The JOHNNYS

Artist Information

Biography

High-energy rockers The Johnnys are a no-holds-barred rock'n'roll party.

Fronted by the charismatic presence of six-foot, leather-clad Veronica Johnny (vocals/rhythm guitar) and fueled by the frantic drumming of her husband Dave Johnny, The Johnnys' sound is an eclectic mix of punk, garage, '70s hard rock and '50s rock'n'roll.

Lead guitarist Tim Bones and Oriana Barbato (bass) round out The Johnnys onstage line up.

The Johnnys' second album,"Louder Faster More Fun" was released at Yonge & Dundas Square in Toronto on June 1st, 2010. The Johnnys have been nominated for Best Duo or Group at the 2010 Aboriginal People's Choice Music Awards.

The Johnnys' first album, 2007's "I Like It A Lot," was a three-time nominee at the 2008 Aboriginal Peoples Choice Awards, and was nominated at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards the same year.

Instrumentation

Veronica Johnny - Lead vocals and rhythm guitar
David Johnny - Drums/Backing Vocals
Oriana Barbato - Bass and backing vocals
Tim Bones - Lead Guitar/Backing Vocals

Discography

"Louder Faster More Fun - The JOHNNYS" - 2010

Sled Island Festival Online Compilation CD - 2010

"I Like it a Lot - The JOHNNYS" - 2007

"I Like it a Lot" single is included on Spirit Magazine's Compilation CD, "Warrior Songs"- 2007

Radio Play:
ThinkNDN - Vancouver, BC
CBC Radio One - National
What Wave - London, ON
Banana Peel Radio - Vancouver, BC
Renegade Radio, CKLN - Toronto, ON
Hand of Grandfather Radio - Colorado, USA
Aboriginal Voices Radio - Toronto, ON
CKLB Radio - Yellowknife, NWT
CJCD Radio - Yellowknife, NWT
CKUA (U of A) Radio - Edmonton, AB

Links

• MySpace
• Facebook
• The Johnnys on Rez Tunes
• The JOHNNYS on Arbor Live!
• The Johnnys on Larger Than Life
• Playing Daytime Dancer on Rez Tunes
• I'm Hot - Larger Than Life

Audio

• Bedbug Banquet
  Listen  
• Louder Faster More Fun
  Listen  
• Dona Juana
  Listen  
• Bump in the Night
  Listen  
• Art of Starvin'
  Listen  
• It's Better in the Bush
  Listen  

Lyrics

• Bedbug Banquet
• Louder Faster More Fun
• Dona Juana
• Bump in the Night
• Art of Starvin'
• It's Better in the Bush

Video

I Like It A Lot - The JOHNNYS

Johnnys@DundasSquare

Photo Gallery

Press

• The Johnnys at Sled Island Festival 2010 [+ Show ]
  

  Real, rebellious, swaggering rock and roll. Makes you want to fuck or fight. Or fuck, fight, and the...Real, rebellious, swaggering rock and roll. Makes you want to fuck or fight. Or fuck, fight, and then fuck again. (LM)

• The Johnnys rock their way to music award nominations [+ Show ]
  

  When the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards are televised tonight from Winnipeg, East York-area ...When the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards are televised tonight from Winnipeg, East York-area delegates The Johnnys will be there.
  The rock group, led by husband and wife duo Veronica and Dave Johnny, were nominated for Best Duo or Group, Best New Artist and Best Rock CD for their debut studio album, “I Like It A Lot.” The CD was released in 2007, and its popularity among friends and fans led to their nominations on the long and short lists for awards.
  As grateful as she is for their nominations, singer Veronica Johnny emphasized what good company The Johnnys are in.
  “(If we win) for Best Rock CD, I’ll be amazed,” she said. “My jaw will be on the floor because we’re up against such big names.”
  The show is being carried live tonight, Nov. 7, on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and on Bell Express Vu.
  Drummer Dave Johnny was just as thrilled to be nominated, but stressed the importance of how the awards are chosen.
  “It’s exciting to be part of a national event,” he said. “The Peoples Choice is entirely driven by the voting public, so we felt pretty thankful and grateful that friends and family and people took the time to support us and vote for us. That’s pretty special.”
  Dave and Veronica first started the band in 2003 when the two lived in the Northwest Territories. Dave explained that music was a good way for them to amuse themselves, but that they didn’t start taking it seriously until they moved to Toronto a couple years ago.
  The two seem born to make music, but their roots lie in very different musical worlds. Dave grew up on KISS and AC/DC, while Veronica began her career in traditional folk music.
  But shortly after they met, Veronica discovered the rasping rock’n’roller insider her and there was no turning back.
  “I wanted to shout,” she said. “I was singing all this soft, flowery music and I really just wanted to shout it out.”
  Dave had a more auspicious rock genesis than his bride.
  “(Music) has been a big part of my life since I was a little kid,” he said. I was listening to songs when I was too young to understand what the references to booze and women were all about.”
  His demands to his parents for a drum set were met with organ lessons and a trumpet.
  But eventually he got his first drums – from someone’s curbside trash.
  
  The Johnnys rock their way to music award nominations - By Drew Brenner (East Toronto Observer, Nov. 7/08)
  
  

• The Johnnys make Award short list [+ Show ]
  

  Fort Smith’s own high-energy rock’n’roll band The Johnnys have made the final round of voting for th...Fort Smith’s own high-energy rock’n’roll band The Johnnys have made the final round of voting for the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards, and are calling on their fans to vote online before Oct. 17.
  The Johnnys are up for three awards: Best Duo or Group, Best New Artist, and Best Rock CD, for their 2007 debut album I Like It A Lot. The Johnnys will also be performing at the Awards Show, Nov. 7 in Winnipeg, which will be broadcast live across the country on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) and Bell Vue Express.
  The Aboriginal Peoples Choice Awards means a lot to The Johnnys, said Dave Johnny, drummer and backup vocalist, because the awards are entirely driven by the voting public.
  “We’re in the running for these awards because friends, family and people who like our music have supported us,” he said, “and we’re very grateful for that.”
  He added that on a professional level, winning awards like these are an opportunity to open doors. “We’ve observed others in the industry win awards and go on to play bigger venues, with increased visibility.”
  “For the last two years, we’ve not-so-quietly been transforming what was a sub-arctic garage band into a nationally recognized rock ’n’ roll act,” Johnny said. “I’m not saying we’re there yet; it is part of stitching together pockets of enthusiasm we have across Canada and the US and building on that.”
  Voting can be done at www.aboriginalpeopleschoice.com– anyone can vote. Since this is the final round of voting, if you voted in the first round you can vote again.
  Dave and Veronica Johnny are based in Toronto for practical reasons, but have not forgotten their roots in Fort Smith. The band spent this summer recording demos in Fort Smith for their upcoming second album, Louder, Faster, More Fun that will be released in the spring of 2009.
  “Last month someone from Fort Smith showed up at one of our Toronto shows,” Dave said, “and reminded us how, a few years back, he and his friends would hang around the end of our driveway in Fort Smith on Fridays, listening to us rehearse. No hassles, no noise complaints. Then we moved south and the neighbours called the cops every time we practiced. I wrote the song “I Like It A Lot” about the driveway kids vs. the uptight yuppie neighbours.”
  The Johnnys will be back in the North to play Yellowknife’s NACC in January 2009.
  
  By SHAWN BELL, SRJ Reporter 15.OCT.08
  
  

• CD Review: The JOHNNYS - [+ Show ]
  

  It’s a very well known fact that rock music in general has always had an anti-authoritarian, anti-es...It’s a very well known fact that rock music in general has always had an anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, DIY sociopolitical stance, philosophically and lyrically, and it would seem the perfect fit for a musical artist from the Native community.
  
  Raging hard out of the Great White North, The JOHNNYS come at us like a runaway freight train with a sound that has been likened to Joan Jett meets The Donnas, or something between Wednesday 13 with a taste of feminine L.A. Gunns. For some reason, I am reminded of the premier punk husband and wife team from X; John Doe and Exene Cervenka. Arguably the best to have come from that movement.
  The JOHNNYS CD title track, "I Like It A Lot," comes on with fast, hard drumming, chunky power chords  and raw, sexual nihilism in the lyrics that is characteristically reminiscent of classic punk.
  
  "I’m Hot (I Get What I Want)" oozes punk attitude all over your CD player, and it’s the raw, sexual nihilism of the sound that is cool. Driving like a freight train straight to your dancing bones there is excellent guitar work in the break to a nice cut and vocal refrain. This is very cool and professional.
  "Kon Tiki" is a reference to the ocean-crossing voyage of Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer on a raft made in the New World across the Pacific to the Philippines. The lyric should make the political stance a little bit clearer, but this is an intelligent approach to the craft and shows that The JOHNNYS are thinking about what they’re saying.
  
  The song "Two Steps Forward" is very stark, very spare with a lighter sentiment, but it still rocks hard. These people have studied and they understand the nuances and textures of the genre. This piece has excellent female vocals in the tone of the genre.
  
  "Who’s Your Mama" has an R-and-B inspired intro riff that leads to the feminist rallying cry of the new millennium done with plenty of attitude. This song rocks like a runaway freight train.
  
  Veronica Johnny took part in the Aboriginal Music Lab at Vancouver Community College this summer (2007), where she said she was able to connect with other Aboriginal songwriters and try out something new. "I wrote my first traditional Aboriginal song while I was there...It was a dream come true for me."
  
  This is such an incredible thing about Native American talent. You see we get to do these things. Here is a woman who can rock the house down, then walk down to the lake and sing a prayer song to the Creator for sharing all this beauty with us. "I believe that whatever it is you want to do in life, you should just do it," she said. "Don’t listen to what anybody says, just do it."
  
  So, OK, Nike you better move MJ aside, he’s gonna get run over by VJ and The JOHNNYS.
  
  
  CD Review: The JOHNNYS - "I Like It A Lot" by Jamison Mahto, Reporter for Indigenous in the News
  
  Indigenous In Music CD Review - www.iicoc.com
  

• Smith native lives her dream with the Johnnys [+ Show ]
  

  Veronica Johnny was walking down the road one day in her hometown of Fort Smith when she spotted a m...Veronica Johnny was walking down the road one day in her hometown of Fort Smith when she spotted a man she'd never seen before.
  She knew immediately that it was Dave Johnny, a new drummer in town that her friend Richard had been telling her about.
  She called out.
  "You must be Veronica," he said, having also heard about her from their mutual friend.
  
  It didn't take long before the two started a cover band with some other local musicians called the Whisky Dicks. Though the two got on well, they were both involved in other romantic relationships.
  Then it came time for them to play at the Open Sky Festival in Fort Simpson.
  "Interestingly enough and weirdly enough, I had broken up with my (significant other) two days before we left for this festival and so had Dave," she recalls.
  On the way to the gig, the other band members were asleep in the back of the truck, and the two had some time to get to know each other.
  By the end of the trip, they had hooked up.
  They kept playing together with the Whisky Dicks until their vision grew into something else.
  "One day in Smith he said, 'You know what? I'm not going to play with anyone who plays covers from this point forward. If you want me to drum for you, it has to be an original song,'" she said.
  With the few original songs they had already written, they started their current project, The Johnnys. After only two months into the relationship, they decided to get married.
  
  After a few years of jamming in their living room on St. Anne's Street (or Sesame Street as she calls it) the couple decided to move to Ontario, where her husband is from.
  "We were gigging and trying to gig in the North, and we just found it really hard to get out-of-town gigs and to get any kind of exposure at all or experience," she said.
  
  Since moving to Toronto, Johnny has been musically involved with many people, but her main focus is ultimately the music of The Johnnys. She said that band alone has had numerous members, with she and her husband at the core, but that lately things seem a little more solid.
  "I'm really used to the city and the people and the movements and the craziness that is Toronto ... I'm quite comfortable here now and we've gotten to know a lot of musicians," she said.
  "The hardest thing is the money. It's the getting your name out there, getting the publicity and the marketing and just the high quality products now," she said.
  Countless unpaid gigs have been played in the city but with the friends they've made, The Johnnys have managed to put out an album of original tunes called "I Like It A Lot," which was produced and engineered by Dave and Veronica, respectively.
  
  She said The Johnnys are at a point now where things are starting to get bigger. She was even featured on the cover of the music edition of Spirit Magazine.
  "We feel like we're at a pro level now and now we're actively looking for management and booking agents and we'd definitely love to hear from record labels," she said.
  So what's it like being in a band with her husband?
  "Some couples go golfing. We rock out," she said. "And we're so lucky we get to do that as a married couple."
  
  The Johnnys aside, the Fort Smith native is disinclined to forget her roots. She makes trips home whenever possible, especially at Christmas, and brings her music with her.
  
  She also took part in the Vancouver for Aboriginal Music Lab at Vancouver Community College this summer, where she said she was able to connect with other aboriginal songwriters and try out something new.
  "I wrote my first traditional aboriginal song while I was there ... It was a dream come true for me - I've been always wanting to do that," she said. "I never felt like I was good enough to write a traditional song and just the people that I met and the connections that we made really just gave me the strength to do it."
  Johnny said she'd like to get into Cree music on a bigger scale. Something else she'd like to get into, she said, is to become a positive role model for young aboriginal women.
  
  "I believe that whatever it is that you want to do in life, you should just do it," she said. "Don't listen to what anybody says, just do it."
  
  
  Smith native lives her dream with the Johnnys - by Laura Power,
  Northern News Services
  Published Monday, September 10, 2007

• Rock with attitude [+ Show ]
  

  It’s like pouring gas on a flame; spontaneous rock’n’roll combustion that’s gritty, fast and fun. Th...It’s like pouring gas on a flame; spontaneous rock’n’roll combustion that’s gritty, fast and fun. These rapid-fire, three-minute anthems by a new band on the scene will make you wanna shake it all over. The Johnnys, originally from the Northwest Territories, feature singer/guitarist Veronica Johnny.
  
  She met drummer Dave Johnny, the two got together, played in a band, and as fast as one of their tunes, they were hitched – in head-to-toe black leather, of course. It’s up-tempo rock with roots in old-school rock’n’roll and classic punk sensibility. Their uninhibited, full-throttle music invites you to forget your worries and let the good times roll.
  
  Now based in Toronto, Veronica and Dave are accompanied onstage by a bassist and lead guitar. Their first full-length album is slated for release in this fall on independent Aboriginal label Slave River Records.
  
  Who are you influences?
  Joan Jett/The Runaways, Little Richard, Spinal Tap
  
  Favourite part about making music?
  For a lot of married couples, splicing up time can be a chore. Hubby’s doing his thing, the wife’s doing hers, or worse, they both pretend to like golf to have some quality time together. Being in a rock’n’roll group is the best line of work I can think of, and Dave and I get to do it together. As for live shows, I love seeing people cut loose, leave their troubles behind and just have fun dancing.
  
  www.myspace.com/thejohnnysrock
  
  Spirit Magazine - 2006 Arts issue
  www.spiritmag.ca

• YOU WANNA ROCK?! [+ Show ]
  

  “YOU WANNA ROCK?! Well if you did, you should have been there when Veronica Johnny, through sheer f...“YOU WANNA ROCK?! Well if you did, you should have been there when Veronica Johnny, through sheer force of will, brought everyone in the place to a crescendo of revelry as only she can.”
  
  Don Jaque, Slave River Journal
  Februrary 2004
  

• Live Show Review [+ Show ]
  

  “The Johnnys have been together for only a year, but their sound in live shows display the professio...“The Johnnys have been together for only a year, but their sound in live shows display the professionalism and energy of a group that’s been around for much longer.”
  
  Susan White, Slave River Journal
  2004
  

Setlist

I Like it A Lot
Music Lover Man
Piece of Your Action
Helicopter
Rockin' with the Dead
Two Steps Forward
Shake it & Shout
Kon Tiki
I'm Hot
Blood Money
Who's Your Mama
1000 Eyes
C'mon Baby Move
Dona Juana
Rubber Room
Art of Starving
Bump in the Night
Louder, Faster, More Fun
Daytime Dancer
Bedbug Banquet
Better in the Bush
Burn Baby Burn

45mins - 1hour.
All original songs by The JOHNNYS.

Basic Requirements

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