The 1990s were a heady time for square-eyed aspiring filmmakers. Super movie-nerd and ex-video store clerk Tarantino won the Palme d'Or in Cannes for Pulp Fiction, Kevin Smith was still making good movies, and there was a sense that if you had passion and guts and a little bit of luck, you too could make it in film. It was arguably the last time true independent culture has walked that fine knife blade between authentic independence and commerce. This sensibility extended across the arts and underground music found mainstream favor, and suddenly it was OK to be an artist, a weirdo, a punk.
In 1996, coming off the success of his small indie films Roadkill and Highway 61, Canadian director Bruce McDonald set his sights on Vancouver writer Michael Turner's book Hard Core Logo. Together with a small but dedicated crew, a green producer, an emerging actor, and a punk singer who didn't even want to do the movie, he took the gang on the road and shot the third in what has become his road-movie trilogy.
McDonald's Hard Core Logo survives beyond its time and place. It is from the 90s, but it is not "of" the 90s. Its themes of rebellion, male friendship, mortality, and the grit and chaos of life on the road still play out today, as anyone who has been in a band can attest. The film is intuitively written, smartly shot, brilliantly edited, and offers a masterclass in what onscreen chemistry looks like. It follows a fictional Vancouver punk band, Hard Core Logo, as band leader Joe Dick gets the band together for a reunion show and subsequent tour in an attempt to keep his dream and band alive. Crammed into a small milk truck, the band takes to the road. Along the way friendships are shattered, feelings are hurt, and many cigarettes are smoked. The film balances an energetic punk aesthetic with powerful, convincing, and timeless human relationships. The characters are conflicted, rude, desperate, and flawed, but we follow them because, while we may not we like them, we are like them. For all their bravado and "fuck you" attitude, we know they are all just hoping to find something that matters, even if all that means is making it to the next show. We talked to the cast and crew to find out how it all went down.
The Set-Up
Bruce McDonald (Director): I was given the book at a BBQ in Toronto by this guy Keith Porteus, and we got to talking about music and he knew I was a filmmaker and he said, "You should read this book by this friend of mine, it's called Hard Core Logo, and it's more a book of poems, it's not even a novel really. It's more a collection of poems and set lists and phone machine messages..." So I read it in like 40 fucking minutes idea for Joe Dick to blow his brains out at the end of the whole thing. There was concern about how that might affect our distributor, or if others would go along with such a radical change, because Hugh basically talked Bruce and me into it over the course of one night while we were in production, and we kind of just improvised that ending when the time came. I think Bruce just neglected to tell our producers about it and so when the time came there a little bit of a freakout. I mean it is a pretty radical departure.
There was going to be a lyrical bittersweet of ending where there are buskers on the street and you could read it any number of ways, and Hugh just had this visceral reaction against that and was like: "Fuck that I'm going out in a blaze of glory." And he kind of made a weirdly compelling case and we realized if we go with this it will be so abrupt people won't forget it.
Rennie: The original ending was just not satisfying in any way. So the ending came out of me and Hugh talking. There was this other show I was going to work on, so I had to leave early, and Hugh was doing that scene off by himself. I was on the phone with him going "No, keep the gun down," because we had come up with dialogue and Bruce agreed, though I'm not sure the producers loved it. But we thought it was an effective way for him to do it so it was so surprising and weird. That's what we were trying to get—that it came out of nowhere. He had a nice little line into it and then BOOM he was out.
Dillon: It was all about authenticity and rebellion. To film the finale of a motion picture with all the people higher up against it is pretty renegade. People are pretty loyal to Bruce, because he listens to everybody. He really is the master collaborator. You got to be a leader to get anything done. Because the trade off for him was either me or an actor that will do what they are told—and it came down to that casting call. Because this is a guy who went against everything, and everyone and trusted his gut. I wasn't a tried and true actor and it was a huge gamble.
McDonald: The book ends with an ad taken out in the local paper saying, "My name is Joe Mulgrew, I used to go by the name Joe Dick I'm looking for three players, must be under 30, must be willing to tour...call this number." And it was OK—so Joe will continue on, even though his life long project has exploded. And we never really gave it much thought. We always thought it was a sort of bittersweet ending but with a little bit of hope. Me and Noel were staying together in this small hotel room in downtown Vancouver, and I think we were already a week or two into shooting when Hugh came up one night. We were all smoking, and he was really enjoying himself and really feeling like this was the greatest experience of his life, working in another medium and being the rock'n'roll expert. He enjoyed that immensely, and started becoming the rock 'n' roll philosopher, so he was feeling confident and was having such a good time with Callum that he turned himself to the script and he came and said, "You know what guys? Somebody's gotta die.
I don't know if you guys understand it but rock 'n' roll is MY life, it's all I've got. You guys went to college, university, you got a fucking chance. Guys like me, we don't have a safety net so this is important to us and to have this band explode without any real consequence, without any real tragedy, is doing a disservice to the altar of rock 'n' roll..." or something like that.
Dillon: I was able to take apart that script and change the things that needed to be changed to make it more authentic, and I thank Bruce for that. I mean I wrote the end sequence where I off myself, but I had no interest to do a rock 'n' roll movie because as a musician in a real rock 'n' roll band, I thought they were all shooting some bullshit. So I had to have a fair bit of control myself. I just wanted to be authentic, and at the end of the day Bruce McDonald had the guts and the vision and he taught me everything because nobody, not the producers, nobody was gonna go for that ending. He got shit right on the street from the day we were shooting and he protected me and the other actors from all the nonsense and anything the producers had to say.
And he, against everybody—people with money, the producers, everyone who said "You can't use that ending"—for someone like that to champion an idea I had and execute it... people don't do that, and they don't do that anymore.
Haebler: Bruce and I had one really, really big argument. Epic actually. And that was over the last scene of the movie, where Joe Dick shoots himself in the head. It wasn't in the script, but it was the rock 'n' roll way to go and that was how he was going to shoot it. And he was not gonna shoot any other ending. And I was like, "You can't do that! You have to shoot the other ending because what if it doesn't work out? AND our distributors and the people who bought the film or pre bought the film all think it's going to be 'this' type of movie. What if they don't take delivery of the film and say this is a breach of contract?" I knew enough that this could have been a real thing. And what was the problem about just shooting both endings? So we had this huge argument and I was furious.
But Bruce can be bloody minded and entrenched in his vision and he wasn't going to play ball. So I just had to live with it. And as it turns out it was the right decision for him—it works and it's quite epic.
McDonald: It continues to be a lesson to me, that with movies, you don't wait for permission. It is a bit of an act of willpower...I mean not insane willpower. But there's a point when you either lean into the hurricane or fucking run for cover. I kind of always salute Hugh for being the first guy to run into the hurricane and we all followed.
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