Hometown artist creates a buzz
The Hamilton Spectator
February 09, 2006

Tomi Swick's A Night Like This is currently the most added tune in Canadian adult contemporary radio. He now has about 30 songs of his own ready to go.

A new Valentine's compilation disc is making the rounds at your record store. It's called From The Heart and features the Warner label's usual collection of platinum pretty boys.

You know the names-- Rob Thomas, Michael Buble, James Blunt, Tomi Swick, Daniel Powter, Josh Groban.

Wait a minute. Who the hell is Tomi Swick and
what's he doing sandwiched between Blunt and Powter? These questions deserve answers, especially since Warner Music has stuffed a bonus CD into From the Heart made up of three Swick songs.

The liner notes give this Swick guy a full page.
"Introducing ... tomi swick," the notes say in big red letters, fading to finer black. "This native of Hamilton ...brings with him a breathtaking soulful voice and that intangible ability to write enduring and remarkable melodies. Tomi's talent as both a songwriter and performer is extraordinary and his story has just begun."

Wow. Warner's really got a thing for this guy. All this gush and he hasn't even released a full album yet.And where's he from? Hamilton? Yup.

Swick, 25, grew up in those big apartment blocks on Mohawk, a little area of the West Mountain where all the streets are named after songbirds. The locals call it "birdland." He's been working on becoming a rock star ever since he blew his knee out playing football in Grade 12 with the Cathedral Gaels.

And how good is he? Well, let's put it this
way. A Night Like This -- Swick's contribution to From the Heart -- leaves the previous tracks by Rob Thomas, Michael Buble and James Blunt sucking dust. Sure, there's some
hometown boostering going on here. But the quality of Swick's songwriting and voice stands out from those other million-selling hacks.
It's so good that by the time Track 5 starts
playing (Daniel Powter's Bad Day), you're almost certain to push that little "skip back" button on your CD player to repeat A Night Like This.

If you listen to soft rock radio like K-LITE FM,
you may know what I'm talking about. A Night Like This is currently the most added song in Canadian AC (adult contemporary) radio. It's getting a lot of play.

So how the hell did he get a name like Tomi Swick? Swick is a Dutch name taken from his
mother's first husband. His mother, a hard-working Scottish immigrant, named her son Thomas Russell Finlay Swick. But she always called him Tomi.

"From the first time I could write, my mum taught me Tomi, T-O-M-I," Swick explains. "If you said it with a Scottish accent, you'd get it. Toh-me. People ask me, 'When did you change your name?' But I didn't. It's always been Tomi."

We're having lunch at a Locke Street eatery. Swick is getting over a cold and a late night show in Guelph. He's not touching the fries because he's watching his weight. He's a big man, 6-foot-3, with a boyish smile.

As a child, he sang in the Centenary Church choir, played bagpipes, and learned a few drum rolls in naval cadets. By Grade 8, there was this whole new wave of music happening -- Pearl Jam and Nirvana. His mom gave him an electric for graduation. He played it to pieces.

But with his big frame, Swick excelled at football, soccer, volleyball and basketball. The football injury, however, scared him back
into music by Grade 13. He landed a part in
Jesus Christ Superstar at the Tivoli, met a guitarist and joined the bands Nimbus and Red Echo.

They played alternative rock, but Swick's heart wasn't into it. He'd come home after gigs and listen to his older sister's James Taylor records, Paul Simon and The Beatles. It
wasn't cool, but it felt right. He started writing songs and playing under his own name in Hamilton and Toronto clubs. A buzz started about this kid who could write like Ron Sexsmith and rock out like Matt Mays or a young Tom Cochrane.

Last year, a Warner rep caught his show and offered to finance a demo recording. Swick went into a studio with Joe Lopana of jacksoul and recorded eight demo tracks, including A Night Like Tonight. The label bigwigs heard them and signed Swick to a full contract, with a complete album expected later this year.

Such a signing is rare these days for big record labels. Most are paring back rosters, not expanding them.

Swick now has about 30 songs of his own ready to go, plus some formidable covers of classics like McCartney's Let Me Roll It. He has a four-piece Hamilton band and they've been playing below-the-radar shows in area clubs, like the Absinthe, trying to get their live show down pat.

His only problem is trying to mesh the two sides of Tomi Swick. He can croon a ballad as well as anyone, but he can also rock. His voice can soar like Bono.

"We're trying to figure out what set to play," Swick says. "I can play all night, but there's an identity crisis with me ... because I love this McCartney ballady pop melodic stuff, but I like dirty nasty weird stuff as well.

"I like The Who."