Country music icon comes to Ottawa dreams? Quite beyond. I mean it’s far past just beyond where I thought we’d ever go. The big moment for me is when I stand up on stage at night, and I see a full house. I love the people—just seeing all the faces and having them singing my songs and participating with me is beyond anything I could have imagined. It’s a bizarre experience and it’s something I’m very grateful for. The best thing to me is when people listen to an album—they don’t really care what is commercial or what is not commercial, or what they hear casually. They have enough passion to make that album and that soundtrack a part of their lives—so much so that when you show up in front of them, they know all the songs. That’s really what I’m most proud of. Every album we’ve made has been applied to these people’s lives. It’s the most special thing we do.
…AND THAT’S WHERE IT ALL CHANGED FOR ME— THAT’S WHEN IT WENT FROM BEING A HOBBY TO SOMETHING I WAS DOING EVERY NIGHT—AND WHEN I WASN’T DOING IT, I WAS PLAYING AND PRACTICING ALL DAY.
Before you go on stage, do you and your band have any pre-show rituals? I do a shot of Jack Daniels, that’s what I do (laughs)! The band is with me and we all stick together on tour. I have a vinyl player in my dressing room, and depending on what city we’re in I’ll go to a vinyl shop and see what I can find. It’s fun to spin that for an hour or thirty minutes before a show just to get a vibe. But it varies… it depends what kind of mood I’m in and what I could find in the record store that day (laughs). But we’ve been doing this so long that we just walk out there and do our thing. When we get out there we give in to this relationship with the crowd and that’s what it’s all about. During intermission we kind of just change shirts cause were sweating, then get back in there.
Photo: John Peets
What is your favourite song to perform live? It always changes with different albums and different tours. I think this tour for the album “Mr. Misunderstood” it’s “Holdin My Own”. We named the tour after it and it’s usually one of the last songs we do in the night. It’s just a moment in the show that is so personal to
11 | March 2017