Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Apr 08/02) - Jimmie Inch moved to Iqaluit from the East Coast a year-and-a-half ago.

It didn't take him long to find the local music scene. He joined The Northern Ramblers, a folk-rock band, and produced their recently-released CD, On Our Way.

Jimmie Inch

N/N: How did you hook up with The Northern Ramblers?

JI: When I got to town (a year-and-a-half-ago) I kept on asking everybody who plays. They kept naming those guys.

I met them at a couple of parties and started jamming with them. And when they were planning to play Folk on the Rocks, I recorded the demo tapes.

N/N: Did you just happen to like the same music as those guys?

JI: I played professionally for six or seven years in Nova Scotia. I spent four years in a van just travelling across the country. I played with a band called Highland Heights. The songs I used to play at home are a little different versions but it was pretty easy to jump into it. A lot of East Coast bands play similar traditional songs.

N/N: Do you miss touring? You probably can't tour as much around up here.

JI: A little bit.

N/N: What do you miss?

JI: Just seeing the different places everywhere. We played all the colleges. Anywhere there was a school, we stopped to play. I miss seeing all the towns. But to take up the time, I bought a studio. So I'm spending my time now recording.

N/N: Why did you give up touring?

JI: At the time, I was tired of touring. I got tired of the vans and the peanut butter sandwiches.

Literally, you'd get in the van and you'd be gone for two months with the same five or six people. You'd wake up and forget what town you were in. You'd think you were in Sudbury, but you'd be in Quebec somewhere. I also got kind of tired of playing the same songs all the time.

N/N: Did you do covers of traditional music then?

JI: At that time it was half and half. But our originals were pretty traditional sounding.

N/N: Who writes music on The Northern Ramblers' CD?

JI: Andrew wrote quite a few of them. One of them was written by a friend of mine in Nova Scotia.

N/N: How do you get along with the guys in the band? Have you become friends?

JI: Excellent. I was kind of worried about recording just because it's such an intense process. But me and Andrew got along great. We were here every night. We started in January. All told, it probably took five weeks. But we own the studio, so we didn't have to pay for studio time. Normally, you're paying anywhere between $100 and $140 an hour and you just can't afford to experiment.

N/N: I like the album.

JI: We're really happy with it. I think you can hear different instruments come in and out. I think it has a bit of depth to it.

We got the sound we wanted because we had the time to experiment with it. So it was pretty fun.

N/N: How did you become interested in music?

JI: I was a band geek in school. I started playing clarinet in Grade 4. And I got my first guitar when I graduated from high school. That was just over 10 years ago. I met the band I played with in Halifax and we started touring while we were in school. Then we all ended up quitting school and doing it for a living.

N/N: Did you go back?

JI: Yeah, I went back and finished my degree after I did my stint with the band. It was funny because the dean of engineering used to play bass in the band. I went to him and said I'm thinking about leaving for a while. He said "Go do it now. You can always finish school but you won't want to be touring when you're 40."

N/N: How old are you now?

JI: 29

N/N: What kind of music do you listen to?

JI: I don't like electronic music. As long as it's instruments I'll listen to it. Right now, I have Dave Matthews on. I was a metalhead in the '80s. Then I went all acoustic.

N/N: How do you describe your music now?

JI: I would say it's folk-rock now. You can't really call it traditional or East Coast.

N/N: But influenced by traditional music?

JI: Definitely. The chord structures and the instruments are traditional. But the songs are coming out more folk rock.

N/N: A lot of the songs are about leaving. Why is that?

JI: If you listen to a lot of bands from the east, a lot of times the music is like that because of the high unemployment rate in the east. It's become cliche, but it's literally the truth. A lot of people have to leave the East for work. It's because there's nothing at home. All of us in the band moved here from the east for work. It's a way of life. You have to pick up and move or go on unemployment. Those are your two options right now.

N/N: Do you hope to move back?

JI: Some day, for sure.

N/N: Is it hard to tour here?

JI: Last year, we played in Kuujjuaq and in Yellowknife. But, without corporate sponsorship, you'd never be able to do it. If you get a folk festival, they pay for your flights and whatever you are paid for the gig. But you have to be based in a centre to do music full time

N/N: That's too bad.

JI: Well, the good thing is I have spare time for song writing and rehearsals.

N/N: Where do you play here?

JI: At The Elks. And mostly at house parties. Pretty much every weekend someone has a party and we play.

N/N: What was it like playing at the closing AWG ceremonies?

JI: It was great. It was funny because it was mostly younger kids who have never seen us. Whereas we don't think we're that old, they may. But they really liked it. Anytime we get to play for a different crowd is fun.

N/N: Was it good to meet the other musicians?

JI: It was really cool. I did a songwriter's circle with the band that opened up for us (the Taima Project). They played some of their songs, I played some of mine. I had a ball, just hearing all the different ideas.

N/N: Do you get nervous on stage?

JI: I used to. Not anymore. I've done so many embarrassing things on stage, that no matter what I do now, it will never top that.

N/N: Like what?

JI: Back home, the band was singing an a capella song and the entire band forgot the words in the exact same spot. When you first start out, you're nervous that people won't like it or that you'll do a bad job. After a while, you want to go out and do a good show, more for yourself than for the crowd.

N/N: What would you like to see happen with The Northern Ramblers? Would you like to play again professionally?

JI: Eventually. But right now, I wouldn't want to tour. But I'd like to play a lot more shows. Somewhere in the middle would be perfect. Next, I'm doing a solo album starting next week. Then I'm doing a songwriters of Iqaluit project.

Hopefully, we'll have 14 to 18 tracks of just local people, a combination of throat-singing, Greenlandic music, east coast -- whatever their style is.

N/N: When you write music, what do you write about?

JI: I wrote one song about my grandfather, whom I never met. And then I was watching the Jerry Springer Show and I wrote about a couple people on that. It ranges. And obviously, personal experience. I try to mask that, so people don't pick up on it.