Sky Onosson
Bio
Sky Onosson has been playing music since the age of five, starting on keyboards and then moving on to bass, guitar, saxophone, and trying his hand at pretty much anything he could put his hands on.
Sky is probably best known as a founding member (bass, keyboards, vocals) of Winnipeg’s The New Meanies, who have released four albums since forming around 1990, including the Virgin Records release “Three Seeds”. The Meanies were nominated in 1999 for two Juno awards including “Best New Group”, and won a Prairie Music Award (former name of the Western Canadian Music Awards) for the video for “Letting Time Pass”.
As a member of the Meanies, and in other groups, Sky has had the privilege of opening for well-known acts including Deep Purple, Dave Matthews Band, Alice Cooper, Paul Rodgers, Little Feat, Parliament/Funkadelic, The Beach Boys, Bruce Cockburn, and many others.
As a sideman and session musician, over the years Sky has played and recorded with notable current and former Winnipeg artists such as Sweet Alibi, Andrina Turenne, Sarah Dugas, Brandy Zdan, Dan Frechette, Romi Mayes, Scott Nolan, Whitehorse, Leaderhouse, The Perpetrators, and Matt Epp, just to name a few. Aside from the Meanies, other bands which Sky was an integral member of include Motel 75, Volume, Home Cooked Meals, and the Hot Rollerz.
Discography
1990s
- Sky Onosson: Empty Heaven (1991)
- Sky Onosson: Red Chords (1992)
- Sky Onosson: Rachel (1992)
- Sky Onosson: Dragon Tea (1992)
- Blue Meanies: Experience Is Lost (1993)
- Blue Meanies: Self-Titled (1995)
- Sky Onosson: Flight (1998)
- New Meanies: Three Seeds (1998)
- Leaderhouse: Self-Titled (1998); organ on “Vanderveen”
2000s
- Motel 75: Self-Titled (2000)
- Onosson & Nolan: O/N (2000)
- New Meanies: Highways (2001)
- Luke Doucet: Aloha, Manitoba (2001); organ on “The Defector”
- Scott Nolan: Postcards (2002)
- Dave Quanbury: No Vacancy (2003)
- Sky Onosson: Open the Sun (2004)
- Sky Onosson: Hairoun (2005)
- Matt Epp: You’ll Find Me Alone (2005)
- Scott Nolan: No Bourbon Bad Radio (2006)
- Romi Mayes: Sweet Somethin’ Steady (2006); organ on “Bible”
- Scott Nolan: Canadian Amplifier (2008)
- Sky Onosson: Odd End (2009)
- Record of the Week Club: Self-Titled (2009); bass and organ on “Take What You Can”
2010s
- Little Miss Higgins: Across the Plains (2010); electric piano on “Hope You Don’t Feel Blue”
- Sky Onosson: Recluse (2011)
- Dan Frechette: Nothing to Lose But the Blues (2011)
- Sky Onosson: Most of This is True (2012)
- Sky Onosson: See (2013)
- Sheena Grobb: The Breakless Heart (2014)
- Sky Onosson: Path (2015)
2020s
- Sky Onosson: rewire (2020)
- Sky Onosson: At Peace (2021)
- Katherine Sengmany: (2024); bass on “Butterflies”, “Wicked Game”
