Making music has always held a fascination for Colby Ramsay, better known as the performer My Boy Rascal.
"I started playing the piano when I was five," said Ramsay who will perform at 5th Avenue Cup & Saucer in Yorkton Monday evening. "I remember being completely fascinated by the instrument, it was almost like a game to me. I loved exploring and making up little tunes.
"I took piano lessons for many years, studying classical music. This musical foundation helped me tremendously when I picked up the guitar in high school and taught myself to play.
"I began writing a lot more once I learned how to play the guitar, and it is still my main songwriting tool today, although I would say that the piano is my main tool for developing up with musical ideas."
When it comes to musical ideas, Ramsay, who spent his formative years in Naramata, a tiny town nestled on the shore of Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, said he has numerous influences.
"Early on I listened to a lot of artists like Jack Johnson; he was a big influence when I was first learning to play the guitar," he said. "Damien Rice and Iron & Wine have also been influential in how my guitar finger-picking style has developed.
"But although I'm creating music in the folk-pop singer-songwriter genre, my musical influences are very diverse. I try to make an effort to listen to many different styles, and I think this comes through in the variety of my own music."
Ramsay's own music has taken him to the studio to record as My Boy Rascal.
"'The Study of Animal Magicality' is a collection of songs that I culled from a long list of songs that I had written over the years," he said. "Some songs were written only weeks before recording them, while others were written years earlier."
Ramsay went international to lay down the tracks for the disk.
"I recorded the album with producer and musician Andrew Hamlet, in the basement of the music building at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill," he said. "We spent many hours spread over a period of about four months down there working on the tracks.
"It was a great recording process, we started by laying down the base tracks ourselves -- acoustic guitar, piano, electric guitar -- and then brought in other musicians as we went along - drums, bass, string quartet, choir).
"I've always preferred recording to playing live, so those four months were pure enjoyment for me."
The four months was time well spent.
"I am very happy with the finished product; it turned out better than I could have imagined," said Ramsay. "My earlier efforts pale in comparison to this album, mainly because over the course of the recording process, I was really able to find my true voice."
Ramsay said it's now time to hone his live show in support of the CD.
"In the next six months I plan on touring and playing live as much as possible to really develop my live show and take it to the next level," he said. "I'm currently on a tour of Western Canada with Folk Thief (also in Yorkton Monday), another singer-songwriter from Vancouver.
"I also have a lot of new material to complete and I'm really excited about working on that."
Having recently relocated to Vancouver Ramsay said he has been playing at various cafés and music houses around the city, and recently completed a tour of the BC interior with Folk Thief.
"A highlight for me was playing with Folk Thief a couple weeks ago at the Railway Club, opening for Juno Award winner Jenny Whiteley," he said.
