Rob Baker: what you can control, and what you cannot.

“You can control whether you are good,” suggests the guitarist for the enduring The Tragically Hip. “You can’t control whether you are famous or not.”

Almost 30 years down the road, this most beloved of Canadian bands seems to have its priorities straight, focusing on the music and not the spotlight.

Along the way they have earned critical acclaim and an ardent following that brings out arena size crowds in their home country and a consistent, loyal audience in the United States.

“We are like the elder statesmen of Canadian rock,” Baker says, laughing, from his home in Kingston, Ontario.

In Canada The Hip have a national profile and are covered by the national media. “We have something in the USA that 95 per cent of the bands up here really envy. We can go anywhere in America and play to about 1,000 people; in some cities a lot more,” Baker says. “There is an enthusiastic audience that has followed our career. Not many bands can say that or have that. What we have in the United States is very real. We built it very slowly.”

This band of childhood friends continues to do that with a new CD, We Are the Same, their 12th studio album, which Baker calls among the best in the Hip’s history.

“It’s been 27 years and it doesn’t feel like that. It’s always a bit of a surprise when you look back (on your career). We try not to spend too much time looking back. We always try to push forward.”

“We try to challenge ourselves and each other and the audience,” Baker says. “We are really lucky we have an audience that are fans of the band, as opposed to fans of a song. We see so many bands that have fans from a radio hit. They come out to hear one song.”

For those just becoming aware of The Hip, Baker offers this one sentence primer: “We are in a very traditional mold doing something contemporary and spontaneous.”

The band has been praised for making “honest rock’n’roll,” about which Baker says, “I don’t think what we do is particularly pretentious. We never tried to go in for makeovers or try to catch the wave of the latest trend. We try to make music that turns us on, the premise being that if we are excited about it other people will be too, because we are just pretty average, normal guys. I don’t think there is anything particularly unique about us. We found each other and managed to stay together a long time.”

It is that Everyman nature of the band and its music that perhaps resonates most for longtime admirers.

“People like a good rock’n’roll outing, something pretty straight forward. Also, I think Gord Downie (frontman and lyricist) gives them a lot more to chew on than your average rock writer out there. I really think his lyrics are on a whole other level.

The subject matter of the songs has evolved through the years. “There was a time when they were more, I hate to call them folk ballads, but sort of story songs, unfolding stories,” Baker explains. “There has been lots of Canadian history interwoven in the lyrics through the years. On the last couple of records, the lyrics have been quite personal in nature – personal but in a very universal sense, the kind you can relate to. They are personal without being specifically personal.”

Downie has said that the theme of the We Are the Same CD is “me and you; him and her; the little things that we say to each other each day, and even the things we withhold.” “Our thoughts dwell on the people in our lives a lot more than we admit,” he added. “We’re always trying to relate, to make a connection. That’s what this album is about.”
Legendary producer Bob Rock, whose credits include Metallica, Aerosmith and Motley Crue, returned to helm the work. He produced The Hip’s critically acclaimed 2007 album, World Container.

In approaching this album, Baker explains: “We’ve never been one for makeovers. We decided that going in to the studio we didn’t really want to go out and just play another greatest hits tour. When we play big arenas (as they do in Canada), we’ve got to do the ‘greatest hits’ thing. We’ve done that two or three times in a row. So we said, ‘Let’s go out and make an album so we can do something more theatrical and tour theaters.”

So they decided to emphasize a little more of the acoustic elements of the band. Baker says members of their management who rode their tour bus, and listened to what they were playing at the back of the vehicle, were surprised at how eclectic individual listening tastes are in the band. “We thought it was a good time to bring some of those things to the forefront (on an album),” he says.

Taking that music on tour, and doing two sets a night, allows the Hip to dig deeper into their catalogue, he says. “It mixes things up a little more.”

To Baker, performing live is the consummation of all that the band does. “Writing music is great. Certainly we all thrive on that. We all consider ourselves songwriters and it is fulfilling in its own right. But when you write a song it’s meant to be heard,” he explains. “And recording is interesting and great on another level, but it feels like trying to freeze time, trying for a perfect performance and imagining an audience is there. But I don’t think you can have a perfect performance.”

Getting up on stage is the consummation of the entire process, he adds. “Get on stage and play the song. Everything else up to then is teasing,” he says.

On stage is where the magic can happen, he suggests. “We are pretty normal guys, but you get a rush of adrenaline. The audience eggs you on and you egg them on. Things happen to you,” he says.

It reaches its highest point on those nights when “you cease to be who and what you are,” Baker says. “It feels like music is passing through you. You are the conduit for the experience. You feel like you are tapping into something and you are playing beyond your abilities, you are playing something you’ve never played before, but it is you playing it. It’s like an instant addiction and you are chasing that for the rest of your life. It is a meditation of sorts.”

Editor’s Note: The Tragically Hip perform Saturday, July 25 at Highland Park Bowl.