A regular favourite of the Bow Valley, Smokekiller – moniker of John Antoniuk – returns Sunday (May 26) for a show at the Elk & Oarsman in Banff.
Antoniuk spoke with the Outlook while on the road somewhere between Thunder Bay, Ont. and Winnipeg.
“The tour’s been going pretty good, the guys are playing pretty well, and that’s the best part,” he said. “We’re about halfway through and we’re excited.”
From Saskatoon, Antoniuk first went east, and is now headed west. With his usual touring band unavailable, he decided to take along for the ride Castle River, a two-piece rock duo of drums and guitar from Saskatoon.
“I really like what they do by themselves, and I was really interested to see what would happen if I took their youthful enthusiasm and stuck it inside my van, as an experiment to see if it would work and to give them some experience out on the road,” he explained. “And they really took to it right away and have shown great diversity as players and have shown the ability to go from their music into my material.
“We’ve been playing everything, ripping out 90-minute sets every night, and the guys are so much fun to play with.”
He’s touring in support of his latest album –
– released in September as a tribute to his mother.
“I released it under my own name rather than Smokekiller, as a tribute, and it’s a little more rootsy,” he said. “Some of my other albums are more rocking, and I find as a band right now, I’ve come full circle of bringing me back to the band I used to hear in my head.”
“It’s been fun for me as a musician to get to the point of where I was, and then to be able to go back and pull those old songs forward and put a new spin on them.”
Antoniuk’s played Banff several times before, at the Rose & Crown, but this time will give the Elk & Oarsmen a try.
“It’s always fun to play the Rose & Crown, and we’ve done some triple nighters there,” he said. “We just found out about the new venue at the Elk and I’m looking forward to it.
“I just want to play in front of some people, and I’m just glad that they were willing to have us.”
In 2010, a series of events led Antoniuk to making music his full-time career.
“I tour as a job, and as often as we can,” he explained. “It started off with my wife, Jen Lane, in 2010, and we’ve really been trying to build up our tours and now we’re at the point where we’re able to take a full band out on the road and it’s been really helpful to build the audiences that way too.
“I lost my mom in 2010 to cancer, and that was the inspiration for this last record. She said to me that I needed to be focusing on really what was inside me and really go for it with the music. And then I got laid off that summer and I realized we’d never get another chance like this. And here we are with plans through to early next year.”
Getting to tour and play music all the time is what feels right for Antoniuk, at this moment in time, he said.
“It’s really fortunate to feel I’m right where I’m supposed to be, and that every step that I’m taking is the right place. We’ll see how long it can last – at some point it will be less up to us and more to the connection we make with the fans and people – it seems to be going really well.”
For more information or to hear his music, visit smokekiller.com
