Bio
Jen Schaffer and the Shiners hail from Toronto, Montreal and the UK! They are purveyors of original soulful folkrock music with lush harmonies and heavy bass. Jen Schaffer is the lead singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist. She came to music via a stint as a public defender in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio, where she gained a love of alt-country music and a heightened social conscience. Her self-penned works, speak of love, struggle and injustice and are sharply focused through the lens of her own life journey.
The Shiners are Simon Law, the band’s drummer, keyboardist, background vocalist and producer, who is also a Grammy winning songwriter of Soul II Soul’s Back to Life and original member of that band; John Teshima plays guitar, both electric and acoustic – he also plays keyboards and adds background harmonies; and Hideki Kumagai on bass.
Emmanuel Szpetycki, Jen’s violinist offspring, joins the Shiners occasionally for recordings and performances, when not doing their own music in Montreal and at Concordia University.
Previous and always beloved Shiners are Jonathan Marks, Astrid Foster and Dorothy Hwang.
Highlights of the band’s fifteen year plus journey includes playing the Mariposa Folk Festival, being played on and interviewed by CBC, especially in Jen's hometown of Montreal, gaining kudos from Fred Tackett of Little Feat for our version of his tune, Fool Yourself and performing a spontaneous live rendition of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” with Ron Sexsmith, in memory of Levon Helm.
