Lou Pomanti
When Lou Pomanti turned 18 in 1976, there was no dispute about what he wanted to do – music. He quickly learned that if he wanted to keep working he had to be prepared to do anything – within reason. “Living in a city like Toronto, you have to be versatile if you want to have a career,” he says. “Even though it’s a big city, it’s not London and it’s not New York and it’s not L.A.”
Lou’s first big break came in 1980, when he was called by David Clayton-Thomas of Blood, Sweat and Tears, to join the band on their world tour. Using this experience as a springboard, Lou has played with the rollcall of Canadian performers, including Anne Murray, Triumph and Platinum Blonde. In the late eighties he became acquainted with bar owner Tim Notter, and he played keyboards with Kim Mitchell from 1992 to 1994. “I played on his album called ‘Itch’, I also wrote a song on it.” Itch was recorded at Reaction Studios, later the location for ‘Test For Echo’.
In 1994, Lou was invited by Tim Notter to form a band for Tim and Alex’s joint venture, the Orbit Room. “It was Labor Day, I was playing with Kim Mitchell at an old forties dance pavilion in Muskoka, the cottage country of Toronto,” remembers Lou. “Tim called me, he said that him and his old buddy, Alex Lifeson, were starting a club. He wanted me to be the band leader, and he wanted me to model it after Booker T. and The MGs. I thought, if I get six weeks out of this it will be sweet!”
Lou set about putting a band together, and one of the first people he called was guitarist Bernie LaBarge. “The phone rang and it was Lou Pomanti on the other end,” explains Bernie. “He figured it would be a six-month long stint. I said, sure thing. I hung up the phone and immediately said to myself, ‘The Dexters’.” And the band had a name. Lou has been musical director of the Juno Awards; “I’ve done a number of television movies and I just completed my first theatrical release feature film – ‘Bailey’s Billions’, recorded March 2004, at Angel Studios in London,” he says. “I kind of like being the guy who is the musical director at the Gemini awards this year and can conduct the band live on national television, and then stay in my basement for three months and score a feature film, and then go play a gig with the Dexters at the Orbit Room, it’s all kind of, it’s cool. It is the spice of life.
“The older I get, when I still get to do a first, it’s really exciting,” says Lou, but there also has to be a last. Joined by Alex, The Dexters (with Lou on keys, Danish born Jorn Andersen on drums, Peter Cardinali on bass and Bernie on guitar and vocals) played their last gig as a house band of The Orbit Room ten years to the day after they had started, in November 2004. “The tenth anniversary gig was so spectacular, it was great,” says Lou. “Doing it for ten years was a nice round number.”