Rick Mercer: A Lifelong Trooper Fan

Trooper and their longtime supporter, Rick Mercer

Rick Mercer believes Trooper should be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame

In the ongoing campaign to see Trooper rightfully inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, our group of local broadcast types has found a seemingly unlikely ally in the form of Rick Mercer.

In fact, the comedian/host of the wildly-popular CBC program, Rick Mercer Report, gladly admits that he’s been a lifelong fan. This prompted me to ask where his admiration for our prized West Coast rockers originated.

“Oh my goodness, that goes way back,” Mercer tells me. “I’ve used Trooper a lot for my entire career. I think it goes back to my sister having Trooper’s album Hot Shots and not being able to touch her record player or she would kill me. Every time she would leave the house I would go in and play that album over and over. It was like my White Album. I just thought this was the coolest band in the world.”

A proud Newfoundlander, Mercer recalls seeing Ra McGuire and his bandmates in his native Eastern Canada, which helped forge his fondness for the iconic group.

“They used to play in Newfoundland and I always loved that,” says Mercer. “To me, it was like The Beatles were coming to town. The first time that I met them was when I was doing This Hour Has 22 Minutes and we were doing our first hourlong New Year’s Eve special. We weren’t very disciplined back then and we had to put a show together. To go from a half hour to an hour is a really big deal and I had one idea: let’s bring in Trooper. At the end of the day, that’s the idea that stuck. We had Trooper play Raise a Little Hell on that special and, to me, that was pretty amazing.”

Mercer is the latest voice to weigh in on the Canadian Association of Recording Arts and Sciences’ apparent blunder in failing to recognize Trooper for their body of work and incredible staying power. If you feel – as scores of us clearly do – that they merit induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, please join us in our quest to right this wrong and sign the petition.

“Of course Trooper should be in the Hall of Fame: that goes without saying,” adds Mercer. “I can’t understand why they wouldn’t be. It’s not like they had one hit song and disappeared. Never mind that they’re still out there on the road. They had a boatload of songs and I think they stand up. I’m a big fan.”

Help us gain entry for Trooper into the esteemed Hall of Fame.