Nick Szohner and the Jacknife Bandoleros

A true musical Renaissance man, Vancouver born and raised singer-songwriter Nick Szohner brings a multitude of exciting influences—from the blues of Albert King, B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix to the exotic pop/rock cool of Dire Straits and Santana—to his exciting new solo projects with The Jacknife Bandoleros, Shark’s Tooth Necklace and In The Thick Of It. He released both independent recordings simultaneously to iTunes in September.The multi-faceted modern rocker—who also plays guitar, bass and drums—launched his musical career in the 90’s as a popular performer in two local Vancouver bands that reflected his chameleon-like ability to play in multiple genres. Szohner was the lead singer and frontman for the hard rock unit Triskellion (which also incorporated some distinctive punk elements) and played guitar in the reggae band Boombi G. During this time, he played at many of the city’s top venues, including The Town Pump, Hungry Eye and Mighty Niagara.After the breakup of Triskellion, Szohner began focusing on reinventing himself musically, starting with the building of a full service home facility that he and his brother currently run called Riff Rudy Studios. After several years of honing his powerful, electric guitar and vocal driven rock sound, he began recording his debut Shark’s Tooth Necklace in early 2006, choosing the group moniker “Jacknife Bandoleros” as tip of the hat to the old school vibe of bands that, he says, were named “somebody and the so and so’s!” The album title refers specifically to the necklaces given to him and his brothers when they were kids, but metaphorically, it represents his determination to achieve what he has set out to do musically—and the toughness it requires.Shark’s Tooth Necklace features a colorful mix of eight vocals and two instrumentals, “Showdown” and “Lovely Woman Revisited,” the latter of which expresses, through Szohner’s guitar, his deep personal feelings about a relationship that went sideways. Other standout tracks include the opening cut “Lawless Town,” which reflects his love for spaghetti westerns, complete with a twangy vibrato on his axe and dramatic lyrics about a guy entering a town on the edge of nowhere. “Lost At Sea” is about the personal journey of life and the rough patches we encounter, while “Frost Giant’s Daughter” borrows images from popular mythology to illustrate how we sometimes fail to control ourselves in personal relationships.As much as he loves Shark’s Tooth Necklace, Szohner feels he hit an even more dynamic creative stride on In The Thick Of It, which he began recording later in 2006. Like the first recording, this one mixes two instrumentals (the sexy, Egyptian rhythm driven “Dancing With Aphrodite” and the opening track “When She Smiles At Me”) with nine vocal tracks; it also includes a spoken word element on “Beautiful Island” and a segment of “Pretty Little Tattoo,” a quintessential song about the ending of a relationship. “All of the songs on this album are very strong,” says Szohner, “beginning with the first vocal tune ‘Primordial Garden,’ which is a very sexual song about the animal attraction people sometimes feel for one another.”The fascinating black and white cover art on both recordings by Vancouver based artist Julia Hilton reflects the subtle sense of mystery and melancholy that pervades Szohner’s highly charged, emotional contemporary rock music. The impressionistic image of Shark’s Tooth Necklace shows the back of a tattooed girl looking out wistfully over the mountains to the sea, possibly cradling a baby, perhaps waiting for someone. The starker dual image of pagan primal women on the cover of In The Thick Of It perfectly parallel the singer’s fascination with history and ancient times; it’s a subtle ode to the age old pagan fertility ritual.