Nothing Slick About Swick
Canadian Rocker Keeps It Honest
By David Schmeichel
The Winnipeg Sun

He's got a new record in stores, and the support of a major label behind him, but at this stage in his career, singer-songwriter Tomi Swick is happy to savour the little things.

Like musical idol Paul Simon, an encounter made possible by the same label that's touting him as the next big thing, at least where unassuming singer-songwriters are concerned.

"That's something I never would have been able to do last year," says the 26-year-old Hamilton resident, who just released his debut disc, Stalled Out in the Doorway. "To be friendly introduced as someone on the same label as him was just incredible."

Swick has been having a pretty incredible time of things recently, starting with a meeting with Warner Music brass last year that led to an impromptu acoustic performance for the entire staff. Warner was so impressed with what they heard, Swick was eventually offered a record contract, and last February, his song A Night Like This was the first single from the compilation album From the Heart.

These days, he's been making the rounds as a warmup act for acts like Stabilo and Goo Goo Dolls, for whom he'll open at the Burton Cummings Theatre tomorrow.

"The hardest part about it is dealing with the fact not a lot of people know you," he says of the warmup circuit. "My job every night is to win people over ... it's a battle every night, because I'm the new guy, as far as they're concerned."

Rather than change his set list or performance style to match the band he's opening for, Swick prefers to let his music do the talking.

"If you keep changing everything, then people are buying into something that's not really you," he explains.

Besides, Swick -- who played the bagpipes as a teen -- isn't interested in some flash-in-the-pan success story. He'd rather have a career with legs.

"If you throw a stone straight up in the air, it's going to come straight down, but if you throw it at an angle, it's going to have a wider base," he says. "Me and my band, we're not a gimmick band. I'm not a pretty boy, or a Canadian Idol winner, I'm just a big, chubby, pink guy with a guitar ... The word honesty gets thrown around and it's kind of cliched by now, but that's how I feel about myself."