Nobody’s Forgetting Glass Tiger When They’re Gone
February 11, 2026
By Steve Spears
Are you ready to jump to your feet in a few weeks, throw your arms in the air and sing along at the top of your lungs, “Don’t forget me when I’m gone!” (Let your partner sing Bryan Adams’ follow-up line, “My heart would break!”) Glass Tiger is taking a rare timeout from touring their native Canada to sail with us aboard the 2026 voyage of The 80s Cruise.
Alan Frew, Glass Tiger’s charismatic lead singer, combines the melodic, “sing-song” influence of his Scottish upbringing with the power pop-rock sensibilities that defined Toronto’s 80s music scene. He joined the Stuck in the ‘80s podcast in January to talk about this cruise and the band’s history. We talked about everything from his earliest career ambitions—he wanted to be an operating room scrub nurse—to the band’s political messages in its music. For the full scoop, listen to the complete interview here.
Here are some quick highlights:
You’re joining us on the 2026 Sailing of The 80s Cruise. What are you looking forward to most about the trip?
I’m going to come in good spirits and looking for a fun time, and I’m going to embrace it.
With Men Without Hats and Aldo Nova on board, it almost feels like a floating Canadian music festival. Does that change the vibe at all for you?
Yeah, there’ll be some Canadians that we’ve crossed paths with during the years. But that being said, our band is incredibly personable and if the musicians are there having a good time and we’re all chit-chatting together, it’ll be great.
You grew up in Scotland and you’re at least the third Scottish artist I’ve interviewed along with Midge Ure and Jim Kerr.
Oh, I know, I’ve met both of them.
I’ve never met a disagreeable Scot. What makes Scots such good songwriters though?
Wow, that’s a good question. I grew up in a household where it wasn’t about television and certainly not all the toys that we’ve got today, but it was about gathering together and creating your own fun. And in my particular case, neighbors, friends, family—we’d all gather on a Friday night, Saturday night, and it would be a sing-song. Everybody had to sing. Then of course you had the pub mentality, where pubs are full of sing-songs. So, you take a combination of all that and if you match it with an interest in learning music, learning how to play an instrument, learning how to put some of the words that are in your head down on paper, I think it stands to reason that you would end up with top-class songwriters.
Glass Tiger was founded in the Toronto area of Canada, along with bands such as Platinum Blonde, Gowan, and Blue Rodeo. In the 80s, did Toronto have what you felt like its own sound?
With me being Scottish and growing up with British music, I didn’t find Gordon Lightfoot, The Guess Who, and Joni Mitchell. I didn’t find them until I really came to Canada. For me it was The Beatles and The Stones and then later on Zeppelin and the likes and The Police. So, I believe that what gave Glass Tiger a little bit more of a distinct sound was the fact that my voice, and where I come from, and my writing style. That being said, the Toronto scene with Platinum Blonde and Gowan was incredibly vibrant.
How did MTV play a role in the early days? I know Canada had its own version of MTV that was called MuchMusic.
Yes, we got labeled the sort of Duran Duran of MuchMusic. But yes, I mean, the video age changed the dynamic completely just by the fact that people could now see these artists up close and then the idea that you could storyboard your song into a mini presentation. It just changed overnight. It was incredible.
In those early days, you were opening for bands like Journey and Tina Turner. I’m curious what you learned from those experiences and what still sticks with you these days.
The good news is that we were well seasoned by the time we did those tours as a band, as a unit, as a songwriting team. What was incredible was the size and the production. We were just in awe at first that every night with Tina was 30,000 people, and she would sell out five nights in Paris and seven nights in Munich, and you got to hunker down in one place for seven nights and see the place. Journey is incredibly special because it was America. When we first started with them, we were unknown, and then we started to grow and grow and watch ourselves develop in front of these audiences. You’d look out there, you would see more and more Glass Tiger merchandise and signs held up, and people want to chase you afterwards. That was all happening in real time.
Sounds like a fun brand of chaos.
It was just an incredible time, but we were very busy. There was never a minute that we got to ourselves. When you got days off, you were doing radio and television or you were writing. When I look back on it, I wish I’d taken more time to give myself just a little pat on the back to say, “You’re doing a good job, keep up, you’re okay.” But it went by like a freight train.
How fulfilling is it today? I’m curious what goes through your head when you’re on stage, on the 40th anniversary of your debut album The Thin Red Line, and you’re looking out on an audience and they’re singing those songs back to you.
It’s such a connection. People always ask things like, “Oh, my goodness, how can you play ‘Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone’ 10,000 times?” But each little experience has little nuances that are different. And one of them would be the singalong kind of aspect of it. Something that’s unique, Steve, is the fact that I go up in front of an audience, and I’ll ask them with a show of hands, how many have seen Glass Tiger before? And probably you only get about a third of the audience putting their hands up. But then when I asked them how many saw us in 1986, the hands go down again. So, it tells me that, generationally, they weren’t around at the beginning, that they’re discovering the 80s through their families, the parents or whatever, or just the fact that they like to go to podcasts and websites and music apps and discover the 80s. So, it’s humbling. I never take it lightly, and watching people, word for word, sing along with you, is something that would never grow old.
Steve Spears is the creator and co-host of the Stuck in the ‘80s podcast and the trivia emcee onboard The 80s Cruise. He’s also the author of the new book Stuck in the ’80s: 20 Years of Conversations with Pop Culture Icons Who Defined a Decade, available this March.