Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Damhnait Doyle: Toronto Mike'd #525
Episode Date: October 8, 2019Mike chats with musician Damhnait Doyle about her solo career, her work with Shaye and The Heartbroken, why she stopped drinking and so much more....
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Welcome to episode 525 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything.
Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com,
Brian Master from KW Realty, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Pumpkins After Dark.
I'm Mike from torontomike.com, and joining me this week is musician Davnet Doyle.
Welcome, Davnet.
Thank you so much for having me.
You're the first Davnet I have ever met.
There is one other in Toronto. She doesn't pronounce it the same as mine.
How does she pronounce it?
I believe the correct Irish pronunciation is Downeth.
Oh, I would.
Right?
So.
I like your way better.
I think it's just a little bit more straightforward.
It reminds me of the Siobhans.
We all know a couple of Siobhans who spell it the Gaelic way, I guess.
And I mean, I know to say that Siobhan.
But if you were just like seeing that name for the first time,
you might say, hi, Siobhan.
Well, the way the B and the H is pronounced as a V,
the M and the H acts as a similar thing in my name.
And this is because, I'm going to guess right now,
and you're going to tell me I'm right or wrong,
but because you're from Newfoundland.
Yes.
And my mother is from Ireland.
So it's a straight from the land of potatoes name.
That's legit.
It even confounds people in Newfoundland.
People in Newfoundland look at me like, what?
Damn it.
Okay.
A much easier name to pronounce is the name Heather.
So I was thinking, oh, I have a Newfoundlander coming over.
And I'm like, do I know any other Newfoundlanders?
And I realized a friend of the show, past guest, Heather Bambrick is from Newfoundlander coming over and I'm like, do I know any other Newfoundlanders? And I realized a friend of the show, past guest,
Heather Bambrick is from Newfoundland.
I love Heather.
That's it.
No,
that was a,
I can't,
I'm going to tell Heather.
I saw a sincere look in your eyes of admiration.
Oh,
I just,
I just think she's a spectacular person.
And of course she's a great singer and great artist and great radio personality.
And she's very funny,
right?
Oh,
she's hilarious.
Are you funny? I am. We're going to find out. I don's very funny, right? Oh, she's hilarious. Are you funny?
I am hilarious.
We're going to find out.
I don't know if you're going to find out right now
because my decaf coffee hasn't kicked in,
but yeah, I've cracked myself up.
Is it decaf for a reason?
Are you cutting back on caffeine?
I haven't had caffeine in six years.
Once I had my first kid,
and I was getting up know feed her in the
night and I couldn't get back to sleep and then I eliminated my one coffee a day and then my whole
sleep patterns changed for the better yeah see I took went on a leap there awesome okay uh I uh
I do like my french press coffee every morning so and it is caffeinated but uh i think if i had like orders from a doctor to
reduce cal uh caffeine i could i could i think i could transition to decaf like i'm not sure i'm
addicted to the caffeine i don't i guess i wouldn't know till i quit it well as somebody said um you
know i think i'm just addicted to liquid and hot liquid in the morning that's tasty hot liquid in
the morning cold liquid at night. You know?
You know, we're all addicted to liquid if you think about it.
Because try to live without it.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So Heather Bambrick, I tweeted at her.
And I'm not seeing, I don't know, I'm getting older.
I guess I'm supposed to wear glasses, but I actually don't even know where they are.
Because I can read without them. But I was typing in to Heather this morning about fellow Newfoundlander,
Davnet Doyle's coming on.
But I guess spellcheck came in
and I ended up tweeting her that fellow Newfoundor.
And then I got a couple of Newfoundlanders
a little ticked,
but it was an innocent mistake,
everybody from Newfoundland.
I didn't mean to call you Newfoundor.
I do know the difference.
But she tweeted back and she tweeted,
woohoo,
loves Davnet Doyle.
But I need to read this
phonetically here.
Hold on,
because she says
that you can explain
what this is.
Right to deet.
I don't know.
R-O-I-G-H-T.
That's one word.
Like right and ta.
Right to deet
is D-E-A-T.
Does that mean anything to you?
Right to death.
Oh, maybe she missed an H. Maybe it was loves her right to death.
Okay.
Yeah.
I feel like she needed an H at the end of that.
Okay.
Yeah, well, you know, we take our liberties.
We get an extra half an hour.
And she said, give her a big old squeeze for me.
So if I do squeeze you after this please
know it's actually for heather not you know sure yeah i'll make a note of that no relation i love
you no relation to fellow newfoundlander alan doyle no right okay no for just uh friends great
friends he's he's an amazing i i mean i take breaks from social media because i find
just for my own mental health it's good to just have some space but when i am on social media i'm
always just confounded by how much alan doyle travels and he's always smiling always looks
great he's he always you know he's always the life of the party and i just don't know how he does it
it's very impressive if i i'm trying to take my my i've never met alan doyle but he is a great
musician he's a little bit of a great big c in the background but um he's buddies with russell
crowe am i right like don't they have something going on with a romance or some kind yeah they
make music together i've never met russell crowe but they make music together and alan's been in
some of rus Russell's movies.
And by all accounts, there's always like the Newfoundland, you know, Twitter sphere is always a buzz if Russell Crowe is in St. John's.
You always get that.
I just saw Russell Crowe at the.
Oh, yeah.
Because that would be a big deal if you saw Russell Crowe anywhere.
But yeah, in St. John's, sure.
Now, I did see recently this miniseries called The Loudest Voice in the Room.
It's about the creation of Fox News.
Russell Crowe stars in it.
I'm just here to tell the world that Russell Crowe, he's almost unrecognizable in this character.
He's very good.
Yes.
Oh, it's a fantastic show. I had to stop after four episodes because it was just so, it was just too real.
four episodes because it was just so it was just too
real.
The acting was almost too good and it was
very mentally disturbing
for me to watch, to be honest.
Yeah, it's a difficult watch, but it's a good one.
Hey, hey.
Okay, thank you, Alan. You're not related to
Davenant, so I have to bring you
down there. Bye.
Bye, Alan. Now,
you were born and raised in Newfoundfoundland but when do you move to
the big smoke here i actually uh came to toronto for the first time when i was 17 i remember my
dad dropping me off at the saint john's airport to go fly off by myself to toronto and write songs
and make a record and so for the next couple of years after that, I was back and
forth between Toronto and St. John's, but I really moved here solidly. I think I was 20 or 21. So
over, over 20 years ago. So, okay. Tell me when this jam comes into play.
What song is that? No, I'm just kidding.
I would have believed you.
You've done a lot of things.
Well, that was my first hit.
Right?
Yeah.
That was a song called Lists of Things.
How old are you when you record this?
I think I was like 18 when I recorded it.
And it was the last song I wrote for my first record
and I feel like I was just
getting into the groove.
I can remember exactly
the lyric sheet
of how I wrote those lyrics
and it was pretty interesting
because I go back,
sorry I'm so distracted,
I don't think I can listen to music and think at the same time. This is an issue. It's pretty interesting because I go back. Sorry, I'm so distracted. I don't think I can listen to music and think at the same time.
Well, listen, it's your show.
Like you order it down.
Maybe here.
Okay.
Look, I am nothing if not nimble and flexible here.
You're coming down.
Normally I do play it underneath the talking.
But from now on, I will just like play a bit of it and then I'll bring it all the way down.
And you can check.
People just got a real insight into my marriage because my and then I'll bring it all the way down and you can chat people just got a
real insight into my marriage
because my husband
loves to listen to music
all the time
and I literally
need silence
in order to think
so there's always this
but is it because you
lock into the lyrics
like
I think it just
kind of destabilizes
my brain
I'm
if I'm
as a musician
if there's music on
I'm going to listen to it and i listen
to it but even when it's something you wrote and recorded oh even more so if i walk into a room
like a dinner party or something oh my god it's so cute i remember this song i i need to leave
the room until it it it is off i've just my brain super engages in music and it makes it,
it's like I'm in a torture chamber,
you know, where people listen to Def Leppard
really, really loud to, you know,
make them spill state secrets or something.
That's what it feels like when there's music going on.
I literally could not concentrate on what I was.
I'm glad you told me
because obviously I actually have a lot of music lined up,
but I'm going to adjust because I'd rather hear your words.
Like I'll give a 10 seconds of the song and then I'll bring her all the way
down so we can hear that.
But I am proving my,
my nimble ability here on the fly.
So,
but that is interesting.
You're a real Fred.
What can we say?
Sorry.
I just listened to Howard on the way in,
but.
Oh,
I was on Humble and Fred. Who are you talking about uh howard stern okay because you said fred
yeah i did norris but fred yeah norris oh it's funny he's the guy with all the because this
morning i was on humble and fred which is a howard and a fred so you said uh you were listening i was
thinking my head of course i just literally just biked back from there. Well, Fred on Humble and...
Fred Patterson.
Yes.
So he's usually just, instead of, you know, pressing all the buttons, he's usually rolling
his eyes at Howard.
Right.
Because Howard likes to press the buttons.
Yeah.
And, you know, Howard is just an amazingly wacky guy.
And Fred is like a very sensible, funny guy.
And he's like, oh, my God, what's happening?
I love going on that show.
Well, it's funny.
Yeah.
So I was on this morning with Ralph Ben-Murgy.
Oh, amazing.
Swinging on a star.
Is that what it was about?
Because Ralph is, yeah, I don't get the reference though.
I should get that reference.
I think that was the name of his television show.
Friday Night with Ralph Ben-Murgy was the one on CBC.
Yeah, and I think it was subtitled Swinging on a Star, but I might be wrong.
I was actually, during yesterday's episode with the guy whose name I can't say,
Jamie Gutfried and Roddy Colmer, I got a phone call, which is very bad.
I should probably turn off my ringer right now.
But it was Gary Topp.
He was one of the Garys.
Yes.
Before our time, really.
No, but I know of the Garys.
But Gary Topp was the musical director for Ralph Ben-Murgy's Friday Night Show. No, but I know of the Garys. But Gary Topp was the musical director
for Ralph Ben-Murgy's Friday Night Show.
Oh, wow.
So it all kind of,
it's such a small world.
Very small world.
And the other Gary, Gary Cormier,
his daughter is one of my best friends.
Okay, because Gary's been on this show.
Yeah, great guy, great stories.
That's wild.
Yeah, it's a very small world.
They brought the police here
just before Roxanne broke and...
To this house?
Yes, I wish. To Horses went to Horseshoe Tavern.
And I mean, I don't know.
He said you could count.
Not many people saw this event.
And then like three months later, the police blew up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure they have every band story like that.
Right.
Oh yeah, we were talking about list of things okay
so list of things is from shadows wake me which was your first release you're only a teenager
when you record this in 1996 and this thing gets you like it gets you a juno nomination
yeah it was very strange so i i kind of was thrown into i thought i wanted to be an actor i
i the music thing happened to me i had a band that that I was in, in St. John's and, but I wasn't pursuing it.
I was in plays and I was going to university and, uh, Graham Stairs, uh, who is a music
guy came down to set up a label for EMI in St. John's at that point, like Ashley McIsaac's
blowing up, Sloan's blowing up, all the East coast is blowing up.
Thresh Hermit?
Yes.
So, uh, yay, Joel.
Yay.
He's fantastic.
Yeah, incredible.
And so they kind of focus their gaze towards the East Coast.
So he comes down.
I'm working, I have a day job at Duckworth Distribution
where I'm answering the phones, I'm stacking records,
and I started singing
around the office, this Newfoundland folk song called Cape St. Mary's, because Robert Buck,
one of the guys who worked there hated that song. So I sang it all day repeat. And Graham said,
Oh, that girl's got a good voice. And my boss at the time, Fred Brokenshaw, well, she's got a demo
tape, here it is. So, you know, as Graham says it, he drove around the block listening to the,
he was like, this is our first artist.
So it was really something that happened to me.
I didn't put in the legwork.
But you had a demo tape.
I had a demo tape.
Like that didn't just magically appear.
No, but I was kind of hooked in with people
who had a studio who had been doing this
for a very long time.
I did not do the legwork. I didn't go slogging out in clubs it just happened to me so it it changed you know it framed
my uh way of looking what the music business was like so this last song i wrote for the record
list of things which i wrote really fast and then um tim walsh wrote the music um we recorded it
put it out it was like a top five single went top five
on much music it was i got nominated for a juno all this and then we put out the second single
and it didn't do as well and then the third single didn't do well at all and then i i i was like oh
wow so i got the opportunity to i mean i had great opportunities as a result of this i got
the opportunity to open up for Steve Earle
across the country.
See,
if you weren't against
the music in the background,
I was like aching
to play Copperhead Road
in the background.
Oh, play it.
But I don't want to upset.
No, no, no.
Play the music.
I just can't think over it.
Talk over it.
And is it just the lyrics
or the music?
It's the sound of music
invading my head.
Interesting.
Okay,
so we'll just do
a few seconds of the,
I used to listen to Q107's Top 10 at 10 just because they play this head. Interesting. Okay, so we'll just do a few seconds of the... I used to listen to
Q107's Top 10 of 10
just because they play this song.
Yeah.
Oh, this is such a great song.
I love Steve Earle.
He was...
I'm going to try and do this.
I'm going to try and talk over it.
Okay, let me try.
And you just touch your nose
if you need me to bring her down.
And he was incredible to work with.
And it's funny,
I was on that trip with Corey Tedford,
who plays in the Alan Doyle band.
Corey Tedford's an unbelievable musician.
And I was standing side stage the first night of the show,
and he played this song called Goodbye,
which at that time, Emmylou Harris just put out
her Wrecking Ball album that Daniel Lamoie produced.
Yes.
Incredible album.
And I put the two and two together.
I was like, Steve Earle wrote that song for Emmylou
and it all just fused together.
I said,
if I want to continue making music,
because my first record was largely very pop
with the exception of List of Things,
which was kind of when I was just sitting in to like,
oh, this is how you write songs.
This is how you create,
you know,
figure out who you are,
who your own voice is.
And. You're doing very well, by the, figure out who you are, who your own voice is. And.
You're doing very well,
by the way.
Thank you.
That was so coherent and interesting.
Thank you.
And now like,
where was I going with this?
All right,
Steve,
you're coming down.
So then I realized,
oh yeah,
that's,
if I'm going to continue to make music,
that's,
that's what I want to do.
So it took me 20 years to figure out how to do that
really well that's because you have the perspective now like you can't you can't teach experience no
you cannot teach experience i mean i feel like uh i've never been wiser i don't want to say smarter
but wiser absolutely and i wish i could go back and like talk to 20 years ago mike but it doesn't
work that way it doesn't work that way yeah i love i work that way. Yeah, I love, I could not, I love where I am in my life.
I love my age.
I love being older.
I love being 43.
I, yeah, and I don't regret a single thing.
I don't regret one single thing that I've done
because it's led me to this moment.
No, that's the perfect attitude.
I feel like our society has it backwards a bit
because we value youth so much.
And like, for example, like most of the radio stations stations the masses in the city are going to listen to today
the performers average age might be something like i don't know 24 or something like that
i'm just saying we we really value we kind of we're kind of ageist in terms of like absolutely
so it's like by the time you figured it out and you're at the top of your game we've
tossed you aside looking for someone we're looking for the 17 year old it's so funny because i went to mexico city last year and
spoke on a panel about gender equity in the music business for this international forum called cm
which is uh all of the creative um organizations in the world so our performing rights organizations all over the world speaking,
it was mostly,
you know,
they're really introducing women into this forum.
And at the end of my speech,
I said 20 years ago when I started and I was making videos that,
you know,
I could get a down payment for a house.
I said,
as an artist,
I was,
I had the potential to be good at that point,
the potential. And now at that point the potential and now at 43
i'm great yeah and the audience is not there it's it is an it sucks it is it's it's you know the
audience is there for certain genres of music um but it is it is i personally just prefer to listen
to good music i don't care where it comes from,
what the person looks like,
how old they are.
I just want it to be good.
So hence, I listen to a lot of Willie Nelson.
You know, that's...
Did you watch this country music documentary by Ken Burns?
Not yet.
Okay.
I'm saving it to watch it all.
Well, of course,
Ken Burns documentaries typically are excellent.
But I mean,
funny because I watched the whole thing thing i loved it until the last episode
because in the last episode they focus on like like 80s and 90s country and i realized the reason
i grew up thinking i hated country is because of the country that was popular when i grew up like
if you you know this goes back to the carter family and then i mean it's it's emily lou
harris you mentioned like willie nelson you know johnny
cash like it's uh waylon jennings i'll keep going by the way shout out to steve earl for playing
waylon on the wire i'm just gonna say that because i just said waylon jennings i'm like fantastic
uh but yeah i grew up with like i want to i don't want to no disrespect i guess to the
vince skills and stuff but but I don't like it.
Well, it's funny because I spent two years exclusively listening to the Carter family.
I love that real raw, truthful music.
And the industry has patterns and shifts, especially in country music.
We're seeing it because Vince Gill, if you go to Nashville on a Monday, go see the Time
Jumpers.
He's the most incredible bluegrass musician you've ever seen in your life.
But it's really the format of what songs are working.
There's like one guy in the States who's making all these decisions.
Basically.
Really?
Oh,
apps on means what's on mainstream radio.
What is on mainstream rape radio?
Then,
you know,
basically sets the trends of what country music
is going to happen in in the rest of the world and that person's taste is bad yeah really bad
who is this person i i you know i've had a couple of twitter fights with people uh especially more
so in the realm of you know that female musicians literally up until the last six months,
we're not getting any play on country radio at all.
Right.
And it's about, oh, well, this is what the audience tested.
I have a hard time believing that if mostly women are listening to country radio
that they don't want to listen to a female voice.
That is the most backwards BS I've ever heard in my entire life. I'm with you. I'm with you. women are listening to country radio that they don't want to listen to a female voice that is
the most backwards bs i've ever heard in my entire life i'm with you i'm with you uh but so so other
than the final episode which had to you know bring us up to speed and what's popular now or when i
say now i mean like late 80s yeah although i do i don't mind like a garth brooks jam or whatever
like he's fine but uh yeah well yeah yeah, well, yeah, but yeah,
the Carter family and you go back and,
um,
and I,
oh,
I see because this was never my genre.
I even struggle with the names,
but,
uh,
just,
you know,
fantastic.
Okay.
So,
um,
I,
I will tell you what we'll do because you only have an hour or so,
and I want to get to the new album and talk about some like discoveries you've made about yourself,
which I find very interesting.
So we'll kind of burn through your earlier career a little bit here.
So we got you on tour with Steve Earle,
which I think is amazing.
Yeah, it was amazing.
And I just would hope he's a solid dude.
Oh, he was great.
He was really great.
He was so encouraging and really wonderful.
Glad to hear.
Now I'm going to take you to 2000.
And if there's any fascinating little stories I need to know,
just interrupt me.
No, I'm just going, 2000?
What in the hell is 2000?
All right, so I'll play a little bit of you again.
So brace yourself here.
Okay, sure.
I'm not bound to you
Will you wait with the rest
Will you loosen your grip
As you fade into the sunset
But I won't leave you
Shattered on the floor
Will I do anything
I'll have you forevermore.
I really miss you.
I didn't want to
know it's too late.
I'm tattooed
on my skin.
I forgot about this song.
You gotta wait for the hook there, yes.
Tattooed on my stone.
Are you the part that makes me whole?
Okay, never forget tattooed.
Are you trying to forget about it?
No, I just, I pretty much try and live in the moment.
Oh, you're going to hate this hour.
No, no, no, no.
This is great.
I mean, it's a daily practice.
You know, I don't spend too much time reflecting.
So this is amazing.
You don't go home and throw on hyper dramatic?
Hell no.
No, I don't look backwards really.
So this is really great.
And that sounds
that's it's so funny i'm instantly transported to being in montreal recording this record i
remember more chiba was really huge at that point it was like real techno stuff was happening but
if you strip that song back it is a country song really which is weird and i mean this was uh like
this was the the big debut the big single off the second album.
So that's always, to me, it's always a big deal when your first single off the second
album and like, how did it do?
Like, I know it got.
I think it did.
I think it did really well, but I don't remember exactly.
I do remember that at the time my record company was like i don't really
know what you're doing so i i think i borrowed my parents cashed in their rsps and lent me the
money and i went to montreal and i made this record wow or started to make this record and then
um my anr guy at the time tim trombley came out remember we were making it in this uh loft
apartment that four people lived in in Montreal.
He came in and sat on the producer's bed, Dave Hodge,
and he was like, oh, this is amazing.
And then they ended up paying me the money back
that I had spent and it was great.
But that's beautiful that your parents invested
in their most precious resource.
Absolutely.
They continue to do that.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
No, that's real beautiful there.
Now, I have a question about Tattooed.
By the way, I let the people know this thing did very well in the East Coast Music Awards,
which you, by the way, you did get, you got several nominations that first album, Shadows
Wake Me.
But this album here, let me just see here.
You won Video of the Year and Female Artist of the year at the East Coast Music Awards.
Yeah, I don't remember what I won, so thank you for reminding me, but I do remember winning.
I remember being totally freaked out and having a Sally Field moment.
You like me, you really like me. Because I was kind of plagued with
these things on the East Coast that at the time the East Coast
Music Awards were a huge, huge, huge deal.
But at the time, the East Coast Music Awards were a huge, huge, huge deal.
And, you know, before social media, there weren't really a lot of ways to connect.
And so it was in person that you really connected.
And it was, I had some pushback for the fact that I was living in Toronto.
And who's, you know, yeah, she's from Newfoundland, but she didn't play in the clubs here here i kind of put a record out and then i put the work in right so i was kind of working my way up in people's esteem you know
that it wasn't like i wasn't manufactured i wasn't you know all of these things and i didn't know
myself to be honest um so yeah that was that was i remember that moment a lot of you east coasters
though end up living here but i mean the sloan guys are all here. At some point, you got to be where the action is.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right.
Now, I have a question from a listener.
So Basement Dweller says, what inspired the song Tattooed?
He puts in parentheses here.
Still love that amazing video, by the way.
And he wants to know who performed those fantastic trumpet parts.
Let's see how you do with that tough question.
Oh, the trumpet parts were performed, I believe, by Sarah McEachran.
I'm pretty sure she played that.
Yes, she did.
She played in my band.
Amazing musician, bass player, trumpet player.
And she would come out and play that live.
And she was just fantastic.
That song was obviously inspired by a relationship I was in.
Which did not work out, but we're still friends.
And I do not have any tattoos.
That was my next question.
And was there a middle question in there?
No, he just
wanted to let you know he likes the video oh thank you so good video thanks it uh if i had
got a down payment for a house i have a house with that video now i remember that
i mean back in the day i could make four records for the amount of money that video
cost i think it was like 120 000 oh wow yeah. Video budgets were, I kind of got in there at the tail end of big video budgets.
Yeah, because that's like $2,000.
You're right.
That's sort of, that is, I mean, I had Denise Donlan in here and she was talking about like
there's 99, you know, albums or something like this and then by a couple years later.
Yeah.
Like right when she went to Sony probably.
Yeah, probably.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
It's unfortunate timing for her because she is just such an incredible executive.
I mean, she's got the order of something.
Does she have the order of Canada?
If she does, she should have the order of Timbuktu.
She's incredible.
And she has Marie McLaughlin.
Yeah.
What more do you want?
She's she's incredible.
Speaking of country music, he's got the Farmer song.
Yeah, he's a good guy.
Now, thank you, Basement Dweller, for those questions.
So I want to talk about the song you wrote with Gordy Sampson in 2003 here.
That's for your third album.
But first, I just need to give you some gifts.
So you talked about tattoos.
We played tattooed.
This is a temporary tattoo.
Oh, excellent.
Going right on my kids
i'm gonna toronto mike to them mike so we have one you have two kids yes i have in there five
and six yes so i have a five and three year old and my five-year-old does love putting the toronto
mike uh tattoos i bet i bet i have the business cards and my kids love like mommy's business
card so so i'm gonna i gotta give you another one for sure that's great
yeah oh i need two of everything let me tell you or all hell will break loose no i know that drill
for sure now there's also a toronto mic sticker for you uh i know you've been aching for one of
those so courtesy of sticker you.com so thank you sticker you they have a uh queen sheet that
sticker commemorates their new bricks and mortar location on Queen Street.
Oh, cool.
Not far from Bathurst.
And they have a contest that's actually only got a few days left.
So if everyone listening, by the way, if you're listening like before October 11, I think October 11th at midnight is the deadline.
But you take a photo you've taken that you consider to be an iconic photo of Toronto.
Tweet it at Toronto Mike and at sticker you, sticker Y-O-U,
and use the hashtag sticker U-T-O.
And we're going to give one of you a $100 gift card for use at the Bricks and Mortar store.
And we're going to make stickers out of your picture.
So this is cool.
Cool.
So you can actually go to the store with a picture or something and
then they will make stickers for you yep or decals like these ones back here or uh this is what i'm
gonna get for tmlx5 you're like mike what is that um toronto mike listener experience we're having
one on december 7th at noon that's a saturday in mississauga at palma's Kitchen. Palma's Kitchen is the fantastic new retail store
slash hot table from Palma Pasta.
Pasta or pasta?
What do you say?
Just, I think I say, I'm going to get the pasta.
I say pasta.
And then people think, tell me it should be pasta?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I have an East Coast accent as well.
Yeah, I think this is pasta.
It's just pasta.
Right.
Speaking of the devil,
this is a vegetarian lasagna
for you to take home
and feed those kids.
So take that home.
It's frozen.
It's cute.
I like free stuff
and I like free good looking stuff.
We all like free good looking stuff.
Absolutely.
You're going to get lots of good looking stuff.
So you've got your lasagna. Thank you, Palma Pasta. And thank you free good looking stuff. Absolutely. You're going to get lots of good looking stuff. So you've got your
lasagna.
Thank you,
Palma Pasta,
and thank you for
hosting TMLX 5.
Everybody should come
December 7th at noon.
You've got your stickers.
I want to thank
Rupesh Kapadia,
who is the rock star
accountant who sees
beyond the numbers.
If you need a good
accountant or you just
need to run by some
business problem or
some money problem,
he gives you great
advice and he'll give you a free consultation. If you have a question for Rupesh, again, or you just need to run by some business problem or some money problem, he gives you great advice
and he'll give you a free consultation.
If you have a question for Rupesh,
again, email it to mike at torontomike.com
or DM it to me.
I'm on Twitter as at torontomike
and I'll get it to Rupesh
and he'll record a answer for you.
So thank you, Rupesh.
I want to thank Brian Master
and I want to make sure I read properly.
He is a salesperson with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage.
But as you'll hear in his voice, he's also a longtime radio veteran in this market.
He's been on CHFI and Chum FM, and he's now at The Jewel.
But here's Brian.
Hi, it's Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams to Realty Solutions Brokerage.
I like working by referral.
I love working with people, finding out what they need and where they want to go.
So every month I put out an item of value called the Client Appreciation Program.
And this is really great material.
It's all about, well, for one thing, the way the real estate market is,
but other things like, well, this month is how to turn your home into a smart home. We've also had things about how to throw a party
on a budget, some travel tips. It's really great stuff. And it comes out once a month called the
Client Appreciation Program. I'd love to get you on it. It's easy to do. Send me an email to
letsgetyouhomeatkw.com. And I'll send that out once a month via snail mail and follow it up with an
email that's something related to the item of value. You can't miss. It's great information.
It's something you can share with your friends. I'm Brian Master, sales representative with
Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage, thrilled to be on Toronto Mic'd. For a moment I believed
Once you came you'd never leave
Lived like that not long enough for me
You got the track marks of the trade
And every promise ever made
Swore that it would be the last for me
Does it give you a rush
To think that I want you so much
Said you were back to stay
I should've known better
Now you're half the way to California
Now I'm curled up in your side of the bed
I'm thinking about things you never said
I would have followed you to California
Nice.
Gordie Sampson.
That's a nice look back.
That is, by the way,
good name for an album
to give us the phonetic phonetic
pronunciation of your name
that album's called
Davnet
but spelled
D-A-V-N-E-T
did you ever consider
changing the spelling
of your name
I
I don't know what
I've gone through
with my name
it's crazy
it's easier now
with the
the internet
you know but back in the
when the internet was new.
Right.
I remember.
It was challenging.
Weird, funny name.
Well, this is so nice to listen to this music.
So tell me about this process, though,
because you wrote this with Gordy Sampson.
This is a definite.
Gordy produced it.
In Cape Breton, right?
Okay, I've never been to Newfoundland.
Yes, some of it.
I think we wrote this song in Cape Breton, but I Okay, I've never been to Newfoundland. Yes, some of it. I think we wrote the song in Cape Breton,
but I feel like actually we produced it here
and we recorded it in Toronto.
So you didn't record it at Lake Wind Sound Studio.
We wrote some stuff there.
Maybe we did record some stuff there as well.
So this is your opportunity to set the record straight
for all eternity.
In 50 years, when they want to learn about Daphne Doyle,
they're going to be listening to our voices right now.
Hi.
Hello, future great-grandchildren
of Daphne Doyle.
I wonder how many
grandkids am I going to have?
You ever think about that? You've got the five and six-year-old,
but you ever wonder,
do you ever think I'm going to be a grandma?
I never thought about it until just
two minutes ago.
I have a boy about to turn 18. Not that I want him to be a grandma? I never thought about it till just like two minutes ago. I have a boy about to turn 18.
Not that I want him to be a dad anytime soon,
but because it's so much more,
you're at five and six and I'm there too,
but I'm also like,
he's about to go to university.
So I think like in 10 years,
I could be a grandpa.
Yeah.
It's kind of neat.
It kind of breaks your brain a bit.
Well, it's funny because I just
think that's the most beautiful role in the world. Being a grandparent, we just dropped my dad off at
the airport to go back to Newfoundland last night. It's just so nice to have him around.
Will your dad hear this? I don't know. Like, would you, could you, would you send him a link and he'd
click play and just listen? Oh, he's very, very, very supportive supportive i'm sure that he'll know about it and listen to it
hello newfoundland hi dad so tell me about working with gordy oh i i i love gordy you know we've been
friends for a very very very long time and i just it's there's just some people who feel like family
and his family feels like family to me. And it's when that track started,
I was like,
ah,
Gordy playing guitar.
I mean,
he's just the most spectacular musician,
him,
the way he plays an instrument,
the way he plays piano,
the way he plays guitar.
It's,
it's,
it's just different than the way other people do it.
And he's a,
he's a big deal in this songwriting world,
the Gordy Samson. And he should be, he. And he's a big deal in this songwriting world,
Gordy Samson.
Yeah, and he should be.
He's a genius.
So this is your third solo album.
Yes.
How was the experience?
Like you still, at this point in your career,
you still... You know what?
At this point, again, I did the same thing.
It was kind of with the label.
I remember them going,
I don't know if you have the songs.
And I was going to Nashville to write, going to LA to write. And, and I really, you know,
their directive to me was just find yourself. What is your sound? What is.
If I'm going to read between the lines, like, is it that, are you like, are you,
do they want you to go into a bucket, like your country or your pop or that you're kind of
straddling? I think I've always been straddling.
And that's very, very, very hard to market.
You know, I've had somebody from a publishing house say to me,
oh, God, we love you so much.
We love you.
And I've always held on to my own publishing.
I'm saying, but you're just a little bit too creative.
You know?
And I'm like, all right, that's cool.
Look, I have never had any
motivations of making money or doing this for money or having wild success. My motivations
have always been to who am I? And these are the same conversations I have with my two daughters.
It's like, well, I don't want to wear that. My little pony shirt. And I'm like, well,
do you like it? I don't care if your friends like it, if your sisters, what do you like?
I'm almost like the militant, like, find out who you are
because it took me such a long time to do it.
So each record I feel like is a snapshot of me
getting closer and closer to figure out
who I am at the heart of me
as opposed to being away from the noise of the industry.
Like, this sells, this song was a hit.
Why don't you go right with this person?
What are our singles going to be and the videos?
Yes, all that stuff, imaging.
But that is the business of music.
I don't begrudge the label situation for doing that.
But with this record with Gordie,
I do remember I was the voice of Tim Hortons at the time.
Tim Hortons,
ice cap,
totally cool.
And I took all that money and I made this record.
It's funny that you were the voice of Tim Hortons because we're going to talk about somebody who is the voice of a bank.
I have been hearing her for a long time.
Oh,
Kimmy,
Kimmy.
Right.
You're poorer than you think.
Right.
That's a,
to paraphrase the line, right?my. Right. You're poorer than you think. Right. To paraphrase the line, right.
Yes.
Yeah, so I did take that money from Tim Hortons and I made this record.
And I made it alone, you know, without anybody's input.
I mean, Gordy produced it, but we just kind of went and made it.
And I really liked that record.
But that, so I made this record.
I was, I think I just put it out.
I was on the road opening up for Tom Cochran and it was great.
And then we started the shape project with Kim Stockwood and Tara McClain.
So I never really promoted this record,
even though I do believe this,
this record musically lies where my musical heart lies,
which is kind of steering towards alt country.
Well,
it's because,
right, exactly. And I always use genre bend benders i call you the genre benders are to my ears very interesting but i think for the uh the marketers uh find it probably frustrating oh god because
they almost invented this new genre i don't know what if it ties i should know this from watching
the ken burns thing but uh oh brother where art thou was a big big hit and it sort of brought bluegrass to guys like me and we're like oh i like bluegrass
like i like emmy lou harris like this sounds good and then they they rebranded i guess americana
like when did that name show up like so there's a genre now called americana thank god you're not
even american though but it doesn't seem to matter yeah no it's it really is just a style of kind of hearkening back to the stuff that was great like merle and waylon and willie there's the name yeah merle
haggard that's the name i was struggling with later yeah yeah so that it's it's kind of like
this when radio dominated in the 80s and 90s when radio trends started to influence the music that
was being made in nashville um this this genre of music kind of became like the outliers.
Right.
And now it's having its come up moment.
Good.
Because it's damn good stuff.
Now, we're going to play, let's talk about Shea here.
So brace yourself.
You're going to hear some Shea here in the headphones. At the grocery store Reading magazines That say I should want more
There's an old boyfriend
He looks my way
I can't help but smile
I feel great today
Last night's close
No makeup
Drinking my coffee
From a paper cup
If this is it for me, baby, that's just fine.
I'm not looking anymore for what will make me happy, baby.
That's just fine.
I'm not looking anymore.
So here I'd call this pop.
Yeah, for sure.
Pop, but there is an underlying angle of alt-country in there a little bit.
I'll take your word for it.
Tiny bit.
You're right.
A little tiny bit.
In the songwriting itself, the production is pretty pop.
Right.
And that's to get it on, like, I'm trying to think back to like 2003 or 4 but like maybe get
it on like chfi it was on every radio station that song was on every mix 99.9 was on hot ac ac
all the all the all the things and much music and so tell me about how she like here i'll bring it
down here so you can tell me about how you hook up.
I'm adapting way better than I thought I was.
I hope my husband doesn't hear this.
I'm not a musician.
By the way, I have the same water bottle.
Costco, right?
Costco.
Yeah, because my 15-year-old wanted one, and they come in packs of three.
And I'm like, okay, I'm taking one of these.
Yeah, they are.
They're good.
Yeah.
They're easy to lose.
That's for the Periscope, which I've noticed on the Periscope.
I'm actually off frame because I suck at framing these things,
but that's okay.
Nobody wants to see me.
They're all coming to see Davnet.
So happy, yeah, happy baby from Shay.
How do you hook up with Kim Stockwood
and Tara McLean?
I remember stacking Kim Stockwood's cassettes
when I worked at Duckwood Distribution.
And she was a legend, you know, when I was coming up.
She just had such a great personality, such a great voice.
And when I finally did meet her in Toronto, I remember being at some show
and her now husband, Alan Reid, who's now the husband the head of caris and the junos was
there and kim and i just connected like a like two magnets coming together and he said oh god
there's two of them but this is an atlantic although i yeah this is an atlantic canada
thing right like you guys when you are amongst you're in the presence of another Atlantic Canada.
Yes, it's a real thing.
It happens, this thing.
I've seen it.
Yeah, it's.
Quite remarkable.
And then you talk to each other funny
and it's quite, quite.
Yeah, it's an unexplained phenomenon.
Yeah, so we had been friends for a long time.
Oh, awesome.
So Heather Bamberg gave me this.
Good for her.
This is the screech
and I just put it on display here.
That's awesome.
So we were friends and we were both coincidentally on EMI together.
She, of course, had her big single, Jerk.
And I think the label was trying to figure out what to do with me
and what to do with her.
And EMI had their anniversary.
I can't remember if it was 50 years.
And there, EMI had their, an anniversary.
I can't remember if it was 50 years and we sang together at a picnic and we sang yesterday and I, Dana Manning was singing with us, the three of us.
And every, it was beautiful.
Everybody freaked out.
Dean Cameron, God rest his soul, who was the president of EMI.
He was like, oh, we need to do, we need
to do a group. You guys are great together. And he was a very astute marketer and had a huge love
of the East Coast. And he wasn't quite willing to go, okay, we've got these two artists signed and
nothing's happening with them. So let's still try and make something happen.
And so Dana was doing other things at the time. Kim and I were like well who's who's a good
third who's a good third and Tara McLean had just moved back to Toronto and had a baby and Kim and
Tara were really really great friends I'd met Tara but we weren't close friends and so we called her
up we were in a cafe talking about it and her song came on the radio so we called her and said
do you want to do this she was like sure she just had a baby just moved back from la and she thought
it would be a good thing to bridge the gap between her old her last solo record and her new one of
course it turned out to be way bigger experience than that and we got together and we did some
demos and then kim and i uh flew to flew to Nashville and we tracked down this producer.
His name is Jay Joyce because we love this record called, uh, from an artist called Patty Griffin
called flaming red, a really incredible record. And we met Jay in a Mexican restaurant and
we basically bullied him into working with us to coming you're
going to come up to Canada you're going to work with us you're going to produce a record for us
and you're going to like it was basically how it worked and he did what choice did he have he didn't
have any choice but he's a genius and he has gone on to be nominated for producer of the year at the grammys three or four times he's produced i
actually the list of best-selling artists that he has produced i don't even know where to start in
this list like it just kind of boggles my mind crosses crosses my eyes and he remains a good
friend to all of us and so i think we actually made we made two cool records that at the time the pop singles were on the radio.
And I think that informed how people looked at us.
But our live show was funny.
It was like stand-up, stand-up rat pack, like off-color humor.
And we sounded great together.
I now remember.
In fact, we did joke earlier about humble and fred and i now
remember i sat in for an entire morning i sat in on the old easy rock morning show yes with kim
like the whole morning i was like an embedded journalist and i watched them go for whatever
three four hours or whatever and yeah well kim's naturally funny i don't she was not utilized
properly on that show but that's a whole different i think yes that show and who knows kim realizes that was not a good forum for her no and there are four of them
in that room and one microphone and uh yeah two and a half minute breaks or whatever yeah it wasn't
a good it wasn't a good formula but she was uh she was great like fantastic like seemed like a salt
of the earth, lovely person.
And then, as we mentioned, everyone listening to us right now,
even if you don't listen to her music, you've probably heard her voice because I'm guessing that was quite the lucrative job she got for that bank.
She's the voice of Scotiabank.
You're richer than you think, of course.
Speaking to musicians, you're not richer than you think, man.
You are poor.
I didn't know you were the Tim Hortons.
Oh, that was 10, 12 years ago.
It was a very sad day when they.
No, now Sidney Crosby is the Tim Hortons.
No, I'm kidding.
Yeah.
I'm currently the voice of Pauly Sporn.
It's my active commercial.
I use Pauly Sporn when my kids have their scrapes.
Great.
It's perfect for scrapes.
I'm pro polysporin.
Yeah.
Good for you.
Good for you.
Because you do have a great voice.
So that makes good sense.
Now, why does Shea come to an end at some point?
Well, you know, we made two records.
The girls were having kids at the time,
which is very challenging to adjust in your own brain to having kids, let alone to have the lives of two other people at the same time.
So it was a lot of juggling.
There was a lot of, and when the kids were having, when the girls were having their kids, I kind of branched off and did more songwriting, more writing for film and TV and, and trying to fill up my time.
And so we were, I think we got to a point where we were very busy.
I don't think we were communicating very well about what our own needs were.
And then we were on the road with Willie Nelson
and we had a documentary film crew filming us.
It ended up being a reality show,
but it was sold to us as a documentary.
Anyway,
the things you learn and you know,
Tara in the middle of the Willie Nelson tour told us that she couldn't
continue,
that she was going to move to Salt Spring Island and,
and kind of change her
life with her kids.
She had three kids at that point.
And that was it.
So did you consider continuing without her or no?
We did.
Kim and I went on and we had a bunch of gigs booked and we continued with them, just the
two of us. And we, you know, played with the idea
of adding a third member,
but really it just didn't feel right to continue.
What does Shay mean again?
What is the origin of this name?
The origin of the name,
that was the name of Tara's sister, Shay,
who was up when we were recording the first record
and she was looking after uh sophia tara's
oldest daughter and then she went home two weeks later and she died in a car accident oh no yeah
so i remember we were going through names she was actually helping us try to pick out our name we
had terrible name ideas and then then I remember saying to Tara,
after she passed,
why don't we call the band Shea?
And that's what we did.
Oh, that's tragic.
I'm sorry.
That's, yeah.
Okay.
That's a nice name,
but sad, tragic, still at origin.
Yeah, that's very, very sad, yeah.
Now, I'm aching to play
That's What You Get,
because it's a really cool tune
from Liquor Store Flowers,
which is yours.
So you go quite a long period of time
between solo albums, right?
Yes.
How many years between solo albums?
It was,
I did a cover record
that Danny Michelle produced
11 years ago.
Can I play a bit of that?
Sure.
Okay.
Because I dig this.
Em Griner has a covers album
that I spin all the time.
Like, I like it when you take, like, a rock song and...
Yeah.
Reimagine it.
Right.
I mean, Everlong is on this album.
Yeah, I love it.
Which I love.
Left your house this morning
About a quarter after nine
Could have been the
Willie Nelson
see there's Willie Nelson again
that's
it could have been
meant to be there
by the way
did you ever smoke weed
with Willie Nelson
no I did not
do you wish you did
yes
just so you could tell
your great-grandkids
it's a sore point in my life
how did you
you just never went in his trailer
or whatever
no we did
we went on his bus.
We sang for him,
the three of us.
And he cried.
We sang this acapella song
that we wrote.
I can't remember the name
right now.
It's because I'm playing music.
Exactly.
Yeah, I'm like,
Bob Cajun.
But beautiful.
I have to say,
I'm a huge,
I'm a huge Tragic Clip fan.
I mean,
Gord is on the wall
behind you there. And this is a very nice, lovely version of Bob Cajun? But beautiful. I have to say, I'm a huge Tragic Leap fan. I mean, Gord is on the wall behind you there.
And this is a very nice, lovely version of Bob Cajun.
Thank you.
I actually had a funny experience.
Well, let me finish the thing about Willie and Weed.
You know, he's still a young man.
Kim and I went to see him play in June at the Molson Amphitheater.
And we connected with his wife, Annie, who's just
incredible. And she kind of said, Willie, she brought us on the bus just, you know, Willie,
do you remember the girls? And he took a beat and he was like, yeah, I do. And so we were standing
side stage and she kind of pushed us on Kim and I on stage to go sing with Willie during the gospel
set at the end of his show. That was a couple months ago. That was pretty incredible.
But they were driving to the border that night.
So we were on the bus and no one was smoking any pot.
Right, yeah.
It was very sad.
That's the wrong time to do it.
But you know, it's like, I still have some time.
You know, he's amazing.
You're right in that you called him.
Because he's still very active and still young at heart.
But I mean, chronologically, I'm pretty sure he's 86 very active and still young and hurt. But I mean,
I mean,
chronologically,
I'm pretty sure he's 86
or something like that.
Yeah, 86.
Isn't that incredible?
I think,
because we keep telling our kids,
I don't know if you tell your kids,
my teenagers anyways,
like your life will be shorter
if you smoke.
That's what I tell them.
Like the decision to smoke
will shorten your life.
Like,
and then Willie's up there
making us look silly.
Yeah.
Well,
no,
because he actually because
i i just finished his uh his autobiography so obviously i know all the information tell me about
what his biography i'm not sure well he quit smoking cigarettes when he was 40 something so
both of his parents or one of his parents died from lung cancer from smoking cigarettes and then
he smoked weed and then i think because of lung issues, he might vape it,
might eat it.
He's figured out, okay, but...
Might not be smoking it all the time.
Still not helping her cause,
but that's, he's, long may he run.
Yeah, but marijuana has proven to, you know,
help cancer.
I mean, it's...
Well, can't, yeah, CBD, 100%,
you're absolutely right.
Yeah, it has, it has,
it has uninvestigated positive properties.
You're right.
We would.
We should.
If we were smart, we'd sink a whole whack of money into the powers of CBD when it comes to illnesses like cancer.
If you look at an RX drug, prescription drugs based to something that is a plant, like with food, it's like food.
You don't go to the middle of the grocery store if you want to be healthy that's where all the processed food is you go to the outs outsides
your outskirts as a former grocery clerk i agree if you want 100 now that was so i won't play ever
long and i want you to want me is on that so that's very cool but there's a track before i
get you to this new album now i have to ask you about a song it's not it's um you're featured on it
a little bit of love is what she wants Love is what I got
Give her what she needs
She gives it back to me
Listen to the girl
Your best friend in the world
That's you
Look around and see
He's always looking at me
Damn, I feel so fine
Lucky he's mine
The best I've ever seen
Who loves to be with me
A little bit of love is what he wants Love is what I got The Mahones featuring Davna Doyle.
Cool.
I love The Mahones.
And I love Finney.
So fun fun You know
It's a great jam
And I mean
According to Mahons
And I can't
That this is true
Except why would
The Mahons lie to me
This was featured
In a film
Called Ecstasy
Which is based on
Yeah
It was in a movie
Like a
It was in a movie
That came out in 2012
Yeah
So if anybody
Go
I don't know Go to IMDB And go check out where you can find Ecstasy.
And the song is in there apparently.
I can't say for sure.
I haven't seen the movie, but it's a great song.
That's a great song.
And I just love those guys.
Finney will go, hey, can you come?
Sure.
It's always fun.
You just have those people that you love.
Absolutely.
No, that sounded great too.
So Liquor Store Flowers.
Tell me about, you know, the process.
Like why all of a sudden another solo album from Daphne Thomas?
Well, I was kind of marinating with it since that Steve Earle tour.
Which is many, many, many, many years.
Many, many, many.
I just did the math in my head.
Many, many moons ago, you know,
and I was in two bands.
I was in Shea for seven, eight years
and then The Heartbroken for seven, eight years.
Right, I didn't mean to gloss over The Heartbroken.
Yeah, no, no, no.
And actually I just looked at my phone
and I'm actually okay for time.
Oh, now I need to go back a straight.
No, no, no.
It's hard to juggle things with a career and two kids and traveling.
I can only imagine.
My brain is spinning at all times.
Like I stopped at 1130 last night.
Okay, no, you need to stop doing stuff and just sit down.
So just this, not normally, but this week, my wife is in London, England.
And I find it very difficult because the teens
run themselves and their mom is actually in town.
So the teens are honestly so independent.
But these two little ones
similar to yours, my three and five
year old, are a lot of work.
And I love them and they're fun and they're
amazing. But you know, you got to get
one of them's in senior kindergarten, but
there's a YMCA
before and after school care thing.
And then there's a daycare for the three year old.
And then they need to eat.
They need to eat.
They're not going to like make their own meals.
Yeah.
Several times a day.
It is.
Oh,
it's head spinning.
So how do you do it?
So you're so,
you're,
you know,
there's that.
And then how do you like,
well,
it's,
it's the thing that stresses me out,
honestly,
is when I have to go away. So now I'm'm i'm basically looking at the calendar right now going oh i'm away for five days
there and then the next weekend i'm away for two days and then three days after that and then you
know i'm gone for half of november and it's freaking me out but where are you going um well i'm going to albany to do a radio show and in albany um and
then it's but it's six and a half hours drive and i need to be there for the radio interview the day
before so that's two days i'm away from my kids you can't do that via skype i guess one of them
and then i'm doing a radio concert actually so they're throwing off they're putting off a radio
show and then i'm going to budapest to speak at this same international music conference
called CM. And then I am doing some dates with the Crash Test Dummies out east. And yeah. And so I
turn down things all of the time, especially related to travel. It just gives me so much
stress. But there are certain things that are important for me to do
and that I really want to do.
But the stress I have trying to plan around it
because my husband has a job.
He owns a restaurant.
And so to do the kids by yourself,
I'm trying to, you know, last night I was like,
okay, what kind of a meal plan?
Because I haven't done this before. I'm like, I need to be a bit more helpful when I'm not to, you know, last night I was up, okay, what kind of a meal plan? Because I haven't done this before.
I'm like, I need to be a bit more helpful when I'm not at home, you know?
So it's, my mind is going in eight different directions at the same time.
It's a lot.
What, obviously you can be vague, but what neighborhood would you live in?
Like what neck of the city?
I live, I live Roncesvalles Parkdale area.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, yeah, I know it very, very well. Yeah. So it Parkdale area. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I know it very, very well.
Yeah.
So it's, it's a great neighborhood of Phil.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
Uh, fortunate.
No, I, yeah.
Parkdale.
I was, I was born at St. Joe's health center, which is like right there, but yeah.
That's where my dad, one of my daughters was born.
Yeah.
I got, so yeah, two, two of my kids were also born there, which is interesting when they're
born.
It sounds like you're in a small town.
I mean, like's just a weird coincidence
that it's the closest hospital.
But a very good place
to give birth.
Yes, great.
I had a great experience there.
Everyone was great.
You can buy all the statues
of Jesus and stuff,
but that's okay.
Yeah, you know,
I have some residual Catholic
blessing myself
and Hail Marys and and our fathers when the planes
are taken off and taken oh they come back flesh it back it really does it's like that is some
serious conditioning that is uh called brainwashing actually but conditioning is a kind kind word for
it but they do a great job but they're uh for sure uh and by the way danny graves and the watchman
so i'm working on this thing uh i love the watchman and i'm trying to get them to play uh in fact danny's up warm to the idea we just
have to book it but at great lakes brewery which i'll talk to you in a bit because i want to talk
to you about i want to talk to you about alcohol soon but great but they're gonna host an event
toronto mic listener experience in june 2020 and i'm working on Danny being the special musical guest
for this thing.
But why do I bring him up?
Would you get the whole band?
Well, I think one doesn't live in the city.
Like I'm trying to,
so one of them lives out of town or whatever,
but I'm tight with the drummer,
Sammy Cohen.
Yeah, Sammy, yeah, he's great.
Yeah, Sammy, in fact,
he's coming to kick out the gym.
Sammy's a good guy.
And Danny,
and the reason I brought Danny
when we talked about Parkdale
is just to give a
shout out because he owns and operates a bar the motel bar which is on uh great spot queen yeah
just a little bit uh west of dufferin yes it's very cool it's it's a great spot and i got to
see the watchman this summer in saint john's at. Amazing. And they were one of my first concerts ever when I was 15 or 16
in Newfoundland
and we were on EMI
together for a long time
and it was great
to see them play.
I loved that record.
Love them.
And they were managed
by Jay Gold
who was also managing
the Tragically.
The Tragically, yeah.
It all comes,
see what I mean?
It's a very small.
It is a very,
very small.
And the more I do this,
like when I sit with these people and then I'm like, oh yeah, you did this with that and like I'm never, I'm not in the industry very it's very small and the more i do this like and i sit with these people and
then i'm like oh yeah you did this with that and like i'm never i'm not in the industry but it's
like yeah you can whiteboard it or whatever like exactly you can connect one to two to 27 it's
insane and uh in fact you mentioned uh crash test dummies and they're a winnipeg band and this is a
watchman it's a winnipeg band oh that's that's right. That's right. There's a lot of symbiosis between Winnipeg and Newfoundland.
St. John's, I find.
Because you feel overshadowed by the big three, I guess.
Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
It's like we're isolated.
We're surrounded by water.
They're isolated.
They're surrounded by land.
Right.
You know?
Interesting.
And it's cold and windy.
I think Fred Penner's from there, too.
I think so, too.
I'm trying to think of my Winnipeg peoples.
Freddie P.
I'm a Fred head.
Oh, of course.
I got to sing with Fred Penner one time at the Songwriter Circle.
And he did the cat came back.
What Songwriter Circle?
Four Chords and the Truth that my friend Andrea England runs at the Dakota.
I've heard of this.
It's an amazing series.
Sells out every time.
If you want to go,
get your tickets now.
I think she puts them on sale.
She does it every three, four months.
And Fred Penner was on
and we got up and sang
The Cat Came Back.
He kicked out the jams.
If you come back a second time,
you get to kick out the jams.
Sammy Cohn's about to do this.
But it means you tell me
your 10 favorite songs of all time.
I load them up.
We play them.
You tell me why you love the song.
So Fred just did it.
But one of his jams
was his daughter's song
his daughter performed.
And we just,
we didn't even talk
because normally we do talk over.
I play it for 90 seconds
and I bring it down.
We talk.
But we just listened
to the whole thing
and I watched him kind of listen.
Just like the moist eyes
and the pride.
And I started thinking like,
I started thinking, imagine this was my daughter.
And then I started to do this transference thing.
And then I'm trying, I'm going to cry.
Yes.
But the thing about it is, is also with Fred's daughter, Haley, who goes by W Darling.
Right.
She's amazing.
Yeah.
So it's like one thing to be Fred Penner going, here's my daughter singing.
And she's amazing.
I know, it's true.
So that helps too.
That helps with the tears.
Right.
Because it was good.
It was actually good music.
Okay.
Oh yeah, so that's what you get.
Yes.
I'm about to play it.
But.
Sweet.
I gotta make it work for here.
But now that I realize I have an extra 10 minutes or whatever.
You went to sing to the troops in Afghanistan?
Yeah, twice.
That's amazing.
And how was that experience?
It was pretty incredible.
I went, both times,
Rick Mercer was filming a television show.
And Tom Cochran was there.
He was the one who invited me.
I like that guy.
Yeah, I love Tom.
And another person who was like family to me.
And it was, it was spectacular. It was a really transformative experience in my life.
And I like seeing things for myself. I am really good at separating concepts from reality. You
know, at the time, I think people were wondering why in the world are we even in Afghanistan? For sure.
Absolutely.
100%.
But that,
that doesn't mean I'm not going to go there and meet these soldiers who are
there on our behalf.
And it was,
I met the most incredible people with the most incredible stories and the
sacrifices that they have made for us and our country with having no input it's
like one thing to sit sit on your high horse and go oh well i i don't care what you would never
do you know those those aren't real issues that face real people who anyway it was you can
you can support the troops without being pro-military, being for the war.
Yes, absolutely.
You can separate.
Yes, absolutely.
It is possible, people.
Because a lot of people, I noticed, maybe because of social media, you just hear more people's opinions.
That's what I think is going on.
I think that's the big change, is that now Joe Blow's opinion was broadcast in a place where you saw it or whatever.
They were always there, but it used to be you had to i'll pick a different uh coffee place but you had to go to
coffee time and hear him kind of spout that off absolutely so now you hear it but a lot of people
have difficulty parsing statements and saying okay this is what this means and it's also surfaced and
they sort of jump they connect dots and then that's what this is and then that it's it's it's
really scary i find it scary i see it every day i recommend therapy for me or for the person who you know for just everybody
in general it's super helpful to therapy yeah i love it how often because i mean speaking of
howard stern i'm a i'm a fan too right so i hear his i think howard might be going a little bit
i don't know if it's helping either, Howard,
but how often do you go?
Or is that too personal?
No, that's not too personal at all.
When I began about three or four years ago,
I went all of the time,
every two weeks religiously.
And now I'm kind of in a situation where I'll kind of go do what I call a tune-up
or a check-in,
just like a tune-up.
Or if I'm having some issues, I'll kind of go do what I call a tune-up or a check-in, you know, just like a tune-up, or if I'm having some issues, I'll go in.
But I would think...
I'm not going regularly right now.
Isn't, like, part of my ignorance,
but isn't songwriting your therapy?
It was.
It absolutely was.
And then I realized it was not an effective enough tool for me
because I was just repeating similar patterns
and not kind of figuring out, I just needed
some help to kind of, to get out of toxic patterns that I was allowing myself to be in.
And, and then you learn the tools and then you apply them to your life. And, but with songwriting,
and then you apply them to your life.
But with songwriting, it was really good.
I found songwriting,
I used to say it was like therapy,
but it's more,
you aren't getting anybody else's input back.
You're just basically- It's a one-way street.
It's a one-way street.
And unless you want to change your thought processes,
you're going to just keep going down that one-way street.
Interesting, yeah.
Because there's a catharsis to writing oh absolutely when you're writing from
the heart which you do on this absolutely and i really found writing uh was a an amazing way to
deal with the depression and anxiety that i was uh suffering um in the moment but it wasn't it
wasn't really changing things for me it was right it was like it was a
release it's like right letting some well okay pressure out of the tires like are you willing
to elaborate a little sure like okay so i'm just making this up is that like i'm just this is just
as we're having this conversation i'm i'm just forming all the little neurons are just firing
together so i've never thought about these things before.
But that's when you get the best conversations,
when it's not so prefabricated or whatever.
So, okay, so you suffer from anxiety, depression?
Is that what you were saying?
Yeah, for sure.
And you always have, or is this something?
I always have.
I always have.
And this is like a, is this a clinical,
like a chemical imbalance in the brain?
No, I think it's,
I think this is something
that most creative people struggle with.
And I think it's,
it's,
it's something that,
for however the brain is made,
the people who do suffer from depression,
anxiety,
lean towards more creative outlets.
Okay.
Well,
I've heard this is,
I read a book once many,
many moons ago in a previous life about a link between,
uh,
bipolar disorder and a creative genius.
I can see that for sure.
And yes.
And exploring this and you're right.
We,
a lot of our creative geniuses are seem to uh i don't know i'm gonna
pick my words carefully but uh see i don't want to say i guess struggle with um with depression
anxiety sometimes mania well you look at bipolarism and it really is like a heightened awareness of
senses and so the people who are bipolar in the olden days you know they would be the ones who would be sitting
up on the mountaintop surveying waiting to see is there a panther or you know making this panther in
the woods you'd hear the cracks you you have heightened heightened sensitivity to everything
and but it can be a superpower if harnessed in the right way which is why a lot of uh people
who enjoy that high i don't want to medicate themselves to
lose the heights.
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And that's the same with anxiety.
Like anxiety is, and I know we're going to get to, you know, my decision to not drink
alcohol anymore.
Well, you can bring that into this now because for sure I wanted to ask you because how long
has it been since you had alcohol?
It's been like a year and a month
and it's been absolutely fantastic.
It was one of the hardest things I've ever done for sure,
breaking that pattern.
And it's a friend of mine,
Kevin Drew from Broken Social Scene said,
He's great.
He said, I think it was, you know,
he drinks it.
I think I was just addicted to liquid.
It's a social conditioning, really.
And I was using alcohol when I started in this industry at 17, 18, 19.
And I had terrible, terrible anxiety.
Did not realize I had terrible anxiety.
Social anxiety, like crippling.
Before I was going on stage, crippling, crippling.
Wow.
Fear, anxiety. Like just fear that you're going to screw up in front of people? social anxiety, like crippling. Before I was going on stage, crippling, crippling, fear,
anxiety. Like just fear that you're going to screw up in front of people? No, just the afraid to get
on stage. I mean, I grew up like as a little kid, I would go to my grandmother's. She had an
upstairs where it was like a balcony. And if I was going to sing, I still wanted to sing,
but I didn't want anybody to look at me. I'd have to turn off the lights and turn around and sing. And up until therapy and quitting drinking,
that was still a big part of my life.
I felt like I used the alcohol initially as something,
oh, this really works.
I'll have a glass of wine or two glasses of wine
and then I can go to the CD release party.
And I'm fine and I'm outgoing and I'm gregarious
and I'm engaged with people and this is great.
And that's cool.
But then you do it for 20 something years and it becomes a dependence.
And it's just what you do.
Everybody else is drinking.
So it's not a conscious decision to do it.
It's absolutely just by rote.
You just do it.
And I realized that it wasn't making me feel good physically. Um,
I just, my recoveries from hangovers were terrible and I have two kids. I did not want to spend my
time doing that. I want to be fully present. And they wake up early. And they wake up early.
And even, they don't even know it's a Saturday.
This is my frustration.
You guys know this is a Saturday.
You don't have to do this.
But they're still up at like 6.45 or whatever.
Absolutely.
And I just, I was like, you know, I don't want, why am I going to work and drinking?
Why am I having a couple of glasses of wine on stage?
Why am I doing that?
Because I've always done it.
Everybody else is doing it. And it's expected of you. It's like a cultural thing, right? It is a cultural thing.
And then, but then I found out, found that it was taking a lot of room in my head to go like,
you know what? I'm going to go to this gig tonight, but I'm going to have one glass of wine.
And I'm from Newfoundland. So the switch is either on or off. So now you don't have,
somebody said, don't you miss having a glass of wine? I was like, no, because I never had one glass of wine.
You don't have that discipline to stop at one.
It's not a discipline, actually.
Not to correct you.
No, no, I know.
But I've done a lot of research about this.
There's one common denominator from people,
and I don't consider myself to be an alcoholic.
I consider myself to be a alcoholic i consider myself to be
a recovering gray area drinker um because i didn't have a physical dependency on it uh it was more
like social dependency right there's one common denominator yes there's genetics there's socio
economic things but the only common denominator is drinking alcohol that's the only thing like it's there's in certain
see there goes your phone should have done it um okay my that's a bad habit i'm gonna kick but
please continue and it's it's it's it's not a discipline to not have one glass why it's like
once you have one glass of wine then the pathway is open and then
the alcohol is the boss i hear you no that's that's and so for me to have the conversation
i'm only going to have one and then i would only go go and have one but but it would be a
conversation in my head it was something i would be trying to do it would be something that i my
brain was working actively taking up space and time in my
head going, I'm only going to have one glass of wine tonight. Do you want to go out another? Nope,
nope. I'm only having one. Right. And it was just way easier for me to go, I'm actually just not
going to drink again. And then that eliminated that conversation. And if you can eliminate
conversations with yourself inside of your head, you're going to be a healthier, more productive member of society.
So what benefits have you enjoyed since you stopped drinking?
Like, is it like, yeah, is there a list?
A million.
For me, I physically feel better.
I exercise more.
I'm like killing it with hot yoga.
I love that because it takes up time and it takes up space.
So I don't feel like I lost anything.
I feel like I gained a whole bunch.
So I feel better.
I am listening to my intuition.
Also something when I started drinking, when I started in this industry,
a part of it was like, I'm uncomfortable. Okay. Let's quiet that noise. Let's quiet that intuition. People are telling me you
should maybe be, maybe you should be more like this pop star, or maybe you should do this,
or maybe you should wear that. And so it was like, this is making me uncomfortable. So instead
of getting out of the situations that were making me uncomfortable, I would drink. So it would be
cool. Okay. Yeah, sure. I'm easy breezy. That's, that's fine. Yeah, I would drink. So it would be cool. Okay. Yeah,
sure. I'm easy breezy. That's, that's fine. Yeah, sure. Great. That's great. So now my intuition is
front and center and I let that be my guide with every single decision to make. If my gut is
telling me, I look back at my career and every time my gut was saying, no, that's not right.
But somebody talked me into something. I did it anyway.
My gut was always right.
It was always a mistake.
So now I'm just listening to my gut.
Well, you've learned maybe to trust your instinct.
Yes, but I can hear it now.
Right, because you're not muting it with the alcohol.
And I realized, by the way, this could be an awkward situation, but it's not.
So if I may explain here.
Last week, Jim McKinney came on the show.
And Jim McKinney is a long, he's a former Toronto Maple Leaf.
Okay.
Fifth highest scoring defenseman of all time.
But he was.
Wow.
I know him best as the sports broadcaster on City TV throughout the 80s.
But he rode that into the 90s, through the 90s.
But he's a great storyteller.
It was an amazing episode.
But I was well aware of
his battles with alcoholism and his many many years of sobriety so during the jim mckinney episode
which was you know proudly brought to you by great lakes brewery i i made a decision that i would not
have the six pack on the table to give it to jim mckinney so i know your story because i've read
i've read it in yeah theBC and Star Star. And Tyler,
so I want to say hi to Tyler Campbell, actually, because I forgot to mention this too. So much I
forgot to mention because I was so into the talking to you and I said, I only get an hour
and I want to get two hours of content in there. But thank you, Tyler, because Tyler actually
scheduled your visit, which is a new development at Toronto Mike, because I'm always the only one
doing anything here. And Tyler is helping me. Good you so thank you tyler because that's amazing and uh tyler i
was not going to give you a six pack of beer yeah because that would be really awkward after that
inspiring speech there but you're going to give it to your husband yeah so you're getting a six
pack of gray lakes but you're not going to drink any of it but i won't drink it but i will watch
my husband enjoy the crap right out of that.
He'll enjoy it.
So again, it's working for you not drinking.
Yeah.
And you're going to continue not drinking because it's working for you.
But for those who do enjoy fresh craft beer, let me just say that if you're going to drink
fresh craft beer, Great Lakes Brewery is where you should drink it from.
I can't wait to see the look on my husband's face when he's drinking it.
He'll be very happy to see you
and you're going to come up with your lasagna
and your beer and everything.
So, okay, so you,
how soon into not drinking
did you realize that drinking was a problem,
not a solution?
Like, when did you realize that this is for you?
I think I was taking evidence.
I was taking evidence.
I was collecting evidence for 20 years that it wasn't working for me, really.
It's funny, I'm going to release a single
that's not on Liquor Store Flowers,
but I recorded it for Liquor Store Flowers,
but it didn't quite fit musically,
so we didn't put it on.
We're going to put it out in January.
And I wrote it with my bestie, Serena Ryder,
and another one of my great friends, Robin Delanto.
And I listened to it.
And it's really about me questioning, going like, ah, drinking.
It's a love song to drinking, a love-hate song to drinking.
Like, this makes me feel alive, but it makes me want to die,
basically, is the sentiment of the song.
It's called Six Feet Under.
And so I was collecting evidence for 20 years of how it made me feel.
But I do think it's really important for me to say it's how it made me feel.
I don't care.
You don't judge others who drink.
You just made a decision for Dabnett.
Yeah.
If I judged other people who drink, then I'd be judging myself.
All right.
And I don't judge anything that I have ever done.
I've learned from every mistake I've made.
But for me, anecdotally, drinking wasn't a mistake every single time that I did it.
It just, for me, right now in my life, for me, it doesn't work for me.
And I'm here if anybody else is feeling
the same if they need support that's why i put that article out because i was like oh i feel
pretty alone in this because everybody's still drinking but i don't want to anymore and i
and so i was like i'm gonna put this article out i'm gonna put it out there because i did so many
google searches to go like who are the cool cool ass sober musicians you know i know one can
i just spit one out yeah biff naked yeah amazing does not drink i didn't know that about biff
actually she's uh beyond she doesn't she's straight edge uh only she but she was just over
here so she's top of mind she actually lives near here well not far from you i guess if you're
parkdale whatever but she's in uh near park lawn in lakeshore like in mimico there whatever, but she's in, near Park Lawn in Lakeshore, like in Mimico there. But yeah,
she's straight edge.
But beyond that,
she's also doesn't eat,
this is,
I don't know if it's related,
maybe she's had some health issues,
but she doesn't eat dairy.
Yeah.
So I didn't give her a lasagna either.
Because there's lots of cheese in there.
Yeah.
Well,
you know,
different,
you have to figure out what works for your body.
Like the same way I realized that caffeine doesn't work for my body.
Right.
Yeah.
Dairy doesn't work for you.
You're younger than I am,
but you seem,
you seem wiser than I am.
You've figured some stuff out here.
Thank you.
If I was not a musician,
I would be a naturopath.
I think I'd love it.
I'm so fascinated by it.
I had chronic maxillary sinusitis for two and a half years.
I went everywhere,
did everything.
So every acupuncturist did all the antibiotics.
They were like, you're going to have to have surgery.
And then I ended up changing my diet
to an anti-inflammatory diet slash keto.
And then within two weeks, it went away.
Like I was struggling.
Well, you know, there's lots of carbs
in this lasagna I'm giving you.
Yeah.
The husband's eating that too.
You know what? I'm giving you. Yeah. The husband's eating that too. I, you know,
I'm,
I'm,
and you know what?
I'm pretty happy with the fact
that I know what,
what I put in my body.
They could be some good stuff,
could be some bad stuff.
Who knows?
But I'm the master of my domain here.
I'm not taking any peer pressure
from anybody.
Oh,
so the title.
But I'll eat that lasagna.
Good,
good.
I want,
I want you to tweet at me
how good it was.
Now,
before I play,
I haven't played That's What You Get yet,
which is a cool jam,
but Liquor Store Flowers,
can you tell me the title there?
Because it says liquor in the title.
I know.
So what's that about?
It was more,
you know,
I wrote a lot of this record in Nashville,
in East Nashville,
not like on music row with professional,
like most of the songs that I wrote in Nashville,
I wrote by myself because with two young kids,
it's like my writing week.
You know, I wasn't on the road or anything.
I'd go to Nashville and write and have my own Airbnb
and my own little cottage and just sit outside
in my swing and write, you know.
But in Nashville, in the liquor stores,
they do have flowers and they're the saddest, saddest flowers I've ever seen.
You know, like half-broken carnations.
And so I just had that image in my head.
Isn't that an Our Lady P song, Broken Flowers?
Maybe.
Okay.
That tracks.
Yeah, so it was just an image.
That's more of an, it's not so much that it could have been
pharmacy flowers except for that doesn't sing well
but there are a lot of references
to drinking on that record
because it was a big part of my
community music community
life
okay we're going to dive into this album before I let you go here
but I forgot I have a wonderful
like in addition to the stickers
and the beer for your husband
and the lasagna,
I actually have,
in fact, how many,
you got two kids.
I can get,
normally I give two free tickets
to Pumpkins After Dark
to every guest.
What's that?
Okay, thank you for asking.
It is 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins
that illuminate the skies
at Country Heritage Park
in Milton, Ontario.
Wow.
And it runs through November 3rd.
So these 5,000 pumpkins also encompass over 100 sculptures and sounds as well.
So it's going to be, I think, for a five and a six-year-old,
because I'm going to take my five-year-old.
It's going to be an amazing experience.
When does it start?
It's already started.
It runs through November 3rd.
So I'm going to email you a PDF.
Great.
Tickets.
Love it.
Thank you.
Yeah, I got to find out.
Maybe the kids are free anyways.
I got to check that out.
I'm not too sure, but I'll make sure that you can bring everybody.
And I should also tell people listening that if they want to save 10% on these Pumpkins After Dark tickets right now,
go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and use the promo code pumpkin mike pumpkin mike
gets you 10 off pumpkins after dark tickets again pumpkins after dark.com and we'll bring down
boris pickett so we can turn up some david doyle so here is that's what you get. Thank you. So I couldn't see. Would have been your.
Would have been your life.
Would have cleaned up all your wounds and made the stars.
Maybe you were better in my memory.
Covered your tracks so I couldn't see.
When you ask for nothing, ask what you get.
And I guess that makes me easy to forget.
When you ask for nothing, ask what you get.
Ask what you get.
And I guess that makes me easy.
And I guess that's what you get
That's what you get
Would have been your nursery
Checking bottles at your bedside
Pump your lungs with oxygen
Yeah, I've never looked me in the eyes.
This is very, very important.
I'm going to be dead serious with you
and this is not a lie.
Everything I've played from Daphne Doyle
on this episode, this is my favorite. Me too. Thanks with you and this is not a lie everything I played from Daphne Doyle this is my favorite
me too
thanks buddy
it sounds the best
of everything I played
and you played
some great stuff
but it's like
you found your voice
yes
I did
thank you so much
and that's
yeah
that's awesome
because you're
you know
some people
if they're lucky enough
to find their voice
they're like 85 years old
they're like
I don't have much time left but you've got lots of time it's funny like i turned 40 and this
happens with women uh you either like activate or you deactivate it's it's like a weird it's a
in the way the culture is like the culture is so youth and appearance obsessed it's like when you
turn 40 it's either like it either becomes your superpower or it becomes, you can kind of get sucked into this thing
where it becomes your decline.
And most women kind of, it's their superpower.
And for me, it was absolutely my superpower.
Like literally I turned 40 and then I realized,
I don't give a flying about, I don't know.
You can swear if you want.
Can I swear?
Yeah, it's a podcast.
I don't give a flying fuck about what anybody don't know. You can swear if you want. Can I swear? Yeah, it's a podcast. I don't give a flying fuck
about what anybody thinks about me.
And that's what this song is about.
It's about being a reformed people pleaser.
I spent a lot of my time in a room
because I'm a highly intuitive,
emotionally responsible kind of person.
Like if I walked into a room,
there were two people here
and you guys had,
I would be able to sense
you guys have an issue.
I'd probably figure out
what it's about.
But then I would make it
my job to fix it.
I did that my entire life.
And then I stopped that at 40.
And wow, did it ever open up.
It's liberating
because it's like freedom.
It's so liberating.
You can't be,
I can't be,
I have two kids.
I can be, you know,
responsible for their emotional well-being
or try to. But other than that, and I don't care what people think about me. I legitimately don't
give a rip what people think because I'm so happy, confident, and secure in myself. Do I still suffer
from depression, anxiety? Absolutely. But it's not because the root cause is I and secure in myself. Do I still suffer from depression, anxiety? Absolutely.
But it's not because the root cause is I don't know myself and that I'm trying to make people
like me. That's liberating. Okay. Speaking of liberating, I just get to call back something
you said earlier in the convo that I'm picking up again. You mentioned that you aren't doing this to
make money. Is that what you said? Yes.
I have a new philosophy in the last two days.
This is a new, fresh take.
I know a lot of fantastic Canadian musicians who have day jobs.
But you're not delivering stuff during the day.
This is your job as a musician.
This is my job musician this is my job
this is my job but i'm you know i would not be able to afford to do my job if i wasn't in
a dual partner family right and i'm a and my job is also being a mom too so um it changed when i
i don't know how uh musicians who have kids do it um it was easier before I had kids. I was able to,
you know, between voiceovers and songwriting and songwriting for other people,
I've never had another job. So I've been really, really lucky with that.
But I've never made decisions based on money. I've been offered deals and come,
we'll make you a star to LA and we're going gonna do this. And I have always, always made decisions
based on what was right for me,
not that I could make money.
And I think that that has allowed me
to be in a position now at 43,
making the kind of music and art that I really love.
But now in the last couple,
I just had a meeting with my manager, my agent.
It was like, no, no, I'm good now.
Like I've figured myself out.
Now I would like to monetize this and this way, this way, this way, this way, and this
way, and this way, because I've always made the decisions on what kind of music to make,
where to play, who to play with based on promoting my credibility.
And I feel like now I'm finally at a place where I feel like other people see
me as I see myself.
And so now it's okay to kind of go out and try and okay.
It's also probably related to this epiphany that it doesn't matter what you
think of me.
It only matters what I think of me,
which gives you the freedom to do things.
Yes.
And I now feel,
I feel very confident and secure about who I am as an artist and who I am as a person.
So it won't feel to me like making money will be selling out.
Now you musicians who,
like I listened to that track and it's fantastic.
Like honestly,
it's excellent.
And like monetizing it is,
that's a whole different challenge,
right?
Because I mean,
we all listen,
people are going to hear it on Spotify, for example.
Oh, yeah.
You're not going to.
No, no.
And I'm not even thinking like monetizing my music.
Oh, gotcha.
It's more like monetizing me.
Like your voice?
As everything that I do.
Okay.
Speaking, hosting.
Do I have to pay you for this appearance?
Is that what you're telling me?
Yeah.
Veggie lasagna and Great Lakes.
I was going to say,
because you did book this
before the thing that happened two days ago.
I get grandfathered in.
Oh, absolutely.
And who,
if somebody had told me 10 years ago
that I'd be more excited about pumpkins after dark
than free beer and a lasagna,
then who are you?
That's funny.
Yeah.
But thank you so much about saying about this song
I love this whole record
I've been
this is
the record
that I wanted to make
my entire life
unfortunately
now we're living in an era
where people don't listen to albums
yeah it's weird
yeah people just listen
to sad songs
all my money went towards CDs
when I was a teenager
all my money
and they were like
20
after taxes
20 bucks a pop.
Oh yeah. But you get the liner
notes. You get to really know something.
So in this
epiphany that I've had, I've also realized
oh, the way people
consume music is different.
And people were telling me that before I put this
record out. I was like, I know, but I'm making vinyl
and I'm making a whole record because it's been my lifelong
dream to make this record with these songs and this type of music and now i realized
okay that's not the way it's that's why we're going to release a sing a single just on its
own in january and just do different things and yeah david doyle i uh thoroughly enjoyed this
was amazing thanks for doing this so much that went by very very fast aren't you glad we extended the time
because a lot of that good stuff came when we
got the extension it was crazy
I actually just had to return the car to
my husband and then I
got it that he didn't need it I need to thank
your husband for enabling you
to not care so much about
how much you make doing your art
and a lot of great artists in this country
and fantastic musicians simply cannot afford to create art
and have to go feed themselves and their kids and stuff.
I actually spend a lot of my time, just before we go,
I'm on three boards.
I'm on the SOCAN board
and I'm on the Songwriters Association of Canada board
and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
And I do spend a chunk of my time doing advocacy work and going to Ottawa and
testifying on Parliament Hill about the status of the economics of being a musician a middle class
the middle class does not exist anymore and people cannot pay their rent let alone buy a house in
Toronto it is it is ridiculous that's the bus that's left the station. Back in the day, at least through your music,
you could buy a home in the city and that's gone.
Oh, it's gone.
Unless you write life as a highway or something like that.
Even if you do write life as a highway.
The landscape has changed.
Absolutely.
People are not interested now in paying for music.
The government missed the boat.
And on that note.
That's right.
That, that's Real Talk.
And that brings us to the end of our 525th show.
You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.
Now, Davnet is at Davnet Doyle, but she spells it F-O-N-E-T-E-C-L-E.
So it's D-A-V-N-E-T Doyle
if you're finding her
on Twitter.
Our friends,
and anywhere else
you want to send people,
I always do the Twitter
because that's what I like
to be on Twitter.
I don't like the rest of them,
but if you want to send them
somewhere else.
I think my first platform
right now is Instagram.
See, my teenagers agree with you.
I didn't take from me,
but this is just me.
What's your Instagram handle? I think it's Davnet Doyle Songs. I didn't take from me, but this is just me. What's your Instagram handle?
I think it's Davina Doyle songs.
I think.
Find her.
But I'm not sure.
Find her and follow her on Instagram.
Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery
are at Great Lakes Beer.
They're going to love this episode.
This is the don't drink episode,
but that's okay.
Real talk.
Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta.
However you say that.
StickerU.
Is that StickerU?
Brian Master is...
You got to email him at letsgetyouhome at kw.com just to get on his mailing list.
It's a fantastic value add mailing he puts out once a month.
No buy and or sell pressure here.
Just get on the list there.
Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP.
And Pumpkins After Dark are at
PumpkinsAfterDark.com
My next guest,
Mr. Dave Bedini.
Woo! We'll see you next time. Here's the time because everything is coming up rosy and gray.
Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today.
And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away.