With new album on the way, Cowboy Junkies take a break to hit the road

Even with more than 30 years of touring experience as a member of Canadian blues/country/folk/rock band Cowboy Junkies, packing for the road is still hard for guitarist Michael Timmins.

The day he spoke to the Spokesman-Review, he was scrambling to finish last-minute tasks before Cowboy Junkies hit the road on a string of dates across the West Coast, including a show at the Panida Theater in Sandpoint on Saturday.

“It doesn’t really get easier,” he said. “It’s still a mind shift to get out of your regular routine, which is a good thing, I guess, but it’s still hard.”

The band is experiencing similar challenges in the recording studio as Timmins, sister/vocalist Margo, brother/drummer Peter and bassist Alan Anton work on their next full-length album – despite having 16 albums, including the 1988 breakout “The Trinity Sessions” to their name.

But those 30-plus years together have made the challenges, like trying to find the best way to communicate and record a song, easier to face.

“You don’t go in and put it through a formula,” Timmins said. “You still have to approach each song fresh… We’re looking in terms of the album as a whole so it’s like ‘Well, we do that really well and we were doing that on this song, so let’s push this song in another direction.’ It’s a constant conversation and trial and error and exploration, basically.”

This album, which the band hopes to finish in late summer or early fall and release in February, will be Cowboy Junkies’ first batch of new material since releasing a box set called “Notes Falling Slow” in 2015.

The first three discs were remastered versions of 2001’s “Open,” 2004’s “One Soul Now” and 2007’s “At the End of Paths Taken.”

The fourth disc included previously unreleased tracks, some songs that weren’t originally completed, some that weren’t demoed and some that, for one reason or another, didn’t make the final cut.

According to Timmins, the main inspiration behind “Notes Falling Slow” was to reintroduce those three albums to listeners.

“It’s always nice to reintroduce them with a different perspective, with time and for us as well to get a little bit of distance and look at them and try to figure out ‘What were these about?’ ” he said. “It reminds one of where one was at the time when you were writing them and recording them and touring them.”

As far as the unreleased material, revisiting “Open,” “One Soul Now” and “At the End of Paths Taken” inspired the band to take a look at what didn’t make it onto the records, or even off the pages of their notebooks.

“It’s always fun to go into them and see how much they compliment what you did, what you left off, what you missed,” Timmins said.

Clearing songs out of the Cowboy Junkies vault made for a fun project, but it didn’t inform the band when it came to beginning this upcoming record.

“When we write a new record, we rarely look at what we have, it’s always about looking forward,” he said. “Back in the earlier days when we’d definitely write and be recording and touring like it was a nonstop cycle, there’d probably be more crossover, but at this point in our career, I think it’s more just ‘OK it’s time to start making a record. Let’s start writing and figure out where we are and where we want to go’.”

On top of writing, and producing, a new Cowboy Junkies record, Timmins finds time to produce other bands and has composed six films, most recently 2016’s “Maudie,” a biographical drama about Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis.

Timmins doesn’t actively pursue composing opportunities, but he’s happy to take them on as his schedule allows. It’s a different feel from writing for Cowboy Junkies, as with films, Timmins doesn’t have complete creative control.

“If the director is the main person in charge, I’m bringing music to them and I’m trying to help them achieve what they’re trying to achieve on screen…” he said. “Even if I think this is the greatest piece of music I’ve ever written, it’s like ‘Well if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work.’ That’s basically it. When I’m doing a Cowboy Junkies album, it’s totally different. It’s our vision and it’s our statement. Therefore, we’re the final say in it.”

For the time being, Timmins isn’t pursuing other composing opportunities and has instead turned his attention back to the band and the new Cowboy Junkies record.

“Then we release in February and we’ll start it all again,” Timmins said. “It’s a big focus on the band in the next few months, for sure.”