Veronica Johnny, vocalist and rhythm guitarist for rock’n’roll band The Johnnys, released her first traditional honour song on May 5, just in time for her mother’s birthday. Ne Mama, featuring Veronica singing and playing the hand drum, is dedicated to her mom, mothers everywhere and Mother Earth.

“The timing was right to put this song out there,” says Veronica. “It’s my mother’s birthday, Mother’s Day is right around the corner and Earth Day just passed. This song honours our mothers’ strengths, and is a message of love and healing too.”

Although Veronica started in the Northwest Territories as an acoustic singer-songwriter, she wanted her newer solo material to reflect her Cree, Chipewyan and Ojibwa roots. In 2008 and ’09 at the Aboriginal Music Lab in Vancouver, drummer and elder Gerry Oleman mentored Veronica, gifting her with a drum.

It was there that Veronica began writing Ne Mama, based on a lullaby melody her mother sang to her and her siblings when they were young. Later in 2009, at the Catapult workshop for Aboriginal musicians in Toronto, Veronica jumped at the opportunity to record the song.

“Catapult was a great experience, it gave me the confidence to do something more traditional that I’d been wanting to do for a long time,” says Veronica. “It really came together, with a nice piano melody and Jennifer Podemski doing some beautiful backing vocals.”

Since then, Veronica has studied traditional singing and drumming with Brenda MacIntyre – Medicine Song Woman, and branched into facilitating drumming workshops with youth, women’s drum circles and solo performances featuring a mix of hand drumming and acoustic guitar. Veronica plans to record a solo album later this year.

“Expressing myself through traditional music has been an amazing journey so far,” Veronica says. “It’s given me a lot of strength whereas, on one hand with The Johnnys I do something fun, bold and a little crazy, on the other the drum music is meaningful, grounds me and is a powerful source of healing.”

For further information, please see www.myspace.com/veronicajohnny or email info@thejohnnys.com