Tony Soloway takes a deep breath and focuses on the two things he's most passionate about – flying and making music. His slow, easy smile lights up his face as the Air Canada pilot describes the freedom flying triggers.
Tony Soloway takes a deep breath and focuses on the two things he's most passionate about – flying and making music. His slow, easy smile lights up his face as the Air Canada pilot describes the freedom flying triggers.
“When I'm sitting in the flight deck, I could be addressing bad weather or a sunny day. When I sit down, thrust the levers, have the plane under control and steer with the rudder, it's harmony that comes together. When you're given clearance and you're in control and have the engine spooling, it all comes together. It's almost like a harmony, a perfect note. You rotate and away you go,” says Soloway.
The St. Albert resident takes a great deal of pride in wearing his uniform, complete with three gold stripes and identifying wings on the breast pocket.
“As much as flying provides and it's been good to me, it's not the only thing in my life. Some pilots go rock climbing. Others run or play golf. You need something outside your job and I enjoy making music,” Soloway says.
Now that his only daughter, Toni-Ann, is living on her own, Soloway has outfitted one of his bedrooms as a studio complete with keyboard, microphones, amps and recording devices.
His quiet second-storey perch, with its large clear window overlooking the street, is a perfect oasis to draw inspiration for songs. While Soloway isn't planning on retiring from the skies anytime soon, he is quietly rebuilding a singer-songwriter career.
In fact, Soloway just signed a licensing deal with Spafax, an international media conglomerate that provides audio, film television and publishing services to airlines and hotels.
The licensing agreement allows Spafax to play the pilot-singer's new album, Life, on Air Canada's fleet for the month of May. The licence also allows Spafax to use the music elsewhere if opportunities arise.
Soloway's long-standing love affair with aviation and equally soaring songs, began in Lethbridge where he grew up, the youngest child of Ukrainian immigrants.
Neither of his parents was musically inclined, yet they enrolled the budding musician into piano classes.
“By Grade 2 I quit. I didn't like it. I guess it was the discipline.”
By junior high, Soloway was in a crowd that plugged into airplane movies. In the Hollywood film world, pilots were considered heroes of the sky. They were intelligent, goal oriented and capable high achievers that worked toward reducing risks and saving passengers' lives with every means at their disposal. Pilots were ideal role models for a teen dreaming about his future while building airplane kit models.
In tune with rock music's rebel culture, Soloway grew his hair long and alongside high school buddy Rene LeBlanc formed a two-man guitar duo that played at pep rallies.
“I don't think it even had a name. We were just having fun.”
While still in high school, the duo also formed a foursome dubbed the Nikki Cruz Band. It was an off-the-wall choice named after Nicky Cruz, a one-time leader of a New York City street gang reborn as a Christian evangelist.
During their five-year partnership, Nikki Cruz played local bars, clubs, cabarets, festivals and successfully toured the province.
“I graduated in 1976 and started going on the road. I went to college for a year and during that time the band kept getting stronger and stronger. In the late '70s and early '80s we were playing all over the place.”
LeBlanc, an avid flying aficionado joined Air Cadets at a young age. While most 16-year-olds were studying for a driver's licence, LeBlanc had earned a private pilot's licence.
While Nikki Cruz was active, LeBlanc invited Soloway for a short aerial tour. The flight was his first time soaring among the clouds.
“We would go up in the airplane, throw a roll, spin and try to see if we could cut and pull out.” It was breathtaking and magnificent.
After the band broke up, Soloway performed as lead singer with two other notable groups First Offence and Cosmetics, the rebranded Jensen Interceptor.
During his stint with Cosmetics, Soloway started reading flight material. Living in Vancouver closed the deal. He realized he didn't like the city and was tired of playing with bar bands.
He drove back to Alberta on a Sunday and registered for flight training at the Edmonton Flying Club on Monday. He was 24.
While earning his first wings, Soloway worked as a “ramp rat.” Basically he worked the ramps, filled the gas tanks, cleaned planes and parked them in hangars. At the flying club he also started instructing to obtain a higher rating. The pay was quite low, but it was a way to build hours, get experience and eventually make it to the big airlines.
During that period, Soloway received a degree of fame as a winner of K-97 Radio's Homegrown Series, a 1988 songwriting contest. Save the Night brought him airplay and fan recognition and was included in a compilation CD titled Class of '88.
Despite long hours, Soloway was living paycheque-to-paycheque. On their first date, he took his wife-to-be, Doris for a frosty at Wendy's.
Doris' eyes twinkle at the recollection.
“He said to me, ‘I have nothing. Would you still see me again?' I could tell he was a man of character and integrity. He was so honest about himself.”
Time Air, a feeder for Canadian Airlines subsequently hired Soloway. When Air Canada bought out Canadian, the country's second biggest airline, Soloway's career introduced additional variety.
The airline industry favours hiring retired military personnel or men and women who have exemplary personal traits – dependability, courage, decisiveness, endurance, enthusiasm, integrity, judgment, knowledge, loyalty and tact.
Rightly or wrongly, the stereotypical image of “macho cockpit culture,” has evolved over the decades in part due to pilot personalities and in part from the old days when barnstormers flew small planes held together with string and wire.
Throughout his professional pilot's career, Soloway kept a lid on his passion for music. He was a former long-haired rocker, the antithesis of most commercial pilots. To avoid friction with colleagues, he rarely shared his music.
“I became shy about saying I was a musician. I tried to turn it off and I hardly touched the music. I didn't even have a piano anymore. I sold the microphones and said I would enjoy music quietly. But the pilot light never went out,” Soloway laughs.
Just this year, Soloway released Life, his second full length easy-listening CD under the Studiojazzyrock label. The 14-track establishes him as a recording artist that carries gentle echoes of the '60s into the harsher climate of the 21st century.
He is inspired to write about romance and personal relationships. However, Soloway also covers a broad range of topics, some with hefty political and social meat.
The pop vibe of Be The Sunshine in My Life was inspired by the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech and the famous 1963 March on Washington for civil rights.
When Asiana Airlines Flight 214, a Boeing 777, crashed on the final approach to the San Francisco Airport in 2013, it struck close to home. Soloway has flown international routes and Crash, performed on a solitary piano, is his response.
“I wrote it not to be critical, but to express how and what pilots go through during the night – long hours and sometimes you're tired.”
Silent for so long about his music, Soloway is making up for lost time.
“I want to make a name for myself. I want to complete something and get a little bit of name recognition. I want someone to play my songs in a commercial film.”
For album information visit tonysoloway.com.
