BIO
Shaman is 24, enormously gifted, and has a long track record of working in music. From the top;
Born in Kingston On, to a musical family, Shaman was immersed in Folk and Bluegrass at a young age. His first instrument was the Piano, but he soon started playing anything he could get his hands on. By the time he was 14, he was playing Guitar, Mandolin, Violin, Dobro, Banjo, Drums (Kit, Djembe, and celtic Bodhran), Harmonica, Bass, and Singing. It was about this time that his parents, Doug Ayerhart and Heather McLean (who had both composed music and lyrics in their lifetime), encouraged their son to write some original material.
The family moved to Stouffville Ontario, and Shaman was soon in High School. He was playing in the symphony as a Tympanist, and in the school Jazz band as a guitarist, when he stumbled on his first group of songwriting mentors; the Stouffville chapter of the Nashville Songwriters' Association International (N.S.A.I.), led by Don Quarrels. This is where Shaman got all the advice, criticism, and encouragement that would motivate him to pursue writing, and discover his life's passion.
After flunking out of High School, Shaman worked a series of dead end jobs, and worked tirelessly promoting the various rock and metal bands which he sang and wrote for. While fronting and writing for a band called iDOL, A close call with a career crippling record contract caused him to rethink his path in life.
He went back to school, got his diploma, and fought his way into the then prestigious "Music Industry Arts" program at Fanshawe College. While there, he played on countless sessions, on a variety of instruments, the result of which would cull him a great deal of work as a session musician, and hired gun in the local Folk and Bluegrass scene.
Shaman lived in London for 5 years; playing in underground Punk bands like Destroy All Rational Thought, he was a founding member of Alexandra Krakaus' acclaimed 'Olenka' project, he backed Folk troubadour Bernie Gilmour on Dobro during the creation and release of his municipally funded "Oil Boom" record. But the most acclaim he received in that time was for his genius 'Punk Bluegrass/Bluegrass Punk' cover band - 'The Skywriters.' Performing both as a 4 man acoustic troupe and as a raucous party anthem electric outfit, the Skywriters played nearly every venue in the London area. Then on the eve of their Debut release, "CAV. OK," Shaman returned from a solo tour to find that he was kicked out of the band he began three years before, to be replaced as singer and principal writer by his bass player.
So he lost it. Quit playing live solo, quit his other projects, quit teaching music, and moved to the little town of Virginia, on the shores of Lake Simcoe Ontario, to recover, reflect, and write....
Now he's back, with a cannon of new material, a new found voice that has matured considerably from the anxty unsure timbre from his previous work. He's writing topically, about what he knows; About his experiences during that time in London, and the trials of living in a small rural community. Plagued by drug abuse, violence, and racial tension - set in some of the most pristine and evocative landscape our country has to offer, "Goodnight Mr. Washington" is lyrically tumultuous, but the musical arrangements and glossy acoustic guitar work is disarming to his words. Take a listen yourself, this recording has many layers; they peel back emotion after emotion every time you hear a song over again.