Winnipeg blues rock trio The Perpetrators are back with their long awaited brand new CD and a semi new line up. They premiere their new CD “Stick ’em Up” in Lethbridge, Nov. 2 at the Slice where they will help ring in the Slice’s eighth birthday.
“I basically recorded this CD by the seat of my pants,” said frontman/ guitarist Jason Nowicki getting ready to play a couple quick shows with Romi Mayes in northern Ontario, while getting ready to tour with the Perpetrators. He had a variety of different players on the CD, new bassist John Scoles is on four songs, founding member Ryan Menard is on five and David Landreth plays bass on two.
For drums, longtime dru
mmer Ryan McMahon is on seven of the 10 tracks, while Ryan Voss is on the other three.
“All of these guys are so busy, he said.
“Ryan has a one-year-old now and he had a good full time career job,” he continued.
So Nowicki has been keeping busy touring with Romi Mayes and just completed a Home Routes solo acoustic tour as well, which brought him to Lethbridge a couple weeks ago.
“Romi is singing on this CD too. She’s never been on a Perps album,” he enthused.
The Perpetrators also just played a brief tour of Europe.
“ It was pretty lucrative, but the overhead was through the roof. Just the flights cost four grand,” he said.
“The Perpetrators haven’t played there since 2009, so it was almost like starting fresh again, but we had a couple of sweet festivals while we were there,” he continued adding he didn’t give their agent much to work with as it has been several years since they released a new CD
So he did.
“I had some time banked with Les Milne at Bedside studios. We’ve recorded all of the Perpetrators albums with him. He completely renovated this old church and turned it into a great room, so it was just the three of us rocking out,” he said adding it was a different three of them each session. He said he was panicking a little bit the night before.
“It was a fly by the seat of your pants kind of record. I didn’t chart it out or anything. I literally said ‘I need to go an make a fucking record now. So the night before Ryan Voth and David Landreth were to come in, I had no idea what I was going to bring in the next day. I was in my room with my guitar and pieces of songs and lyrics,” he said adding they were able to goof around in the studio and came up with an album full of songs he was proud of.
They re-recorded a few off his duo project with Ken McMahon K-Mac and Howik’s Punk Blues Explosion, choosing ‘Smokes and Chicken,’ ‘ Shake It’ and ‘Bad Man,’ which have become popular live favourites.
“ We just decided which ones got the best response live,” he described.
And despite the disorganization, he is pleased with the result.
“I really think it is the best Perpetrators album we’ve done,” he said.
“I am super, super proud of this record. ‘Shake It ’ is bilingual, so I’m proud of that too. It adds a different sound,” he said.
They will officially release the CD at a two day CD release party at their local haunt “Times Changed,” which is the Slice of Winnipeg and music which John Scoles owns.
But Alberta gets a sneak preview of the new music in Calgary and Lethbridge, Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 respectively.
Nowicki has already submitted it for Juno Award consideration.
The Perpetrators’ line up for the Alberta shows will be John Scoles on bass, Jason Nowicki on guitar and vocals and special guest Grant Stovel on drums.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
