Slipping into darkness Timmins, Cowboy Junkies study complex subjects

BANGOR – After the first leg of the Cowboy Junkies’ tour, lead singer Margo Timmins went back to her farm outside Toronto to relax, maybe do a little gardening.

Except she couldn’t find her weeder. The dirt ate it, she explained by phone from her garden.

“I get four days [off] and I’m weeding,” she said, laughing.

It was a short respite for Timmins and the band. After that, they headed to Toronto to rehearse, and then they hit the road for the rest of the tour, which coincides with the release of their new album, “Open.” The group stops in Maine tonight for a 7:30 show at the State Theatre in Portland, and tomorrow for an 8 p.m. show at the Criterion Theater in Bar Harbor. Sarah Harmer will open for the band at both venues.

Timmins and her brothers Michael and Peter, who are also in the band, grew up in Montreal and spent summers in Kennebunk.

“We used to spend holidays in Maine when we were kids,” Timmins said. “That’s where we learned how to swim. … I have a very strong connection to Maine and I’ll definitely be eating a lobster.”

Back then, she didn’t sing much, save for the occasional school play. She didn’t even sing in the shower. But when her brothers and Alan Anton formed the band in Toronto in 1985, Margo signed on as the unlikely singer.

“I grew up one of six children and my sisters wanted to model and act and be famous,” she said. “I just wanted to get married and have children. It was kind of weird that I ended up doing what I do.”

Anyone who has heard Timmins’ ethereal voice would disagree. She makes even the most desperate of subjects sound hopeful.

Though the Cowboy Junkies got airplay with “Common Disaster” and their rendition of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane,” their forays into life’s darker side earned them a cult following. “Open” is no exception, with its themes of death, growing old, hopelessness and betrayal.

“I’m not a depressed person or melancholy, but I think I’ve always preferred, in music and literature, anything that was on the darker side,” Timmins said. “There’s more depth in looking at things that confuse us. You don’t really need to share happiness. It just is.”

Though the new album “just seems really much darker,” Timmins said, audiences shouldn’t expect the live shows to be all gloom and doom.

“We’re obviously more focused on the new one, but we’ll try to hit at least one song from each of the other albums,” she said.

The set list could include such standbys as “This Street,” “Trailer Park,” “Hard To Explain” and “Sweet Jane,” but the band is also working on a new Bruce Springsteen cover.

“There’ll be some surprises and some old favorites,” Timmins said.

And there’s nothing sad about that at all.

For tickets to the State Theatre show, visit www.ticketmaster.com or call 775-3331. For tickets to the Criterion Theater show, call 288-5829. For more information on the Cowboy Junkies, visit www.cowboyjunkies.com.