Shotgun Jimmie spoke with us about starting his first band, growing up in a vibrant DIY music scene, and why he loves Harvest Sun.
What inspired you to start making music?
I was a fan of indie-rock and rock and roll music when I was in high school. I liked music before I liked playing it. I always had a strong connection with music and then at a certain point, I realized that I could do it too.
In school, they get you to play band instruments and stuff like that and you kind of see connections between the things that you're doing in school and the things that you're interested in and so I started to play the guitar. My development as a musician was untrained; I didn't take lessons. I'm self-taught. I didn't start by learning songs. I started by writing songs right out of the gate, which I think is an unusual approach.
So you taught yourself to play. Did you form any bands when you were a kid?
I got a four-track recorder in high school, and I started to make little albums in my parents’ basement, cassette albums that had six or seven songs on it. I had a student teacher at my high school in Ajax, Ontario who was finishing his after degree – Jason Baird, he is a Toronto indie-rock musician. He played with Feist for five or six years. He plays in Do Make Say Think and other Toronto bands. He was doing his placement at my high school, and I gave him a demo tape. He encouraged me to put a band together. He said 'this is really cool, but what you should be doing is finding other people and getting them to play these songs with you.'
So I got some friends to play with me. There was a community of bands in Ajax when I was growing up and I guess some of them knew I was a songwriter, but I wasn't playing in any bands. When I decided to put a band together I went around and sort of picked the guys I thought were the most interesting and nice, and I brought them into my thing. Those were my first steps towards putting a band together and having people play my music and creating that relationship with other musicians.
It was pretty Do-It-Yourself kind of situation. There were house shows and house concerts, and it was one of those things where being in a band wasn't quite good enough. Having a band was okay, but if you had that, you also needed to know how to set up a PA and how to promote a show; all the logistics that surround putting on a concert.
There was one club in Ajax called The Chameleon Cafe that was big enough that it could draw bands from Toronto to play at it and so there would be opportunities for local bands to either open for those bands or play with them. Back then the way a lot of shows would go is that there would be all-ages shows at like, the Polish Hall in Oshawa. What that meant was that bands would start playing at 11 in the morning and there would be 15 bands playing, and you would drive out to Oshawa and see music all day.
Let's talk a little about Harvest Sun. What's the one thing that keeps you coming back?
I guess it comes back to the community. They put on this festival in a really small town, in the middle of The Prairies and all of these people are coming together because of this thing that's been organized. All the people that are willing to go to Kelwood and make that effort are the kind of people that are investing themselves in having a good time. People show up at Harvest Sun with good intentions. They're there to celebrate music and summer, life and love and so the community that they've created with that festival is special. Whereas, if it were in a larger city center or something like that it would be easier to have people that don't really know why they're there.
Because people need to make an effort to get there, it really attracts a certain type of person, and because it is so well established, you get a real sense of tradition. There's a tradition of good vibes at that festival, and you just feel it immediately. I remember the first time I was there. It's like tasting cuisine from another place that you've never had before, but you can tell is a staple of that other place or culture!
Catch Shotgun Jimmie at The Harvest Sun Music Festival in Kelwood, MB - August 17 - 19th. Early bird tickets are available until August 1st.
Follow Shotgun Jimmie on Facebook, on Instagram and on his official website.
Be sure to check out @harvestsunmusicfest on Instagram on July 27th, as Shotgun Jimmie takes over our account for the day!
Janet Adamana is the Founder/Editor-In-Chief of Sound, Phrase & Fury Magazine - a Winnipeg-based digital publication dedicated to promoting independent artists and industry professionals from all over the world. More than just about inciting hype, she interviews/writes to capture an artists’ essence and their greatest passions to ignite meaningful connections between fans and really great bands.