Here's to new beginnings.

It's something that former Canadian pop rock artist Alfie Zappacosta is putting a great deal of faith in, as he embarks full time on an independent career as a serious, easy-listening singer-songwriter.

"We're starting from scratch," Zappacosta says from his home in Edmonton, relating a fair amount of optimism in his new career.

"For me to be able to sing songs and know that people are going to come out ... and actually hear them -- what a wonderful concept to make a living doing what you love to do."

The artist's new quiet approach, which will be on display tomorrow at the Triwood Community Centre and Sunday at Karma Local Arts House, runs contrary to how most Canadians came to know him in his late '70s band Surrender and then in the '80s as a solo

artist releasing such hits as We Should Be Lovers and Overload, which was featured on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

But, according to Zappacosta, why he's doing what he's doing now and why he first started have a great deal in common.

"Lets say it was a bit of a delusional time," he says of his days in Surrender. "But without putting any nasty marks on anyone in particular, we didn't know what we were doing.

"What we did start with was the obvious -- we were naive and our hearts were in the right places and we'd studied a lot of music and we wanted to do all the right things.

"Now it's come full circle and I figure I can go out there and play some more sophisticated music ... and have people accept the fact I'll the fact I might just be standing there with a piano player and my classical guitar."

Pushing him along in his new direction was a mid-'90s brush with death that saw Zappacosta incapacitated for almost a year with pancreatic cysts and then a bacterial infection that was attacking his internal organs.

"It put me in a bit of a hurry for sure," he says of the experience.

"It didn't change my want to make things happen, it just honed it in a focused it a little better for me."