The life of Jory Kinjo, Calgarian vocalist and bass master, is, as usual, decidedly not dull.
“Sometimes I wish I could be bored,” he laughs. “There are a lot of facets to what I have going on. I have a lot of interests and passion for different kinds of music so I’m trying to explore every road I can.”
The busy musician is going strong with three major musical projects, with a couple more on the side.
“It’s a big undertaking but it’s what I need to do to stay busy, scratch all of those itches,” he says.
His most active projects of the moment are his singer-songwriter duo Kinjo & Young, ska/reggae group Jory Kinjo & The Relays, and R&B/funk group Mocking Shadows.
His musical career launched somewhat unexpectedly, when he was a 19-year-old University of Calgary jazz student.
“I kind of got poached to join Mocking Shadows,” he says. A fellow student, Gareth Hughes, was a member of the band and recruited Kinjo when they were short a bass player.
The group performed non-stop, taking only one weekend off per year.
“It was full-on for almost 10 years so that’s really where I got all my experience,” Kinjo says. “These are things you can’t learn in school, on-stage and off-stage as well. Life experience!”
In 2007 the Planet Smashers, a Montreal-based third-wave ska band, were asked to open for a major Bad Religion tour. They were short several members, who were on hiatus for various reasons.
“They were offered this big tour and they found themselves not having a band ready to go,” says Kinjo. “They basically got most of the members of Mocking Shadows to come moonlight as the Planet Smashers for the tour.”
It kicked off an intense interest in ska and reggae for Kinjo, which led to the creation of Jory Kinjo and The Relays.
“I didn’t know much about this kind of music before that and I fell in love with it,” he says.
Kinjo, whose father is from Okinawa, Japan, has also toured extensively in Japan with his brothers.
“Music wasn’t encouraged by my grandfather. My dad wasn’t allowed to play guitar growing up,” Kinjo says. “He used to hide to do it. So when he had his own family he encouraged us to play.”
“Music was always a big part of my life and it wasn’t necessarily my intention for it to be full-time but it just kind of turned into that. And of course I love it.”
Jory Kinjo is performing around the province with his various groups this summer, starting with Mocking Shadows playing Blues on Whyte in Edmonton on June 29. Check out his website for details.
A collection of covers by Jory Kinjo and Aaron Young, AKA Kinjo & Young:
