ROSTHERN — Nearly anyone who has lived in Saskatchewan over the past 30 years has heard of the Johner Brothers, a country music duo hailing from a farm at Midale, who went on to release several critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums in the 1990s.
After more than 10 years of touring and performing around the world, Ken Johner decided to retire from the music business, leaving his brother Brad to pursue a solo career for about a decade.
Years later, Brad was joined on stage by his five sons, though some of them ended up taking up different instruments like the bass guitar, piano or drums.
“I never told any one of them which to play; they just kind of found their own instrument,” says Brad, who is an acoustic guitarist/lead singer.
Recently, Ken decided to get back into the music business, and so the Johner Brothers are back together again. However, they’re mostly sticking close to home, performing at several gigs throughout western Canada.
“We don’t want to be travelling all over the place. I’m getting too old for that long travelling thing,” says Brad.
One of those concerts will take place on Saturday, March 22, at the Heritage Common in Hepburn. That’s where the Johner Brothers (plus a couple of Brad’s sons) will be helping to raise funds for a new hospital in Rosthern during the Saskatchewan Valley Hospital Foundation’s (SVHF) spring fling.
To help promote the event, the Clark’s Crossing Gazette reached out to Brad for an interview on March 7, just before he was about to head off to Alberta to see one of his sons perform in Calgary before embarking on a cruise ship.
Brad notes that two of his sons are performing on cruise ships — something that he and Ken have done the odd time with fans of the Johner Brothers — while another is studying music at Grant MacEwan.
“They’re all musicians in some form. It’s fun that we can go out and still play,” he said.
Depending on which sons are in Saskatchewan and free at the time, they will likely be joining Ken and John at the SVHF Spring Fling, performing either on stage with their dad or on their own.
When asked how he feels about his sons going into the music industry, Ken acknowledges it can be a tough business, but so are fields like health care or corporate finance.
“There’s always ups and downs in anything you do, and music is just something that my brother and I have always done. I’ve just been very fortunate that I’ve been able to make a living and raise five boys with just playing music, because that’s all I’ve done since 1989,” Brad says.
“I can’t discourage it, because that’s what I did. I followed my dream, and my own passion, and it seems to have worked out for me. And they’re doing the same thing.”
So what will the March 22 concert be like? Brad says he and Ken will of course be performing some of the older Johner Brothers songs that have been on the radio for years that people will be familiar with, but they also have some newer songs.
For instance, they just came out a couple months ago with a song called “Bring Back the Mullet,” which was written by Brad and his son Luke. It was inspired by fans’ frequent requests for the Johners to wear the mullet hairdos they used to sport in the 90s.
“It’s been out for a few months now and people…always request that one,” Brad says.
Another newer song of theirs that will probably be coming out around the end of March is called “The Flatlands,” which Brad describes as a kind of “epic cowboy song” inspired by life in Saskatchewan.
For the most part, Brad says their concerts are not very serious and are just meant for people to have a good time.
“I think it’s interesting for people to see that Ken and I are back together, playing music again,” he says. “It’s also really, really interesting just to see my boys on stage.”
On a final note, for anyone concerned about the acoustics at the Spring Fling, Brad says he has performed at the Heritage Common in Hepburn before and knows that it is a good venue for live music.
“Lots of times, you’ll go out and play a show, and somebody will see you in a really nice venue. Then they go, ‘Yeah, we want to book you for this,’ and then they book it in some echo-y rink somewhere. It’s not the same type of show; it doesn’t sound really good. But that room sounds really good, and it’ll be a really nice evening,” he says.
Tickets for the Spring Fling are $40 each and can be purchased online via a link at the SVHF’s website or by contacting the foundation by e-mail ([email protected]) or phone (306-212-8992).
