With great timing, Arrogant Worms in Surrey with ‘Canadian Famous’ songs
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Musical comedy trio Arrogant Worms, known for songs such as “Canada’s Really Big” and “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate,” will perform at Surrey Arts Centre’s 400-seat Main Stage theatre on Wednesday, March 18.
They’ve been making music about Canada for 35 years now, and their latest album Canadian Famous has proven extra resonant, given recent threats to the country’s sovereignty by a certain U.S. president.
“It’s really Canadiana-based, even more than usual, so mostly kind of straight-up Canadian songs,” said Trevor Strong, who sings and “counts merch” in the band.
“Our timing was great.”
Arrogant Worms started as a cabaret comedy group when the members were attending Queens University in Kingston, and was originally an “amorphous blob of people who recorded sketch comedy,” according to Strong.
He had a friend who worked for the campus radio station who’d play the Worms’ skits. What started as a much larger group eventually boiled down to the trio of Strong, Chris Patterson (bass and vocals) and Mike McCormick (guitar and vocals).
“When we started doing more shows outside of Kingston, we learned very quickly that it’s much easier to play a song in a bar than it is to do a sketch. So the sketches kind of fell away,” he added.
Three decades-plus later, the band has released 14 albums, had their music played in outer space on the space shuttle Endeavour, performed to a crowd of 100,000 for Canada Day on Parliament Hill and starred alongside Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
Strong recorded a solo album called Too Many Songs About Cats and he’s currently working on Too Many Songs About Love, full of “terrible love songs,” he says.
“I can’t speak for the other guys, but I’ve I decided that I’m just putting out a poorly-recorded solo album every year, like just recording it in my house,” he added.
The band puts out one new song each month on its Patreon account, with songs dedicated to everything from pickleball to jellyfish. The monthly deadline pressure and limitations help motivate Strong, he said.
“I don’t think we’ve ever missed. which is pretty surprising. I think we put the occasional dodgy quality work up there, but we’ve always got something,” he added. “If I don’t have a deadline, I’m not going to do something. So having these kind of arbitrary deadlines for me anyway I find really helpful even though it’s a little stressful.”
The best part of a tour, besides the shows themselves, is seeing fans across the country, getting out of the routine and trying out new material.
The audience has grown along with the band, and it’s not uncommon for people who grew up with their music to bring their children to see the family-friendly concerts, Strong added.
“We do have a lot of that now,” he said. “People will come up to us and say ‘I’ve been listening to you since I was a little kid’.”
The band doesn’t tour outside of Ontario as much as they used to, but Strong still looks forward to a two-week tour of B.C. this month.
In Surrey, a ticket to see Arrogant Worms is $55 on purchase.surrey.ca. Show time is 7:30 p.m. on March 18.