Just a week back from their month-long tour in Scotland, Wales and England, Horsefly’s celebrated folk duo Jason and Pharis Romero are hitting the road this week with Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe.
And they will be making the tour with their new album A Wanderer I’ll Stay that was just released on Tuesday.
The duo will be performing on CBC Radio’s Vinyl Cafe and chatting with Stuart McLean in Grand Prairie, Alta., today Wednesday, March 4; in Fort St. John on Thursday, March 5; in Dawson Creek on Friday, March 6; and in Prince George at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 8.
Tickets for the Prince George event at the CN Centre are available at ticketmaster.
Pharis’s mom, Emily, will be flying out from the coast to meet the family in Grand Prairie and help take care of the Romero’s 16-month-old daughter, Indigo.
Indigo also travelled with the couple on their tour of the UK, last month with the help of Pharis’s sister, Marin Patenaude, who is also a singer/musician and came along on the tour as their nanny.
The group flew in to Scotland first and played 20 shows in Scotland, Wales and England, during their month-long tour, which also included teaching a few singing workshops.
“It was awesome and very intense,” Pharis says. “We played everything from a 40-person house concert to a 400-seat theatre and most of the shows were sold out.”
Pharis says their new album A Wanderer I’ll Stay is a combination of traditional and independent folk stylings with more of their own original songs on it.
“It has a new spin that is informed by all of the years we have spent listening to old music,” Pharis says.
They hired Toronto-based engineer/producer David Travers-Smith to record the album.
Travers-Smith came to Horsefly with his equipment and did the recording in the workshop where Jason and Pharis make custom banjos for local and international customers.
Travers-Smith has earned numerous awards and Juno nominations for his work recording noted Canadian artists such as the Wailin’ Jennys and Ruth Moody.
Pharis says having a baby around the house has actually resulted in she and Jason writing more songs together than they did before they had Indigo.
“Time is more precious so we make more of the time that we do have,” Pharis says.
Jason has already made Indigo a little drum of her own to play and she is learning how to strum and pluck strings on toy stringed instruments.
Some of her first words were guitar and banjo.
Pharis says it is nice to have the support of her family in their musical endeavours.
Mom Emily, also came up from the coast to help out with Indigo and made some great meals for them all when they were recording the album, Pharis says.
“It was really a fun time.”
