A long-standing stalwart of the local music scene, Jerry Stamp recently won MusicNL’s “Male Artist of the Year” award for his album Rogue Doubt. But of course you already knew that, and of course, you’ve already bought the album, right?

What you might not know, is there’s an EP of songs up on Jerry’s Soundcloud page that are remixes from Rogue Doubt, including The “F’n Rat” remix of “Ring Finger,” a powerful song about psoriatic arthritis, a disorder interfering with Jerry’s ability to continue writing, recording, and performing music.

Where Did the Idea Come from to do This?

I’ve always been a huge fan of quirky remixes that take a song and push it in a completely different direction. When I was a kid, a lot of my favourite artists had tons of remixes done. I think I learned more about music from understanding how a song that sounded one way could be manipulated to be something entirely different.

Years later my own writing became better the moment I realized that no song is ever done. The minute a writer stops being so precious with their songs and stops forcing every song, is the minute they become a better writer. I have always wanted to get remixes done of my tunes. This time around the opportunity presented itself.

How Did the EP Come Together, in Terms of Who Remixed What Song?

I basically just asked a bunch of friends who are mixers/producers if they would be willing to try their hand at a proper remix. I had about 10 people interested in doing it, but by the time I went to release them I only had 4 back. As it stands now there may be a 5th one coming soon from someone who wasn’t originally contacted.

I mostly asked them to choose whichever song they wanted to mess around with from the album. They had carte blanche to do with it as they wished. The only real problem was everybody was so busy so a project like this takes a back seat. So it took a while to get most of them back. I think some folks were initially scared of upsetting me with their changes, but once I convinced them that changing the songs was the point they all got into it.

Is There a Remix That Surprised You the Most?

Every mix surprised me in some way. And each one is so different. The mixers really put their own styles into it. I really can’t choose just one.

Ian Foster’s “All The Things I Wanted (remix of Firing Line)” is extremely deconstructed. I believe he jokingly said it reminded him of some Peter Gabriel remixes, but he may have just said that cause he knows I love Gabriel.

The F’n Rat remix of “Ring Finger” was the first one completed, and they changed up the chord progression and feel in a dramatically different way. The piano really added a lot. Ironically I was going to put piano in the album version in a similar way but decided against it. Really nice to hear it in there now.

Orphan Mothers (out of Regina) was oddly the one I expected to sound like it ended up before I even heard it. I had chatted with them about what they were going to do. They specifically chose “Embers” because that was something they heard there. I also recorded some additional vocal parts for their version based on what they wanted.

Justin Merdsoy has still never told me why he called his remix of “She” Connecticut Traffic Jam, but it was the remix that came the most out of left field. I had a feeling he would change the song up a fair bit, but Justin being the sort of fella who listens to a lot of different production styles it would be impossible to guess where he would take it.

I love the remixes. If anything I wish I could have had more remixes done.

One you like the most? Ha, the best thing about having remixes done is you never need to choose a favourite version anymore. I love them all for their intricacies and weirdness.