Joshua Cockerill
Discovering what makes us human
by Cait Lepla
For an artist to emerge with a band named Animal Parts, some of the first images that it would conjure for some are of animalistic instincts and possibly even dissection (especially given the album cover features a knife). Two years after making his first album, The Trick With Your Heart I'm Learning To Do, Joshua Cockerill has come back out of the woodwork to tour this latest project. As it turns out, knives really have been used in the making of his music.
He explains that, "Like my first album, [this one] is very much an album of love and loss," and this shift can be heard primarily where it digs more into the rock and roll side of roots music than his previous work, a representation he interprets as a shedding of previous notions on what he thought "country" should sound like. It was in this process, however, that Cockerill began to explore the deepest characteristics of what it might essentially mean to be human. A month after recording the first tracks of Animal Parts, Cockerill and his girlfriend were unable to cross the American border and decided instead to spend the month of February in a cabin with no electricity or running water. Reflecting on that life-altering time, he describes it as being, "like a chess against yourself. Like trying to talk about what it is to be human, why we do the things we do. We're such complex things." During his adventurous time there, Cockerill wrote enough music for another full album.
Currently based out of Toronto, he is joined on this tour with a full pack of bandmates, including guest vocalist Daniela Gesundheit, backing guitarist Matt Bailey, bassist Devon Henderson, drummer Rich Knox, and multi instrumentalist Aaron Comeay on Keyboard, wurlitzer, mellotron and synth.
At the age of 24 and having lived in Calgary for 15, any show Cockerill plays here seems like a homecoming, and you'll definitely want to see what keeps everyone returning so loyally for more at the Ironwood Sept 21st.
Discovering what makes us human
by Cait Lepla
For an artist to emerge with a band named Animal Parts, some of the first images that it would conjure for some are of animalistic instincts and possibly even dissection (especially given the album cover features a knife). Two years after making his first album, The Trick With Your Heart I'm Learning To Do, Joshua Cockerill has come back out of the woodwork to tour this latest project. As it turns out, knives really have been used in the making of his music.
He explains that, "Like my first album, [this one] is very much an album of love and loss," and this shift can be heard primarily where it digs more into the rock and roll side of roots music than his previous work, a representation he interprets as a shedding of previous notions on what he thought "country" should sound like. It was in this process, however, that Cockerill began to explore the deepest characteristics of what it might essentially mean to be human. A month after recording the first tracks of Animal Parts, Cockerill and his girlfriend were unable to cross the American border and decided instead to spend the month of February in a cabin with no electricity or running water. Reflecting on that life-altering time, he describes it as being, "like a chess against yourself. Like trying to talk about what it is to be human, why we do the things we do. We're such complex things." During his adventurous time there, Cockerill wrote enough music for another full album.
Currently based out of Toronto, he is joined on this tour with a full pack of bandmates, including guest vocalist Daniela Gesundheit, backing guitarist Matt Bailey, bassist Devon Henderson, drummer Rich Knox, and multi instrumentalist Aaron Comeay on Keyboard, wurlitzer, mellotron and synth.
At the age of 24 and having lived in Calgary for 15, any show Cockerill plays here seems like a homecoming, and you'll definitely want to see what keeps everyone returning so loyally for more at the Ironwood Sept 21st.