One night The Hairfarmers were playing a wedding reception in the Fairmont Chateau Whistler's Wildflower restaurant.
It was going well. Everyone was partying and no one wanted to stop when the mandatory quiet time hit at 11 p.m.—but one guest really didn't want the fun to end.
"At the end of the night we were like, 'OK, good night,'" recalls "Grateful" Greg Reamsbottom, co-founder and singer for the band. "A guy said, 'I'll give you $10,000 to play another hour.' We said, 'We'd love to take you up on that, but the venue has given us strict limits and we don't want to make them mad.' He said, 'I'm not joking. I'll give you 10 grand.'"
Years later, another man approached him and asked if they remembered the experience (and FYI, they followed the rules, both wanting to maintain their still-strong relationship with the Fairmont ... and thinking the guy was full of it).
"He said, 'Do you know who that guy was?"
It was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (before the company truly exploded), the man said.
It might be impossible to fact check this anecdote, but one thing is certain: in a place like Whistler it could be entirely true.
Looking back on their 20 years as the resort's most successful bar band, both Reamsbottom and "Guitar" Doug Craig are quick to highlight the ways this unique place—which draws millionaires and ski bums from around the world in equal measure—has shaped their successful career.
Another example? Last summer, they found themselves playing a wedding in Italy. The bride, it turns out, comes to Whistler every winter to ski with her girlfriends and when her now-husband proposed, her stipulation was they bring the band to their reception.
"We've got people that literally book their wedding dates based on our availability," Reamsbottom says. "It's amazing. What an honour to be part of the biggest day of their life."
The Hairfarmers actually got their start at a mutual friend's wedding at Birkenhead Lake in the late '90s. Back then, Craig was living in Whistler with a successful solo music career and Reamsbottom had just started coming up from Vancouver to visit a girl—one of Craig's friends—he had met at a music festival in Oregon. (Spoiler alert: they're now married.)
Unbeknownst to each other, the couple had invited each musician up separately—a move that could've ended terribly. By the end of the night, though, they were jamming together, their music trajectory forever altered. "It was a funky, hippie wedding and it was a really fun night," Reamsbottom says. "He heard the missing harmonies he always wanted in a band and I heard the kind of guitar I wanted to hear."
After that, they played together occasionally until the challenge of playing music at night and working a demanding job driving an 18-wheeler became too much for Reamsbottom.
"I specifically remember I was sitting in my house in Bayshores and Greg knocked on the back door and he came in and we sat in my den in front of the fireplace and he said he wanted more of a role in our duo and more responsibility," Craig says.
Unlike most bands that have to toil away in obscurity before making the move to full-time, Craig already had established gigs around town and as The Hairfarmers they were immediately busy.
The first handful of years went by in a blur. Around 2009, they upgraded their sound system and made another important move.
"I quit smoking pot," Craig says. "We were both drinking very heavily ... then we made a concerted effort to sober ourselves up. That did an amazing thing for our show."
Adds Reamsbottom, "It made a huge difference ... When you're playing one or two shows a day and getting free drinks, if you're spreading it out over 10 hours a day, you're not falling on your face, but you're operationally wasted. Surprisingly, it's not hard [to turn down free drinks] once we decided to do it."
Around that time, Craig also developed vocal nodes that he had to have removed—a scary prospect for someone who sings on stage. But the results helped shape the band's future sound. "I had come out of surgery and I wasn't supposed to be using my voice for a couple of weeks," he remembers. "Greg sang all the vocals and, as my voice built back up, I started doing back up."
While the pair talk about Whistler's supportive and thriving music scene, they admit they're one of a handful who can make a living playing music full time.
Part of their popularity and longevity is due to their astonishingly large repertoire of music—and the fact that, unlike many bands and DJs, they love fielding requests.
According to their website, they have about 2,500 songs to draw from—ranging from Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash to Coldplay and Taylor Swift.
"Every week, we'll add a different song," Reamsbottom says. "It might not be a new song, but a song new to us. Today, we'll play the Four Seasons and we have four new songs."
Throughout the winter they play non-stop in the resort and then, after a month-long break, their summers are filled with weddings, corporate gigs, and private shows—all around the world.
"It's happened really organically," Reamsbottom adds. "We didn't set out to say, 'We should make that happen.' We just got up on stage and tried to have as much fun as the audience."
While 2019 marked two decades playing together, both say it doesn't feel like it.
"Whistler is like some kind of surreal, alien particle time accelerator or something," Reamsbottom says.
For his part, Craig says he's looking forward to The Hairfarmers' future.
"When you're in a relationship with someone, be it platonic or a business relationship, there's a real depth of character that comes through when you really trust and know a person's character—what their boundaries and capabilities and limitations are," he says. "When they push past those, their natural talent comes through ... I'm really looking forward to the next 10 years with him."
You can catch The Hairfarmers next at Dusty's on Saturday, Dec. 28 from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. and again at 8:30 p.m., on Sunday, Dec. 29 at the GLC from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. and again from 8 to 11 p.m., and at Merlin's on New Year's Eve from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.
For more visit thehairfarmers.com.
