Sask. woman sings back up on new Rod Stewart album

A woman from Saskatoon recently got the opportunity of a lifetime.

Melissa Zeszi-Gawanas, who has been living in the U.K. for the past seven years, sang backup on Rod Stewart’s newest album, The Tears of Hercules, which was released mid November.

Zeszi-Gawanas joined Gormley on Friday to share her story. She said there were six singers slated to work on the album and one of them dropped out at the last minute.  That’s when she got the call asking how fast she could get to the studio.

“I was like, are you kidding me? I can be there…like, now!,” she recalled.

She can be heard on six songs on the album, including “Some Kind of Wonderful.”

“When you hear the choir come in and we sing, ‘can I get a witness?’  And if you hear the higher part, that’s me!”

When she got to the studio she was in for another surprise — it was actually Rod Stewart’s house.  He had converted his garden soccer pitch locker room into a recording studio.

According to Zeszi-Gawanas, Rod Stewart is very chill and down to earth.

“(He is) somebody who would have a beer with you watching a football game. And he’s very funny, he would crack jokes all of the time.”

Zeszi-Gawanas, who goes by the stage name HunnyB, has her own song “Love Like Yours” coming out on Dec. 21.