Blue skies for Swift

By Andrea Nemetz

The Chronicle Herald

When Thom Swift was writing songs for his latest album, blue sky day, he had a mission in mind, crafting a tune that perfectly suited the talents of his band.

When he played them the dozen tracks for the new disc, they immediately fell in love with El Camino, the song he had written for them, though they were unaware of that fact.

“It’s a real groove tune and they loved it” he says, noting the band is now calling itself the El Caminos.
Swift will be joined by the El Caminos, Geoff Arsenault on percussion, Chris Corrigan on guitar, Bill Stevenson on piano and Brian Bourne on bass and Chapman stick for a series of album release concerts, which began earlier this week in Fredericton.

The opener was a homecoming of sorts for Swift who was born to a musical family in McAdam, N.B., which he describes as a railway town with a couple of thousand people.

A member of blues-roots band Hot Toddy for 14 years, he called Fredericton home until about six years ago when he moved to Nova Scotia.

Shows are scheduled at Glasgow Square Theatre in New Glasgow today at 8 p.m. and in Halifax at Casino Nova Scotia’s Compass Room on March 31 at 8 p.m. There are also shows in Riverview and Saint John, N.B. and Charlottetown.

Swift, whose debut solo recording Into the Dirt earned an East Coast Music Award, a Maple Blues Award, a Galaxie Rising Star prize and two Music Nova Scotia awards in 2008, plans on featuring the band – all close friends for 20 to 25 years – as much as possible.

He speaks enthusiastically about Arsenault, who has also played with Rita MacNeil, Ray Bonneville, Mary Jane Lamond and Carlos del Junco, and Corrigan, who is Rita MacNeil’s guitar player.

He calls Stevenson “a piano guru and national treasure” and praises Bourne, who played with Rawlins Cross.
“Between the five of us we easily have 150 years experience on stage,” Swift says, noting the joy the band members get playing together fills the music with colour and beauty.

“I want to feature the players individually because they are so darn good. I’m planning a duo with Bill, a duo with Chris and to have Geoff play drums in his own showcase.

“I’m from the roots-acoustic world so it’s really exciting that I’ve got a kick-ass band, a really rocking band. We did a show in Toronto (on March 13) for Canadian Music Week and made some waves. If people think they’re coming out to a regular Thom Swift show they’ll get a surprise.”

Swift will feature all the tunes from the new album, released on GroundSwell-Warner records with national distribution.

“It’s done really well. It kind of shocked me that Q104 picked up a cut – Killer – and put it into heavy rotation, which led to it being picked up by a lot of other (rock) stations nationwide. It’s charting at 45 nationally on Canadian rock radio, which is a whole new world for me.

“Folk radio is picking it up and playing it across the country and I heard about a week ago (that) Seafoam has been added to Galaxie Celtic in heavy rotation, so we’re crossing over a lot of different areas.”

Seafoam, about his wife’s home in Pictou Country, is “an instrumental tune in the East Coast fiddle style, played on guitar.”

The ruggedly handsome musician, who released nine albums with Hot Toddy, says he was a little apprehensive about stepping out on his own. But the success of Into the Dirt gave him confidence.

Swift was determined to make his current release very, very, bold.

“The songs are better. I spent more time on the songs. My playing is better. The guys in the band (who also played on Into the Dirt) brought it up several notches… Everybody did a great job.”

Guests on the album are multi-instrumentalists J.P. Cormier and blues-roots artist Matt Anderson.

The result is so bold that Ian MacKinnon, president of GroundSwell Music asked Swift if he was sure he was OK with exposing so much of himself.

“I don’t know any other way,” says Swift earnestly. “I’m not much of a fiction writer. I write about how the world comes into my world, what I see with my eyes and hear with my ears. You couldn’t get any more real… There’s no smoke and mirrors, it’s pretty straight up.”

Swift will almost certainly have many experiences to write about based on his adventures in the early part of this year.

After wrapping up a tour with Lennie Gallant, Dave Gunning and Steven Bowers in early February, he headed to Vancouver where he performed at Atlantic Canada House, a special venue set up in the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island to promote the region during the Olympics.

“It was good to show the world what we have to offer on the East Coast. I’m very proud of being from the East Coast.”

And it was a great spot to network in an industry based on relationships. “I met a music supervisor from L.A. who does work in placement for film and TV in the U.S.,” he says.

At the Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, where Swift flew from Vancouver, he met an important contact from Germany. “He’s the Mr. CBC of Germany. He has his own radio show and has been playing my first CD like crazy so he was looking for me to get the new CD.”

Contacts made at events like the Folk Alliance – which Swift also attended three years ago – often bear fruit a few years later, he said.

Article Source: http://thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1173210.html