CHECK OUT SMOKE & ASHES – AARON ALLEN and PETE LESPERANCE – ALL THIS WEEK ON THE #SPOTLIGHT! NOW HEARD DAILY AT 9:30AM DURING XS MORNINGS WITH JAY & ROBYN!
Powerhouse duo Pete Lesperance and Aaron Allen have formed an epic country band fuelled by their lifelong love of rock and country.
Smoke & Ashes is a Canadian Country duo featuring Pete Lesperance and Aaron Allen. The creative alchemy and energy between Lesperance and Allen was like a match thrown on gasoline for their first songwriting session in April of 2021. The resulting creative gold has led to the inaugural Smoke & Ashes single “High On Sunday” having been added out-of-the-box to curated streaming playlists, Canadian Country chart reporting and secondary stations. The forthcoming Smoke & Ashes EP is set for release in Fall 2021.
Over the last several years, Pete Lesperance has been known as one of Canada’s most in-demand session musicians having played electric guitar, acoustic guitar, banjo, dobro, lap steel, and pedal steel on radio singles by artists including The Washboard Union, Dan Davidson, Lennon & Maisy, Nice Horse, Chris Labelle, Jessica Mitchell, River Town Saints, Dustin Bird, David Boyd Janes, Aaron Allen and many more on the Canadian radio airwaves. Lesperance is also known globally, for his 15 studio albums having sold over a million units worldwide, as the guitarist, co-writer, and co-founder of Harem Scarem. Lesperance additionally added 2020, 2021 nominations for CMAOntario “Producer Of The Year” to his resume with recent producer, recording and mixing credits for Canadian Country artists Brea Lawrenson, Tareya (Autumn Hill), and now as the co-vocalist, co-writer, producer, mixer and performer for Smoke & Ashes.
Singer / Songwriter, Aaron Allen’s number just seems to keep coming up! Allen burst onto the scene in early 2019 with his debut single “Where Music Comes From” which to date has been streamed over 1.1 million times on streaming platforms including Apple Music, Spotify amongst others. Aaron Allen’s subsequent EP, “Highway Mile”, released in February of 2020 resulted in Apple Music naming Aaron Allen their “Apple Artist of the Week” shortly after the EP’s release. The “Highway Mile” EP has amassed over 4 million streams with multiple singles breaking Top 100 at radio. “Highway Mile”, currently nominated for “Record of the Year” at the 2021 CMAOntario Awards as well as Allen’s nomination for “Male Artist of the Year”. In 2020, Aaron Allen was named winner of the CMAOntario “Rising Star” award and additionally caught the attention of Arts & Crafts Music resulting in a publishing deal with the highly regarded company.
So what then is Smoke & Ashes all about? It’s about two wildly talented songwriters, performers and recording artists who have plied their trade for decades and it’s no surprise that the convergence of great talent and great people can lead to exceptional results.
This first Smoke & Ashes single, “High On Sunday”, is a hook-laden song that embodies musical distinction, colour and texture for Country music fans who crave songs they can sing along to and all with undeniably modern production, world-class musicianship and unique character that separates Smoke & Ashes from the pack.
