The Guess Who will play the Maverik Center in West Valley City on Friday, August 14, 2026. Don Felder, lead guitarist for The Eagles from 1974-2001, opens the show.
The legal battles attached to Canada rock group The Guess Who can get a little confusing. Maybe an explanation will help? When the band broke up in 1975, former members later trademarked the name, touring under it for decades. The band’s primary songwriters, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, took issue with that, filing a lawsuit in 2023. The duo challenged the acquisition and regained control of the band and its name in 2024.
The band’s pretty happy about that. When The Guess Who plays in Utah this month as part of their Takin’ It Back tour, you can expect a lot of added celebration to show for that.
Q: SO YOUR SONGS WERE BEING PERFORMED WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION?
Cummings: Let’s face it. Fake guys were out there singing our songs. They used our records to draw people to their fake shows. We’re both happy to tell you the fake band is over for good.
Q: AND IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOU PERFORMED TOGETHER?
Bachman: Over 20 years. We always perform together, but we couldn’t use the band name. Now that we use it, the name and faculty are coming together with The Guess Who. We wrote the band’s first three albums together, and we do all of those live.
Q: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE GOING ON TOUR AT THIS POINT?
Bachman: Burton has said it before: the main thing for us are those two hours on stage every night. The whole previous day is spent prepping, getting to a place where we feel good, not just the band, but the crew, too. Everybody has to stay healthy. The minute somebody falls down, you don’t have 100% of the team on the line and ready. People ask if we sightsee on our days while off on the road. Do we have dinner with friends? Do we see the Liberty Bell? Do we go to Graceland? We don’t do any of that, man. Our lives revolve around performing.
Q: WERE YOU CONSIDERED A BIGGER DEAL IN THE GREAT WHITE NORTH?
Cummings: It’s different everywhere. Of course, we’ve been around in Canada forever. We were one of the first bands in the country to ever cut records, so it’s special for us there. On the other hand, we have a tremendous following in the States. The songs have never gone away and they still love them. Randy will tell you the same, but we’re experiencing a welcome back feeling in the States. People saw the fake band for years. They used our songs to get people to their shows. That’s over. The real guys are coming out, and people love it.
Q: WHEN LENNY KRAVITZ COVERS “AMERICAN WOMAN,” ALREADY A NO. 1 HIT FOR YOU, THEN HE NEARLY TAKES IT TO NO. 1 HIMSELF, DOES THAT INCREASE YOUR LEVEL OF PRIDE FOR THE SONG?
Bachman: Well, it was a thrill. I remember coming home, opening my mail, and there was a lime green CD that had his takes on “American Woman” on it six times. I was asked which version I liked, and I liked them all!
Cummings: The greatest thing for us was that Lenny’s version became a hit record, and it turned the MTV generation on to the original version. A lot of younger people became aware of The Guess Who that weren’t necessarily aware of us before.
Q: SO KIND OF A RECOGNITION OF WHO CREATED THE SONG IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Cummings: Yeah. And “American Woman” is not a love song. Love songs can go on forever in any generation. Those lyrics were powerful enough to resurface 30 years later because the song is meaningful to people. It wouldn’t have come back otherwise.
Q: I’VE HEARD BOTH SIDES, BUT IS THERE A POLITICAL RAMIFICATION CONNECTED TO THAT SONG?
Cummings: Absolutely not. It was never meant to be political, but the Vietnam War was at a terrible point of escalation when it came out in 1970. We’d been touring the States on the strength of “These Eyes” and “Laughing” when we came back to Canada. I looked out at the audience, and the girls were different. They weren’t trying to grow up so fast. So what came out of my mouth was the lyrics I made up onstage. Randy had the riff already and I sang over it, trying to make things rhyme! “Coloured lights can hypnotize, sparkle someone else’s eyes … I don’t need your war machines, I don’t need your ghetto scenes” all came out of my head while performing. I was thinking “Canadian woman, I prefer you,” and what came out of my mouth was “American woman, stay away from me.” Simple as that, that answers the whole question.
Q: I LOVE HOW IT BECAME YOUR BIGGEST HIT, AND YET IT CAME TOGETHER IN THE MOMENT BECAUSE A STRING BROKE.
Cummings: Oh yeah. It happened years ago in a curling rink in Ontario.
Q: EVER HAVE A SONG YOU WANTED TO BE A HIT THAT NEVER MADE IT?
Bachman: Every song that wasn’t one! We hoped some DJ or music director would play all our songs. When people heard a song they liked, they’d phone the radio station. They kept track of how many calls they got, and it’d lead to record sales, whatever the people picked. You couldn’t pick your audience; they had to pick you. They determined what came next. Are you a one hit wonder or are you going to change your state of fame? We were just wandering in the wilderness, and didn’t quite know where we were going. The whole thing is a minefield. We’re lucky to have walked through a couple minefields, and are still together, doing it again.
Cummings: Before “These Eyes,” we had six or seven singles that all bombed miserably, but we kept failing and trying again. Now we’re singing all those songs, and we’ve taken the name back. Things are much better.
Q: IS THERE AN ENERGY THAT COMES FROM WHEN YOU’RE PLAYING TOGETHER VERSUS WHEN YOU’RE DOING YOUR OTHER SOLO OR SIDE PROJECTS?
Cummings: The energy speaks for itself when Randy and I go on stage. Randy’s over 80, and I’ll be 80 next year. There’s a lot of history involved, and I think now that the fake band is put to bed for good, we’re back to having fun.
Q: WHAT’S THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE YOU’RE NOTICING BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN YOU STARTED?
Bachman: The crowd response — and the money — because we’ve played the same two dozen songs for 40 years. It’s funny how the public notices a song because it’s used in a movie or commercial, so the enthusiasm over the songs ebbs and flows. It adds up to a gigantic mass of memories and soundtrack of everybody’s lives. We just happen to have written most of it.
Q: HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN EACH OTHER?
Cummings: I met Randy when I was 17, so we’ve known each other 61 years. I was in the right place at the right time and got to join the band. They needed a new singer, and I was their favorite in Winnipeg, so I certainly wasn’t going to say no.
Q: IS IT TRUE THE BAND NAME WAS ORIGINALLY A PUBLICITY STUNT?
Cummings: I always hated the name. The Guess Who was one of the stupidest names I ever heard, but I had no choice in that. They were already established.
Bachman: We got told we needed a new name. They wanted to put out a song and have everybody think it was the British Invasion, because Johnny Kidd and the Pirates had had a big hit with “Linda Lu” in ‘61. They sent out 50 copies of our “Shakin’ All Over” to radio stations with no band name on them to see what happened. In two weeks, we were number one across Canada, and everyone was calling us The Guess Who. We got invited to The Kingmens’ “Louie Louie” tour in 1965 with Dion and the Belmonts, Barbara Lewis, the Turtles, and Sam The Sham & the Pharaohs.
We only knew three songs, and came back early. Our then-singer said, “Nobody knows who I am anymore. I’m going back to school.” And what do you do when your lead singer leaves? Do you break up the band? No, you go to the next band and ask the singer to join. And we asked Burton to join us. We’d done shows together. I’d seen him on stage. He had a great voice. He played piano. He was young and willing to do what he needed to be a professional musician.
He started playing when he was five or six. When you’re a kid, your parents are putting up money for lessons — with me it was violin, with him it was piano — and they’re paying 50 bucks a week. You get up every morning and practice for half an hour before school, and half an hour after school. That’s how I started practicing daily. You hit your tipping point when you’re 11 or 12 at about 10,000 hours, and when we wanted to start a band because we were seeing Elvis or the Beatles, we already knew our instruments. We could learn songs. Other guys had to learn to play first. We knew everything on the violin and guitar that there was to play. We got records and copied them. Then we wanted to write songs like the others already were: Jagger and Richards, Brian Wilson, and so on. We started writing our own songs.
Q: AND YOU FOUND THAT MAGIC, BECAUSE THERE’S A STRING OF HITS TO SHOW FOR IT. “NO TIME,” “NO SUGAR TONIGHT,” “LAUGHING,” “UNDUN.”
Cummings: “No Time” is still my favorite, one of the best songs we ever wrote. We leave it for the end of the night, and the response is as great today as it was 50 years ago.
Q: WILL YOU WRITE NEW MUSIC TOGETHER?
Cummings: Don’t ask that! It’s too early to think about new stuff. Why does everybody want new songs? We’ve got 30 famous songs to play already.
Q: THAT’S ALL YOU NEED, RIGHT?
Bachman: The songs we leave out are longer than most guys’ hit lists. We leave out a dozen of Burton’s solo songs. There’s just no room to play them.
Actually, if Elon Musk and Bill Gates start a label and want us on it, they could give us a few million. We’d sit down and write an album then, because it will be promoted all over the world. Now, though? There’s no record stores. No labels. The only thing we can do is play live, like Burton said, and celebrate taking back our songs that have been tarnished over the decades.
Cummings: You know what these clowns used to do? They used our songs to promote their fake shows, and they would have a meet and greet after. They would then take our albums and autograph them. I’m personally thrilled those clowns are out of work, but that’s all over with.
Q: ‘TAKIN’ IT BACK’ TAKES ON A NEW LEVEL OF MEANING THEN, DOESN’T IT?
Cummings: That’s exactly what it is. We’re taking back our reputation.
Celebrate The Guess Who’s newfound freedom alongside them on 8/14. Get your tickets!
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