Peterborough raised country singer Kayla Howran always idolized Loretta Lynn which comes through on her debut CD “Pistols.”
She plays the Slice with Shaela Miller and Ryan Dyck, April 13.
“She always said what she wanted and never cared what anyone else thought,” said Howran, hanging out with Winnipeg blues picker Romi Mayes in her Winnipeg home which is interesting considering she drops Romi Mayes’ name in the pretty dark title track to her debut CD “Pistol.”
“It’s a bit of a secret, I can’t tell you that,” she giggled, laughing “I can’t believe he picked up on that,” to somebody, probably Mayes celebrating her birthday a few days early.
“Romi knew about the song before I recorded it and she was cool with it. Romi and I used to date the same guy and that’s more I’ve told anybody,” she said.
Howran will be bringing her four-piece band to Lethbridge, April 13 to play some authentic honky tonk country music.
“I grew up sitting around campfires singing and it was always country music,” said Howran, who has since moved to Toronto. Her dad was in a popular country band which played a lot of Hank Williams country and her uncle Raymond gave her her first guitar.
“ I actually tried to escape it, but I couldn’t. I started doing more Ani DiFranco-style folk, but my mom said you can’t escape the twang in your voice,” she continued.
She said to expect a very upbeat show of country music.
“My guitar player Mike Tuyp has got country music nailed to a tee. My drummer (Pat Phillips) has been playing with me on and off since I started and we literally just picked up the bass player ( Arif Mirabdolbaghi) for the tour,” she said.
They were seven or eight days into their month -long tour.
“The response has been great. I didn’t expect we’d get a good response until we got to Alberta. But we played Wabigoon, which is a town of about 800 people in a cafe. it was smaller than most people’s living rooms, but we had 11 people in there and the owners and I sold more merch than even in Toronto,” she continued.
She is enjoying living Toronto.
“It’s been great. There isn’t a lot of solid country, but there is a lot of country-folk music. I’m not the only person to be doing it here,” she said.
She recorded her debut album with producer and neighbour and sometime guitar player Dave Baxter.
“He has a recording studio in his apartment. He really guided this album,” she said.
“I’m still really new to songwriting and he helped me a lot. I brought in a bunch of songs and he tweaked them so people would learn them and sing along with them,” she continued.
“I”m very much influenced by my life. So the songs are all true stories,” she said.
They filled out the rest of the album with a variety of more obscure covers including Loretta Lynn’s “Out of My Head and Back In My Bed” as well as “Somebody Buy this Cowgirl a Beer,” “ I Need Ya Blues and “Pony.”
Shaela MIller and Ryan Dyck are also playing the bill with Kayla Howran at the Slice, April 13. There is a five dollar cover.
