SaskatoonPlaying drums for the Saskatoon-born band over the course of 20 years left him with a host of memories. Now, he’s stepping away to focus on family.Corbett shared memories of his music career in an interview with Saskatoon MorningLori Coolican · CBC News · Posted: Sep 23, 2025 4:21 PM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour agoSam Corbett, drummer for The Sheepdogs, is retiring from the band after 20 years. (The Sheepdogs/Facebook)One of the most successful Saskatoon-born bands ever would not have found the level of fame it achieved without a few essential ingredients, says Sam Corbett, The Sheepdogs’ departing drummer.”The way I always describe it to people is, you know, you have to be very lucky, but you have to work hard. And then if you have some talent that probably helps, but maybe it’s not even necessary, I don’t know,” Corbett said in an interview on CBC’s Saskatoon Morning.Corbett recently announced his retirement from the group that grew from humble beginnings in his parents’ house more than two decades ago into a world-touring act after becoming the first unsigned band on the cover of Rolling Stone.Fame was unexpected, he said.”The way we started is, I’d never played drums before and I kind of had a hankering to try it out. And so my parents gave me some money to rent a drum kit and I did,” he said. “Ewan [Currie] and Ryan [Gullen] came over that day and we started the band like that. And they were also pretty novice at their instruments, so I don’t know, we hoped that we would become big and famous and get to play around the world, but we didn’t really think it was going to happen.”After announcing his retirement from The Sheepdogs, drummer Sam Corbett sat down in the studio with Saskatoon Morning’s Candice Lipski on Sept. 23, 2025. (CBC Saskatchewan)Rolling Stone’s 2011 “Choose the Cover” contest propelled the group into the international spotlight after the release of their third studio album.Promotions for the contest included performances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and at the Bonnaroo music festival.”The biggest audience we had played for was maybe a couple hundred people, and when you play on Jimmy Fallon there’s like a million people watching, apparently. And the next year we were nominated for Junos and we were touring Australia with John Fogerty,” Corbett recalled.”It was a great opportunity, but at the same time I think we made the most of it. Because we’d been working hard as a band for seven years, we knew how to work hard, and as soon as the contest was over we didn’t rest on our laurels. We went and recorded an album right away and put it out as soon as we possibly could, and then we toured for the next three years non-stop before taking a break.”WATCH | The Sheepdogs drummer retires after 20 years with the band: The Sheepdogs drummer retires after 20 years with the bandSam Corbett joined Saskatoon Morning to talk about his retirement from The Sheepdogs and his favourite memories after 20 years of playing drums for the group.Looking back on those years is clearly a pleasure.”I got to live my boyhood dream of playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band,” Corbett said. “There’s so many people to thank: musicians we played with, toured with, made albums with and, you know, industry people who’ve helped us along the way.”A testicular cancer diagnosis seven years ago, when his wife was pregnant with the first of their two daughters, was a turning point that started him on the path to stepping back. The subsequent COVID-19 pandemic gave him a chance to spend more time at home with his young family.When the band returned to touring in 2022, “I started realizing that I really want to spend more time with my kids,” Corbett said.His daughters enjoyed having a dad who toured with a rock band, but when he asked what they would think if he wasn’t away from home for several months out of every year, “they liked that option better,” he said.ABOUT THE AUTHORLori Coolican has been a reporter and editor in Western Canada since 1996.With files from Candice Lipsky
‘I got to live my boyhood dream’: Sheepdogs drummer Sam Corbett retiring after 20 years
