About I Mother Earth
I Mother Earth, or IME, is a Canadian rock band formed in 1990 and reaching its peak popularity in the latter half of the 1990s. After an eight-year hiatus, it reunited in 2012. Between 1996 and 2016, it was among the top 150 best-selling Canadian artists and top 40 Canadian bands in Canada.
The brother duo of drummer Christian and guitarist Jagori Tanna met vocalist Edwin at their shared rehearsal space in 1990. Edwin asked the brothers to form a band with him, and the three came together in 1991, taking on Franz Masini as a bass player. The band came up with the name IME, as in "I Am Me", but later decided the letters should stand for something. Jag Tanna ad-libbed the name I Mother Earth and has always insisted it has no special meaning. The band, represented by a professionally recorded five-song demo, played a mere thirteen shows over the next year. These were noted for their jam sessions, poetry readings, and murals painted in the background during the songs. At the end of the year, the band was in the middle of a bidding war between labels.
In 1992, I Mother Earth signed to a co-venture deal brokered between Capitol Records and its Canadian affiliate, EMI Music Canada. The band travelled to Los Angeles in 1992 to record its debut album with former Guns N' Roses producer Mike Clink. During these sessions, Franz Masini was fired, leaving Jag Tanna to re-record the bass parts himself. At the completion of the album, Masini was replaced by Bruce Gordon, whose band Rocktopus was breaking up at that time. With the lineup solidified, the band underwent an intensive international tour to support its debut, Dig, in mid-1993. Considered an anomaly in the "alternative" era and often mistaken for heavy metal, the album combined traditional hard rock with grooves, extended jams, psychedelic lyrics, and the Latin-based percussion of Luis Conte and Armando Borg. Dig spawned four singles, three of which originated from IME's demo tape and were later included on the proper album. "Rain Will Fall", "Not Quite Sonic" and "Levitate" were released in 1993, and "So Gently We Go" was released in the summer of 1994. All four garnered radio and video airplay in Canada, as well as rotations in the U.S. and Europe. The latter two singles in particular charted well on Canadian rock radio. The Dig album won a Juno Award in 1994 for Best Hard Rock Album, beating out IME's childhood idols Rush for the award. This cemented a long relationship between the two bands, which started with IME opening for Rush the night after the Junos. By the end of the album's run, Dig was a Gold record in Canada.
After the exhaustive touring ended, IME ended up in different studios in Toronto and Morin Heights, Quebec in 1995. In these studios, the band worked on its second album, co-produced by Jag Tanna and Paul Northfield, who was most noted for producing Rush. Daniel Mansilla replaced Borg on percussion, and became the band's permanent touring percussionist. Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson also made a guest appearance on the song "Like a Girl". Signs of dissension in the band were already showing. For the first time, Edwin revealed to the music press that he had no creative control in the band and that such a situation gave him "no reason to be here". He had also spent a great deal of the sessions away from the band, recording the album Victor with Lifeson. Still, he remained with IME as the group recorded Scenery and Fish, released in mid-1996. The album, which combined IME's trademark sounds with a slightly softer, radio-friendly approach, was a critical and commercial success. In particular, the singles "One More Astronaut" and "Another Sunday" pushed the band into the commercial elite in Canada, the former cracking the Top 20 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart in the U.S. Subsequent singles "Used to Be Alright" and "Raspberry" also received frequent airplay on radio and video. In 1997, IME was nominated for a Juno Award for Group of the Year. The album was nominated for the Best Rock Album Juno, and was certified Double Platinum in Canada. The band's newfound fame also pushed sales of Dig over the Platinum record mark of 100,000 units.
In April 1997, IME's management company announced that Edwin would be leaving the band. From that point on, the band mentioned that Jag Tanna wrote the majority of its music , that Chris Tanna wrote all of the lyrics, and that Edwin had no control whatsoever. This and musical differences prompted the vocalist to leave. Citing unmanageable tension, the band and Edwin mutually agreed to part ways. The remaining members insisted that they would carry on under the I Mother Earth name, and announced they would be searching for a new lead singer. IME also publicly criticized a show by Franz Masini's new band, which was advertised as "featuring members of I Mother Earth", as a blow to its own name and image. Edwin fulfilled all his contractual obligations with the band, including the Edgefest '97 tour, and left in mid-1997. IME itself ended up in disputes with both EMI and the band's management , and subsequently broke ties with both after their recording contract expired in December 1996.
During this time, the band went through hundreds of demo tapes, all the while maintaining the tour schedule and dealing with the aforementioned business issues. One tape, sent in by Brian Byrne, was instantly thrown in the trash until former Slik Toxik drummer Neal Busby, who was briefly in a band called Klaven with Byrne, recommended the singer. IME finally listened to the tape, and after auditioning Byrne, immediately agreed that he was their new vocalist. The band members waited several months to inform him before finally putting an I Mother Earth T-shirt on him in late 1997, symbolizing his membership in the band. David Usher made the news public, telling the audience at a Moist concert at Massey Hall in November of that year that Byrne was the new singer and then introducing him on stage. IME made its first public performances with Byrne on Our Lady Peace's Summersault tour in mid-1998, and was well received by the crowds through both old and new material.
In late 1998, IME signed with Mercury Records. At the same time, the band returned to Toronto and reunited with Paul Northfield, who again shared production duties with Jag Tanna on the new sessions. These sessions were chronicled on the internet by Bruce Gordon, long considered the most fan-friendly member of the band . Armando Borg returned in the place of Conte on percussion, though Mansilla remained IME's main percussionist. Rush frontman Geddy Lee was also brought in to provide bass for the album track "Good for Sule". While the Tannas were still the main contributors, they described the creative process as more open than before. The result was Blue Green Orange, which was released in 1999. It was somewhat of a departure from the band's earlier work, opting for more textured, spacier sounds and less of an emphasis on the band's hard-rock reputation. The album's lead single, "Summertime in the Void", was a hit on rock radio in Canada with the track’s video had multiple air plays on Much Music throughout the summer of 1999 and showed that the band was still commercially viable with a different singer and a change in sound. Subsequent singles "All Awake" and "When Did You Get Back from Mars?" also received radio and video airplay. The album was certified Gold in Canada, but was seen as a disappointment by many compared to the previous albums. Tanna and Northfield won a Juno Award in 2000 for "Best Recording Engineer", and the album was nominated for "Best Album Design".
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