Barban brings favourites to the studio

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Johnny Barban is making good on a new year’s resolution.

His wife, Erin, didn’t want to hear the standard self-improvement pledges from her better half as 2019 beckoned.

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She wanted to know “what you actually want for yourself,” the Sault Ste. Marie native recalls.

What Barban wanted to do was make an album, just like chums including Jay Case and Lindsay Pugh, have done. He’s played music for 25 years with appearances including solo gigs and dates with Johnny and the Revelators and Sometimes Ange in Peterbourgh, Ont., and closer to home at Root River Golf Club, Loplops and Downtown Association’s street parties. Friends and family encouraged him to make a permanent record of his own songs.

“It would be really cool for me to record this and have something that my kids could listen to,” said the father of Aria, 6, and Willa, 3. “They love hearing me play.”

He had the material with songs drawn from efforts he’d penned over two decades.

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Barban started working with Dustin Jones at Mission Control Studios last September. With his own business, JL Builders, Barban needed until March to finish work on his debut effort, Out with the Old.

“It took an awful lot longer than I thought it would,” he laughed during a recent interview with The Sault Star. Barban enjoyed his creative collaboration with Jones, former frontman of Inner City Surfers.

“The two of us worked together on a lot of stuff,” he said. “He had a lot of great ideas. I hadn’t done many of these songs with a full band. My bands I’ve played with have done a lot of my songs, but we’ve never really sat down and made a big deal out of it. For me to put electric guitar on these and put drums and all this stuff, it was different.”

Barban wanted “a 90s, early 2000s vibe” for some of his efforts to reflect when they were written.

“Dustin definitely helped me with some of those sounds and had some great ideas to make it sound how we wanted it to go,” he said.

The album also features Angela Duncan (vocals), Jason Gasparetto (vocals), Byron Jaaskelainen (fiddle, vocals), Marshall Jaaskelaineen (bass, mandolin) and Greg Simpson (drums).

Barban settled on six songs for the album that he, and others, considered favourites. He wrote Be with You to play for Erin when he proposed. Something About Her was inspired by the love Barban has for his wife of nearly 17 years. He wanted the “fun and upbeat” track to go alongside other efforts that are “a little bit more deeper and emotional.”

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Rock is the predominant sound on Out with the Old with some country influences.

“There’s a tiny bit of a country twist to it,” said Barban. “I’ve always aimed to try and sound soulful in the vocals.”

Clicking with Jones helped make recording Out with the Old “an awesome experience” for him.

“It was really easy,” he said. “It went really smoothly. I had a ton of fun doing it. I didn’t realize it would be so much fun. There wasn’t any awkward moments or anything.”

Barban plans to write new material.

A CD release show is on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Barban plans an acoustic set at facebook.com/john.barban.7 on Sunday at 7 p.m. He’ll be joined by Simpson, Gasparetto and the Jaaskelainens.

“It might not be as big of a deal at that point, but it’ll still be a fun thing and still be a thing we can do with our friends and put on a good concert for everybody,” said Barban of the later in-person launch.

“I figured, ‘Why wait?’” said Barban of his decision to launch his effort now. “I’ve already waited long enough to record this CD. I’ll put it out now.”

Out with the Old can be ordered at johnnybarban.com

btkelly@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @Saultreporter