Bloody Miracles

The Bloody Miracles play the Red Room in Orono this coming Saturday. The show is going to be recorded for a live album, so if you feel like being part of something extra-special, I suggest you go. I wanted to know more about this great band so I asked one of the group's members Nick Ferrio a few questions:

So, could you tell me a little bit about the band?
Nick: James Kent, Ben Rough Mike Duguay and myself, Nick Ferrio make up the Bloody Miracles. We just recently added Mike Duguay as a drummer. He is a real musical guru (plays piano, synth, melodica, accordion, fiddle, drums - all pretty well too) and he is an all around good guy.
The band started about a year ago with James Kent and I. We both were writing songs and playing in each others little back up bands but secretly wanted to write songs about ghost towns so we started a band.

Have you played many shows?
Nick: Yes we started as mostly a 'live' band. As soon as James and I decided to work together, we were offered a hosting position at a weekly open mic. We hosted that and it sort of became a live rehearsal. Since then we have played a bunch of shows around Peterborough, Toronto, and Oshawa a few times too.

How has Peterborough influenced you?
Nick: Peterborough has had an enormous influence on us. Both James and I work at the Spill Café which is a very magical little place. All kinds of stories, characters and ideas are coming and going there. It’s a great place to work as a songwriter. The musical community is very supportive here in Peterborough but also very critical, which I think is indicative of any developing music scene.

You've just released an album, What's on it?
Nick: Well, if you mean songs, it has a few of the ghost town songs we worked on (Star of the Prairies and Frank, Alberta). Most of the songs are either about the ruin of towns or the ruin of relationships. Instrumentally we have banjo, acoustic guitar, piano, accordion, Nashville guitar, lap steel, electric guitar, harmonica, and layers of vocal harmonies.

Finally, tell me a story (concerning The Bloody Miracles)?
Nick: Well this story is more concerning my stupidity not the entire bands, but we were playing a show so I guess it counts as a Bloody Miracles story. Jonas Bonnetta calls this the 'smashtray' story. Anyways, we played this Peterborough Folk Festival gig in the summer at Mexicali Rosa's. It was part of the night before the festival called the pub crawl. Mexicali Rosa's is a pretty cheesy (literally and figuratively) Mexican restaurant. It definitely wasn't a 'concert venue' by any means. We were playing at the very back of the building near the washrooms and it smelt like urinal pucks.
Anyways, after our set Jonas and I were hanging out in the back of the place, one thing led to another and well next thing you know this ashtray is falling off the balcony, which surprisingly really pissed the Mexicali management off. It got pretty out of hand, they blamed the bands for the toilets being clogged too (not the bean burritos) and eventually the show got canned.
Anyways I felt really shitty because they pulled the plug on the rest of the bands that night, which really sucked... but not as bad as their nachos sucked!
So the moral of the story is.. don't play with ashtrays and don't play crappy Mexican food chains.

Tunes: myspace.com/bloodymiracles