Leif using music skills to help asylum seekers

Leif using music skills to help asylum seekers

19 January 2022

A FORMER Downpatrick man who toured with rock stars to get the best out of their music is now working with asylum seekers and refugees to help them find themselves again through music. 

As a sought after guitar technician, Leif Bodnarchuk was once the go-to expert who travelled as part of the backstage team with Ash, Bloc Party and Leonard Cohen.

He is using his Belfast workshop to fix up old instruments for asylum seekers and refugees, or “newcomers”, as he refers to them.

The 48-year-old – originally from Toronto but who moved to Downpatrick as a teen – started out in the industry after quitting university at 19. 

When he left Queen’s University Belfast, Leif answered an advert in a newspaper from a covers band who were looking for a roadie.

He told the Daily Mirror's Ultimate Ulster music column: “After a few years it began to fizzle out and then I got in with Ash. I knew them from when I lived in Downpatrick anyway – I knew them as teenagers.

“I was in bands and they were in some band called Vietnam and we would’ve played shows together and obviously they were better. 

“And once they got to the point where they could afford a guitar tech that’s where I came in – I wasn’t the most professional guy in the world but I learned.” 

He learned fast as he added about his time with local band Ash, led by Tim Wheeler with Mark Hamilton and Rick McMurray.

“I was with them from 1995 to 1999, I did every single show, and it was really, really exciting and awesome to see the world,” he said.

“Then I moved back to Canada and even then I would still come over here the odd time to work with them – I learned so much, it was like an all-encompassing experience, the most intense years in my professional career. 

“After a while I just figured, I’ve been doing this job for 10-odd years and I guess I’m pretty decent at it and I’d started working with Bloc Party and Leonard Cohen. 

“But by the time the Leonard Cohen thing was done, I was kind of burnt out and looking for an escape. 

“Once you have kids then other, way more adult, responsibilities are competing.” 

Ten years later, Leif is running his thriving RNR Workshop based in the Oh Yeah Centre in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. 

It was through a chance meeting that Leif found a way where he could help others through his skills. 

“I’ve always, I think, been searching for something to do that could change the world – and that sounds awfully ‘big’ – but I’ve always thought to myself, 'What the hell, OK I fix guitars for a living – what the hell use is that except to rock stars and they’ve got it all anyway?’. 

“Then one day, just by happenstance this woman appeared at the workshop. 

“I normally work by appointment so there’s me going down to the main gate muttering ‘Who do these people think they are?’. 

“So there she is with this acoustic guitar and she wants to convert it to a leftie [left-handed] and I’m like, ‘Yeah, well, it’s not as straightforward as it sound and you’d be better off getting a second hand guitar’. 

“And I said, ‘Why do you want to change it anyway?’ and she shows me her hand, it’s missing fingers. 

“It looks as if – and I totally have to use my imagination here – like they’ve been cut off, blown off, I don’t know. I don’t even know where she was from. 

“So I went back and shut the door – this was the height of Covid – and then five minutes later I had a word with myself and said, ‘what are you doing you jackass’?”

He put a shout-out on his Facebook page and a fellow he knew came up with a left-handed acoustic guitar.

“It wasn’t in the best shape and I had to do a bit of work to it as you would have expected and then a few days later I phoned her,” continued Leif.

“I wasn’t expecting praise or anything – I didn’t get a whole lot – but the point of it was to do something nice. I did the right thing and it didn’t cost a lot. 

“And I thought she can’t be the only one. Belfast is changing, I can see it. I came here from Toronto and they were going to deport us because mum didn’t fill in the right form. I was a teenager in Downpatrick, went to a Catholic school and it was a hell of a lot tougher than I was used to in multicultural Toronto.

“So I was thinking about my own journey here and how difficult must it be to integrate into this society if you are not from here.” 

Leif fits in his Guitars for Newcomers project around repairing and servicing instruments and amps at the heart of Belfast’s music scene. 

He said: “It was a way for me to use my skills and, selfishly, I’m not going down to a leisure centre to volunteer filling in forms or whatever, it’s just me doing what I do. I put the feelers out to see if there as an organisation that would act as a buffer. “

He works with Beyond Skin to help displaced people find some joy in their lives through music when they came to live in Belfast.

Leif said: “Sarah [not her real name] from Iran was a musician and guitar teacher and now she wants to teach kids here. She said if at least she has music, then she doesn’t have to think about her life. She told me some of her story, how she got here. It was just jaw-ping some of the little things she did tell me. 

“She’s separated from her husband, from the rest of her family... so at least she can play guitar then she doesn’t have to think about her life. 

“And if that’s just one person, there must be hundreds and hundreds of others. 

“I’ve had a really positive response though you get a few wingnuts in the comments – so I’m obviously doing something right. 

“I’m atoning for sins of my youth – at least I can spend my middle years doing something right.”

If you have an old guitar that you think could be of use get in touch with Leif on Twitter at @___leifb73, @RNR_Workshop or facebook.com/leif.rockshop.