Jeff Canada_mixdown Master

Tue, 5/3 12:48PM • 1:57:26

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

play, song, write, guitar, record, country, band, day, music, musician, cover, good, radio, sound, texas, backstage pass, jeff, started, shows, venue, Jeff Canada, Jeff Canada Music, Pearl Jam Fans, Ride With Me, Taylor Guitars, Gibson, Love Dove, Randy Travis, Singer Songwriter, Josh David Walker

SPEAKERS

Jeff Canada, Randy Hulsey, Adam Gordon

Randy Hulsey  00:00

I am joined in the crystal vision studio today by a local artist that has spent almost two decades in the music scene playing upwards to 300 shows a year. He is an artist that has opened for many of the big name acts, and is now headlining his own shows in and around Texas. I will see what's going on with my buddy, Jeff, Canada when we come back. This is backstage pass radio, the podcast that's designed for the music junkie with a thirst for musical knowledge. Hi, this is Adam Gordon. And I want to thank you all for joining us today. Make sure you like subscribe and turn the alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts. And now here's your host of backstage pass radio, Randy Halsey. Jeff, what's going on, man? Good to see you. Good to see you. I guess he traveled in from the woodlands area. How was traffic pretty brutal for you?

Jeff Canada  00:58

It's you know, I don't know what they were thinking when they made 99 with no on and off ramps on 45. So it was about an hour to get over here. But, you know, I was I was actually listening to the podcast you did with Brett Axelsson. Okay, he's one of the first ones I think it's actually my second one. Yeah. So I was listening to that. I started it a while back ago. I love Brett. He's a good friend of mine. And it's just cool to hear that. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  01:23

He's an okay guy. I felt sorry for him. So I had him on the show.

Jeff Canada  01:28

He is a he's a character. He has a character. And it's funny because you're busting his balls right now. And we force each other.

Randy Hulsey  01:35

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's a good dude. I enjoyed having him on. And then several of his bandmates have been on, you know, Kent Newman's been on and Stacy steel, you know, all those guys have been in and around the scene for a long time. But glad you're here. I've never had a chance to meet you. Of course, I know your name. I've seen you play that kind of thing in and around town. You know, we've probably played quite a few of the same places. Jackies, Brickhouse and places like that. So it's good to have you here in the studio, and finally getting the chance to chat with you. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I was wondering if you've actually come down off the high of that. November sell out at dosey. Doe.

Jeff Canada  02:18

You know, that's it's funny, because that was a crazy night for sure. But it just seems like I thought for sure that that was gonna be like, the top of the line experience for me, but it's just been the next one. The next one, the next one. They've been coming, you know. And so I've already kind of tune that one out. And you know, now thinking about the last awesome thing that happened to me. Yeah. What do we have coming up for till 2022? That, I can't really announce a lot of it. But it's just, it's crazy. What's going on? Yeah. And so yes, I've kind of gotten past it. But it was definitely a

Randy Hulsey  02:51

great, great night is the next one in the next one. Is it better than the first one? Or are they all kind of equal? Or what's your take on that? And like, each one is just kind of different probably to in their own way, right?

Jeff Canada  03:03

I mean, so I've played by I've played shows in front of, you know, two 3000 people before in my life, but I've never played gigs where everyone in that room was there for me, for me and for my music. So that was definitely crazy. I haven't been nervous on stage since I was in high school. And I didn't think I was nervous. And I don't know if it was nerves, or adrenaline or what it was, but I messed up some lyrics that night. And I had the shakes for sure. Yes, it was crazy. Just seeing that many people. And it's all my loved ones. Right. And a lot of people that have never even seen me play before. Yeah. And they're there to support me. It was it was an amazing, amazing night.

Randy Hulsey  03:42

I bet it was and But in all fairness to you. Would you say that even back when you were playing the cover shows, right? I'm guilty of it, too. I forget a lyric, I screw up a chord progression, like it happens. I mean, we're human at the end of the night, right? I mean,

Jeff Canada  03:58

I made a career out of not doing the right lyrics. It just worked or other reasons. Part of the reason why I was I was so successful in the Houston area with the cover thing, because I was I mean, I made really good money for a long time was because I didn't take myself seriously as a musician or any of that stuff. I mean, professionally, I would when I went into the bars, I handle myself professionally, but when I was on stage, it was kind of pushing the limits. Yeah, I was doing things that other people wouldn't do sure are scared to do. Yeah. And lyric changes all the time. Matter of fact, at least twice a week. I get a message on Facebook saying so and so it was listening to the song on the radio, and they can't even sing it like it is because they've heard yours. So many different times. And yeah, so that's it's a good compliment for me. Oh, it makes

Randy Hulsey  04:42

it fun, too. I mean, it makes the show memorable. It doesn't have to be so rigid music doesn't have to be so rigid that people say yeah, he sounded good. You know, he everything was perfect. You know, it can be your own your own thing and people remember you by that and

Jeff Canada  04:57

I think that's you know, that is an argument that I get I was was involved in the Houston cover scene for a really long time. And that was an argument I would get amongst musicians is, you know, whether you're running tracks or you're not or whether you're nailing solos or you're not, you're nailing the lyrics or you're singing the same key or you're cabling, whatever you're doing. There's always like this argument between musicians because we're a bunch of sensitive Teddy babies a lot of the time. And what people forget is it's not about you as a musician. That's not what it's about. Yeah, the crowd in front of you. It's harder now than ever. How do you make those people put on their phone? How do you make them pay attention? You How do you make them remember you? Yeah, you know, because they're gonna, as soon as they leave your show, they're gonna pull up Tik Tok, and find the island boys, and that's gonna get stuck in their head. And they're not going to remember the crappy version of brown eyed girl, or even the awesome version of crazy train that your band nailed. Yeah, they're not gonna remember that. I agree. But how do you get their attention and keep their attention? Absolutely. And you can see that by like, the voice or American Idol, or any of those shows, the ones that do the best are the ones that play their own versions of this, I

Randy Hulsey  05:55

think so. You know,

Jeff Canada  05:57

you can have a girl get up and just nail a Celine Dion song, and nobody's gonna remember that. But somebody's definitely gonna remember the metal version of poker face or Absolutely. And so that's that's kind of that was always my mentality. But I'm a huge Pearl Jam fan. Okay, Pearl Jam was my number one all time favorite band of all time. And they never did their shows the same? Yeah, right. Okay. Never the same solos. It's, you know, any veteran would break things down and go into a cover just not even the same. But you knew what he was singing? Absolutely. And to me, that's, that's the stuff. That's where the magic happens. Nothing is magic about you going in and nailing a song unless you're in a tribute band. That's the difference. Are you in a cover band? Are you in a tribute band? Yeah. Oz is a tribute. And cover and

Randy Hulsey  06:39

tribute are not the same.

Jeff Canada  06:41

They're definitely not the same thing. So, you know, if you're if you're doing a cover, then cover it. Yep. I mean, people don't come up anymore. No one ever comes up and says, Can you play simple man by Linares standard? No one asked that, right. They say can you play simple band by Shinedown? Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  06:56

Why is that? Because they did it their way, right? Their way? Yeah. Well, my mentor, the guy that kind of got me into just, I wouldn't say music. But he inspired me on the guitar. He was a he was a solo artist years and years and years ago. And not too long ago, probably three years ago, he said, Brandy, and he's kind of since retired and stepped down, you know, but he said, I don't envy you guys today, because people don't pay attention like they did when I was playing the phones are a distraction. You know, they're the TVs, there's 900 TVs in these places that are on your your background noise a lot of time Yeah, some of it resonates with a lot of people don't get me wrong, but you know who it's resonating with and who it's not. Because you have those people that you know, are head down in the phones for the whole three hours that you're sitting on the stool, and for musician that that can be frustrating, but

Jeff Canada  07:49

it can be but to me, that's what separates the entertainers from the non entertainers. And so I prided myself a lot about being able to turn heads. And it wasn't because I'm an awesome singer, because I'm not an awesome singer, or an awesome guitar player. It was because I would those zingers and almost every song I would play, whether it's a fart noise or a lit trumpet, or actually singing the words put down your phone and, and what would happen is is one person would hear it and they would turn around, they would say and you can see it. Yeah, they'll tap the person, right? When you just said, Get off. Whatever, like and I would say some crazy stuff. But maybe only you know, one or two people heard it because there's just so used to hearing the songs and absolute like that one person would tap and then guess what? Now the crowd is listening to see what you're gonna say next. Exactly. And it was kind of like a chakra kind of thing is what I always did, but just to cover Yes. And I got some trouble at some venues. And, you know, the venues. I've only been fired from one venue ever. But, you know, the venues would be like, you know, you need to tone it down. You do this? And I wouldn't do it. I'm not gonna do that. And then the more people would start seeing see me at that venue. Finally, they just stopped later. They'd let me do my show. Yeah. But then the problem is, is you see other bands come at you. You got to know to write you got to know how to read a room. I agree. You can't set up and play dick in the box, the first set at a restaurant? Yeah. You know, right. And so and I would have musicians come out and see me play. And then they would go do that, because they would catch the last 45 minutes of my set. And by that time, you've already pumped them up by the end and ready to go. I can do whatever I want to do. Yeah. And so that caused a lot of problems with musicians as well, because it'd be a fired and then blame it on me. And I'm like, Whoa, you're taking your own dog? Yes, yeah. Yeah, you know, you need to do whatever you got. And not everybody's me, right. Not everybody is gonna be that guy that can push those buttons. Sure. But you got to find your strengths as a musician and being in recovery musician, it's an art form in itself. And you got to treat it that way. Unless you're in a dance band, like a party band, like a wedding band, because then those shows are not about you at all. You're just there to do. And I hate those shows. And I would never ever, ever be sad Fabian Britain Well, background music. i There are many, many places that I refuse to play wine bars and stuff that because I'm not going to do that,

Randy Hulsey  10:07

yeah. Well, that's your prerogative at the end of the day. You're an artist. And it's your prerogative that if you go to a place and you play it, it just doesn't feel right. Or it doesn't register. The prerogative is don't book the bench again, right. That's kind of that's what I do. I mean, there's places that I've played one time, and I'll never go back and play him again. Not because the people were bad or the crowd was bad. It's just that it was a vibe thing. And I just didn't protect our wounds I have not cared for right there. Yeah, I

Jeff Canada  10:33

mean, it's, it's 100%. And, you know, now with what's going on now, I'm able to be a little bit more selective for about that, you know, with a select floor. Did I just say select

Randy Hulsey  10:44

floors? It's, it's a word if you want it to. It's our show. So you make it up as you go. Yeah.

Jeff Canada  10:50

I mean, you know, because I get caught now that I have this this name, or whatever that's happening now. And you got the bars that David, give me a chance before now that are reaching out want me to play? Yeah. And I'm just I don't have to. Yeah, so how many golden tea machines you have? How many TVs Do you have? Exactly? What's your stage setup? Am I just setting up and, you know, one thing that has definitely changed. And I'm seeing it now in the Texas country thing. But one thing that changed in the Houston cover scene out 2008 2009 was when the US bands used to walk into these venues, the servers and the staff and the managers would treat us like we're part of the team before 2008, maybe 2009, they would welcome us, they would ask us what we immediately they would come in and say what can I get you to drink, and they would comp your tabs. Even though you didn't have a comp tab, they would still take care of you during the night or whatever, if they had a good night. Something happened around 2008 2009 where they just were hospitality just stopped being a thing. And you just started going to these venues. And I wouldn't even talk to a manager until he paid me at the end of it. Yeah. And to me, that's that's one of the biggest flaws about about the Houston cover scene right now is there's there's just not a lot of venues in the cover scene that really treat you like you're part of a team. And to me, that's the bars, I want to play it. Are you looking at me like I'm an investment? Are you looking to like I'm an expense? And if I'm an expense?

Randy Hulsey  12:09

I don't know. Yeah, you don't need to be there. At the end of the day, you're an extension of their team. Right? And they should be Yeah. 100%. If they're not looking at it as a business move, like, okay, maybe you didn't bring in 1000 people tonight, right, whatever, but you're still talking to their guests, you're still thanking them for being at the show being there supporting local business, right? I mean, you don't have to bring in 1000 people to be valuable to the venue.

Jeff Canada  12:33

Or if you roll into a venue and they say, Hey, Jeff, I'm glad you're here. And they they bring you some water, or they Hey, you want something to eat or for free. Just just asking me, yes, the manager comes over, man, I'm so glad to hear it. He shakes your hand, when you get up on that stage. You know, we play three to four hours,

Randy Hulsey  12:49

you're pumped and ready to go, there

Jeff Canada  12:50

are multiple nights where I'll get up and play a three hour night without even taking a break. Because the venue is so awesome, because the staff is so cool. Absolutely. We're so cool. But you don't mind giving back to people that you feel like they're giving to you. But that's missing in society. In general, like Ed jobs, I guess the more you appreciate somebody, the more they're gonna give you. Period. That's just the way it works. And when you stop appreciating someone, and it's not that you don't appreciate him, but when you stop hourly appreciating people, they're gonna start up our league trying so hard to do that.

Randy Hulsey  13:22

I agree. And I'll get I'll give you a case in point. So I was a booking agent for the fire and pub brewery in Tomball for a while. And I remember playing there one night and the little girl that was the hostess, I always greeted her and said hello to her when I walked in. And at the end of the night, she she came over as I was trying to load my stuff out and she put some money in my tip jar. I don't know if it was $1 or 1000. I don't know. But then she she came up to me and hugged me and said, I enjoyed your music. And I said, Oh, thanks so much. I said You're so sweet. She said no, you are because you're one of the only artists that comes in here that even acknowledges my existence. When you walk through the door. Everybody else just thinks, Oh, she's just whatever the floor sweeper or the door holder or the hostess or whatever, but you treat everybody like they're like their people. And you know that that was her whole thing. And it meant the world to her.

Jeff Canada  14:17

Absolutely. And you never know that. Here's the thing that a lot of musicians that are out there and I don't want to spend the whole time just ragging on musicians because that's not what it's about. But a lot of musicians out there don't think past. Tonight's $200 Yeah, they don't think past that. Right? They don't think you know, I when I do want to venue. I don't want to make 250 bucks or 300 bucks off. Right? I want to make $10,000 off here. Yeah, that's what I want to do. I want to have a venue that I can call up and say hey, I need a show and you're gonna you're gonna put me in there. And I spent a long time getting to know everyone at every venue I played. And now it's coming to roost you know, there's a lot of musicians throw out the word lucky that I'm lucky because I'm getting to know opened up for Pat green or or go down the list. But to be honest with you, the whole reason is that is because the owner of one of the best venues in town used to be a bartender right? And we became friends like through that. Now, he's, you know, he owns sort of Park. And so, of course, they want me on their stage whenever they're doing a big show. Absolutely. And you can go down the list. I mean, I can name those things a million miles, because that's what happens. I mean, obviously, if you're a go getter, right, you start as a bartender, your goal is to open your own spot one day. And and so if you go to that bar, and you're not tipping that bartender, or you're a butthole, to the bartender, or you're not a team player, and then that guy opens up a spot and somebody says, hey, I want Jeff Canada play there. That guy Yeah, and that's not what you want. No, not at all. Yeah, man. Jeff was always cool. Let's let's get him absolutely.

Randy Hulsey  15:47

And you don't have to be the best musician to have people remember you. It's just about treating people like people. Let's let's shift gears a bit. I'll come back to kind of the the ticketed shows shortly. But take take the listeners back to Splendora. Texas, right. Splendour for those that are listening that are not from the Houston area. Splendour is northeast Houston in between a town called Cleveland and new Caney. Probably what 2020 minutes outside of Houston or is it more than that? 30 minutes. Okay. 35 Well knows depending on traffic, right? 40 minutes, but talk to me a little bit about growing up in splendour. How long were you in splendour? When did you leave splendour, that kind of thing.

Jeff Canada  16:31

I was born and raised out there. I mean, I wasn't born in splendour, obviously. But I was, you know, I was raised out there from the time I was born. I went through, you know, all of my school in splendour, Texas. I didn't get out until I was 20 or so. And then I went to work in the oil field. And, and yeah, it's just a small town thing. It's not like a ranch or town or anything like that. There's no really identity to it. It's just a town. Yeah. I mean, I grew up, you know, working cows and all that stuff. But not you know, I'm not from Stephenville or Eastland or any of these really cool towns that some of these guys are from on doors small town in East Montgomery County, Texas, Piney Woods. Yep. I grew up doing the typical you know, deer hunting and fishing and all that stuff. You sports kid at all growing up or not so much? Not. No. I mean, I played T ball one season and I played football for like a half season just now not my thing. Really. I was more of an attention seeker. Not really a team player. Glory hound, if you will. And I still am. Yeah, it's it's just I want to be the loudest one in the room. Yeah. Well, it's

Randy Hulsey  17:39

a kid though. Like, you know, I don't know what age you can pick any age you want. But what were you thinking about as a kid like, this is what I want to be when I grow up.

Jeff Canada  17:49

Man. I don't know when that when that switch flipped. But I can tell you that even going back and reading when my mom passed, I went got my baby book out of her house. And in there's there's passages in there that she that she wrote about me carrying my guitar around everywhere, and I didn't know how to play right. And what I'm talking about is like a one year old, two year old or me singing or dancing. Huge Michael Jackson fan when I was younger. I kind of listened to a little bit of everything. We were kind of forced to listen to country and my house. We didn't it was not really allowed until later on for me to listen to guns and roses or Pearl Jam or any of that stuff later on. But it was mostly since you know 70s 80s 90s country. Conway Twitty Vince Gill, Brooks and Dunn. Yeah, that sort of stuff. Keith Whitley. Yeah, so that's, that's what I grew up on. But I was always, you know, we would do talent shows a family reunions. And I was always dancing and singing and I was always been in the music, I would DJ those things with a two tape deck.

Randy Hulsey  18:53

The dual deck or whatever,

Jeff Canada  18:56

because a lot of these a lot of the newer guys out there so yeah, or even records. Yeah, you know, I remember going to my grandma grandpa's. And they had the little 40 fives I guess that what they're what they're called the 45 and 1000s of them. Yeah, we would just set up I'd sit up there for hours and just flipping records and anything. I mean, from the Big Bopper to the you know, just whatever, just all kinds of stuff. And so I've always been into music, but I don't know at what point it's switched to where this is what I want to do.

Randy Hulsey  19:28

If you didn't if you didn't like you, it sounds like you probably subconsciously you were thinking music was probably going to be it for you. But let's say you weren't doing music What would you be doing if you weren't playing music but it's still would you still be oilfield trash or? I mean, what have you ever thought

Jeff Canada  19:46

much about? You know, I don't know. I mean, when I was younger, me and my brother both actually me and both of my brothers. You know, there was nothing we couldn't fix. There was nothing we couldn't drive if we found the keys to it. We could drive it I mean, I remember driving a you know a lot I'm truck through the woods when I was like 10 years old, I learned how to drive on like a 82 stepside Chevy three speed. I mean, it was just there was nothing we couldn't we were mowing the fields on a tractor hole on our old Leyland tractor at eight, driving these things around, you know, so I would probably be doing something along those lines or who knows, I don't know, I don't even know I don't really think about it. I mean, I've it's pretty much been been a, you know, music, especially since 2006. I did take I took about 10 years off, okay. And I just, I just I stopped writing, I didn't do anything I met would play my guitar on the house. But I was I never really worked in the actual field. I was just in oil and gas. I was a project manager. And I mean, I started in assembly and inventory and all that stuff. So when I left there, I just started playing music full time. And and that's just been what it's been since but I never expected ever in a million years that this stuff. That's some of the stuff that's happening now would happen. Yeah. You know, never I did that record just as a therapy record. Sure. And I was if I would have just played dosey doe and 100 people would have came out and saw me play an ottoman show. I was okay, I'm done yet. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  21:12

So this is all house money now. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Pretty awesome. Very cool. Now, at one time, I know you were you were known for playing 250 300 shows a year and these shows it was mostly covered music, right. That was all covered. Nice. Okay. Yeah. What do you think the breaking point was though, for you? Did you wake up one day and say, no more covers? I'm done with this. Like, what led up to that? You know, what led you to saying, now it's going to be Geoff Canada, my brand, and I'm leaving. I'm cutting that umbilical cord.

Jeff Canada  21:45

It was a slow process of Aye. Aye. I did not write a single song for about 10 years. And before that, I wrote a ton. You know, when I was early 2000 I get to open up for dish Wallah. And I did some some other national stuff. But I just you know, I just started playing covers, you know, when you're playing 300 shows a year. I mean, I think my most was like 316 or 312. And one year, the last thing you want to do when you're at home is pick up your guitar, because you're just you're doing it every day. It's like sure, if you drive a tractor for a living, you don't want

Randy Hulsey  22:18

to be mowed grass for live in your yard is never cut.

Jeff Canada  22:22

Yeah, so but the turning point was when my mom passed away in 2018, she she died the day after mother's day in 2018. And I knew that I needed to write her a song, you know, haven't written one a long time. And I knew I needed to write one. And so she was a huge fan of 70s country. And so I went out to her house and I got the CD collection. I came home, of course did not listen to it on the CD, I got the CD and looked at it and then download it onto my Spotify or whatever. And I would just listen to that stuff, you know, and like I said, Conway Twitty and Vince Gill and, and that sort of stuff. And then I wrote the song, needle and thread, which was on the first record. And that's just kind of where it clicked, right. And I don't know if that's where I found my voice, because I've been kind of away from country for a long time. And I don't know if that's where I found my voice, or what happened was something just clicked and people really liked it. And it just resonated with people. And so I was like, Man, I'm just, I'm gonna write a country record, I'm gonna do it. And so I just got busy writing. Yeah. And again, I'm never I never once expected to not play covers, I was doing this. So all my friends could come out and party. And I put out a record. And it wasn't about anything more than that. Everything started to change from that, probably, I'd have to say around the beginning of COVID. Right? Because COVID happened, and it just took my livelihood completely away. And so you start thinking, you know, because because I've made six figures almost every year since doing covers, and people don't realize that how much money you can make doing it. But you can make that if you're doing it right, and you treat it like a business. And so but now my livelihood is gone. And the government's not helping me out. They said they would, but they're not sure. And it took 10 weeks before I got any help. And so I just started really thinking, Okay, do I really need to be doing that? Do I really need to be setting a bar plan covers all the time, and I need to diversify. And then you start doing other things. And so and my record wasn't finished either. And so I just started writing. And 2018 was was the worst year of my life. I mean, it was a bad year, my mom died. I got involved in a bar as a partner. And that was actually when I first took a step away from covers, I became the GM and I started running this bar and that only lasts for about six months. The owner was was not a decent person, but he's no longer with us. He passed away. And then right towards the end of that bar situation is when mom got sick, and she was sick for a few weeks and then passed away so it was pretty quick and and that was really tough. Tough on me, I'm sure and my brothers and then you just don't expect my mom was 63 when she passed away. You just don't expect to your mom not to be there. And then she was taken from pretty quick. And then after that, because of the depression and fallout from that, you know, I got a divorce or separated from my wife and got a divorce. And then 2019 was not much better. And then 2020 with COVID, it was just like slid dominant, slap slap, which is probably why why wishing? Well, the record is such a sad record. And I don't know, I don't know when this switch actually flipped for me to stop playing covers. But that was definitely the turning point was was whenever I started writing my record, and then we did the record, and then I did a Kickstarter, because I didn't think I was gonna get any support on this thing. So I was alright, I'm gonna do a Kickstarter, I'm gonna do it for 7500 bucks, surely, I'm not going to reach that goal. Because on Kickstarter, if you don't reach your goal, then the people don't have to donate. That's how it works. So basically, the donation doesn't kick in until you reach your goal. And we reached my goal in like, a month of $7,500. And then it got all the way to $10,000. And I was just, I was floored that people wanted to support this project, you know, and so we did the record. And like I said, I finished it, Darren COVID. And why everybody else was kind of resting or, or waiting on something to happen. I just kind of took the bull by the horns, and finished the record. And then we released the record in November of 2020. And since then, it's just been, you know, like you said, just it's the opposite way, you know, from 2017 to 2020 was just, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And now it seems like it's the opposite way. It seems like it's just cool thing after cool thing after cool things happening.

Randy Hulsey  26:35

Absolutely. Now you You've opened in the past for x, you mentioned one earlier pet grain you've opened for Stoney, LaRue, Wei Mo and the list kind of goes on the shows that you're booking now, are they strictly headlining shows that you're doing? Are you still open to being an opening?

Jeff Canada  26:54

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm always I'm always gonna open. That's just I look I love it. It's it's cool. Headlining acts to me are, they're very stressful, especially here in town. I mean, the goal is the goal is definitely in around Texas to get to the point where I'm doing the headlining act, but I'm not an egomaniac that thinks I'm there yet. Yeah. And I know a lot of my peers are that way. But I'm just not, you know, I know where my lane is. And right now, right now, I want to play in front of as many people as I can. And me headlining is not the ticket to that me. Me stealing other people's fans is the ticket to that. Yeah. And you mentioned the stone dealers show. I mean, I made so many fans at the start of the roadshow. Yeah, it was insane. Cuz we played one of the best shows we've ever played in our life that night, you know, and it was just it was asked most

Randy Hulsey  27:42

probably, you know, it's probably in and I'm gonna speak from the vantage point that I'm not a headlining act, right? I never professed to be but I have to think that there's this there's probably this egotistical thought process for a musician that I headline or else but there's nothing wrong with being an opening app because you said it best just a minute ago. You go to Stoney LaRue, you open for this guy, right, which is a wonderful artist, and it's not really that you stole his fans but you acquired a lot of his fans is now your fan. So that was a positive for you. Whether you are headlining or have the supporting act you and one there at the end of the night, you one right yeah, for sure. And that's the way it's got to be. And I'm just I'm not that guy.

Jeff Canada  28:28

I mean, there's a lot of people that think I am an ego, egotistical person. I mean, I'm a little cocky, I guess, I don't think you can do this and not be but I'm just you know, I've gotten stuff like, like, like Pat green. We weren't direct support. We were the band before direct support. And I got so many people that like Yeah, but you're not really opening for Patreon. You're, you know, you're down the list. I just don't view it that way. You know, I'm sharing the stage where there's still people there hear you. Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't bend that's my thing is where am I playing? You know, and I had a conversation with someone recently I do need to learn my own worth. That does need to happen. I've always been slow to the to the gate on that one. But you know, in in the spring Cypress woodlands area, I don't need to be the opening opening act. You know, if I'm going to be playing with with some of the bigger bands, I need to be direct sport and that is only because in that area, I'm one of the biggest drawing acts are in that in that area. And you take me down Seabrook and you have a fort, you know, a five band festival. Yeah, put me put me at the front. I'm fine with that. Sure. But I'm not going to do that here anymore. Yeah, that's, that's I'm drawing the line on that one. If I'm if I'm within 30 miles of my house, then I'm not going to be doing that I'm either direct support or I'm headlining,

Randy Hulsey  29:41

even if you're not worth a certain amount, you have to make people think that you're worth right more than what you know you are like you might say started Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'll tuck my podcast up like it's heard around the world and I've got some good statistics. I'm not Eddie trunk. I don't pretend to be Eddie trunk right. But I talk about my show I'm just as proud of my show is he is his like, even though I don't have near the listeners, and probably never will. But that's not why I even started this. If I started it for that reason, then that that was an uphill battle that I was probably never going to conquer, right.

Jeff Canada  30:17

Yeah. And that's been it's that has been something that's been very hard for me my entire life is accepting the praise, accepting the compliments having a big head having an ego. It's just it's always been very, very difficult for me. And even now, you know, I played a show on Saturday, and I'm looking out and open for Jason Cassidy. And there's not very many people paying attention to me, and I just, I'm my, my go to start is self deprecating. That's like my go to, and I've got to get that fixed. And I've gotten way better at it than what than what I used to be. But

Randy Hulsey  30:48

like, like, do you mean you shut down, you tend to shut down, shut down,

Jeff Canada  30:52

I just start talking shit about myself. It makes people laugh. And people remember it. And that's cool. But I need to stop doing that I humility at your expense is kind of the thing. And it's always been my thing. And, and that's it gets me in trouble on other spots. Because I talk shit. It's what I do. I've done in my entire life. And I bust balls to people I like, the problem is, is a lot of people can't handle that. And so whenever I'm talking about about myself, I'm just busting my own balls, right? And I'm my best friend. So I'm busting my own bucket, but they they may not see it that way. You know, they may see it as a guy that has no confidence or guy that this negative, right. So I need to get better about that. That's one thing, I got a list of 10 things that I keep, and I read every morning, and that's that's all on the list of is to don't be so negative. Well, that's, you know, that's

Randy Hulsey  31:39

a good point. I mean, I don't know what the old adage is, I don't remember it. But it's not a problem. If you if you identify the problem. I mean, you know that that's an issue for you. Yeah. Right. And if you know that, then you can figure out ways to fix it. But if you deny it, like I don't have that problem, then then it's always going to be that way. So the first step has been taken, right? It's probably with alcoholics, you have to identify that you have a problem with the bottle, because it's never gonna get fixed. If you don't identify that, right.

Jeff Canada  32:11

Yeah, I just identified a long time ago, and I haven't fixed it yet. Yeah, well, I think that's a lot of a lot of my issues or a lot of my problems. But you know, they're they're minor problems that have I mean, what I didn't really turn that person off, they just may not have as high of an opinion of me as I hope they might. Sure. Right. And so I definitely need to get better about that. But I also don't want to take it to the point where a lot of these guys are where they're just cocky. Yeah, right. And that's, to me, it's a fine line to walk is how do you how do you how are you confident and not negative on yourself, but also not some egotistical, sherlocky person that that nobody likes or that people are gonna talk? First of all, in this business, there is no winning, you're there, you're always gonna have people that are gonna hate you. And you're always gonna have people that are gonna love you, but but you're always gonna have people that have something negative no matter what you put out, no matter how good it is, no matter how hard you worked at it, people are going to trash what you do no matter

Randy Hulsey  33:06

what. And I've always said that the that 99 Out of the 100 that talk shit about you and what you do can't do it themselves. Absolutely. And I always keep that in mind. Am I the best singer? No. Am I the best guitars? No. Where's your fucking show? Where are you playing next? Are you even relevant? Does anybody know your name? And that's, that's not arrogance. That's confidence. Don't mistake the confidence for arrogance. Because it's not that I'm not an arrogant person. But I am a confident person. Right? And there's, there's a big difference, too, right? And that arrogance is usually people that can't back up what they're being arrogant about right is in my own opinion, but you'll never be good through everybody's eyes. Oh, first, you know, your album, you might think that wishing well was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But there's going to be two dicks over in the corner that say that was the worst shit I've ever heard in my life. And you it's hard. It's hard. It's hard because we want to please everybody, we please people. That's our humaneness. At the end of the day. We're never going to do that.

Jeff Canada  34:06

Right. But that's but that's the gauge. And that's what I always try to. That's what I tried to tell the cover guys as well, you know, you got this 9010 rule, right. And I call it the 9010 rule, you can do whatever you want to do. But no matter how good you are, 10% of the people are gonna hate you. But also, on the flip side of that, no matter how bad you are 10% that people are gonna love you. And the question is, you got to figure out which one right so when you're playing a show, and you've got 10 People that are up there just watching you and they're just in love with you and they're following you around. Is that is that is that because that 10% Love you are that is that the 90%? Or is that the 10%? Did you clear the rest of the room out and and you know, because those guys can give you a false sense of of how good you are sure, because of how much they love you and I've seen it a million times. To me it's it's trying to figure out okay, the 90% of the people stay or the 90% people leave Yeah, or 90 people 90% people smiling and laughing happily A time are they having a horrible time? And that's, that's kind of the key, right? Is to figure out which one of which one of those you are. And I've always been self aware enough to know where I'm at. Yeah, you know, and I think that's one of the big things lacking specially in the US to cover scene is self awareness. Like, am I good enough? Am I playing the right songs? Am I upbeat enough? Am I gonna you know, go down the list? Sure. And so I've always been pretty good about being a read a crowd and going where they want me to go. I've also been really good about finding the four or five people that I know are not going to like me and singling them out and go and get it and get it over with very, very quick Yeah. And then that way they're gone. And then you can have fun with people that do like absolutely so it's a tricky thing, but it's it's self awareness and just knowing where you fit Yep, and what and staying in your lane Absolutely.

Randy Hulsey  35:49

Are the big things. Yep. Now what what music was shaping you as a kid? You know, you grew up in Piney Woods. You know, you would think all the kids all they listened to his country, we stereotype that you know, all the time, right? But what was shaping Jeff Canada growing up,

Jeff Canada  36:04

I literally listened to everything. Yeah, I mean, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard. You know, the big guys, the good guys, you know, Garth Brooks was a huge influence on me on the country side of things, but I also grew up listening to poison and Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. And, but even older stuff, with Jimmy Buffett and that sort of stuff. So I've kind of always Michael Jackson, like I said, I was a huge Michael Jackson fan. I mean, I would wear the jacket and dance around the house and do all those things. So it was It wasn't so much the genre, as it was the beats and the rhythm and the the lyrics write the story. I fell in love with the stories. Yeah, so if you're a good storyteller, and I was in love with it, that's why I really loved like poison and Bon Jovi, and those guys because they they told stories in their songs. Sure. As opposed to like Nirvana. I cannot get into nirvana, because I don't I don't have the time to try to figure out what you're talking about. Yeah, and I'm knocking them there. They have I have the utmost respect for them. But if I got to if I got to dive into my subconscious or do some drugs to figure out what your Yeah, and then I'm not,

Randy Hulsey  37:15

then I don't like it. Well, you always knew that that Jon Bon Jovi was writing about Tommy and Gina Right. Absolutely.

Jeff Canada  37:21

No, or like Nickelback, you know, everybody downs Nickelback all the time. Nickelback is like a country rock band, right? All of their songs have stories, all of their songs. They're not, they're not writing this obscure, crazy stuff. It's story.

Randy Hulsey  37:36

I don't I don't want to get off on a tangent of Nickelback, but But here's what I do want to say about them? Because I've heard that sentiment from people. I don't think they get the respect that they deserve. I think they're great musicians. And what's his name? Chad Kroeber? Yeah, that fucking guy. Yeah, he's got some pipes on him. So where do they get the bad rap from? Where does that come from? Success, right haters.

Jeff Canada  38:00

And that's the thing you said the words that you don't think they they get the respect they deserve or whatever, but they do. And the reason they do is because they're one of the top charting rock bands of all time, but it's the loudest the squeaky wheel gets the grease right and we see that in politics we see that and every day of our you know, you don't ever see someone hear on the news. Someone saying something good about a politician, right. It's always something bad. Same thing with with music, you know you don't. And football. You know, Tom Brady, who is the greatest of all time, hands down. There's nobody better he's still doing it. I don't know how he's my age, like 43 or something. He's still doing it and how much hate do you get and then we had to witness it here with the Astros right, the Astros. They're the best team in baseball. They have been for a while now. And it's just hate. It's hate, hate hate. And that's just it's just the way the world is sure. Yeah. So I think they do get the I think they do get the respect they deserve. We just we hear the negative. Yeah, you know, and just success man creed was the same way. Go down the list, you know? Yeah. But yeah, I mean, all of those bands, the top charting bands, I mean, I'm sure Elvis got the same crap. Back in the day. You know,

Randy Hulsey  39:09

I've always liked Nickelback, like their music, and they have great hooks, you know? So, now back in 2020, you released a record called wishing well, was that the first full length record that you had written? I released

Jeff Canada  39:25

one when I was like 2021 Maybe and it was called the band was called Jezza Bell's tree which it was it was not good. I mean, it was horrible. It was just a puddle of mud. But rock crap. So I don't know of anybody that has it. And if you do have it, please don't ever upload it. It's not good. But yeah, so So wishing well was was definitely my first solo record. And really the first real record I did the other one we recorded in a buddy's house, you know? Sure. It was my first real. I mean, I wrote 50 Something songs for this record. So it was doing it like the big guys It wasn't just okay, here's 10 songs, and we're just gonna put on a record. Yeah, I tried to make the record tell a story. It makes sense. Absolutely. And some of it did. And some of it didn't. But that's okay.

Randy Hulsey  40:11

You know, it's a good first stab at it. Sure. You mentioned earlier back in 2018, you had a song that came out of the loss of your mom called needle and thread, tell the listeners about the song like, how did how did that the death of your mom inspire the song?

Jeff Canada  40:29

So it was multiple things, you know, I, I've always been the black sheep of my family, always. I mean, the rest of my family, they have nine to five jobs, you know, they work in the oil field, or they drove trucks or, you know, whatever. And I've always been kind of the black sheep. And, and, and I was not very close with my family, right. I mean, I'm, I was pretty close to my dad, but my mom, I would see my mom, she raised me. But ever since I left, left home, I would maybe see her four times a year, maybe five times a year. And I would talk to her about that, too. You know, we didn't really talk on the phone. That's just not what we did. And my brothers were even further apart, right? We all just grew up and did our own thing. And I'm just so different than they are. And, but when my mom died it like it gave me my brother's a second chance, if you will, we kind of and not that there was anything negative, like we not that we got into huge fights or anything, we just kind of grew apart, right. And so it just kind of got us all back together. And I remember sitting in the hospital room when in hospice, right. And I just remember thinking, everyone goes through this, right, everyone goes through this, at some point in their life, everyone loses somebody they love at some point in their life, but you don't hear a lot of real songs about it. And so I wanted to write a song that she would like, but also wanted to write a song that basically touched on that how hard it is that last 10 hours, 12 hours, 14 hours of someone's in hospice that lasts even the last hour, whether the breath and all that stuff. And I wanted to portray that musically. And that's just how I started writing the song. And there's a lot of stuff that mean, the producer got in a fight about because this song, I didn't play the song for anybody else. I didn't write the song for anybody else. I wrote it for me, it was a therapy song. I just wanted to be good, you know. And I wanted to tell a story. But at the end of it, it's it says you can let go. And we repeated it a lot. And it wasn't because we were trying to artistically, it wasn't because I'm just trying to fill time or anything it was because I wanted people to realize that that last hour or that last 45 minutes, or whatever it is, when when they're taking that last breath, it's it is that uncomfortable. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever been in that situation or not. But it's, you know, they take a breath, and sometimes it's two or three minutes between their next breath. So it's extremely difficult to watch. And I don't know that anyone has ever tried to put that into into an art form, right? Even in the movies, you know, when they die, they take that last breath and it's over, it's finished. It's never something that's so uncomfortable. So I wanted to do that. And so we got a lot of fights with the producer in the studio. And I ended up winning, obviously. But there's just multiple parts in the song that I wanted to really hit on the emotion of just losing somebody that you love. And that slow going process. Not so much the the big headline, this, you know, cops dying and that sort of stuff, or family members or whatever. It's just a tough deal.

Randy Hulsey  43:32

Yeah, my wife, Terry has lost. So she her biological parents, she's lost them. But her aunt and uncle adopted her at a young age. So for all practical purposes, she's had four parents over her lifespan and she's lost all four and mine are still alive. They live in town lake right across the street. And I don't know what it's like to lose a parent. And she, she doesn't remind me but she says, You know, I hope you never have to, you know, because it's not. It's not easy.

Jeff Canada  44:06

It's not I've dealt with a lot of death in my life. I mean, I was there when my grandpa took his last breath. I was there when my stepdads took his last breath. I've dealt with you know, and I've lost friends and you know, it's been I've been to a lot of funerals in my life. But the man when you when it's apparent, it's just different. It's just it's just tough, you know, especially when you know that you didn't give them the appropriate time as well. Well, I

Randy Hulsey  44:31

think we're regret is a bad thing and a conscience. A bad conscience is a bad thing, too. And that's why I've always said that if and when well, it's not if we're going to lose loved ones but I never want to look back and say I should have done these things. I should have spent more time I should I should have you know that whole should have thing I try to do what I think is right today because I mean you could testify there's there's sometimes There's no tomorrow, right? I mean, you don't know when the if there's going to be a tomorrow.

Jeff Canada  45:03

That's what kicked me in the ass that is that right there that sentiment. I mean, I was 40 years old. My mom was 63. Or I was 39 or 40. I can't remember. But, you know, I was, I'm 23 years behind my mom. That means I got 23 years left on this planet.

Randy Hulsey  45:20

That's the way that's one way. Yeah, sure. So it was like,

Jeff Canada  45:24

I'm done. I'm done doing things. For everybody else. I've always been the guy to do stuff for everybody else. I've always been the one to make sure everybody else to take care of before myself. I've always done the right thing. For everybody else, not necessarily for me. And that's what that's I mean, that's one of the reasons why me and my wife got a divorce, you know, is I was ready to live my life for me, and not for anybody else for once in my life, because I've only got 23 years left, you know, what's the point of sticking in a marriage that? Listen, my wife, my ex wife is one of the best women I know. She's one of the best people I know. And we're really good friends to this day. And we're a team and we talk a lot. And we have tried to be the best parent we can for our kid. But it just wasn't there was we were so far apart.

Randy Hulsey  46:08

Well, you were probably better apart than you were together.

Jeff Canada  46:12

It's just we've grown so far apart, right? Where it was so bad that when we got to divorce, we didn't lose any mutual friends. There was nobody had to take that make a choice. Right. Right. So I mean, her family, my family, but no mutual friends. I have all my friends. I mean, there were friends that I've been that I've been friends with 10 years that never met my wife. That's how crazy it was. Probably were. So what happened happened, but I just made a conscious decision that I'm going to start living my life for me. And that's what I do to this day. I don't say no to experiences. Yeah. If if, if somebody calls me up right now and says, Hey, do you want to go to Vegas? I'll pay for the trip. I'm not even gonna think about what else I have to do. I'm going with him to Vegas, or whatever, you know, doesn't really matter. Or somebody calls me up says, Hey, you want to go? spotlighting the night? Go kill an illegal deer? I mean, I haven't done it in a long time. But I would Yeah, let's go or let's go break something or whatever. I'm I'm gonna not not to the point of being mischievous or breaking the law or do anything like that. But but definitely pushing the envelope of your life. Because I don't want to be 63 lying on my deathbed. Brett brought it up. You know, Dad, what was your biggest regrets? I don't, I don't want to have any regrets. Yeah, you know, my regrets. I you know, I love hard. I love full. But but I'm living my life for me. Yeah. And I want to keep doing that. And, you know, hopefully, whoever I'm with, I'm dating a girl now that we're, it's great. It's awesome. That are that the paths are on the same path? Sure. And that the things that really we enjoy are the same. And I'm hoping that works out. It'd be awesome. If it does. But I'm, you know, I'm living my life for me.

Randy Hulsey  47:50

Well, I've always said there's no rewind button on life, right? You know, you don't get to that deathbed, and say, Oh, hang on, let me let me there's no backup button, right? So you're better, you better have done and live the way you wanted to live. And again, it's it goes back to the regrets. You can't say Damn, I should have done a, b and c. And I never did do that. So for sure.

Jeff Canada  48:14

And that's why I'm trying things now that I've never ever tried in my life. You know, I didn't I was not a pot smoker at all. I didn't you know, I didn't do drugs ever. I mean, I've never even touched cocaine and till my 40th birthday or whatever. And I mean, I've done it maybe four times. It's not like I do it all the time. But I'm like, Yeah, let's try it. I mean, I'm not gonna do heroin. I'm not gonna stop. It's gonna kill you. Sure. But you know if, if it's not hurting anybody else, I'm gonna give it a shot and see what happened to responsible. Absolutely. I go, I get your point. I still have kids. I don't want to be a loser. I don't want to end up in jail. I'm not going to do something crazy. But I'm going to push the limit. Yeah, for sure.

Randy Hulsey  48:57

Well, you released wish anwil, which was a full length record. And then you also had a handful of singles, I think, peaks and valleys. Memories in a shoe box. Right? Fill me up was one also that was the last one. I don't know if you would mind play in one of these are one of your choice. You brought the guitar there. And I'd like for you to just pick one of your choice. If you'd be so kind as to play something for the listeners.

Jeff Canada  49:25

Do you want me to do one that's already been released? Or you mean do you can do whatever you want to do your choice, man, it's tough choice. I tell you, what I'll do is I'll do the new song that we're going to release here in the next few months. We're about to put everything we got behind the song. Because we have a whole team now. Right? I have a whole team behind. Okay, I have a management team now and I have you know, we're having a meeting tomorrow with a marketing person. And so we're doing everything we got the everything has been released, previous to now has been done on my own. Okay, I follow you know, hell Oh, no team, nothing. So so this is gonna be the first one where it's like, we're gonna hit them in the mouth with it. Okay, cool. So we're gonna launch into radio, we got Ed spacey, who's gonna be our radio promoter. And then and we're gonna do a music video, a real one a, you know, a professional one, right? Even though I've done a couple of professionals already, but we're gonna go all out on this one. Good. And so I'll play that one. It's called ride with me. And it's about it's not really it's about taking chances really is what it's about. It's about, you may not be ready for love, or you may not be ready to take this leap, but just give it a shot. Absolutely chance. If you keep saying no to everything in your life, then no, yeses are gonna happen.

Randy Hulsey  50:41

This is a single I agree. And you said this is a single off of that this is going to be released as a single,

Jeff Canada  50:47

we're not going to do another record for a long time. Okay, what we're doing is we're piling up songs, and I'm in the studio once a week right now or so. And we're just piling up content, whether it's a live cover song, or or it's a studio cut of a of a of one of my songs. We're we're just going to be pushing out content. I'm gonna try to release something new every two to three weeks. That's the goal. Okay, so we're pushing hot and heavy on this sweet which my brain is on overload stuff but it's called ride with me that's what it's about. And I hope you like it

51:36

Okay, explain it. A dairy Wordery lamb start in the fall. You frustrate me? A cane came figure you loud. But my heart is beating nadelman chest when you're around.

52:00

So let's play this game around our own rooms. Dance Dance our own tune. Stig Chang C word candy. All I'm asking.

52:16

Stick around me we can see a guy that's okay with me. I don't know worse go lucky Wait, see? And I know you're broke and I'm a little broken too.

52:52

So set fire to the pieces and bring back something new. And let's play this game. Our own rules. The dance dance our own zoom stick chains. See what can be Alaskan stick around me. Thank you. You were you were doing you're smiling me I can't see straight those blue. They blew my mind. So pull the trigger let's take this

53:47

let's play this game. Our own rooms. The dance and dance our own zone stick chains. See word candy. All I'm asking is take a ride with me. Take me take me. Digger read me Are they coming through? sunwin I don't know what happened. I can't explain

55:07

it started in the fall.

55:12

You frustrate me. I can't figure you out. My heart is beating not on my chest. So let's play this game are our own rules and stance our own. Take chance. See work in me. All I'm asking.

55:41

Take her with me you can take our time. And that's okay with me. I don't know where it's going. I can't wait. See? I know you're broken. I'm a little broken. So set fire to the pieces. And bring back some then. And let's play this game.

56:24

This dance our own chains. See? Me? All I'm asking. Me is if you were to smile at me are kissy strange. They call my mom let's take this let's play this game our own rules and stance our own to stake chance see what can be our own is our Oh, come on, baby. I'm waiting. All I'm asking. Segre me. Me

Jeff Canada  57:43

too. Yeah, I'm the worst when it comes to tempo. When I'm by myself, are you? Yeah. But it's always been because I'm like that in in the full band. You know, I don't we don't play to click tracks or any of that because I want to feed off the energy of the crowd. And I don't want anything dragging me back or Absolutely. Or, and I play everything faster than what it is live now

Randy Hulsey  58:10

to do co write that or is that a is that a only?

Jeff Canada  58:14

That one's me. Okay, there is another guy who threw one line in to that song. But I'm not I'm not sure if I'm gonna put it down with a co writer or not. Okay. So I won't, I won't say that.

Randy Hulsey  58:24

I'll take a I'll make a prediction i that has a nice hook to it. i That might be a charting song there for you.

Jeff Canada  58:30

We hope so I pushed I pushed too far gone to radio. So everything I'm doing is trial and error. Like I said, I had no team. So I hired a record promoter. I sent a song to a record promoter that was highly recommended. And he passed on me, he basically said that nothing. I had punched him in the gut, which is fine, no big deal, you know, you're gonna get that. And so I took the next one that was recommended to me. And again, I won't say who this person is. But we pushed radio and it cost me you know, a couple of $1,000. And the guy just, he was not doing the things he was supposed to be doing. Okay, he's, he's the kind of guy that that would just worry about making that money. Okay, as opposed to really doing the job to the fullest. He's got kind of got his hands and too many baskets. I won't say too much negative about him. But you know, it's definitely was not worth my money. And so after about five or six weeks on the radio, I just kind of gave up on it. And we still got to 71 on a on Texas country music chart, which is, I don't know if that's good or not, I have no idea. And it kind of bounced around from 71 to 81 for about nine or 10 weeks, without any pushing at all. So I really think that if we would have took that song with a real radio promoter, we could probably could have got up and you know, at least the top 50 Sure. So if this one, you know this is gonna be my next one. I have two more coming behind that, that I think are better. And so hopefully with this one hits, and then we'll we'll do the next two and hopefully out of one of those. We'll get up to a number one if we're even going to do that right That's the thing about radio, and not to talk any smack about anybody that's doing radio or that's where I am not an accolade kind of guy, right? I don't, I don't need a trophy. I don't need number ones. What I want is I want to ask this and seats. I want to build a fan base. And so the question is, when you spend five or 10, grand pushing a song up the radio, and you get to number one, is that really building new fans? And that's the question, you know, because now, they don't just take radio, they take internet radio, and they take everything into account. Well, an internet radio station can be playing your song 10 times a day. But who's listening to it? Right, exactly how many? You know, where are those plays coming from? So that's kind of my my thing with the radio is at work that are you getting bang for your buck, but I was talking with Jesse Rob Jr. A while back, we're at a festival. And him and I were discussing that because he has a few number ones. And he's written a few for Cody Johnson. And so we're just talking about and he's like, man, like, don't even look at it like that, you need to hit it from all angles. And that's so that's what we're going to do with the song we're going to hit it from the radio standpoint, we're doing a Spotify campaign, a huge push on, like Google ads and Facebook ads. Okay, I'm ads, and we're doing a music video. We're like going all out on this one song. And so I don't, I don't care if it's number one, I just don't care. I mean, I hear people talk all the time about this guy's had 20 number ones, or 50 number ones or, and it's really awesome. Like, that's a cool thing. I just don't care if it's not the end all be all, to you. If I get 10 number ones, and I'm making $100,000 a show, then, okay, that's awesome. But if I get 10 number ones, or three number ones, or five, or ones that I'm still making $1,000 a show or $2,000 show, then I don't care. I want to I want butts and seats. That's what I want.

Randy Hulsey  1:01:50

So you've got that one coming up. You've got several others that will follow. Of course, I think that you've cited I don't know where I heard this, but you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think you've decided somewhere in the past that at some point in time, maybe it's not so much the case these days. But at some point in time, you were petrified to go into a studio to record music, Talk Talk, talk to the casual listener that just turns on the radio, they're not musicians. They don't play instruments, but they love music,

Jeff Canada  1:02:20

tell them what that means. Okay, so when you're playing in a full band, and you're playing live, there's so much stuff that covers up your mistakes, that covers up your flaws, right. So people can think you're the greatest there is in a live setting. You can I'm not necessarily saying that you're going to auto tune or anything live but you know, your, your flaws are covered up. Okay. And then you move to acoustic shows where it's just you and the guitar and if your depends on how you play if you play like I play which is still upbeat and percussive and, and still like in your face, same thing, a lot of your flaws are covered up not near as many as with the full band, but you can still cover all that up. Sure. When you go into a studio Thrall it's fraught. I mean, it's and then you got it. And I hate the sound of my own voice when like even now enlisting like gods and all that crap. But it's that's me, you know, it's not it's not true. It's just that's in my head. And so when I'm in the studio, and you got to do things to click tracks, and so you're thinking about the tempo, and you're thinking about fretting clean. Yeah. So that way, you know, it comes through, it's just so much more to think about what's emanating, I'm up on stage, and I'm doing an acoustic version of Limp Biscuit.

Randy Hulsey  1:03:26

Who cares, you know, and

Jeff Canada  1:03:27

it's like, here's a couple of hit a wrong note, it doesn't really matter. But when you're in studio, it's the when you're instead of the way I want to be in the studio, right? I want to go in the studio and I want to track my acoustic part.

Randy Hulsey  1:03:39

Well, it's something that's captured in time. And it's something that everybody will listen to over and over and over again, and you don't want them to listen to bad notes over and over again,

Jeff Canada  1:03:51

cannot be fixed, you know, and that and that's the cool part about technology in the studio these days. And a lot of these artists on the pop country scene and stuff. There's very, there's nothing in a lot of instruments, it's snap tracks, and no eights and, and keys and synths. And, and so, with that record, we're actually when I went into the studio with this producer, this producer has never produced a country record ever. He He's into more pop stuff, and he does a lot of praise or shoot music, that sort of stuff. But I said, Man, what I really want this record to sound like is five dudes, four dudes sitting around a campfire playing songs. That's what I want. I don't want a lot of effects. I don't want a lot of overproduction and on that record, I don't think there's a single song that that is overproduced. Matter of fact I think the only thing on that entire record that is that is digital is the clock sound on monsters that I think that's it. I think everything else was what came out of a real instrument into you know, with us actually playing Yeah, and I want to always keep that. Keep that thing you know, I don't make sense. That's what I wanted to share. I want to be a storyteller. Yep. It's to me it's not about the music. It's about the story and the story. The music should extenuate the story. I grew up not the other way around, right? That's just the way I write. And that's the way I want it to come through. And same thing with writing, I write lyrics. First I write lyrics and silence. I have not written a song to a riff or to a rhythm to a melody or nothing. And probably 1314 years now, every song on that record, not every song because there's some of the songs that were older, like memories in a shoebox, I wrote when I was like 22, which is why it's such a crappy song, you know, backseat rendezvous probably around the same time. And that's why they're there. They're very elementary written, but I wanted to put them out because they're crop favorites. And I wanted to put them out. But all the new stuff that was written for this record, and all the new stuff I write now is all written in total silence. And I got some interest, John Mayer, and something else from that read Axelsen interview that I was listening to, as he was talking about, he doesn't listen to music anymore. I guess she's the same thing. And that that happened to me too. But I disagree with with the premise, right. I disagree that if you listen to it, you're going to start to shape your sound right. I think the problem is because you're listening to the favorites. Yeah. So what I do is, is every day I listen to music I've never heard before for one hour, every day, not so much lately, but but definitely from 2018 Till the record was finished. I would listen to music for one hour every day I've never ever heard in my life. And not just listen, like really listen, get pulled the lyrics up, dive into lyrics, dive into the writing dive in the metaphors. And then after that's done, I would then write lyrics and silence for an hour. And so basically two hours a day for two years was dedicated to writing. Yeah, and I and I have notebooks and notebooks of stuff that will never see the light of day and a lot of it is just total garbage. And I'm getting better. I'm definitely getting better at the at the songwriting is getting easier. It's starting to flow a lot more. But I think by choking yourself off from an art form. You can't really explore that art form. You're just going to be playing what's already in your brain.

Randy Hulsey  1:06:57

I agree. And I think my comment was more of a tongue in cheek comment about like I always say in 1989, I turned off the radio and I just never listened to it again. That's not true. My wife would come down here and say, Randy, You're such a liar. There's always music playing in this house. I my point, Brett's was probably a little different than mine. But my point was more I don't know, I just went through something in my life where my head was somewhere else. I don't remember. Like I can tell you in the 80s like this band was hot. That song was hot in the seventh 1978 Paul McCartney and Wings like I have all this just dialed into my brain somewhere in the 90s. Maybe because I was never a grunge guy. I just said, okay, but it's you know, and I just went on hiatus for music and I just kept listening to Bad Company and AC to all the stuff that we grew up that I grew up with. That's kind of what I meant, you know, more than anything, but I I've never turned music off. Like, I don't want to be mistaken there.

Jeff Canada  1:07:57

For 10 years. I'm not even kidding. Because I was playing covers every night, right? And that's what I did. I played covers, I there was music in my brain for four hours a night. Sure every night. So on my way home, I was listening to sports, talk radio, political radio, and then later on podcast, and I really got into that and it was around that same time when my mom passed away when I was like, I need to I need to listen to music and what's it's it's a blessing and a curse with Spotify and with Apple Music and all these streaming services and YouTube there's so much noise out there right? But if you the problem has to be listened to radio, let's just say the you know terrestrial radio. If you listen to radio, no matter what channel you listen to, if it's country, it's going to be the same 1520 songs on repeat for three four months. Yeah. Okay. And that doesn't matter if you're listening to a Texas country radio station, a pop radio station, you know, the buzz is the same way I mean, it's the same it's literally the same 1520 songs on repeat that that DJs on there for however long and that's that's the issue right? Because because a lot of people that's how they take music in and then they find their favorite songs whatever then they that's what they stream on Spotify. Yeah, there's just not a lot of people especially in Houston that really dive into new stuff. Well,

Randy Hulsey  1:09:15

I can tell you that I could not do what I do on the show if I was a closed minded musician, I've discovered so many fabulous musicians now I've had the you know, I've had the you know the fee waybills from the tubes that Michael Sweet coming up next week. You know, you've got those artists that are you know, at the next level, right, but I mean, I like your stuff like before, you know, three weeks ago, I never I never paid any attention to your stuff like I know that you did covers there's a guy Nick. Bossy out of Connecticut. I listened to him the other day, my holy shit, this guy's amazing, like and so I'm always looking for those kinds of artists to have on my show because if it inspires me or if it touches me, then the whole premise behind the show Oh is how can I get Jeff Canada to more listeners than he had yesterday? Right? If that's all I give you, that's two more than you had yesterday. So I did something for your hour drive over here right now. No, it's not a lot. But.

Jeff Canada  1:10:14

So, fans, yeah, that's how you make one edit one

Randy Hulsey  1:10:16

at a time. You can't do it 5000 at a time, it's not possible to do that. So

Jeff Canada  1:10:20

but what happens is, and this is what happens, you got Trey Lewis, Trey Lewis is a guy that wrote the dig down in Dallas on okay, if you listen to his record, it is a phenomenal record. It is not. It's very well written. And I don't know if he wrote it or not, but he's the artist model. It is a really good record. And it is not comedic at all right. But then he wrote this dig down down song, right and straight to the top, getting millions and millions and millions of listeners. But that guy he played right here in Cyprus, and like 50 people came out and knew who he was. Yeah, right. Or same thing. There's another guy, Hayden Kaufman out of Nashville. And I got to play with him. And he's got same thing, millions of streams. And he's awesome. I really like him a lot. But it's the same way when he comes down here and he plays a show how many people are gonna come out and see him play? It's minimal, right? But if you do what Metallica did, and you do a Green Day did and you do it the Goo Goo Dolls did and you do what all these guys did Johnny Cash and all those guys that really had staying power Metallica, they were playing shows for no one for years. And they just made fan by fan by fan by fan. And now I mean, you're just talking about and that's kind of what I want. I don't have the time to waste like they did. Obviously, I didn't start this in my 20s I'm 43 Sure. I'll be 43 next month, but that's what's on your you're doing it organically on asses and seats, right? And I want people to, I don't want I can do comedic stuff, right? A lot of people know how funny I am. And I'm talking a lot of shit and have a good time. But I didn't want to release a comedy record. That's just not what I wanted to do. I wanted to release a true record to what's true in my heart. And then I wanted to build fans around that. And that's what we're trying to do. You know, Now, granted, you can't go anywhere in this business without money. And so you have to play the game for sure. I want I want people on a real level to know who I am not because I wrote some corny song about absolutely drivers, which I really want to do, but I just gonna wait till I get further in my career to do it. Exactly. I don't want to be pigeonholed into that comedy stuff. But but that's the thing. I mean, you can you can blow up overnight, but are you going to have any staying power?

Randy Hulsey  1:12:28

Absolutely. And that's important, I think, Well, you had talked a little bit earlier about being in the recording studio. And, you know, a lot of it's sent and different instruments just to kind of change gears on the instruments. Let's talk a little bit about guitars for a second. What do you what do you play? I know you're a tailor guy, your Gibson guy talk just in a little bit more detail for maybe the guitar junkies out there like what your what's your go to guitar is and is there a brand that you prefer over the other brand?

Jeff Canada  1:12:59

And not really. So it's kind of a funny story. I think if you think playing is more in the hands than it is on the actual guitar. I really truly feel that way. I'm not a guitarist right. I'm not some virtuoso, it's gonna bust out a lot of leads. I'm talking about just a rhythm sound. And so for probably 10 to 12 years I played on like an $800 Seagull guitar with with golden pickups in it and and that guitar was i It sounded it sounded good. I had it didn't sound or the crap unplugged but but plugged in, it sounded good. It was percussive, and it had the exact sound I wanted. And I did that for years and years and years and years. And then the pickups went out on it. And I didn't know that you could switch pickups on a guitar. So I told my my wife at the time that I wanted to do guitar, but I wanted one that I knew was going to sound good unplugged, and one that I could record with. And that's why I went with the Taylor 818. And I went with the 880 because I wanted the full body because that's the bit that 80s The biggest body tailors ever made. And I wanted the full body no cutaway, full, full long guitar. So she actually bought me that guitar for Father's Day out probably say, six or seven years ago. And that has been the guitar I've played every night for the last six, seven years. And then the last freeze happened and all 12 of the bracing on the inside came loose and the whole face caved in. And so I took it to my net or negatory he's a gold star Taylor guy, and I dropped off to him and then I needed I needed guitar. So I went I bought a Martin. I can't remember the model. It's not an expensive one, probably 12 $1,300 above that, and I started playing that. And then that started having some wood cracking problems too, just because of the I guess the cheaper wood they used. But so I opened up for before Rob before my tailor broke open up for who was a Tracy Byrd opened up for Tracy Byrd down in Seabrook and he heard my set and he walked up to me, he goes well, whenever you go get you a real guitar and I was playing the Taylor 18 He was when you go get your real guitar and you become a real songwriter. Anyway, just busted my balls for sure it was super nice guy. And I was like, Alright, I see I see what we're doing. So that's whenever, you know, right? Whenever my tailor broke, that's when I went down and I was like, I'm gonna buy me a Gibson. And I didn't actually I didn't have any brand in mind, I just was gonna go down to folders, and I was gonna play every guitar under 10 grand. And that's what I did for two hours I played and so now I play a Gibson loved of which I absolutely love. But I think I'm going back to my tailor because you know, there's a really important signature on the left of now and so I kind of I might just hang that on the wall. Don't want to miss that. I don't know. Who knows. I've never like I said before, earlier before we went on as I've never been a sentimental guy about things. They're just tools and so I don't I have that memory right that memory of getting to hang out with with Randy Travis getting to hang out with him for you know, a couple hours and then him signing that guitar. I have that memory in my head. Absolutely. It's not It's I don't need the guitar to prove it or any of that. So I don't know, I might just do like a an epoxy finish or something over that. So it doesn't go away. But I'm I don't know which one I'll play. But now I got a really tough decision every day right? Like, am I playing the blonde or my playing the redhead tonight? Yes. What's one of my three? And then you know, I want to I want to give Sanjay 200 Because I like the fullness of those guitars as well. And I really want to Martin like D 15 or something. Whatever they're, they're big ones are Yeah. Just to have all three of the big guys out there. But man I've played on anything from a crappy ovation to a seagull to the cheap cheap, Alvarez's you know, when you're playing 300 and so much shows a year. Do you really want to have a 5000? A guitar $5,000 guitar sitting there on your guitar stand with all those people drunk and obnoxious and stupid when you don't have any security or anything? Yep. So I don't know. But I mean, the the tailor was for 4000. So I played that for years and years and years. I don't know. I don't think it's so much about the guitars is the hands. Yeah. And there was a there was a video going viral a few years back into the guy with the Hello Kitty guitar and Walmart and just throwing remember, I know some people who know that guy. And apparently he's like some really, really good dude. And it just gives it just goes to show you that if you got the right guitar on their

Randy Hulsey  1:17:15

hands, well, there's one of Zakk Wylde out there doing that on a Hello Kitty guitar. He's doing the Old Black Sabbath on it, then it's like, man, he makes a $50 guitar sound like it's $10 million. You know,

Jeff Canada  1:17:26

but but on the flip side, if you have a cheap guitar, and it's in the hands of somebody that doesn't know how to run sound, or somebody that is not a good player, then it's not. It's not going to work. I agree. Right? But even even even the even that, that guitar, you know, somebody picked it up the other day and started playing it sound like crap. And I was I was sitting there like, oh my god, sure. But it's, it's the player. Yeah. And then and you learn things about we were talking earlier about sound and mixers and all these things and you learn how to use your equipment the right way. And and I've learned how to play that guitar. I know the frequencies are going to ring out so I know when the mute what Yeah, I know when to I know how to adjust my technique to to get the best sound out of that guitar. Well, even

Randy Hulsey  1:18:09

even if you and I played a G progression on that guitar the same way digging in exactly the same it would sound different to you. And it would sound different to me because our ears hear your tone different right so what sounds great to you played the same way by me might sound like complete shit, right? And I've always I've always said that and sometimes I'm my own worst critic about my sound like, Oh, that's not this or that's common or this is that and then you ask somebody else like I don't hear like, Okay, well, maybe I'm going crazy,

Jeff Canada  1:18:41

to be honest with you. And this is the things that people don't realize, especially sound guys, for some reason things sound the best. Right when they're on the brink of chaos, right? So a vocal mic, for example. You want to get it right when it's feeding back and then crank it back a little bit. Yeah, that's when it's going to sound the best. Same thing with a guitar amp. Same thing with all the four clips, right? And so you want to you want to get right on the brink of chaos on those things. And in my opinion, that's how I get the best sound out of everything. That's why I can't stand playing like digital stuff. You know, just you're you're never gonna get the people tell me all the time that you can but I just I'm never gonna hear what a Marshall JCM 800 Sounds like through a pedal.

Randy Hulsey  1:19:25

Yeah, well, are you a pedal guy at all like when you when you play a solo show? Is there no,

Jeff Canada  1:19:31

I use a T Rex acoustic soulmate. And it was around 700 bucks or so what does that do for the guitar? It is a it's a true bypass pedal. Okay, and it has, it's got a boost on it. Okay, that's got a three band EQ on it, which doesn't shape it as much as you would think it is. It's got a compression on it. It's got a tuner on it, but the tuner actually works on acoustic guitar on a stage if that's the first pedal I've ever had that makes variants with, it's got delay on it with tab and it's got a chorus. Now the chorus sounds like total garbage, but I'm not alive in the 80s anymore, so I don't use. But the delay sounds really good on it and everything's really editable. But each pedal is has its own unique but okay, so it's not digital at all. There's nothing digital on it. And it's great. It's the best preamp that I've ever had. And I've had the Fishman aura and the what what's the one the LR bags, the brown one?

Randy Hulsey  1:20:29

I know what you're talking about, you know, I've

Jeff Canada  1:20:30

played on all of them. They it does have a cut a low cut on our feedback reducer on it, but you could turn it on or off. I don't turn it on because when I turn it on it it seems to choke that the signal a little bit, but I'm not a huge fan of over compressing things or yeah, that you should know how to play your instrument enough to sure to get it to sound good.

Randy Hulsey  1:20:51

Tell the listeners a little bit about your band. The players where do you find them? What instruments who's playing what?

Jeff Canada  1:20:59

Yeah, that's that's a touchy subject right now. Because, you know, my love my guys like brothers, but but they can't really travel. There's one member of the band Phillip Smith, Phillip Phillip started playing bass for me, probably four years ago. And he is a phenomenal bass player. And I'm not saying that because he's my bass player. He is He can be a session guy in Nashville or LA or wherever. Not without it without a doubt. And he's older. He's just turned 50 he just retired from a TNT so he's on board, but we're actually probably gonna move him over to lead guitar because he's also phenomenal guitar player and have been and he's, he's, he's one of my best friends. I mean, we go on road trips together, we go climb fourteeners up in Colorado, and we've already been road tested. And we you know, he's just he's a really, really good guy. And he's an amazing musician plays upright, unbelievable on upright plays fretless you name it, he can play it, but he's also the kind of guys like, so we went out and saw Kevin Galloway who's the singer for Uncle Lucius when saw him open up for David Ramirez one night and he was just him and a cello player. And Philip was blown away by this. So he just went bought him a cello and then, like three weeks later can play the cello. I mean, not not amazing at it. Sure. But he can play songs with it. Yep, to the point where we're gonna use it the studio. And so he's just that kind of musician. So he's phenomenal. And then I had a guy by the name of Andy Hakuna was on my drug was on drums. Another he's a he went to one of the big Berkeley went to Berklee School of Music, plays trumpet plays, drums, plays, keys plays all these different instruments. But he's moving to Japan. He married a Japanese girl and they're, they're moving to Japan. So he had to step out. And then on guitar, Austin Bradshaw is filling in right now it's kind of a stopgap until we find who's gonna be on guitar. So on drums, we moved to Duane Gaspard, who actually played with me in the oil rose for a year or so. But same thing, he's, it's just helping me out so we can get the travel band together. And that's the hardest part right now the hardest part for me is trying to build this band of people that are going to buy into what I'm trying to do, and not want all the upfront. It's really hard in Houston, Texas to build a band. And the reason that is, and this is not me talking crap about anybody, this is just the way it is in Houston. And I was actually having a talk with Scott Brown from scooter brown band about this, the issue that Houston is, is you can make as a musician, you can make two to 300 bucks at night, without even trying, you really can, it doesn't matter how good you are, you can do it. If you know 3540 songs, you can make two to 300 bucks a night. Well, just you know, that's not how it isn't Nashville. And that's not how it is in Austin. That's not how it is in LA, you know, those guys, they're used to making 7580 100 bucks a night and then doing session work. So in Houston, it's hard. There's a lot of talented players, for sure, but they're not as good as they could be. Because you don't have to get better. You don't have to work at it, you're still gonna make money. So it's very difficult to find guys that are on a tour that are from here that are willing to go out on the road for two or 300 bucks a night because why would I go on the road for? Why would I go stay in some fleabag hotel, be on a bus when I can make here I can make the same money here. Yeah, so it's got to be people that are gonna buy in to what I'm doing. And that's Phillips one of those guys, you know, because I truly feel like we could get up to the 45 or $50,000 a night show by the end of you know, next year or the year after the year after that if we if we do everything right and and that's and those are the guys I want to I want to have and put them on salary and where they're making whatever they're making. It's just very difficult to get especially me and my age as well. I'm 43 I don't really want to be in a tour bus or a van with a 22 year old kid. Yeah, unless he's really got his shit together. Yeah, and Philip who's 50 Damn, she doesn't want to be you know, so we got to be really selective about who we who we pick. So what we're probably going to do is what the band I currently have. We're going to go into a studio and we're going to record everything the way we do alive, the covers the originals everything and not not for release, but basically just to say okay, I need For this run of shows, I need a guitar player, learn this stuff, show up know your stuff. The good news is, is there are plenty of people out there that will do that there are plenty of people that put in the work and will, you know will come to come on tour with you it you just got to guarantee them a certain amount of money. Sure. And so luckily, you know, I have financial backing now and so we're able to do a lot more things like that. I just got to find the right people touch so that's the goal now is the goal is just take the current band, get everything laid down, like we play alive, because that's the cover thing you know, I will never ever, ever be satisfied with just getting on a stage playing songs. It's just not my thing. Like I it's got to be a show it's there's got to be drama and there's got to be dynamics there's got to be starts and stops and there's Yeah, it's got to be that way. I'm just I go out and see so many bands that are just up there playing songs. Not not a lot of emotion or heart or and they sound great. I'm not knocking them again. I'm not knocking them I just I'm not that guy. Yeah. Right. Um, since Yeah, I mean, there's like ko Wessel is one of the biggest guys in country music right now. And he escaped me and Ember, it's kind of the same way we want to push the limits and we want to put on a show. And so I'm not a traditionalist. I'm not just gonna get up there and play country songs we'll throw alternative song in our set or whatever we want to do.

Randy Hulsey  1:26:12

It's funny guys that can do that. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, you want to pull up the lub dub and play another one for us. Yeah, we

Jeff Canada  1:26:17

can just do an old one or new one or what do you do with your pick man, man, this is easy. This is being being on playing I didn't

Randy Hulsey  1:26:25

say come over here was gonna be easy. Said you're coming over here for an interview. Yeah, some of it might be hard some of it might be easy I don't I never teed it up for you in any kind of way. So

Jeff Canada  1:26:35

we can we can definitely do one let me see. Let me see what we want to do. Give me a second we'll figure it out.

Randy Hulsey  1:26:39

That's fun. All right. All right.

1:26:40

I can do I don't know if I should do a new or an old one. I don't know what I'm gonna do. This one's called a film here

1:27:21

love and try to download JSON perfect song you came along you came along Long Do you feel me slipping through my knee See you can have a glass and you watch calm home you feel me maybe this should be sample to over Thank you loving wild and crazy down push me away push me away you feel me pass a timer to a lot prompt

Jeff Canada  1:29:16

wasn't true

1:29:20

I'm scared as hell I'm scared you feel me know all these Whoa. have built guard me the Fallen now. Please don't scar me. Because I'm trusting you. Zam trust and you don't fuck me. This should be simple to over thank you wow man crazy down push me away baby should be simple wild and crazy don't push me away push me away you feel me pushed me away. Don't push me away because you feel me

Randy Hulsey  1:31:28

that was fill me up live here in the crystal vision studios with Mr. Jeff Canada. Now that was a single that wasn't on wishing well that was just a single that you had released

Jeff Canada  1:31:39

one released a few months ago. So it did okay. But like I say we haven't put any money behind anything. So a lot of people really liked that song especially live they asked me to play that a lot. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  1:31:49

And you know, I think I listened to it on Spotify. And it's funny how you get one emotion from something listening to it one way and then you listen to it a different way. You sit over here, you know six feet from me playing it raw and acoustic it just resignate so much better to me really here. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm just I'm just an acoustic. Like I'm I'm a sucker for that.

Jeff Canada  1:32:12

Yeah. And what's funny is on the record, there's no guitar at all on that song. There's no acoustic guitar. It's just piano and slide guitar. There's no, so it's totally different vibe. But I wrote it. That's how I wrote it. And that that song, that song was supposed to be on wishing well, it was supposed to be on there. But it's about a girl that I that pretty much, you know, I cheated on my wife with That's what the song is about. And so that's what it's about. And it's this young girl half my age. And she moved off to California, but but we kept the relationship going for a while. And it was it's written for it's, it's written because you know, it's going to end right you know, it's wrong, you know, it's bad. You know, it's not going to work out. Nothing in the universe is going moving forward, you but man, you're just so infatuated with that. Passion. And sure, you know, all of that shit. And so that's, that's what the song is about. So that's why the whole thing is, you know, don't push me away. Don't fuck me up, you know. And that's another kind of fight we had in the studio. And just like, Well, why don't you go ahead use the F word. And what other word are you going to use there? That's going to have that meaning? Yeah, you know, the meaning of doing that that word out in all my songs? Yes. That's the first time I've ever recorded that. I think I think I don't know that for sure. But I'm pretty sure it is. And so music is not always supposed to be safe. And it's not always supposed to be comfortable. And it's not always supposed to be feel good. I agree. Right? You want to take out you want to bring people's emotions out. But it's not always in a good way. Right. I agree. And so and I think that as a songwriter, that's one thing that that I really, that really gets me is when someone really identifies with something that I wrote an example I have played with a did a show in Cyprus with Kevin Fowler, by the way, who's probably the nicest man on the face of the planet. He's He's unbelievable. And, and we play our said, and we didn't eat one thread. And I rarely play that song live. But we played that song that night. I don't know why I did it, and I get off stage. And there's this guy who's six foot eight, six foot nine, probably 400 pounds, just a big, big man. And he's just bawling. And he just grabs me up and just gives me a big hug. And he's like, man, thank you so much for playing that song. And for writing that song. We'd literally just put my dad in hospice today. And my dad made us come to the show, to get us out of the way for a while. And so I'm not sure what happened with his dad. I'm not sure what the deal was. And maybe it wasn't hospice. Maybe it was. I'm pretty sure it was hospice, but he knew and I didn't have to explain to him song I didn't there was no That's what the song is about. He just heard the song and he listened to it and stuff like that is what really it's for songwriters, right that's what means stuff to me. Absolutely, it's not some 16 year old girls singing the lyrics to my song and or doing some stupid dance on Tik Tok to one of my songs. It's getting someone to really engage in your music.

Randy Hulsey  1:35:12

Yeah, I liked that you actually said that. It was like talking to actually it was creed Fischer that I was talking to about this. And I said, I had interviewed a girl that I saw open for the bacon brothers who was Michael and Kevin Bacon, the the actor, right, she opened. Her name's Cindy Alexander. She's from Big Sur, California. And she opened for them at Green Hall. And in my interview with her, I said, define success to you. And she said, If I touch somebody with my songs, I'm successful enough. The money is a byproduct of that, in a roundabout way. That's what she said. And that's kind of what you just said, Yeah, money is important. We have to pay our bills we have to eat. But when when you can move somebody by song, how much more gratifying? Can you get? I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like, and there's so many people that can't do what you and I do on a stage. And when you get those compliments that you know, your song touched me, or thanks for that song. Or that means so that's more than that's better than putting $5 in my tip jar. I'd rather you tell me I'm not saying don't put money in my tip jar. But you know what I'm saying, you know, I mean, they're, those words, just go for so much longer than a $5 bill will go for, to me anyway, I don't speak for everybody. But I do speak for myself. And that's what they mean to me. And it sounds like you're sending that with her sentiment to success is touching people with the music that I write. And you just said that to in a roundabout way.

Jeff Canada  1:36:42

I think that is their sweet Texas country and the Texas music scene versus Nashville in the Nashville music scene, right? The national music scene is most of the people that are coming to Nashville are not writing their songs. Most of them, a lot of them are and a lot of their great songwriters. But for the most part, you got some guys sitting in a in a room in a studio, and he's writing a song. And then they take those songs and they pitch them to somebody who's, you know, young and good looking person or a way better singer or whatever the case may be. And a lot of times those songs don't deliver because of that. Now, a lot of times I do I mean, George Strait is one of the best cover bands ever. Right? Yeah, like I mean, he's amazing. And when he delivered a song, he delivered it, but he was also very strategic about the songs he would choose. Sure. And I think that's the big difference here in Texas. It's different. You know, in Texas, most of us that are doing this write our own song. You don't have to have a great voice down here in Texas, you know, you just need to tell good stories be true and honest. Now there are guys that do outside songs. Matter of fact, Jody booth just pitched he pitched me a song. He pitched me a couple that I think I'm gonna record and release. But but when I listened to it, it's like it came out of my pen. You know what I mean? It's not like I'm looking at it. I don't

Randy Hulsey  1:37:54

have so it's not something I would write. Like, you could see yourself writing.

Jeff Canada  1:37:58

I don't have some record executive telling me hey, you need to play you need to write for sure. You know, you signed a record deal of like a four part four record deal, right? You're gonna do four album, record deal. And they may give you one song on one of those records that is for you. Yeah, for the most part, it's gonna be what they choose and what they push. And if and most of them wanting to listen, if you say hey, I wrote this song. And that's, that's to me. That's a shame, in my opinion. And I think that's the big difference. I think that's why that's why Texas country has our own thing that nobody else really has. In Texas country is such a diverse people think Texas country it's Stoney, LaRue and Kevin Fowler, Texas country is such a diverse thing. I mean, it's other than rockets. Americana is its country its traditional country. Yeah. It's not pop country. Its traditional country music and even like Josh Ward and Cody Johnson they're playing a little bit more pop stuff is still Texas to the tee and it's still country music.

Randy Hulsey  1:38:57

Yeah. And I almost refrain I try to refrain from asking this question, but I don't know why I like to ask the question but because I don't think artists like to be put in a box but if you were to defined Jeff Canada's Music What box would you put yourself in?

Jeff Canada  1:39:13

I always say singer songwriter. Okay, even though other people are calling me country is that because you think it's more broad? I don't know. I just don't really think about it like when I'm writing a song I'm not thinking about the audience I'm just what I want out there and that's why that's why when you hear things like like whiskey tears on the record, which has got a fiddle in it is country its country can get or too far gone. It's got a pedal steel in it. It's country but then you listen to a song like monsters you know it's not you listen to backseat rendezvous it's straight up bluegrass with a banjo and everything in it. Fill me up I don't even it's more contemporary. Yeah, I

Randy Hulsey  1:39:48

don't consider that.

Jeff Canada  1:39:50

So it just to me it whatever. I don't care. I just writing songs and I'm hoping people I can put some mean my favorite artists are that's like Ryan Adams Ryan Adams I don't know if you know his stuff or not but he's phenomenal right? Yeah, there's some of his stuff that sounds Texas country there's some of the sounds rock'n'roll there's it's all over the place. And that's what I mean I love that and like Cody, Jake's Cody Jake has put out a metal record I don't know if you heard that or not but now he's putting out a metal record and so so me you're either true to yourself or you're not and if you're true to yourself, the fans will find you and they will put you in the category they want to put you in they're not going on the category that you say you are right and so if you have a Jason Isbell fan for example, loves I guess is more Americana. If if you have a Jason Isbell fan, and I opened up for Jason, this bill. Well, from now on, I'm in those people's eyes. I'm gonna be an Americana band. Yeah. But if I open up for Pat green, guess what? I'm a Texas country band. But oh, no. For Tracy Byrd. I'm a Nashville. Yeah, like it's our country musician. So it's always where they want. I always want to stick true to myself and I'm writing and recording after I recorded it's yours. And I don't remember who told me that but they were like when you're writing a song you recording a song at your song? But as soon as you release it it's not your song anymore. Yeah, it's never thought about that's the listener song interesting. And that's if you keep that in mind when you're writing nothing then that that that's the case then as long as it's true to you then it shouldn't matter if it what genre it fits in. Yeah, I agree even if it's cheesy or not cheesy or serious or funny or it should matter.

Randy Hulsey  1:41:32

Exciting news can you share from the Jeff Canada camp? Like anything new coming up that you want to or can speak of? And if the answer is no to that, that's perfectly fine too that I wanted to make sure that we we gave you the opportunity to talk about anything that's in the can that might be coming out that people can look forward to maybe a snippet or nothing that's fine too but

Jeff Canada  1:41:56

yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff like I said ride with me the song I played earlier is or wherever you put it in this podcast or the song I play later however you edited that song is gonna come out and we're throwing everything we got behind that and then we got another one called back to Texas this right behind that that I wrote whenever I was in Colorado, and it's it's a Texas country song to the tee and then I have another one called I'm here that actually me and my girlfriend wrote together I wrote it she edited it. Okay you know so she's she's definitely a writer on it. So those you know, we got those songs coming out plus there's like six or seven more that are that are in there. We're recording okay, but those are gonna be the next three. Well actually have part two of the song I just played of filming. Okay, it's part two of that. And it's I don't know if I'm gonna release that before ride with me you're after but we're not going to put much effort behind that. It's just gonna release it to everyone. Yeah, but you know, we got some really cool shows. We got a BTR festival which is the Cajun festival in Hitchcock coming up in April with Gary Allen and in Aaron Watson Aaron Watts is playing night one than us and Gary Allen some other bands are playing Knight two on a scooter browns on that Jason Castillo's on that I have a Kobe Cooper date. That's next year but I don't know exactly when it is a lot of this stuff is it's that's that is a hard transition for me is going from the guy who did everything. Yeah, let somebody else do it is very difficult because now I'm like, I checked my account. Now I checked my calendar the week of I look at my calendar, and those are the things I have to do. Yeah, where before that I was planning a year in advance. Yeah, on everything. And so it's tough. So it's a lot of the stuff. I don't know exactly when it's gonna happen, but I'm planning the CD release party for album release party for Jake bush. On February 5 at Jackie's Brook house. I'm opening up for Jake, if you guys haven't heard of Jake Bush, check him out. Trent so on my birthday we're playing it dosey doe this probably won't air by then. But uh, on January 16, which just started maybe me and Jake bush and Trent cow you're doing a three man song swap and if you haven't been to dosey doe Have you been to a

Randy Hulsey  1:43:59

show? I haven't been there but call hudon will be on my show.

Jeff Canada  1:44:04

I didn't realize he is he's he's great man. Such a good songwriter, very charismatic Interviewer Yeah, he's awesome. So dosey DOE is hands down my favorite room to play when I'm doing acoustic shows because it's just such a great sounding room and then we have a show right after that the next week but I it's gonna be Trent cow and I'm full band but I cannot announce that until the day after the dose Etosha just because of tickets and that sort of thing, but we got back to back dates and Stephenville Texas next year. So we're starting to get out on the road, do some some some cool stuffs coming down. So I know that I have a run that they that someone's working on right now that needs to be acoustic shows, but it's gonna go up there, Dallas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Portland, and then back down and I'm really looking forward to that because I've never done anything like that before.

Randy Hulsey  1:45:00

that'll be cool.

Jeff Canada  1:45:01

Yeah. You know, it's funny because this all this is new to me. Yeah. Kyle Hudson, he asked me so we did dosey doe on November 1, we sold it out for the release party. Well, then the very next night, we did the hangover ball shows what we call this what Kyle coined it. The very next night, we did the real life real music show. And I was so hungover. I just was not myself. I wish I wish I would have done that. But he told me, like, he told me that I was the first person who's ever played the dosey doe stage for the first time to sell out, which is really cool. But that was also my first ticketed show I've ever done. Okay, right. And 42 years old, or four years old, how old? I was. 41. So there's just so many firsts, man. Yeah, I'm and I'm learning so much in this and it's insane. But every day is a lesson and every day is a gift. And we were talking earlier what success is, I mean, I'm already I've already hit it. Like it's already there. You know, more people know me now that knew me. A month ago. Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's really, really cool. And I have real fans, like real people that are coming to my shows and coming to see me and like our Jeff Canada fans. Correct. And that is so foreign to me. Yeah, you know, so every day is just awesome. And so if, if tomorrow it comes down to this whole thing shutting down, I've already won. I'm playing with house money at this point. What I hope happens is that, um, you know, I get to the point where my overall goal, to be honest with you to be able to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma and be able to sell 50 tickets to a show. That's my overall goal. And I think that is an attainable goal. I have no illusions of being Cody Johnson or any of those guys at all. I just want to I just want to play songs and people listen to my songs, I'm gonna be able to make a decent living doing that that's what I want. And I'm doing it right now.

Randy Hulsey  1:46:50

Well, small steps, you know, in your, you know, you could conquer the 50 seat show in Tulsa and then there's another stepping stone after that, right. But you gotta cross you gotta cross one bridge at a time you know, you they say if you if you break the boulder down into pebbles, it's easier to carry from one place to another versus picking up right trying to pick up the boulder and carry it all at one time. But where can the listeners find you in the band? If they need merch? If they need show dates? Where do they go to find you? What's the

Jeff Canada  1:47:21

best place Jeff canada.com is my website which not a lot of people use websites anymore. But if you go to Jeff canada.com It's got a link to everything else, right? The very first page has, you know, Instagram, Spotify, all of that stuff. And right now that's that's really what I need. So it's a crazy business and you need to make certain goals you may need to make certain milestones to reach the next one. And like for, for instance, Red 11 Who's a their booking agency one of the biggest ones for Texas country, you know, you have to have 10,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. 10,000 followers on Instagram 10,000 followers on Facebook. So that's what we're trying to do now is get get all of those up to those minimal numbers, but I don't want to do it fake, right. I don't want to pay somebody to go in and give me 10,000 Spotify spins I'll pay somebody to do it if they're giving me real spins or they'll give me real followers Sure. Same thing with with Instagram you know, I don't want people following me that don't care anything about your bot. Okay, you know if it's not good some only fans girl was cheesy, where if I got 10,000 of those, I don't give a shit. Yeah. Fans, right. And I try to interact with my fans a lot. I try to hang out with people shows when I go to a show I rarely play and then leave. Right? Like a lot of guys do or I show up at if I'm playing a festival I show up at the beginning of the day. And I stay until the gates closed because I want to be hanging out with everybody Yeah. I don't understand how you can be an introvert in this business without them and they're out there sure they are they're definitely out there I'm just I'm that's not me. I want to hang out with people I want to and then same thing you know, if you send me a message on Facebook, you're talking to me if you send me a message on Instagram, you're talking to me my management team does have access to that and sometimes they'll answer it but I'm I'm really on the top of check and all that stuff. If you send an email through the website, it I get copied on it, but my manager pretty much takes care of that. So but if you want to get in touch with me you can get in touch me very easily just go Jeff canada.com But if you if you could if you could follow me on Instagram if you like my stuff, you could follow me on Facebook or shoot me a friend request on my personal Facebook page. I'll accept it accept everybody. Yeah, I'm the same way and I'll purge I'll go through and purge or just because it'll get to 5000 and once it to 5000 you're maxed out. Just go through it. Delete everybody, I don't know, but anybody that I interact with, and I consider you a friend now and yep, so I'm very active on all of those things. And I think I will be no matter how big I get. Well, I

Randy Hulsey  1:49:49

think it keeps you grounded. And yeah, you could you could turn it over to other people but then you you kind of lose that personal touch right and that that is what it's the those personal touches that lead to more fans, right? If they if they say, Well, Jeff, you know, piss on that guy because his people, they respond and you don't even know who you're talking to, because I've talked to some guests on my show where it's them, you know, but then they're somewhere. It's their management company, and that's fine. But but but it's that personal connection that you make with people, and you talked about growing the fan base, you can't do that if you're like the Wizard of Oz, and you're this fictitious person behind the curtain, and you're never interacting with anybody. Right? So you're doing it the right way, by touching those people still and not relinquishing that to the business side of it. Yeah.

Jeff Canada  1:50:41

And you know, when you get to a certain point, I get it. You know, I was talking to Shane Smith. And he taught me the same thing. But but the thing when you when you message, Shane Smith on Instagram or whatever, sometimes it'll be him answer. But if it's not, it actually says, the management team, or it'll say who's replying to I think that needs to be the way it should do you know, so? And I know, Charlie, I managed by Charlie Diggs entertainment. And if he answers something, he always signs it. Charlie digs? Manager so people know who they're talking. That's cool. But I see everything. In, we got a pretty good system. Yeah, I want to talk to everybody. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  1:51:17

I mean, if I couldn't think I'd be that way to

Jeff Canada  1:51:20

set in a radio studio and just talk to people. You know, I just talk a lot. Yeah, it gets me in trouble a lot. It got me in trouble last week, it gets me in trouble sometimes. But, you know, I just, I just want to be with people and help people.

Randy Hulsey  1:51:35

That's not a bad trait to have. And this business. I mean, it's all about building a brand and you know, a fan base. And if you're standoffish in the corner, and you act like you're too good to go talk to the people,

Jeff Canada  1:51:45

then yeah, and you know, everybody has their off days. But I don't, yeah, I get anything. I mean, I've played 1000s of shows, and I've never ever been grumpy at it. I mean, I've been crabby toward my bands. He's a different side of me than the people in the offshore. Or with managers, you know, I've gotten grumpy with managers. But I've never been grumpy at a show like, yeah, I don't have off days, because, but it's very simple. For me, I put things into perspective. Okay? This is a very, very difficult life to live life is hard, you know, from being in school and getting bullied or being the bullying in trouble, all the way up to having to go work in a cubicle every day or losing a loved one. You know, very few people just have a life where it's awesome. No, I agree. Okay, so and if you take that in, and if you take that into account, when you're playing a gig, and you're looking at who's in front of you, you never know who's out there in that audience who's just having a shit day. Yep. And you can give them a 45 minute to three hour to four hour vacation from that, or even if it's a 10 minute vacation from that, and then we have so much more power than what you think we do. Or that what people think we do. We can change people's day perception anything just by not being an asshole. It's that simple or not being good. Like you said, You know what, standoffish or whatever, guys? Yeah, you know, when you get done with your set, don't go out your car smoke. Yeah, don't go sit on the back of a stage on your phone. Don't go sit down at a table. Now if you're sick, you're sick. And that happens. You want to save your voice That definitely happens. But man interact if you saw God through 10 bucks in your sibs, or go out there and thank him. Yeah, or sometimes I'll talk too much shit, right. Sometimes I'll say something that maybe shouldn't have said Amelie go to that people who have that is I go, it's only like, man, thanks for being such a good sport. Thanks for being part of the show. And most of the time, I will make an instant fan out of that person. Yeah. But if I just go set my car, they're gonna think I'm an asshole. Exactly. You know. And it's the same way with the big guys, you know, the guys that really had it going on. They're the ones that are bringing people up on their stages. And a lot of times it's planted, but there it's the perception. Absolutely. They're doing this.

Randy Hulsey  1:53:57

I've been to I've been some to some private shows, and just in the industry that I'm in, you know, I've been to private parties and shows like, with bands like cheap trick, and you know, the list kind of goes on, but I remember one specifically in Seattle, and it was a train show. And it was, I think private party for like 2000 people and granted it was private party but But Pat Monahan came down off the stage sang songs amongst the crowd. Let people sing into the mic was I mean, it was very personalized it right it was It wasn't like it was a US IN THEM thing. Like, here's the divider, don't cross the divider, right? He got down in the trenches with the people took people's phones from them took selfies with them. I mean, that's what builds the brand and if you don't see that, not you but I mean if people don't see that that's building their brand. I think there's this mindset that oh, I'm I shouldn't be down there doing that kind of thing. Yeah, you should. Yeah, I mean to a certain degree, I mean, you have to you have to be safe. You have to be safe. Yeah. But I mean, and

Jeff Canada  1:55:05

you have to, sometimes there's rules. Sometimes the venue doesn't doesn't allow. There's a lot of reasons. But at the end of the day, man, just be cool. Yeah, be cool. And let people know that you care about them. You know, that's the thing. None of us could do what we do none of us without them. We do if there weren't people sitting there watching us play. I agree. No, man, that doesn't matter. If you're playing in front of a if you're playing every Tuesday, I show in front of the 30 people or if you're playing a sold out 80,000 person stadium, I agree with you, you would not be there if it was not for the people. And that is that and

Randy Hulsey  1:55:41

I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, for the listeners, Geoff canada.com That's where you can find him. You can go out and find links to all the other social media sites from that site there. That's where your merch is to is that correct job. People can buy merch from that site, you guys make sure you support your local musician. And I want to thank Jeff for joining the show and coming all the way from the woodlands area to be here in the crystal vision studios the segment and I wish you continued success with the shows and building the brand. I ask the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast. Also make sure again to follow Jeff at Jeff canada.com and also on social media. As always, you can find the show on Facebook at backstage pass radio podcast on Instagram at backstage pass radio, Twitter at backstage pass PC and on the website at backstage pass. radio.com. Jeff again, thanks for hanging out with me. And I appreciate all the listeners that tune in to Backstage Pass radio. You guys take care of yourselves and each other. And we'll see you guys right back here on the next episode of backstage pass radio.

Adam Gordon  1:56:49

Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of backstage pass radio. Make sure to follow Randy on Facebook and Instagram at Randy Halsey music and on Twitter at our Halsey music. Also make sure to like, subscribe and turn on alerts for upcoming podcasts. If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure to share the link with a friend and tell them backstage pass radio is the best show on the web for everything music. We'll see you next time right here on backstage pass radio