After being nominated eight times in several categories, Trooper finally won the
well-deserved 1979 Juno Award for 'Group of the Year'. What was that night
like?
{Brian} "The night was amazing because, at the time, the five of us... Doni {Underhill}, Tommy {Stewart}, Ra, myself and Rob {Deans}... nobody wanted to go to the Junos. {Then} myself, Doni, and Tommy decided that we were going to go. We head to the airport in the morning to go.. our plane is delayed. Low and behold, Ra and Rob come up. They say they've decided to go. They're on AirCanada, we're on Canadian or whatever it was back then. They get to go, and we're sitting there for hours and hours and hours. We finally get on the plane... put our suits and ties on in the plane... had quite a few drinks. The Junos is going on, we rush there. We're waiting for a commercial before we walk in, we walk in, knock over an ashtray.. the whole room looks around and sees us.. these idiots, crazy guys that are late. We find our table way, way over in the room. There's Sam Feldman (our manager), Ra and Rob.. just laughing their heads off. Get there just in time to sit down and then they announce the winner and that's when we walked up."
"If you look, some of the pictures of that time, you can see that we're all just in hysterics... It was a fantastic night."
{Ra} "We all went up to the podium, on national television and in front of an audience comprised of the entire Canadian music business, and did our thank you's. When we were done, and while the audience thundered their applause, an attractive "spokesmodel" ushered us down the stairs and pointed to a door, leading out of the giant hall where the Juno ceremonies were being held. In our excitement, and totally focused on the honour we had just received, we went through the door and walked for a minute or two without really looking around. Finally it dawned on us that we'd been led into the KITCHEN of the Royal York Hotel where a gang of oriental cooks were busy preparing food - oblivious to the 'Group of the Year' wandering aimlessly among them! It took some slowly-spoken, carefully worded questions to get us aimed at the 'way out'... When we finally did find the door to 'the way out', instead of leading us back into the Juno ceremonies, we found ourselves in a small room full of national media! Cameras and microphones were everywhere. Mikes thrust into my face and I was asked the important question: 'How do you feel about being Group of the Year?'. Still reeling from the confusion of the previous few minutes, I blurted out: 'It's Fucking Wonderful'. "
In the Toronto paper the next day it read:
"It's Wonderful" said lead
singer Ra McGuire.
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