<It’s starting to become routine for D’Ari Pouyat, better known simply as D’Ari, the singer-songwriter of the band Nine Mile, to end up in Jasper for Thanksgiving

For the last two years the musician has visited old friends in Jasper, playing shows over the Thanksgiving weekend, much like he will this weekend on Friday, Oct. 9th at Champs, and at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 11th at the Legion. The Legion turkey dinner starts at 5:30 p.m.

After touring to support their sophomore album, Country Porno Electric Fireplace, for almost a month with his Nine Mile band mates, D’Ari will head to Jasper after the tour’s last show in Kamloops to perform two solo shows.

D’Ari says Nine Mile’s latest album has a reggae undertone, with a lot of pedal steel, upright pianos and banjos, and has cameo appearances on songs by longtime friend Xavier Rudd and one of the original members of Nine Mile, drummer Dave Tolley (who was touring with Rudd as his drummer at duo shows during most of the record recording for Nine Mile). The album also features Matt York, Burke Carrole, Brian MacMillan and Melissa Larkin.

But despite the all-star cast behind the album, D’Ari will be performing on stage by himself, and he’s ready to bring the eclectic, reggae sound that has been called ‘Jahmericana’ to Jasper.

“We have what I think is a perfect ingredient to make a great show. We have a singer/songwriter who just came off the road playing with a giant band that he can lean on, and now he’s on stage alone for the first time in months, which can be awesome,” says the Kitchener-Waterloo born musician. “It could be high energy, it could be completely mellow.”

If the crowd is feeling up-tempo and rowdy, he says they’ll get a very different show than if everyone is sitting drinking coffee. The crowd always trumps the set list.

D’Ari’s Jasper connection comes through his partner - musician and songwriter Larkin – who had a short stint living in Jasper, and D’Ari say’s it’s because of her love for the area that he’s been constantly taken to Jasper in the past, where he’s become friends with her friends. “I’ve got family there, not by blood - you know, I’ve got amazing friends there. It seems that our Canadian fall tour always ends or begins in Jasper, I don’t know why.”

Country Porno Electric Fireplace follows Nine Mile’s 2005 album, The Almanac, which was recorded over a couple of days, simply to have something to sell at the shows. Unexpectedly, the album was signed in Australia to the Warner label, and in Japan, to a Universal affiliate label, which resulted in the band touring extensively overseas.

Things were getting so busy that there wasn’t time to focus on the material and progressing musically, so when the band finally took a break, D’Ari vowed that the next album be recorded exactly the way he wanted, and with the people he wanted.

That ended up being in a farmhouse in Prince Edward County in Ontario for pre-production, spending a lot of time playing and recording with MacMillan, Larkin and Tolley, and then doing the final recording in Toronto with Juno-nominated producer Tim Abraham.

D’Ari is a first generation Canadian born from a Jamaican family, and growing up in Kitchener-Waterloo, he says he listened to everything that his parents played, which included tons of West-Indian music as well as rock, folk and Americana that was going on in the music scene of the 60s and 70s.

“Everyone in the band has a very eclectic background...Some songs may sound more reggae than others. We are not really a reggae band, we don’t consider ourselves just a reggae band, but there are things about that genre that I think are unique and amazing. So the way we built songs kind of follows that,” he says.

Nine Mile has shared the stage with the likes of Joel Plaskett, G Love and Special Sauce, Xavier Rudd, Cowboy Junkies, Blackalicious, Sarah Harmer and many more.

To catch D’Ari in Jasper, stop by Champs at the Sawridge Inn on Friday night or the Legion on Sunday.