“30 years of East of Edson (and also 32 years of Captain Tractor). How can that be? It seems like just a few years ago that we were touring New Zealand when our manager, Marlene D’Aoust called us to tell us that “Up The Hill,” the first single off of East of Edson, was number four with a bullet on Edmonton radio charts, and it had only been out four months! Since then, Captain Tractor has not only survived, but flourished, expanded, and is still going strong. After ten studio albums (plus a 5 disk collectable boxset), seven music videos, a CDRom, a video compilation including a short film starring the band, music placements in dozens of films and television shows, and thousands of live shows around the world, maybe we’re doing something right. 

Our fans are also a breed apart, many of them becoming personal friends over time, and many more joining the fold every year. We regularly hear from fans from all over the world, and in 2025 the lyrics to “Pitcairn Island” (from our first album Land) are being printed in an academic book published by Berkley Press because the author, Professor Russel Fielding, from the Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina, is a big fan - Captain Tractor goes to University! 

If success is measured in legacy, let’s talk about the big bad buccaneer in the room. We started playing “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate” as somewhat of an in-joke that we had going on with the original writers and our friends, The Arrogant Worms. Of course, it became a crowd favorite, and so we recorded it on East of Edson, never suspecting what was going to happen. As the years and gigs went on, it remained a mainstay in our sets, but it also started taking on a life of its own, with the Saskatchewan Roughriders adopting it as an unofficial anthem. To this day, the song is played at every Riders game complete with choreography and singing. Since 1995, it has been played at every Edmonton Oilers home game and probably 80% of all weddings that have happened in western Canada. Over a dozen other artists have covered it, most recently Scotland’s Alestorm, and there are over one hundred videos (professional and homemade) available on the interwebs. Ironically, it wasn’t until 2023 at the Bear Creek Music Festival that we actually played it together with The Arrogant Worms on stage; a little bit of Canadian music history went down on that stage that afternoon! After all this, Captain Tractor’s version of “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate” remains king, and with the shiny new updated track on East Of Edson Revisited, it will rule forever! C’est vrai!

Although all six members of Captain Tractor also have other artistic projects, from playing and recording with other groups, writing and releasing solo albums, to working behind the scenes, we always wind our way back to Captain Tractor. Even after thirty plus years, there’s still more fun to be had, more songs to sing, more cheers to be made, and we look forward to a future of continuing to bring the party, Captain Tractor style, to the world. So give East of Edson Revisited a spin, watch the documentary, and see why we’re still standing, thirty years later. Sociable!”