Jukasa Studios sees four artists bring in Juno nominations

TWO ROW TIMES

TORONTO — Juno nominations are in and four projects by Canadian artists that worked with Jukasa Studios on Six Nations of the Grand River are nominated.

First, Canadian rock band ‘Alexisonfire’ has been nominated for Best Rock Album of the Year for their latest release, ‘Otherness’. It is the fifth studio album from ‘Alexison- fire’ and comes 13 years after their last full-length album. It was recorded at Jukasa Studios on Six Nations of the Grand River and is another nomination for the studios award winning recording engineers Darren Magierowski and Jill Zimmerman. ’Explosions’, the new album from ‘Three Days Grace’ is also nominated for Best Rock Album of the Year. Magierowski and Zimmerman have production credits for that album as production engineers. The band’s 2018 release,

‘Outsider’ was a project worked on with Jukasa’s team and saw a Juno win for Rock Album of the Year.

Hamilton native and iconic Canadian blues artist Harrison Kennedy has been nominated for ‘Thanks for Tomorrow’ in the Blues Album of the Year category. Magierowski and Zimmerman are credited for that album as engineers as well. The production duo also saw a Juno win in 2016 for their work with Kennedy on the ‘This Is From Here’ album. Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are nominated for ‘O Glory’ in the Contemporary Roots Album of the Year. The band includes Lee Harvey Osmond, better known as Tom Wilson, an indigenous musician from Hamilton who was featured in the biography ‘Beautiful Scars’ — describing his mothers removal from her home reserve of Kahnawake and growing up not knowing about his Mohawk heritage until he was an adult.

“We’re pretty excited — hard work pays off,” said Magierowski, who will be attending the Junos this spring in Edmonton as a part of the Alexisonfire stage production during the live broadcast show.

Jukasa Studios opened in 2009 and was a vision for supporting the arts and music on Six Nations of the Grand River by late businessman, Ken Hill, who passed away in January 2021.

Magierowski says that all of the studios accomplishments and the growth in those artists need first to be attributed to that vision.

“We are very thankful. I have to first and fore- most thank Kenny Hill for making such an amazing spot, believing in us and granting us the opportunity to do all of this. That is where it starts. We still want to be thankful for him for giving us the opportunity to do this, and being so generous to create this space. None of it would have happened without him.”

With the most recent nominations the studio is now boasting a list of 14 Juno nominations. There have been three Junos awarded for work by Jukasa’s engineering team — Harrison Kennedy in 2016, julytalk in 2017 and The Sheepdogs in 2012.