Digawolf's Yellowstone up for Juno Award
N.W.T. band Digawolf has been nominated for Indigenous Artist or Group of the year
The Tlicho Dene and English language band Digawolf has been nominated for a Juno Award as Indigenous Artist or Group of the year for their 2019 album Yellowstone.
This is not the first time the band has been nominated for a Juno. In 2010, their album Distant Morning Star was nominated for best Aboriginal Album of the Year.
Jesse James Gon — Diga — is from Behchoko, N.W.T. The band's frontman and lyricist has been telling stories of growing up in the North for about 20 years, and was named Best Male Artist of the Year at the 2005 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards for The Earth is Crying.
"The nomination is the award for me," Diga said of his most recent nomination.
According to Digawolf's website, their "unique brand of alternative rock bridges the gap between modernity and tradition, redefining aboriginal music for modern audiences."
The album Yellowstone was recorded in Europe in a barn, with all of the tracks recorded live in the space.
"Most of it was first-takers that ended up on the album because of the energy it had brought," he said.
Diga got his start at Yellowknife's Folk on the Rocks music festival in the early 1990s. He had only been playing for a couple of years, and he and his bandmates put together a three-song demo on a cassette tape and submitted it under the name The Northern Band.
The rest, as it's said, was history.
Diga said that making music has always been about his bandmates and other partners.
"It's all about teamwork surrounded by really awesome people," he said. "I'm surrounded by pretty amazing people who work hard for the team."
The Juno Awards begin March 15 at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon. You can watch the awards ceremony on CBC TV or on any of your streaming devices at cbc.ca/music/junos.
Written by Walter Strong based on an interview by Lawrence Nayally