You might remember Kevin Kane from hit 1980’s Canadian band the Grapes of Wrath, but more recently he’s been in the Lethbridge area a lot playing and recording with Leeroy Stagger.
 He is performing a solo show at Henotic, Feb. 19 with the Necessities.
“Lately I feel like I’m being lead through life. I show up and play and see what happens,” said Kane from Calgary where he is about to see country rock band Wilco, before returning to Lethbridge to finish work on Leeroy Stagger’s next CD.
The Kelowna based songwriter is looking forward to a busy year with several solo shows booked as well as a tour with Leeroy Stagger in May through July and a quick tour with the Grapes of Wrath in July. The Grapes of Wrath has a handful of late ’80’s, early ’90s hits including ‘All The Things I Wasn’t,’ ‘Peace of Mind,’ ‘I Am Here,’ and ‘You May Be Right.’
“ Tom (Hooper, Grapes of Wrath bassist) and I decided to start playing together again a few years ago. It takes quite a bit of organization. He has a regular gig in Victoria and has a regular gig with 54-40 as their keyboardist and percussionist. We were going to do five or six Alberta shows in November, but I don’t know if that will happen,” he said.
In the meantime, he has his solo set at Henotic.
“I don’t really plan these things,” he said. ” I’m not really organized that way. I’ll show up with the 60 or so songs I know and play them. It’s just me and my guitar. There’s no big stage show. It’s pretty low key,” he said adding he also isn’t that prolific of a songwriter.
“They have to come to me. I’m not really a craftsmen. I have tonnes that are half finished and pieces of lyrics. I’m certainly not the most disciplined songwriter. I need to have a deadline. I have to have a gun pointed to my head to finish a song — figuratively,” he laughed.
“Even with the Grapes of Wrath, I only finished songs when I had a deadline.”
Kane chooses set lists by the seat of his pants.
“It  depends on the audience. Sometimes they will want me to play for two hours. I’m suggesting that is what will happen,. but I am suggesting that has happened.”
A new solo CD is in the planning stages, but due to his other commitments, it won’t be out soon.
“The last one (which was released in 2007) took 10 days to record but there was a lot of preparation for it. Some of the songs went back 10 years,” he said.
“Recording is quick. I don’t like to spent two days on a  guitar part. the one before that was covers and I recorded it over two evenings. Some of the songs were already in my set list, so I already had the arrangements for them.”
The new Leeroy Stagger CD is almost completed.
“For the most part, we the album is finished.We’ve got most of the stuff tracked. We’re at the overdub stages now,” Kane observed.
Kevin Kane and the Necessities play at 10 p.m.. The cover is $10.