Who The Funk is "Mr. Kane" Churko?

“American Capitalist” the new album by Five Finger Death Punch is out today!  I had the great honor of co-writing the track “Remember Everything” with the band which is currently #10 on the iTunes rock single charts as we speak.  I honestly couldn’t be more thrilled!

In addition the deluxe edition also features 4 remixes (Under and Over It, The Pride, Remember Everything, 100 Ways to Hate) that I did with my dad under the alias “Mr.Kane & The Wolfe” that I feel represent some of my best production work to date.

I got to spend an awesome 4-5 months with these guys engineering on the rest of the album which my dad produced/cowrote/mixed at our studio The Hideout.  Pick up your copy today and check it out!

-Kane

The 2010 Juno Awards for us and most others was a unique networking opportunity unlike any other.  Most attendees, including my father Kevin Churko and I were unable to land in St.Johns Newfoundland when we wanted as flights were diverted back to their connecting destinations due to heavy fog.  Apparently you can’t land if you can’t see the ground over there.

Despite already traveling for nearly two days we were diverted back to Halifax where we spent an unexpected day thanks to Westjet *cough* .  Since there was nothing any of the passengers could do but wait we all took the opportunity to befriend each other and party the best we could in Halifax.  

I met an extremely talented artist/producer by the name of Chin Injeti from a well known Canadian band Bass Is Base that I grew up listening to.  He toured with Jamiroquai back in the day which is like my dream so naturally we had a lot in common musically. 

I also met the very talented Ron Lopata who is a longtime member of the band JackSOUL and was traveling with the wife of JackSoul founder the late Haydain Neale who passed suddenly last year of cancer.  We all shared some drinks together doing what we could to kill time until we had an update about our flight status.  

Everybody was in good spirits considering the stress of wondering if we came all this way to not even make it to the Junos.  Thankfully, news came in that our flight was rescheduled just in time for us to go straight from the St.John’s airport to the industry only Juno gala where most awards are presented. 

Unfortunately we lost out in the Producer Of The Year category to Bob Rock, but it didn’t dampen our spirits one bit.  It was an unexpected surprise to even be nominated for Modern Science - an album that we self-produced with no record label and no management.   I mean heck, we were up against Bob Rock and David Foster who have individually been nominated over 20 times!  Thus, it was a thrill and an honor just to be recognized in the same category alongside such legends.  We were most thrilled to find out our new friends from JackSOUL that were stuck in Halifax with us won their award for R&B Album of the year and gave a very moving speech about Haydain Neale.  Nobody deserved to win more that night and if you readHaydain’s Wikipedia entry you’ll understand why.

After that we met up with John-Angus MacDonald from The Trews at an Irish pub and kicked off the night with more local brews determined to give the hard drinking locals a run for their money.  Shortly thereafter we headed to the Gibson party and checked out the star studded jam session that was going on there.  The vibe seemed good, the drinks were free and there were plenty of our friends around so we hung there and celebrated with them for the rest of the evening.  Met up with our good friend John Beetle Bailey and his lovely wife and also hung with the President of Warner Canada Steve Blair for a little bit before heading home for the night.  

The next day we slept in for the first time in a week and then did a brief tour of the city.  Took some great pictures up on Signal Hill and learned a lot about the history of what I didn’t realize is north america’s oldest city.  Did you know the Canadians actually captured a German UBoat in WWII that made its way into the harbor?  They even have their original periscope in an old bar there.  Pretty sweet.

After eating some local fish and chips and taking in some good ‘ol Canadian poutine with our engineer/producer friends we got in a short school bus that John Bailey had arranged and headed to the Junos main event.  Yes, we rode the short bus all the way to the red carpet and I suppose could now be considered official members of the slow school of rock.   We all decided on the way there that we might just try and rent a short bus every year for the Junos as it was certainly one of the highlights of the trip! lol

We arrived on the red carpet about the same time as Dallas Green (who who also on our flight there) and the rest of his band in Alexisonfire.  While I’m not much of an Alexisonfire fan I definitely appreciate his work with City And Colour so that was cool.  However, everybody was completely dwarfed whenMichael Bublé showed up right behind us. Man does that dude knows how to captivate a crowd and engage with an audience!  I dare you to find someone more charismatic and endearing than him!  

After signing a couple autographs and taking a couple pictures we headed to the backstage area where we had more drinks and did more networking.  When finally taking our seats in the arena I realized we were only 5 or 6 rows behind Bublé and his legendary manager the great Bruce Allen (Bryan Adams, Bublé, Bob Rock and Bacman Turner Overdrive amongst others).  

The funny thing is that I actually came to the Junos with two goals in mind - to meet Bruce Allen and Terry McBride (founder of Nettwerk Music Group).  Thus, when I saw Bruce Allen get up halfway through the event I immediately followed him to where I assumed was probably going to be the bathroom.  Turned out he was making calls most likely trying to get Bublé out on a private jet before the rumored volcano ash headed our way.  I lurked in the shadows with a Modern Science download card until he finished his call before I tapped on the shoulder and introduced myself.  Apparently he remembered my guitar player uncle Cory Churko who plays for Kelly Clarkson and Shania Twain.  I gave him our FreeModernScience.com download card and he put in his pocket so you could say my chance encounter was a success!  Score!!! lol

Anyways, we enjoyed the rest of the event.  Michael Bublé, Justin Bieber, Drake, Metric, K’naan, Classified and Blue Rodeo were all very impressive.  I had no idea they were all Canadian!  Our friend we met earlier Chin Injeti joined them all on stage for the finally song Wavin A Flag.  The entire arena joined in as well!  Very cool!

After the event was over we walked down to the main street were all the action was.  We attended the Warner party and met two members from the cast of The Trailer Park Boys!  They were very cool and my dad and I ended up talking with the director/producer of the show Ron Murphy for a good hour about some very fascinating supernatural topics.  So random, but also one of the highlights of the trip!

We eventually went over to the EMI party and had a good chat with head of A&R Frasier Hill before going over to the Universal party where we connected with Jodie Ferneyhough from Universal Publishing Canada.  There we ran into almost everybody we met on our entire trip so it was a nice little finale to be able to see everyone once more.  We spent the rest of our evening there and ended up talking with Hedley’s manager Darren Gilmore from Watchdog Management for a good hour at least and traded some good music business stories and experiences.  We finally headed back to the hotel at about 3am and went to sleep!  However, it turned out our morning flight was delayed an extra 12 hours due to the volcanic ash that blew over from Europe.  Not the luckiest of travelers I guess, but at least we got to catch up on sleep!

We eventually made our rescheduled flight and while standing in line at Tim Horton’s at the airport I started chatting with the wife of somebody who works for Terry McBride at Nettwerk.  Turns out Terry McBride couldn’t make the Junos this year so I accomplished my second goal by doing the next best thing and giving her our download card to pass on to her husband.  What luck!  Fate???

Anyways - I’m writing most of this from the airport while it’s all somewhat fresh in my mind.  I apologize if there’s anybody I forgot to mention - know that I enjoyed meeting all of you up there in Newfoundland and I look forward to attending the Junos next year in Toronto and seeing everybody again.

Stay funky,

Kane

p.s.

Video from the trip coming soon! Stay tuned to KaneChurko.com for more!