LISSA ALEXANDER
reporter@pqbnews.com
Even though Ian Sherwood arrived panting to the Canadian Folk Music Awards nearly half an hour late, he was there just in time to hear his name announced as a winner.
“I’m running all over the campus trying to find the stupid theatre—there’s like 4 or 5 theatres on the campus—and eventually I find it, and I run in, and I’m there for like two minutes and they call my name,” said the Nova Scotia musician. “It was so amazing.”
That was last year’s ceremony held at the University of Calgary, and Sherwood nudged out Canadian Folk Legend Stephen Fearing for the win.
Sherwood is performing at the Soundgarden in Coombs this Saturday, May 31, on the newly renovated stage.
As a kid, Sherwood was always into music, joining a choir at age seven and forming a “terrible garage band” in high school as a saxophone player.
After landing a job at a dinner theatre in Halifax while attending university, Sherwood began meeting people who were making their livings as musicians.
“I thought, I can do this, I can do what they can do, this is what I should be doing,” he said.
At that time Sherwood decided he would pursue the saxophone, but after moving to Toronto he realized he wanted to write and perform songs.
“I wanted to get in front of the microphone and sing songs that I had written for people, aside from any ideas of fame or fortune or finance, it really was something I had to try and see if I could do, and I discovered I could do it.”
Sherwood now has four albums under his belt, his fifth to come out in September. His CFMA win was for his album, Live at the Hive, recorded last year. It was done in one night in the office area of a music studio, along with two back up singers and a keyboard player. Fifty fans were invited in to watch.
“We just recorded all night and it was great. It was really magical.”
Sherwood also won Best Male Artist award at the 2012 International Acoustic Music Awards and he has taken home multiple Music Nova Scotia awards.
Although Sherwood has been to the Island before, this will be his most comprehensive tour of the area to date, and his first show in Parksville Qualicum Beach.
He’s informally calling this his 180 Tour, he said, since he just returned from Scotland recently and he’ll be heading to England in the fall and then Scotland in the New Year.
The Soundgarden is located at 1014 Ford Rd. on the Coombs Fairgrounds. The show happens at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance from the Coombs General Store, Cranky Dog Music in Parksville, and Smithfords in Qualicum Beach. They will be $20 at the door.
For more on Sherwood visit his website www.iansherwood.com.
For more on the Shoundgarden visit www.thesoundgarden.org.
