Kim here, with some ramblings on the band. First, the name. ‘13’ has a certain intrigue about it. Joseph Campbell discusses it in The Power of Myth, and this was where the inspiration came from. It’s interesting to me that in various cultures 13 can have such positive or negative implications. It’s just a number. We’re choosing to focus on the positive. Campbell talks about its significance in American history for instance. Initially, there were 13 states, and on the ‘Great Seal’ the eagle holds 13 arrows in its talons and looks towards the 13 olive branches. 13 can also be seen as representing change and rebirth in a spiritual sense. Or it’s a baker’s dozen.  I also like how the ‘one’ can represent our special guest Vernon Reid, and the ‘three’ our trio. For folks who may see 13 as a negative force, for the record, this is certainly not our intention. Sorry. (Have to get an apology in the first paragraph, it’s a Canadian thing).

‘Go’ represents the journey. Taking the trip together. Sticking together. A road movie.

The name of the album comes from the preamble to the American constitution. “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility…” Ian De Souza had come up with the idea of using ‘We the people.” Hey, we’re Canadians, but it’s hard not to notice the debacle of what’s happening south of the border these days, and politics seems to be a common obsession of the band and our recording engineer Ian Bodzasi. So this led to the name of the album, as a comment on the tragedy of the ongoing power, class and race struggles around the globe.

As Frank Zappa famously said, “politics is the entertainment division of the military/ industrial complex.” Couldn’t be truer today.