At 80 years old, Randy Bachman still rolling down the highway

Canadian rock legend Randy Bachman continues to take care of musical business at an age when most people are rolling through retirement.

“As much as I can remember in my whole life I’ve always had music,” said Bachman. “I started playing violin when I was five. I switched to guitar when I was 14. So this has always been what I do.”

The 80-year-old Bachman now has son Tal Bachman by his side, singing a lot of the hit songs from the ‘60s through the ‘90s.

BTO’s latest lineup also includes Mick Dalla-Vee, Brent Knudsen and Marc LaFrance.

“We really have a good time,” Bachman said.

BTO will make a stop at Caesars Windsor June 14, on a tour that began last

In an interview recently from his home in Victoria, B.C., the 80-year-old Bachman told the Star that Windsor holds a special place for him.

“Windsor is a big deal,” he said, pointing out that Windsor and the late Rosalie Trombley, who was a music director at local radio station CKLW, boosted his career by playing songs from BTO as well as his original band The Guess Who.

“Rosalie helped The Guess Who and BTO immensely by putting them on the air at CKLW,” Bachman said.

The Guess Who formed in Winnipeg, Man., in 1965, and reached its greatest success with singer/keyboardist Burton Cummings and Bachman on guitar.

Bachman left The Guess Who in 1970.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive formed in 1973 with brothers Randy, Robbie and Tim Bachman, along with Fred Turner. Robbie and Tim both died in 2023.

He recalled his first day of Grade 1 at an elementary school in Winnipeg, when his teacher asked her young students to share their name, what their father did for a living and what they wanted to be when they grow up.

“The first thing I said … I said my name’s Randy Bachman,” he said. “My dad is an optician and I’m a musician.

“And she said, ‘What do you want to be when your grow up?’ And I said, ‘I’m a musician.’”

He said his teacher asked him again and he ran out of class crying and headed home to his mother, who was doing laundry.

“I said, ‘I quit. I don’t know what the answer is,’” Bachman said.

“She took me back to school with my violin, cuz I told her the problem, and I stood in front of the class and played a classical song on the violin. And the teacher said, ‘Oh, you are a musician.’

“That’s been a template for the rest of my life.”

Asked what inspires him to perform today, Bachman took a moment to respond.

“The fact that I was born with a gift and I always chose to honour that gift,” he said, adding it’s always been his purpose in life.

Bachman recently returned home from a week of travel, where the tables turned and he was the fan rather than the performer.