Sheepdogs Hit Number One in Canada

Ryan Gullen, Leot Hanson, Sam Corbett and Ewan Currie of the Sheepdogs attend Rolling Stone's "Do You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star?" cover reveal party at the Empire Hotel Rooftop

Jason Kempin/Getty Images

It's been an amazing week for the Sheepdogs. The boogie rockers from Saskatoon won the Choose the Cover contest, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, signed a contract with Atlantic Records, appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and were feted at a star-studded event at Manhattan's Empire Hotel.

The cherry on top of their rock and roll sundae, though, is that their most recent EP, Five Easy Pieces, has reached the top of iTunes' sale charts in their native Canada, knocking Adele's blockbuster smash 21 down to Number Two. In addition to claiming the top spot, the band's earlier album, Learn and Burn, reached Number Four on the chart.

Related
Photos: The Sheepdogs' Rolling Stone Cover Shoot
Choose the Cover Contest Winner Revealed
Photos: How the Sheepdogs Became Rock Stars

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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