While John Paul Smith is best known for being the frontman of popular pop/ punk band, Sleeping With Tuesday, his country roots run deep in his Lethbridge based roots/ country/ folk group the Coal Creek Boys. They play Average Joes with Big River — the Johnny Cash Tribute, April 5.
“My mom and dad’s first date was in June 1970 with Johnny Cash and June Carter in 1970 at the Montreal Forum. When I was three, my dad took me to see Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson,” said Smith, who sports a Grateful Dead tattoo on his right forearm.
“My first professional bands were jam bands,” he continued.
“Sleeping With Tuesday was my first rock band and the first time I ever owned a distortion pedal,” said the Elkford, B.C. born and raised musician, who grew up in a coal mining community, has family who work in the mines and even did a stint as a miner himself. So the move to country music was a natural one. He formed the Coal Creek Boys just about a year ago.
“It’s blue collar music. We’re close to working people and we sing stories about that,” he said.
The band, including multi-instrumentalist and bassist Dino Scavo, rhythm guitarist Devin Gergel, drummer Dustin Gergel and new pedal steel guitarist Ryan Dyck, released their debut CD, “Hard At It In Old Town,” in January. The 18-track CD has already done well, getting radio airplay all over the United States and in Canada. You can hear the Coal Creek Boys on CKUA regularly and they are even starting to get some Top 40 radio airplay with their songs “Snow” and “Old Number Seven”
“We were starting to work on the new Sleeping with Tuesday album in the studio (Ghostwood Studio, the Lethbridge recording studio which Smith owns) and I played “Snow” Aaron Bay and Quint Viskup (Ghostwoods’ recording engineers) said ‘That’s what you should be doing,” he said.
“My mother always said this is what I should be doing too.”
But while he grew up listening to country music, he noted it has been a learning curve learning how to play it.
“ Drummer Dustin Gergel taught me a lot of tricks like putting a hundred dollar bill into your guitar, for the rattling sound. And country music is all about the rhythm, so he arranged all of the drum parts. He’s the backbone of the band, ” he said.
“Dino Scavo is so good on so many different instruments. And he’s my best friend. I can hear it all in my head and he can play it,” he said.
Fred Eaglesmith band alumni and long time friend Roger Marin has also thrown his support behind the Coal Creek Boys as well and even played pedal steel guitar on a couple tracks on the CD.
The Coal Creek Boys have provided Smith the opportunities to pursue two of Smith’s passions — mining and history.
Many of his songs have a historical bent so there are a couple songs exploring several American Civil War characters, which drew from his experiences as a child touring civil war battlefields with his family.
“May 22, 1902” explores a mining disaster which killed fathers and sons working alongside each other and spelled the beginning of the end for the town of Coal Creek, located just outside of Fernie, B.C.
They are in the middle of booking summer festivals. They have confirmed seven for the summer and are playing every weekend until September.
The band is also in the middle of seeking a record deal for their next record, which he said will be 8-10 songs, rather than the 18 on “Hard At It In Old Town.” He also wants to release it on vinyl.
“We had a record deal offered to us, but we turned it down. It would have been all expenses paid in Nashville. It would have been my songs with a whole different band in Nashville. So we’re looking for a label that is more rootsy,” he said.
He’d like to record the new CD right here with his band and using Leeroy Stagger as producer.
“He’s a guy who I really respect,” he said.
“I’d rather stay home with the kids rather than go to Nashville and have to be away from them for two months,” he said.
The next big project is recording a live DVD. They will be recording it May 10 at the Slice with Jesse Northey behind the camera. It will not only be a live DVD of the band, it will also be a history of Coal Creek.
“It’s a live concert video, but there will also be pictures of Coal Creek and stories. There’s nothing left there anymore. So it will bring attention to Coal Creek’s history as well,” he said. Admission will be $20 for that show.