THE WRECKING CREW

Ian Thornley of Canadian rockers Big Wreck on clashing with producers,the joy of pinch harmonics and the importance of extravagant guitar solos

- GREGORY ADAMS

SINCE FOUNDING BIG Wreck in the early Nineties, Ian Thornley has filled his band’s songbook with arena-conquering melodies, Led Zeppelin-hailing heft and some of the most super-heroically knuckle-busting leads in contemporary hard rock. In other words, he’s a master auteur, and this only continues with the Toronto-based outfit's latest album, The Rest of the Story. But behind every great writer is a great editor, which is how the new record's subtly strummed “Laws of Man” escaped its Seagram's Seabreeze-schmaltzy origins.

Though the song is an acoustic outlier on Big Wreck’s eighth album, Thornley had initially sailed his way toward a mellow yacht-rock feel that “washed over you" with good vibes. Album producer Nick Raskulinecz (Deftones, Foo Fighters) just thought it was washed.

“I came up with a really beautiful guitar hook, and there were these little Jeff Beck-wannabe, bar-inspired licks that would float around the vocals,” Thornley says. “I was like, 'This is going to be great when the boys get a handle on this,' but then Nick heard it and he was like, 'I fucking hate it.'

“He was not into the tune. He said it sounded New Age, like, 'Welcome to Denver Airport.' He wasn't ripping me to shreds — it was all for a good laugh — but he made his point, and I think he was right.”

In turn, the next draft of the arrangement went minimal; the bass and drums got scrapped. It remains lush through full-bodied, open-D-tuned Dobro strumming, a few Nashville-tuned guitar layers in the final chorus, and Thornley’s emotive vocal.

Despite “Laws of Man” being a serene chapter within The Rest of the Story, Thornley and his bandmates — guitarist Chris Caddell, bassist Dave McMillan and drummer Sekou Lumumba - nevertheless pump up the release with jaguar-print metal, low-tuned hookiness, Edge-adjacent delay-scaping and one particularly jazz-shredded juggernaut of a solo on “Short Bangs.”