Biography
Jay Semko has a typically wry comment to make about hIs self-named album released on Busted Flat Records.
"It’s hard to be objective with your own music,” he quips.
One of Canada's most significant songwriters, Semko is, of course, the vocalist/bassist of the Northern Pikes. On his own, he has released six solo albums, and had his music featured in countless TV programs, and films.
The conception of his new album began while he was recording demos in 2008. Guitarist/producer Jay Buettner, who had played on his previous album “International Superstar” and has toured with him, suggested the two work together on the production. While intrigued by the offer, Semko still decided to continue to work on his own.
“Being stubborn, I felt that I could still produce the album myself,” explains Semko “I started chipping away at it, and it kind of drove me nuts. So I called Jay and asked him if he was still interested.”
After hearing the songs, Buettner suggested working with a different set of musicians than Semko had used on previous projects. A small ensemble with creative improvisers. “Jay wanted to cut the album live off-the-floor with the best players that he could find,” says Semko.
With the exception of two tracks, the album was recorded at Studio Downe Under in Abbotsford, British Columbia, and engineered by Soren Lonnqvist. “Harder On Me” and “Love You For A Million Miles” were both recorded at the Armoury Studios in Vancouver with Paul Silveira engineering.
The core group of players on the sessions were: Jerry Adolphe (drums); John Dymond (bass); John Ellis (mandolin, electric slide guitar banjo, pedal steel guitar); Tom McKillip (acoustic guitar), and Buettner (electric guitar).
While Semko’s catalog is chock-filled with commendable music, this new album is his finest work.
“Jay B did such a great job; I really have to hand it to him,” says Semko. “I also hand it to the engineers. The album is really warm. We recorded using modern technology, but we also cut tracks live off the floor with a lot of analog gear.
A delight in the vein of the best recordings of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Jerry Jeff Walker but also influenced by the story-telling style of Marty Robbins, Ian Tyson, and Johnny Cash, the album oozes country rock authenticity.
One of the bedrock thrills Semko still gets is coming up with catchy lines that people can relate to, and then playing them and having people smile or sing back the lyrics. He likes to look at life from various, direct, and unapologetic angles. This open-hearted approach touches his fans as does the clarity, daring, and passion of his lyrics.
“For this album, I wanted to write the best songs I could,” Semko says. “Some I did by myself; some are co-writes. They each came around in interesting ways. Both ‘Drop You In The Water’ and ‘Before You Leave Canada’ were fun songs that came quickly. I just kind of scribbled things down. Before I knew it, I had a song almost without realizing it. With ‘Drop You In The Water’ I wanted to do a song that has only one chord in it all the way through. I also wanted to write a gospel tune. So, it’s all just dynamics.” The song features guest vocals and guitar from Canadian blues whiz Matt Andersen - other guest vocalists on the album include Patricia Conroy, Kelly Brock, and Alana Levandoski.
One of the last songs brought into the fold was “Love You For A Million Miles.” It was written last year after Jay's friend Robb invited Jay to play at his wife Cheryl’s surprise birthday party in Nova Scotia.
“I have great memories of how that song came about, and playing it (with Ross Nykiforuk on accordion) for the first time,” says Semko. “We performed at this little cove about 90 minutes outside of Halifax. The night before I decided to write a song for Cheryl’s birthday. I pulled it off in a couple of hours. We played it for her the next day. It was a warm night. We were playing toward the ocean, and the stars were shining. She was totally surprised.”
Asked to assess his songwriting today, Semko says, “Your standards get higher as you go. You realize if (a song is) happening or not happening. I now know when those moments happen. I just go, ‘Do this now.’”
The album features co-writes with other songwriters, including Tim Taylor, David Leask, Alana Levandoski, Kim Fontaine, and Doug Sylvester.
“Whenever I write with other people, I always pick up something from them,” says Semko. “Writing, you never really stop learning. You can always find new interesting things within the context of what you are doing. There’s no better feeling, if there’s two or three (co-writing), and you all connect. It’s like dancing.”
Three songs—“That Kind Of Blue,” “Glimpse” and the lead-off single “Comeback Kid” are written by Semko with the Nashville-based Canadian songwriter Tim Taylor. As well, Taylor is a co-writer with Semko and David Leask on “Nobody’s Watching.”
Semko hails from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a fact underscored by the album package's use of evocative photos of the area as well as the inclusion on the album of such region-influenced songs as "Girl Who Can Whistle" and "Let’s Wake Up The Moon.”
“I lived on a farm until I was almost 12,” he says. “My dad, my uncle and my grandfather lived next to each other. They had some crops, and a big pig farm. I had a horse. I used to saddle up my horse every day after school and ride. There weren’t other kids around. There were just my cousins who lived just down the trail. I went to the Clavet School (15 km.) outside of Saskatoon from grade 1 to grade 7. We were bused in. All the bullies beating the crap out of people on the bus.”
The first music show Semko attended was Johnny Cash and June Carter at the Exhibition Grandstand in Saskatoon. “My folks took me,” he recalls “They liked folk music. People like Glenn Yarbrough, and the Limelighters. They were huge Gordon Lightfoot fans. My dad also liked Eddy Arnold. At the same time, I loved the radio. I had every song memorized on the radio, and I had a lot of 45s.”
When he was 10, Semko began to take guitar lessons at the local YMCA. “My teacher had a scar on his face,” he says. “The first lesson, he pointed to his scar and asked, “You see that?” I said, “Yeah.” He told me ‘Never put your face over your guitar when you are changing strings. That’s what happened to me.” He scared the hell out of me. To this day, I have never put my face up to the guitar while changing strings.”
The first song Semko learned on guitar was Ian Tyson’s “Four Strong Winds.” Years later the Pikes played the song at the Western Canadian Music Awards in the presence of Tyson who was being honoured with a lifetime achievement award. “Our version was kind of pop, like the Byrds playing it,” he recalls. “It was nerve-wracking because Ian was sitting right in front watching us play.”
The Semko family later moved to Saskatoon - a small, dry, proud town right in the middle of the sea of wheat and atop the potash swells sprawled pleasantly along the high east bank of the South Saskatchewan River. There Semko grew taking guitar lessons; working at the Holiday Park Golf Course picking up driving range balls; and trying to find a musical direction as a fledgling musician.
“We were pretty isolated being in Saskatoon,” he says. “Back then, there was no internet. Even cable TV, we didn’t have that until I was in Grade 12. There weren’t all the exposures to things like today. The only exposure for interesting music was through record stores. You’d go to the cool record store, and be buddies with the guys there who would tell you about what was hip and happening.
Semko had also been introduced to the seminal country rock recordings of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and Gram Parsons as well as the Byrds' classic 1968 album “Sweetheart of the Rodeo.”
“Roughly around that time, I also became buddies with Merl (Bryck),” recalls Semko. “His mom was a huge country music fan. She had all of these old country records by Jim Reeves, and Buck Owens.”
The Northern Pikes were formed in 1984 from the remains of three local groups, the Idols, Doris Daye and 17 Envelope. After two independent releases, Virgin Records Canada signed the band—Semko, Merl Bryck, Bryan Potvin and Don Schmid--in 1986.
“We had all played in various bands,” recalls Semko. “Some were cover bands; some were original bands. From square one, we said, ‘Let’s be a band that does this for a living. Let’s do what we need to do to get on the road and play.’ Back then, it was a circuit of six nights a week in clubs. Some of these clubs, you’d play four 50 minute sets and tag (encore). You are playing, playing and playing. You can’t help but improve.”
During its first run, the Pikes released five top-selling albums and had a slew of memorable songs including: “Teenland, “Things I Do For Money” “Wait For Me,” “Let’s Pretend,” “Girl With A Problem,” “Kiss Me You Fool,” and “She Ain’t Pretty.” The Pikes were an opening act for Canadian tours by Tom Cochrane with Red Rider and Bruce Hornsby, and in the USA for Robert Palmer and Peter Frampton, among others.
Semko remains immensely proud of his writing with the Pikes. “The songs stand up quite well,” he says. “I can play ‘Things I Do For Money’ on one string on acoustic guitar, and people love it still. I love ‘Kiss Me You Fool” which I co-wrote with Merl. It’s a great pop song. Everybody knows ‘Teenland.’ I can play that riff just on guitar, and people will know that song.”
In 1993, the Pikes disbanded. It regrouped in 2000 after EMI Music Canada released a compilation album “Hits and Assorted Secrets.” This was followed by “Live” (2000), “Truest Inspiration” (2001) and “It’s A Good Life” (2003). Today, the Pikes still intermittently perform.
As the Pikes began fracturing in 1993, Semko returned to Saskatoon to reflect on the next phase of his career. “When the band broke up, it was very depressing to me,” he recalls. “I didn’t want to listen to music or anything.”
However, Janet York, VP of the Music Supervision Services Division of S.L. Feldman & Associates in Vancouver called to ask if the Pikes were interested in writing a theme song for a film. The band wasn’t up for it but Semko decided to tackle the job. As the storyline of the film was being described to him in a later telephone call, he began writing what would become the “Due South” theme song in his head. When he got off the phone, he spent 20 minutes completing it.
After recording a version of this song with the Pikes, Semko sent it to Paul Haggis, the film’s producer and creator. Impressed, Haggis asked Semko to submit a demo of music that could be used as score music. Semko did a recording with acoustic guitar, accordion and harmonica set to the scenes, sent it off, and was then hired.
The “Due South” television film aired March, 1994. After higher than anticipated ratings, it was turned into a continuing drama series with its first season launching late in 1994. “Due South” ran to 1998 on CBS in the U.S., and on CTV in Canada.
“Due South” took up five years of Semko’s life. “We did 66 shows,” he says. “For the first 40, Jack Lenz, John McCarthy and I did the music. Jack and I worked on the last 26 shows together. It was an all-consuming thing. Very demanding. There was lot of music in each show. It was a great experience.”
Semko, in fact, rolled up an outstanding list of film and TV credits including scores and/or songs for such TV films as: “Strange and Rich”(1994), “Paris Or Somewhere” (1995), “Jack MacKenzie’s Tonic of Wilderness” (1995), “Jack MacKenzie’s Waterton Winter” (1996), "The Dinosaur Hunter" (2000), “Big Mother” (2004), “Live For Sunday” (2007), and “Stolen Sisters” (2007); the TV series "Cotter's Wilderness Trails" (1996-1999), “Sweetness In Life” (2002-2004), and “Body & Soul” (2002-2003); and the feature film “Men With Brooms” (2002).
Along the way, Semko issued albums on his Smoothwater Music imprint.
When the Northern Pikes broke up, the band hadn’t completed its six album deal with Virgins Records of Canada. The company offered each member a small budget to do demos for solo records. When Virgin didn’t pick up the option for his five songs, Semko took those songs, upgraded them, and then recorded another five songs for “Mouse,” originally released in 1995, and re-released in 2005.
“Redberry” developed from a Marshall Ward film documentary called “Love Will Set You Free” that chronicled Semko writing and recording the title track song at Cosmic Pad Studios in Saskatoon. He used the song as the title track of an EP that led to the release of this full-length solo album in 2006.
There was also a 10-song acoustic album of traditional seasonal music “Merry Christmas” in 2006; and “Live at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum” in 2007.
In 2008, Semko released the country-laced “International Superstar,” his first album on Busted Flat, and the first to feature all new songs, many of which had been written in Nashville.
“I had been to Nashville before, playing with the Pikes, but I’d never spent much time there,” he says. “I wrote with different people there on my first trip. It was so much fun. I have since gone back there several times. I think the guys I write with there have enjoyed writing with me because I am a little bit different. I’m not trying to be a formula hit (songwriter). I am just trying to write really great songs. I think they instinctively pick up on that.”
Despite being a man on the move for years, Semko still regards himself as a prairie figure. “You feel like there is an open canvas here,” he explains. “I love traveling, and I love being in different places, but I sometimes miss the open spaces. I kind of crave that. When I get into big urban areas or the mountains, I get claustrophobic after awhile. When I lived in Toronto, I’d go down to the lake. When I was in Vancouver, I’d go down to the ocean.”
An aspect contributing to the appeal of prairies, according to Semko, is that the winters are long and cold. “You tend to cocoon,” he says with a chuckle. “My whole life, I’ve **** about the cold weather. At the same time, it’s kind of a good thing that it was cold because I sat down and played my guitar and I worked on songs. I did that with myself and my friends. We were able to develop songs, and develop a style of playing.”