Q&A: Slash guitarist Todd Kerns brings his Canadian classic rock tribute band Toque to Horseshoe

Todd Kerns is one of those rare musical talents that is up for anything — as long as it rocks, it seems.

The Saskatchewan native fronted gold-selling rock band Age of Electric in the 90s then Static in Stereo, but for the past 17 years has played bass and sang backup in Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators.  And when Slash is busy with that other band of his, Guns N’ Roses — which is currently on tour — or just taking some downtime, Kerns is for hire, as they say.

Most recently, he joined the newly reformed Canadian legends Triumph, which is heading back out on the road in November and December. 

Since 2012, he’s also fronted a fun tribute project, Toque, a Canadian classic rock cover band with his fellow Canadians, bassist/keyboard Brent Fitz, who plays drums in Slash’s band; Drummer Shane Gaalaas , who plays with Japanese legends B’z, and guitarist/keyboardist Cory Churko who played guitar with Shania Twain for 20 years. 

Toque is an homage to the bands these Canadian boys grew up on, such a Rush, Loverboy, April Wine, Prism, Trooper and some regional faves like Orphans and Queen City Kids. They sometimes slip in a Corey Hart or Alanis Morissette classic. The band has released two albums, Give’R (2016) and Never Enough (2019), as well as originals including “Never Enough For You,” “Broken” and “Fighters.”

Tonight they will play at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern. Doors open at 7 p.m.

Kerns, who lives in Las Vegas, talked to Karen Bliss about his love of Canadian rock and how he manages to fit Toque into an already very busy musical life.

I just got the press release that Triumph is going out for another leg in November and December. 

There’s [band members] Gil [Moore] and Rik [Emmett], and then there’s management, and it’s like, “Hey,  we’re thinking this,” or “What’s your availability look like?” so, for a long time, I was like, “I don’t know if we’re going to do a second leg ” because it just seemed like it lagged on for so long. And out of nowhere, “What does November and December look like?” I’m like, “It can look like Triumph. I’ve got a couple things, but I can move things around.” 

Will there be more dates next year?

I don’t know. I know the Slash camp is getting busy next year, so I don’t know what our availability will be by then.

Let’s talk about Toque.

It’s nice hearing somebody pronounce it correctly. [laughs]

Why, what do they say — toke?

All the Americans say toke.

Oh, they probably say that’s such a great name, toke.

Some people say, “Torque is playing.” There’s no R in there. When we started as a Canadian classic rock thing, I thought, “What’s the most Canadian thing we could call it?” “Toques,” somebody said, and I go, “It should just be Toque, like Triumph, Rush … Toque.” It feels comically Canadian.

People aren’t aware of that word in the U.S.?

Not at all. Actually, it depends regionally, like upstate New York or Michigan, maybe Minnesota, maybe Fargo, or if they’re hip to Canadian stuff like SCTV and Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis’s characters [Doug and Bob McKenzie]. But beyond that, it’s still a beanie or a ski cap or whatever the hell they call it, which is bizarre. Isn’t a beanie supposed to have a propeller on top? [laughs]

I’ve got my “Toque” toque.

The “Toque” toque goes very fast. Every time I see one, I go, “Hold on to that. Those things go so fast that we can’t keep them in stock.”

It’s been almost 15 years since you started this thing.

It’s so weird when you say that because it never started as anything other than a breast cancer charity [event] in Winnipeg. The idea came up of, “What if we just played Canadian classic rock?” And I was like, “That would be so ridiculous, that would be fun.” It started with guys from Winnipeg. We could get the guys from Streetheart out to jam, and versions of the Guess Who players were coming out to jam, and it slowly became the four guys that it is now.

When Toque get started, Cory was in Shania Twain at the time; Shane’s in this Japanese gigantic thing at the time, me and Fitz are doing our thing. And there’s giant chunks of time, especially when Guns N’ Roses got back together, where it was like, “What are you guys doing? Let’s do something.” So, we go out almost every summer, depending on who’s available for a Canadian festival run or shows, and then a quick run in the winter. 

A few years after you started, you decided to record these covers.

I remember riding around in Hollywood with the guitar player Cory Churko — he lives in Los Angeles — listening to the Queen City Kids or some very deep-cut Canadian stuff. I remember thinking to myself, “How great are these songs?” And looking around at every car around us, thinking to myself, “None of these people know what this is. What a shame.” And I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to record these songs and have somebody from South America, or Asia or Europe say to us, ‘I love this song’?” And that has happened a million times since.

“That’s an Orphan song, an unsung band from Winnipeg.” We leaned into April Wine, Loverboy, but even Max Webster and Saga are very regional. Upstate New York, Michigan, places like that, they do know them.

Toque has covered Alanis Morissette, which is not Canadian classic rock, so you do go outside those parameters.

We’ve done “Your Daddy Don’t Know,” a Headpins song, Darby Mills, then the idea of singing female songs already came up. “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette is 30 years old now. Just trying to do something a little different. Picking the original group of songs was pretty easy. Collectively, you could find four guys who would put in their list of songs and find the Venn diagram worked pretty easily. Beyond that, it starts to get more and more, “He likes this, and he likes that, and I like this,” but because you’re playing in a live setting, you’re trying to please an audience. Are we serving the audience or serving ourselves by playing this obscure song?

So sometimes, unfortunately, the obscure ones get a little bit lost or they become regional. Like in Winnipeg, let’s do an Orphan song. We’re in Saskatchewan, let’s do Queen City Kids. All of this is probably alien to anybody in Toronto anyway, but because it’s not only regional; it’s also a chunk of time from 40 years ago. So, it can be difficult. But then, of course, things like Alanis just came up. To me, it’s hilarious to have “Ironic.” It goes over huge.

Then you started writing Toque originals. Were you framing them in the vein of classic Canadian rock?

Initially we were very conscious of, “Let’s write them based around this idea.” My friend pointed out to me once, “You realize that your guys are covering a group of music — beyond, say, Alanis — that is probably a five- to 10-year span of music, probably late ‘70s, more like ‘80s?” And I go, “Yeah, because those are the songs that we grew up on, so this particular chapter of music is what we love and what we focus on.” So there’s an element of power pop to it, but there’s also keyboards, that make it maybe it could have been a Honeymoon Suite or Loverboy song. We’re not trying to write fun, wacky songs, like Weird Al Yankovic. We were thinking it would be cool if we released a record full of cover songs, but one or two of ours that don’t stick out.

How close are you to a full original album?

We are working towards that. I have this conversation with Slash all the time because we got a new record coming out and the idea of, like, talking about cover art and the song sequence and all that kind of stuff. He’s so wired in a way, we rehearse these songs, we go to a studio and we record them and they come out in this order. What I love is the fact that it comes out as a record, like everything we grew up on. Saying that, of course, the songs are still released in the same way that things are being released today. Half the record has come out in singles and now here’s the record. So where back in the day there’d be a single and then now here’s the album coming.

So, we have been having fun with the idea of: we wrote a song, we recorded the song, put it out, and then eventually we work towards the idea of either compiling that into an entire record or compiling some of it with some newer music. So, yes, that is the plan.

You have a boss: Slash. How do you juggle everything? You have to call and say, “Triumph is going out on a second leg. Is it okay for me to join them?”

The one great thing about the Slash camp is ever since Guns kind of fired back up, it’s just very organic: “Hey, what does next year look like?” It’s not, “Here’s the dates. Make yourself available.” It’s “Hey, what’s going on?” and a lot of communication.

At least Guns is booked well in advance, so you know you have a year or more to take on other things. 

Slash is also incredibly ambitious and incredibly motivated when it comes to just making music and just keeping busy. His creative outlet has been with us as much as Guns. We all hope Guns will make a record, but he’s been able to keep creating with us, keeping in mind that Myles Kennedy has a solo career and is in Alter Bridge. And then Frank, our other guitar player, plays with Wolfgang Van Halen and Mammoth, and Fitz and I both have stuff going on all the time.

You have to diversify. You don’t have to be in one band and then be a courier.

I think in this modern world where people aren’t really making a living off publishing and back catalogs as much as they are just record sales in general, it’s become a lot more common. I’m a lot more wired for this. People would call it a talent. I think it’s more of a savant thing. I am good at learning songs, knowing songs.

And it led to playing with Slash. When the new record comes out, we’ll have been doing this for 17 years together. Things like Triumph come out of the ether. I have an ability to go, “Okay, Triumph mode. Boom. Here we go.” And then,“Slash mode. Boom. Here we go.” “Toque mode. Boom.” 

And those are all really different things. In Toque, I am the lead singer and rhythm guitar player. In Triumph, I’m the bass player, but I’m singing harmonies the entire night, but I’m singing a few songs. In Slash’s band, same thing. I’m playing bass, singing some songs and singing harmonies the entire night. Bruce Kulick from the non-makeup Kiss years, we’ve been doing stuff off and on together since 2010. And that’s really interesting because I’m playing rhythm guitar and singing mostly ‘80s Paul Stanley songs. So it’s very challenging to be in my fifties now going, “Let’s scream as hard as we’ve ever sang.”

I was thinking by this point in my life, I’d probably be leaning into my, I don’t know, acoustic Bob Dylan or acoustic Neil Young years [laughs]. but it gets busier and busier. And I’m pretty grateful for it, frankly. It’s a good problem to have.