The blues can mean a number of things to different people – a genre or a feeling. For Kirby Sewell, it is a place of healing.
“It’s very visceral, because it comes from a dark place at times. But then we also celebrate. I think I celebrate loss and what I’ve learned from it,” said Sewell.
Sewell, along with guitarist Neil Gunhold, guitarist Morgan Turk, drummer Jim Johnston and bassist Jae Cho, make up the Kirby Sewell Band. Together they have released three albums over the five years they’ve been together, including 2010’s The Blues Found Me, 2012’s Bought Myself a Hammer and the latest release Girl With a New Tattoo.
“The blues is a very healing place. It can come from a place of emptiness and darkness and is cathartic,” said Sewell.
And that form of catharsis has made for a third release that has been getting noticed.
Girl with a New Tattoo has been getting airplay and positive reviews from around the world, according to Sewell, in places like Australia, Germany, France, Belgium, Virgin Islands, United States, and of course, Canada.
“I think this album captures that place and that essence and that mystery that comes out of oneself when you’re real and passionate about something,” explained Sewell. “When you hear the record, and you hear us live, there is not much difference between it. We took our time a little more with this one and it feels good.”
Sewell described it as a “making love record”. He described the track ‘Carry Me Home’ as being lifted out of something, where you fall in love and you don’t remember the bad stuff anymore. The title track is about admiring women and their beauty. ‘Simply Not Enough’ he said is about wondering why this beautiful thing doesn’t want to pay attention to you, but always wants your heart to cry on.
“In that place where there is a roar, not just anger but of a longing for truth within oneself or longing for deeper relationship, even with yourself and the audience. I think that is life and that’s the blues,” he said. “You’re given a gift at that point, because that scar is a gift. Because it heals and this album has that.”
Part of the reason Sewell said this album has that rawness is because of the partnership between Gunhold and Sewell.
When describing their relationship Sewell pointed to great musical duos in history where the guitarist wrote for the vocalist such as Keith Richards and Mick Jagger or Izzy Stadlin and Axl Rose.
“It is a good partnership. It’s a great relationship we have, because we’ve both been through similar stuff,” said Sewell.
And that partnership translates on stage as well when the band is performing.
At 6-foot-6 Sewell is hard to miss on stage and even harder to miss is his understanding of delivering the blues.
“It has to be personal and it has to be real for it to resonate,” explained Sewell. “From what I’ve been told, as a front guy I’m pretty passionate. I can disappear into a more spiritual space. I don’t even know what to call it because it is kind of a mystery.”
The Kirby Sewell band at the Cochrane Folk Club Friday, Nov. 14.
There is a long history of athletes trying to transition into a musical career – some successful and some who should have just stuck to sports like Oscar De La Hoya or Shaquille O’Neal.
At 7 feet tall basketball was an obvious sport of choice for Brent Tyler who played at both University of Calgary and Mount Royal University.
But music had always been the thing that came most naturally to him – starting to play guitar at the age of nine.
“I had always played music. I played guitar since I was nine years old,” said Tyler. “I think I play a lot of different styles of music. I’m influenced by the bands that I love and the music that I listen to. People like Martin Feston and Dave Matthews, Jeff Buckley that kind of stuff. It is kind of all over the map in terms of the music I listen to that influences the music I make.”
During university Tyler said he made a living by playing the pub circuit, but in the last five or six years he has taken his career far more seriously focusing on playing his original material and playing shows like the Cochrane Folk Club.
The effort has been paying off with Tyler’s last album 2010’s In Rhythm having sold over 4,000 copies. He will be releasing a follow up with a new album in April or May of 2015 that was produced by Aaron Young, with studio performances by some of what Tyler said are his favourite local musicians such as Jory Kinjo, Rob Vulic and Garth Kennedy.
“The last album had songs from over a 7 or 8 year period. I had written some of those songs back in 2002. It was a big mix of songs,” said Tyler. “This album I think is a little bit more focused. The songs are far more mature I think and stronger song writing. Even though it is still kind of cross genre in terms of some of the songs I think its definitely got more of the sound that represents the music that I want to do even moving forward.”
You can catch Tyler opening for the Kirby Sedwell band at the Cochrane Folk Club Friday, Nov. 14.
