Saskatchewan’s Jay Semko is best known as the frontman for the iconic pop band the Northern Pikes, but he’s also one of the country’s most significant songwriters. Semko has written Canadian classics like “Things I Do For Money” and “Girl With a Problem.” He also worked for many years as a film and television composer, and was twice Gemini-nominated for his original scores for Due South.
In recent years, Semko has turned his creative imagination to solo projects. And today, Feb. 14, he’s releasing his ninth solo album, appropriately titled Sending Love. When Semko talks about the impetus for the record he says, “In a nutshell, the four-letter-word ‘love’ is what really inspired the whole album.”
AUDIO: Jay Semko clip – writing love songs
[audio: Jay Semko talks love]
Semko sees the title track for the record as “a combination of spiritual and relationship. I don’t know where the line crosses there. I don’t know if there is a line. And often deep love, and there are so many different forms of love, can be a combination of physical, personal, spiritual. And I left that topic really open.”
Jay Semko – Sending Love (Part 1)Jay Semko - Sending Love (Part 1)
Semko’s life journey hasn’t always been easy, and he’s worked through his fair share of personal challenges. The last five years have brought some positive changes in his life, though. The extremely personal nature of Sending Love is due, in part, to new perspectives he’s gained in that time:
AUDIO: Jay Semko clip – life changes
[audio: Semko reflects on life changes]
Despite the universal nature of love songs, Semko says making Sending Love was “very much a journey, because I really didn’t know what kind of a record I was going to make. I knew I wasn’t going to make as country-sounding a record as I had with the self-titled Jay Semko from 2010. I knew it was going to be a little different from that.”
In the end, Semko found himself at Calgary’s MCC Recording Studio playing everything from electric guitar, to acoustic guitars, all the keyboards and all the percussion. He even sang some of his own backing vocals. Some other great players joined Semko for the recording, but he says he “just totally went with instinct. That’s something I’ve really learned over the last two or three years, is to trust my instincts when it comes to musical ideas. Being a somewhat analytical person sometimes I tend to take a second look, take a third look, take a fourth look, and then really become so over-obsessed with things. And this time I consciously said ‘No, just go with it. Go with those musical ideas. If that loop sounds good just use it. If that mix sounds good, even though you only spent two hours on it, why mess with it? Let’s make it happen here.’”
Semko explains further: “I did consciously set out to make an album of love songs, and that’s really what it was, and once I got into it I realized things aren’t exactly going to be perfect all the time, but you can at least aspire to that. That’s what really ends up happening on this record, lyrically and musically. It’s aspiring to perfection in a relationship, aspiring to remaining optimistic in the face of sometimes difficult situations. The song “Nothing Left But Love” is sort of, when you strip it all away – that’s it, really. Whether that be a one-on-one relationship or any kind of relationships.”
Jay Semko – Nothing Left But Love
Jay Semko - Nothing Left But Love
Sending Love is now available through Busted Flat Records, iTunes and at most record stores across Canada.
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