Toronto based rock band The Mohrs began as a writing project between lead vocalist Jackie Mohr and Juno award winning musician and producer Hawksley Workman, but has since grown into much more.
They released their new CD “ Kings of Nowhere in February. The Winnipeg born Mohr and guitarist Marc Girardin who toured across the prairies with their band Living in Red until the members parted ways and Mohr and Girardin ended up in Toronto where they connected with Workman after appearing on the TV show “CBC Live.” They added drummer Max Trefler and bassist Greg Markham to round out the line up.
“ After the show, Hawksley called me up and asked if I wanted to fly north and write with him in his studio. So I said, ‘um, yes,’ said Mohr, getting ready to begin the band’s tour in London, Ontario which takes them to Vancouver and back, during which they play The Slice with Calgary duo the HighKicks for St. Patrick’s Day.
“ That’s right it is St. Patrick’s Day. I forgot about that. We’ll do something. It’s a built in drinking crowd,“ Mohr enthused.
The band draws a lot of inspiration from ’90s rock bands like Big Wreck and Our Lady peace. They sound like a bend of Canadian classic rockers like the Headpins and Toronto with fellow Torontonians the Joys. But Mohr draws more inspiration from male vocalists.
“ When i was growing up I listened to a lot of guy vocalists like Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace and the lead singer of Incubus and I love Big Wreck and ’90s rock like that,” she said.
“ Then I got into Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders and Stevie Nicks. I just loved what they were doing on stage,” she said.
“I used to play with a really loud drummer and he wouldn’t be quiet and he wouldn’t slow down, so I had to learn how to sing over him,” she said.
Mohr noted writing with Hawksley Workman was inspirational.
“He’s a genius. He either really loves an idea or he just doesn’t love it at all,” Mohr said.
“I’ve known my guitarist Mark for a long time. I was used to writing with him. I had so many ideas and had no idea how to put them into a song,” she continued adding the album ended up mainly being about a break-up.
“ I hadn’t planned on writing a break up album . But it’s about the longest relationship I’d ever been in, which was six years. It was a bad relationship and I shouldn’t have been in it. But once I got finished telling Hawksley the story, he said ‘man, we could write a whole album about that,’” she related.
“It allowed me to get a lot of that stuff off my chest and I hadn’t though about a lot of it for years,” she said.
She is excited about the album.
“ It’s got some really fun songs and some really heavy songs,” she said.
They have released two videos— the first one back in September in advance of the album for the song “Perfectly Sane,” in July.
“ it did okay. We shot it with a girl in Vancouver,” she said.
They recently released the second video “ Better.”
“ It’s a fun party video we shot in a hotel in Toronto with the Young Astronauts and some friends of ours. That song barely made it onto the record, but everyone seems to like it. But we just released ‘youth’ to radio. We hope to shoot a video for that too,” she said.
She is excited about playing with the High Kicks for several of the dates on the tour.
The boys join us in Lethbridge. I’d never heard of them before, but I know their other band the Dudes. So it’s going to be pretty sweet,” she said.
“We’re pretty excited about this tour. So be bring a lot of excitement to the stage and a lot of energy. We play loud. I don’t know if people will be ready for it,” she said.
There is a $10 cover for the show, which begins at 8 p.m.
