BC musician ready for Iqaluit, despite family tragedy

Vancouver performer JP Maurice is looking forward to seeing family and playing some new music at a concert in Iqaluit at 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 8. Iqaluit’s The Trade-offs, which includes Maurice’s cousin Jeff Maurice, will open the show. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

It’s about four in the afternoon when west coast musician and producer Jean-Paul “JP” Maurice answers his phone.

A short pause, followed by a sigh, can be heard on the phone before he soldiers on.

“How are you doing?” he asks in a perfectly friendly manner — he betrays very little of what could be fatigue.

But he sounds tired. That’s understandable.

Only a few days have passed since Maurice’s mother lost her battle with cancer.

And tomorrow the musician begins his trek from British Columbia to Nunavut for a one-off concert in Iqaluit Jan. 8.

“Right now, for me, I need to stay busy and keep working and that’s what she would have wanted me to do and it helps me get my mind off it,” he said.

“Sitting around feeling emotional isn’t going to do anything.”

A few minutes of conversation is all it takes to notice the incredible well of resiliency from which the former rock-frontman-turned-solo-artist draws.

It’s a resource he’s used to define his career.

His first band, dubbed “Maurice,” was signed to Warner Brothers in the United States and eventually recorded an album under the label.

But that album was shelved for over a year and the group eventually disbanded.

Since that time, JP Maurice has tirelessly worked to become a fixture within the B.C. music scene.

His debut pop-rock solo album, The Arborist, was released in 2013. Its strong lineup of songs earned Maurice stage-time at national summer festivals such as North by Northeast.

In 2015 he won second place, as well as $75,000 in cash, at the PEAK Performance Project — an annual radio contest and grant program for artists in Vancouver.

And for the first time, Maurice is taking his polished rock tunes northward to Iqaluit.

New experiences, he admits, is what he craves.

“Obviously right now for me is an emotional time so I think I want to go [to Iqaluit] just for the catharsis of playing music and being open to whatever the experience has to offer,” he said.

At least one of those experiences will be exploring his family’s Nunavut roots.

“My uncle, and my cousins, they all live there. My uncle [John Maurice] is having his 70th birthday party and that’s one of the reasons I’m coming up.”

A self-proclaimed “soft B.C.-boy” Maurice says he’s nevertheless excited for a chance to see the northern lights and perhaps take a dogsled ride with his uncle.

Two friends from Toronto, he says, will join him onstage.

The trio will be using gear borrowed mostly from the evening’s opening act: The Tradeoffs, from Iqaluit

The arrangement probably has something to do with his cousin, Jeff Maurice, who plays in the band.

“We’re just going to sort of trade around, do a sort of musical chairs,” he says with a hint of excitement.

It’s the kind of setup you wouldn’t expect from Maurice’s particular brand of slick pop rock — with songs that are credit to long hours spent in the studio exploring every melody, every theme, before settling on the final version.

“The process of tweaking and trying different things and hearing a song come together from just a skeleton to a final production is something I really enjoy.”

That passion led Maurice to invest in a Vancouver-based recording studio.

And new-found freedom from recording deadlines, he says, is fueling his creativity and drive for perfectionism.

“I want to take as much time as I need to just make something great. That’s my focus… a lot of what my set will include is new stuff.”

JP Maurice and opener, The Tradeoffs, will play at Inuksuk High School Jan. 8 starting at 8 p.m.

Tickets are available at the Alianait Art Festival website.