Winnipeg based blues/rock singer Romi Mayes is enjoying her current tour, which brings her back to Lethbridge, Aug. 26.
“We’ve been very busy rocking balls on stage,” said Mayes, on her way to B.C. from a gig in Twin Butte.
She and Perpetrators guitarist/ vocalist Jay Nowicki are touring together as a duo in support of their CD “Lucky Tonight,” which included numerous new songs they recorded for the first time in front of a live audience at popular Winnipeg venue the West End Cultural Centre.
“It‘s just Jay and me on tour. The whole album is based on two guitars together,” she continued.
“We had some new songs and we recorded them in front of a live audience. I think Jay slayed it,” she said.
Mayes has already been nominated for a couple Western Canadian Music Awards for the CD for album of the year and songwriter of the year.
“ I didn’t know what people would think about it but it was awesome,” she enthused.
“It will be the third time. Hopefully I can win again, but it is just really cool just to be nominated. It was released in time to qualify for them,” she said.
While the drums and bass fill out the sound on the new CD, she doesn’t miss them on this tour.
“Truthfully, the songs were written around Jay and my guitar, and I play pretty rhytmically anyway and Jay can play the rest. It works nicely,” she continued adding they can often find friends to fill out the sound in each city they visit, which comes from touring Canada three or four times a year.
Their set will include songs from all of Mayes’ CDs.
“It will be a little melange of songs,” she laughed.
Sometimes Jay Nowicki will play Perpetrators songs during the show, but his band will be in Lethbridge anyway, Sept. 9.
“It depends on the show. Of we’re doing two sets, there might be some time. So Jay may play sme of his songs I’d love to play on some of his Perpetrators’ songs,” she said.
She doesn’t have any new music in the works, being focused on touring for “Lucky Tonight.”
This fall she will be heading north to play a few shows in the Yukon and Alaska.
“I have a bit of a one track mind that way,” she said.
“It usually takes me about three years to write a dozen songs I’m happy with to put on a CD,” she said.
Romi Mayes and Jay Nowicki play Aug. 26 at the Slice at approximately 9:30 p.m.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
{jcomments on}
