Mike O’Brien grew up loving the process of writing a song. Or, as we find out in this chat, what he prefers to call making up a song.

He began his career in Toronto at the turn-of-the-century playing with his high schools pals, one of whom was Afie Jurvanen. Mike and Afie would go on to form the band Paso Mino, which became a go-to backing band in the early oughts Toronto indie rock scene, most notably for Jason Collett.

As we get into in today’s chat, when Afie left the band to join Leslie Feist, and ultimately go his own way as Bahamas, it left Mike with a little extra time on his hands. He used it wisely and formed, indie rock stalwarts, Zeus with fellow Paso Minite and Barrie ON, ex pat Carlin Nicholson.

More recently, over the pandemic, as things slowed down for all of us, Mike turned some of his songwriting attention to his first solo endeavour, under the moniker Meko Brain, the fruits of which released earlier this month as Wonderment. It is a stunning collection of a dozen (mostly) laid back acoustic tunes that I've had in my ears on more than a few crisp autumn walks down to the Dartmouth ferry.

Meko Brain Bandcamp

@meko.brain

Wanna get in touch?

Email whenwewakeradio@gmail.com

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@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

26. When We Wake with Mike O'Brien, aka Meko Brain