Ian Sherwood to play Steinbach in October

Award winning folk pop singer-songwriter Ian Sherwood is coming to Steinbach where he will bring his music and East Coast sense of sharing stories to create an intimate atmosphere during his concert.

For 25 years, Sherwood has been working as a professional musician playing in a pit orchestra to playing in bands to now a singer songwriter that holds his own concerts and writes for other musicians.

But Sherwood said songwriting doesn’t come naturally to him. He said he wrote “a lot of crappy songs” before he got the handle on writing good songs.

“It’s like anything, like songwriting, or guitar playing, or singing, or whatever it is that you do, is a craft related to the art. So any craft requires time and patience and discipline.

“And so I try to keep up with that kind of stuff, so that when the time comes to write a song, that muscle is worked, and I can access whatever that feeling is that I want to get across a little more easily,” he said.

And it appears that everyday life inspires Sherwood’s music and recently, as he’s gotten older, relationships he has with other people are sources of inspiration.

“That’s the deepest well for me right now, is people and how they interact with the world and the struggles that they’re going through, and maybe whatever I’m going through at the time, and how that relates to other people. You know, try to find something that I can say in a way that’s going to make the listener feel something and maybe be helpful in a way too, or maybe just be kind of a fun song to listen to while you’re driving.”

Sherwood has released five albums, one of which is a live album recorded at Toronto’s The Hive (Live at the Hive). For those who want to get a sense of what he’s like live this album is for you. His first outing And Now the Fun Begins has toe-tapping gospel fun of Short End of the Stick to the rocking We’re Not Alone Tonight. In the album Everywhere to Go his folk pop groove comes out in full force with Stop (Don’t Fall in Love), Big Love, and Everywhere to Go and the party continues into the Bring the Light album. His latest album Broken Little Heart has such sorrowful songs as Billboards and Payphone in Calgary and then the title track Broken Little Heart which is a fun love song he co-wrote with singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith.

“When I wrote my first record I hadn’t met my wife yet. I didn’t have children. I was a young man with a broken heart really just trying to figure out who I was. I didn’t know who I was as a performer, as a songwriter, I was writing all different kinds of styles I wasn’t really sure where I was really going to land and now these days I’m much more confident as an artist and understand my spot in the world a little better.”

The Halifax native wrote Broken Little Heart because he felt it was time to write a new album. He said he doesn’t write for the radio or about what he wants on a record rather he just writes what he feels.

“It’s really not until all the songs are close to being done that I start kind of seeing shapes and understanding where I was. Because you can be so inside that it doesn’t really make sense or there’s really no way of making sense of it when you’re in the middle of making a record, it’s only after you have a little bit of distance, it’s like, oh, right, yeah, I guess I really feel this way about stuff right now,” he said.

Sherwood wrote Broken Little Heart with Sexsmith before the COVID pandemic and said he enjoys collaborating with other songwriters.

“It’s one of the older songs on the record, but I knew as soon as we wrote it that and I kind of had it all dusted up to the way I wanted it to sound. I can see this being on a record of mine.

“And, you know, the fact that Ron has his name on it is not a bad thing either. I’m very proud of that tune and very touched that Ron would take the time to write it with me. I wanted to make sure it had a little bit of a life.”

Sherwood is no stranger to accolades. He has won numerous awards for his music including 2013 Canadian Folk Music Awards for Contemporary Singer of the Year and 2011 International Acoustic Music Awards for Best Male Artist. In 2017, he won the Robert Merritt Award, which celebrates Nova Scotia’s theatre industry, for Outstanding Original Score for Tompkinsville. Yet, with all his awards and nominations, the award that stands out in his mind as being the most important is an award he got from his daughter’s piano teacher for being a good parent that teaches his kid music.

“Awards are a funny thing. It’s really nice to be acknowledged by your peers, but it is also something that can be hurtful too if you put a lot of weight behind them, and you don’t get recognized and you feel like you should, so it’s really helpful to not think of awards in anything other than passingly (as) it’s nice to be nominated.”

For his live show, Sherwood said he wants it to feel intimate which is why he shares stories during his set.

“I think people will come expecting a great time and then leave with having a better time than they thought they were going to have. That’s what I always strive for when I go out and do a show. The audience is so precious to me. I love performing and I love giving the audience a good show…I have a lot of respect for people who go to live music these days.”

To see Sherwood live, tickets are $34 for adults and $17 for students and are on sale at the Steinbach Arts Council’s website. Sherwood plays at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 9 at Steinbach Regional Secondary School Theatre.