Winnipeg folk-pop singer songwriter James Struthers is ‘speeding on home” eventually, but first he is going to complete a tour in support of his new self-titled EP, which will bring him to the Owl Acoustic Lounge, May 18 with Tyler Del Pino.
“ I enjoy meeting different people and seeing different places,” Struthers said from Vancouver.
“ A lot of people tour outside their country before they tour their own. I feel blessed to be able to tour here,” he said.
His unabashedly commercial sound comes naturally to him.
“I’m more on the commercial side. I never compromise what I write but I record the songs with an eye on the commercial market. But it is just naturally that I do,” he said.
He stands out in the bustling Winnipeg music scene.
“It’s not a very commercially friendly market. There is a lot of folk and blues and a lot of punk and metal. But I never felt I didn’t belong there. Everyone is very friendly,” he said.
He also feels blessed to discover what he wanted to do at a young age — be a musician.
“ I’ve always been a very creative person,” he said adding he is inspired by a lot of different music including Nashville songwriters.
“I really like what they do. And I’m influenced by everyday life,” he said.
“I’ve been very lucky. A lot of things fell into place. I’m very lucky to have found out what I want to do from a very young age,” he said.
A video for his song “You, Me, and Optimus Prime,” went viral online back in December. It was filmed around the beautiful Lake of the Woods in western Ontario, about two hours from Winnipeg where Struthers grew up. It featured Struthers having a variety of adventures by the lake, having sword fights, playing Scrabble and fishing with the Transformer robot Optimus Prime.
“I had just moved out on my own and had to do my own laundry and cook for myself. So I decided to write a song about my lost childhood, all of the things I did and some of the things I couldn’t do. I wasn’t allowed to have Transformers,” he said.
He got a contact for the L.A School of Art, “ from a guy dressed as Elmo” about a guy who had a Transformer costume and recruited him for the video.
It was one of the songs he didn’t rerecord for the new EP.
“ There were a couple (“Baby Blue,” and “ Speed On Home”) that I wanted to rework and remaster,” he said.
He has played a couple house concerts and an open mic in Lethbridge, but is looking forward to his first actual show.
“I”ll be telling a lot of stories about my life that you won’t see on the website or on the CD. And I’ll be playing a couple of new songs rom the next album, which haven’t been recorded yet,” he said.
“It will be a very different experience,” he said.
