Lifelong musician Jeffrey Randle was playing the djembe at an open mike when he caught the attention of a female musician named Katelyn Wood.
“She was in the audience. She had never even heard me sing or play guitar or heard any of my songs,” Randle recalled. “I never heard any of her songs and she said to me ‘if you help me find a drum and give some drum lessons I will sing for you.’”
Randle happily agreed.
“I took a chance and she took a chance” Randle said.
It wasn’t long after that the two began singing and performing together.
“That’s how it started and we started to start gigging together and she’s on the album I am working on,” he said.
On Sunday (May 24) Randle and Wood will be performing at the Lantzville Farmers Market, 7113 Lantzville Rd., between 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
“We just enjoy working and singing together,” Randle said.
Randle was born and raised in Nanaimo and became interested in music at an early age.
“Dad handed me a guitar at the age of six ... and that is how I learned,” he said.
Randle, who lived off the grid on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 2007 and was a member of the Naked Grapes band, is working on his second album, which he hopes to release later this year.
“It’s going to be a 10-song album,” he said. “On it is it going to be a little bit of reggae. In fact one of the songs that is on it I wrote while I was in Maui.”
Randle said the record, which has yet to be named, will include a mix of genres such as country and Romanian gypsy.
“There is a little bit of hillbilly stuff ... and when it gets done it is going to have horns on it,” Randle said.
Randle and Wood perform in Lantzville on Sunday. For more information, please visit http://on.fb.me/1E8gdU6.
arts@nanaimobulletin.comFollow @npescod on Twitter