EP 06: Dan Mangan

Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Mangan discusses his new album Natural Light, recorded in a cabin with longtime bandmates. He opens up about the creative process, vulnerability in songwriting, the ups and downs of a long indie music career, and why connection—not fame—is the true measure of success. Topics include: Dan Mangan interview, Canadian indie music, Natural Light album, songwriting, folk rock, music industry burnout, and artistic rediscovery.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
another episode of The Underknown.
I'm your host, Jan Perullo, and today's guest is Dan Mangan.
Dan is probably a singer-songwriter that should not be on a show called The Underknown.
He is uh actually better known in Canada than he is throughout the rest of the world, butthat shouldn't be the case.
He is very, very talented and he's a really good guy.

(00:29):
I think that you're going to like this episode.
We talk about a lot for the better part of an hour.
I tried to delve into his past, into his career, into his, even his childhood.
And I missed a lot.
We didn't even talk about Dan saying no to Dave Grohl being on drums for one of his songs,which must be a great story and I didn't even get to it.
But we got to a lot and I hope you enjoy the episode.

(00:53):
We're going to go into the interview with a song called Melody off of Dan's latest albumcalled Natural Light and I hope that you enjoy the interview.
Melody chose me And Melody changed her mind I should be over it now But I ain't over itnow

(01:21):
Somebody's wasted time I should be over now But I ain't over
Better not to love a kiss that's taken away
Dan, it's great to meet you.
Thanks for being here today.

(01:43):
My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Dan, your new album is called Natural Light and the song we were just listening to on theintro called Melody really struck me as, you know, was just something that resonated with
me.
And I've listened to it a bunch more times since I first listened to it and it has a lotof depth to it.
You know, actually the whole album has a lot of depth to it.
And so one of the things I wanted to ask you about was the title Natural Light.

(02:08):
Because when I think about natural light, I think about something raw and unfiltered.
And after reading how you recorded this album, it was really organic and it kind of cameup almost like a surprise.
And I wanted to know if the name of the album, did it come after you recorded it in thatcabin in Canada or what?
mean, how did it come about?

(02:30):
Yeah, it's actually a bit of a story.
The initial title for this album was going to be called Contained Free.
And there's a whole backstory about why that was.
m Had to do with sort of the philosophy around the recording.
I wanted it to be contained together, humans in a room using the same gear, using the sameinstruments, the same everything.

(02:51):
But I wanted to feel not contained when it comes to creativity.
I wanted to kind of go in any direction at any time and not thinking about the radio, notthinking about
you know, streaming, not thinking about who it's for, just pure joy, fun.
And the third word was direct, in that I wanted these songs, these were kind of songsongs, you know, like acoustic guitar songs, I wanted the songs to not be obscured by the

(03:16):
music, I didn't want to try and make them so unsinger songwriter-y that they, you know,all of a sudden relied on the trick of the production.
And so,
you know, kind of coming out of the session, we thought we would call it contained free.
And then we sent it to arts and crafts, the label, and they, you know, spent some timewith it they were like, Oh, this is a great record.
Really excited about this.

(03:36):
Not sure about the title.
It feels a little academic or cerebral or something like that.
Not very inviting.
And, um, and I was kind of bummed because, know, once you've made your mind up on adecision, you kind of close the door on that and you're like, Oh, good.
There's relief.
I don't have to make that decision anymore.
Um,
And so, but they reopened the door and I'm like, ah, jerks, you know?

(03:58):
And there's always like a part of me that's sort of like, why are these suits meddling inmy creative?
In the end, they were totally on point.
And I'm really glad that they said that because I went upstairs after having our phonemeeting and I was gonna get in the shower.
I turned off the light and I cracked the blinds in the bathroom.
I just thought to myself, I prefer to bathe in natural light, you know?

(04:22):
You can apply some Shakespearean, I prefer to be the natural light.
And just as I thought those words, I was like natural light, you know?
And I remember that we recorded this whole album at my bassist's cabin in Ontario.
And there's a big window that, know, lots of photos of this online, but there's a bigwindow that faces the trees and the lake.

(04:46):
And I just remember as we walked in, it was the middle of the day and the natural lightwas just
beaming in, you know, into that room.
so natural light was sort of flooding into the room the whole time that we were thererecording.
And it made tons of sense.
know, when I think of natural light, think of, you know, like if light is coming,sunlight's coming through the window and you can kind of see because it's creating so much

(05:14):
illumination, you can see the little bits of
dust particles kind of floating.
And to me, this album feels like those little dust particles floating.
It's like there's something serene, there's something ethereal, something kind of magicaland raw.
And also something like, I would hope that good music um illuminates or like unlockshidden truths.

(05:37):
And I think that that's an interesting thing because you're looking at these dustparticles going, I'm breathing that stuff in all the time.
I had no idea.
And whatever is the most ubiquitous thing around, he was the hardest thing to see.
And I hope that good music can sort of bring some of that stuff to light.
It's interesting.
So I thought about it a little bit.
I mean, it's really interesting the way that you came up with the album, you know, or thetitle, because when I think of a natural light, it's my, you you're coming at it from

(06:04):
inside, which is really where people say, this is natural light as opposed to, know, froma light bulb.
But I always think about it like being in the woods, you know, shadows and then the lightpeeking through and like the natural light.
And so I kind of feel like it's like this like unfiltered or raw, like these places ofbeauty that you can find out there.
And so when, when I,
watched a bit of you recording this album in the, you know, from just the Instagram andYouTube posts that you did.

(06:27):
Um, you know, it has this sort of like DIY DIY feel in a way, right?
That, know, like you said, it's, you're contained in a room.
You have a guy there with a computer essentially, and it looks like he's got his likeproduction stuff there.
I don't know if it's one of your band members or if you actually brought in a producer.
And, and, and it just feels like it's something that happened, you know,

(06:50):
naturally, naturally, you know, just unfiltered raw.
that's kind what I thought of when I, when I heard the title.
Yeah, there was no one else with us, just the four of us.
And we honestly thought we would maybe do some demoing, you know, or what have you, but wemostly just wanted to hang out.
We've been playing music live together on tour for seven, eight years.
And, and I just like, you know, it was just bizarre that we'd never been in the studiotogether.

(07:14):
I'd been working with some fancy American producers and fancy American session musiciansin LA.
And that was an incredible experience too.
And
I'm really proud of those records, but it was sort of like, we spent all this timetogether.
We're best buds.
Like why have we never recorded?
And we honestly went there not thinking, let's make a record.
We just went there thinking we'd hang out, maybe work on some songs.

(07:38):
intentionally we went in with no expectations of what we were going to leave with.
And the label was not expecting us to make a record.
Nobody was.
I had studio dates booked later that summer in LA that I subsequently canceled.
Because just as soon as we got there, I played them the first song that I had just writtena couple days before that I was really excited about.

(08:00):
It might be raining.
we just did like three quick takes and we were like, my God, like we found like, there'ssomething that happens in the studio.
You have to find the song.
Like you've written it and you've kind of know what it is.
But then as you're recording it, like there's always a thing that sinks into place andyou're like, or it doesn't.
that's terrifying.

(08:21):
And you're like, there it is.
That's it.
That's, that's the essence of that song.
You know, that's the image.
That's the North star of what that that should feel like.
And, uh, and we found it right away.
And then the next morning we just kept going.
had 13 songs kind of up my sleeve in a, you know, voice memos recorded on my phonebasically.
And, um, it was just got faster and faster day two.

(08:44):
We recorded two songs, day three, three songs day four, four songs.
just like.
It was like this fever dream of recording.
um And I can't, I feel like I've been, I'm worried that I'm going to oversell this recordbecause I'm so excited.
I'm so enthusiastic.
I'm so, you know, sort of exuberant talking about it.

(09:04):
I feel like I can kind of do that because I don't feel a big sense of ownership over it.
Obviously these are my songs.
This is my record.
It's my name, but I just feel like it was this sort of
cool summer camp experience that I got to participate in and wow at the end of it, youknow, the most miraculous special album I think I've ever made.

(09:26):
Which is amazing, I mean you've made seven full length albums, a bunch of like EP's, somesoundtracks and things like that.
I mean you've made a lot.
So to say that about an album, and maybe it's because it was so unexpected to you to comeout of there with an album.
Like you didn't have the expectation of what this session was going to be necessarily,other than a bunch of people gathered together having fun and experimenting writing music,

(09:47):
playing music, but you didn't expect to get an album out of it I don't think.
Totally.
And I mean, that's just the way, isn't it?
Like the philosophy, I mean, I'm not practicing Buddhist or anything, but like, I thinkthat there is some Buddhism in there in terms of like, when you detach yourself from a
result, all of a sudden the process becomes even more special and ephemeral and sort ofspontaneous, real and honest.

(10:11):
And that truly was how it all felt.
And yeah, like, as you say, this is not my first go around seventh record.
I think there's also part of the reason I'm so excited about it is like it, you know, atthe end of uh American beauty, um, there's that line where he says, you know, it's
amazing.
It's an amazing thing when you realize you can still surprise yourself.

(10:33):
Um, and he's, know, going through this sort of like reawakening and I know that KevinSpacey is sort of off the table as somebody we can talk about anymore, but it is a good
movie and it is a good script.
you know, he's not a good guy, but, um, it's like, I feel that way.
42, you know, this, this industry is obsessed with youth.

(10:55):
you, you know, you, you could get an agent or someone in the industry banging on yourdoor.
So excited.
my God.
Like I've discovered you.
can't wait to work with you.
We got to do this.
Yeah.
And then if like six months later, things haven't exploded, they will, they they've movedon to something else.
It there's, it's so everybody's swinging for the fences.

(11:19):
everybody's trying to find the next Billie Eilish or Chappell Rowan or Bon Iver.
And there's an element to it that is just so like, what have you done for me lately?
And, you know, the idea of developing artists for long-term careers is sort of, it's justnot part of the game anymore.
so it's truly incumbent upon the artists to just persevere and just to keep going.

(11:42):
And, you know, I've been fortunate in particularly in Canada, I've got a bit more of afollowing and
I've had a really cool career.
I've got really great stories.
I've played with huge bands.
I've met lots of celebrities.
I've done cool things.
I've played late night TV and I met Will and Kate, you know, like there's all these coolthings that I've done.
And yet in the scope, in the scope of like major label acts, I'm like an unknown act.

(12:07):
Like I'm like a baby, baby, baby band.
And, and I think that part of it is sort of like being, you have to maintain thisgratitude for what's coming your way.
And also like there's a hunger under there of like, you know, I'm a hungry guy.
Like I'm ambitious.
I want things and, and I want to make better and better and better and better art.

(12:29):
Like I don't, I don't want to rest on my laurels.
I just want to keep trying to get better at this.
And so I think that what I'm getting at with all this is that at 42 to me, it is amiracle.
And I'm just so thankful that this experience happened now.
And that on my seventh album, I feel
Like, you know, and I've made lots of albums that I think are really great and I'm veryproud of them, but there is something about this record that feels like new territory.

(12:57):
You know, you mentioned the art or the uh practice of bringing artists up.
And I think it's something really important that, you you talk about, if you think aboutwhat I have heard it was like in the seventies, if you got a record deal, you get like
four record deals or something like that, you know, it's like, and, okay, your first onewasn't great, but let's see what we can do for the second one and the third one.

(13:18):
Because most people don't start off as brilliant singers, songwriters, brilliant bands,brilliant, you know,
you know, create the greatest record.
And when you don't have a chance to develop that through any time, I mean, it's like, andwhen you're always just moving on and trying to find the next person that has a hit, like
Billie Eilish happened to have, you know, I don't know how much she threw out ahead oftime, but she happened to explode onto the scene.

(13:43):
Lord did it, you know, a bunch of years ago.
um But it was those first songs that they released that were just like blew up.
mean, you know, Justin Bieber.
Exactly.
And so, you what would have happened if Billie Eilish's first songs were, you know, morepedestrian, right?
Like maybe you see something in them, but they weren't hit, you know, does that mean noone's going to follow, and it probably does mean no one's going to follow her, but then

(14:06):
those people move on and they move on.
And I think it's really, it is something that we've lost and, you know, as our culturegets more and more uh instant gratification oriented and short attention span that, you
know,
Yeah, I mean, have you ever had the experience of hearing a song online or something andbeing like, oh my God, that's amazing.
Whoa, I'm blown away by that.

(14:28):
And literally the next day you can't even remember the name of the person or what the nameof the song was.
Like we're so attuned to that now.
I think it's like, there's a different length to cycles and not just album cycles, butjust like algorithmic zeitgeist cycles.
I think that back in the day,
because you had to like slowly break a band through a bunch of gatekeepers and barriersthat were entrenched and there's no other way around them.

(14:55):
You you had to like convince the, if you were from the UK, you had to convince UK radio toplay you and then you had to convince the UK distributors and the UK is yada yada yada.
And then, wow, okay, that's working.
Okay, let's work on Germany.
Okay, now let's work on the US.
And like, you know, back in, even in the nineties, you could release an album.
and then release it like 18 months later in a different territory and it be a new album.

(15:20):
And I think that back then it took longer to know whether something was going to be a flopor not.
And now, you know, because the metrics are so available and data is so readily availableand Spotify and streaming, et cetera, has sort of made everything quantifiable.
um
you know, that there's less interest in qualitative response and there's more interest inquantitative response.

(15:45):
A few things come up here.
One is that the kind of art that explodes on social media is not really the kind of artthat I grew up loving, you know?
It's not like eight second tidbits with a crazy drop and then you match a thing to it inthe video.
um And like the idea of like thinking about writing a song for social media,

(16:08):
A lot of artists do that.
Like a lot of artists are planning their songwriting around what they think will work.
And my question is like, what is the end here?
Is the end fame?
Is the end, you know, followers?
Is the end a respected body of work that stands the test of time?
What is the North Star?

(16:29):
And I think increasingly within our particular zeitgeist, there's less and less and lessroom for
the artists that are going for that long career arc.
And there is more and more more space being taken up by artists that are willing to kindof just play the game of making music.
I'm also not getting down on new songwriters.

(16:50):
There's a of amazing songwriters, a lot of amazing new artists that are doing interestingstuff.
um But it is something to consider.
um I just see it, I see it all the time.
I see a songwriter posting a thing.
and they're singing it in a particular way and I'm like everything about this wasengineered for content.
em

(17:11):
That's how it is.
But it's hard, know?
mean, even, you know, so someone like you, I want to talk about your earlier work at somepoint here as well, but you have this body of work that, you know, like you said, you're
proud of your other albums as well.
And I imagine that some of them have a closer spot to you, but you've developed in a way,like very organically, I think you kind of come from this in-between time when, you you

(17:34):
still started before.
everything with social media.
And so you had this real emotional connection with the fans that you've developed andyou've brought up or brought with you.
A lot of them seem to have come with you and some of them have come on for the ride later.
But, you you mentioned something that I think is missing in a little bit in today's music.

(17:55):
It's the kind of this concept of an album and like, you know, I grew up listening to
albums.
mean, you know, we're both going to sound like we're old here.
Like when I grew up and when I was a kid, you know, it's true.
Like there was something really satisfying about sitting down, putting on vinyl or evenputting in a, you know, a cassette tape and listening to it and kind of having that

(18:16):
tactile response, but having more than just once.
You had to spend time with it like like if you spent money on it on buying a CD or acassette tape and Let's say the first time you listen to it You weren't that enthralled
but you would listen to it four or five more times because you'd spent money on it alreadyand it was the only thing in your car and Every time it gets to the end it starts over
again.

(18:36):
So you're just like, you know, you're totally right
I mean, and that's a great point.
And one of the things about natural light is it feels like an album.
You have one song in there that kind of like, or it's more than one song, but one struckme where it's like an interlude.
And I forget what you call it the interlude, it's, and it's between two songs.
And if you're not paying attention, it's almost like the one it, those three songs almostbecome one because there's this like, you know, and that's, if I just listened to one of

(19:02):
the songs, I can listen to just one of the songs, but you wrote it, you know, presumablyto be this kind of.
piece as opposed to just this bite-sized nugget of a song.
You built it to be within the context of an album, which is building and going somewhere,and you're actually having a listening experience.
And I imagine you're trying to balance having individual songs with having an entirealbum, having an entire piece of work when you're writing something like that.

(19:28):
Yeah, I think some of it is probably intentional, but a lot of it just is sort ofhappenstance of how it was made, you know?
by the end of these six days in the cabin, we had a sequence, we had overlaps, we had atitle, which ended up not being the final title.
We had an album cover, which was a photo that Jason took during the evening when we werethere.

(19:50):
We had a photo for the back cover.
And it all felt like happy accidents one after another.
The final night that we were there, we took uh this sort of like mock sequence, which isvery, very similar timing-wise to what we ended up using for the actual master.
And we sat and we played cards and we had beers and we ate and we just sort of listenedback to what we had made.

(20:16):
And we were like kind of weepy, know?
Like it was just like a tender, tender moment going like, what just happened?
It was like, we just sort of all woke up from a fever dream.
It was like,
You know, we blacked out and we woke up at this table going like, God, what was that week?
That was crazy.
And there was a sort of sense of excitement.
And I've said this before, but like, kind of felt like we'd made rumors, you know, byFleetwood Mac.

(20:39):
was like, like we'd made a classic album that feels like an album that is like a moment intime.
And that's how it felt to us in that moment.
And the excitement was palpable.
And what's cool is that if you look at the streaming numbers on natural light,
There's obviously some peaks, know, because some of these songs were released early.
Some of these songs get focused attention from the label.

(21:02):
But by and large, the difference in plays between the final track and like the earliertracks is not that different.
you know, like, like if I was to look at a track like, you know, track four versus track12 or something like that, maybe track 12 has like 65, 70%.
However, like if you, on a normal album on Spotify, if you go and you look, Track 12 wouldhave like 10 % of the listens of Track 1, right?

(21:30):
And so there's something going on.
um Like I feel like people are listening to it as an album and I'm getting notes frompeople and they're like, my God, this song is hitting me so hard right now because of X,
and Z.
And they're all mentioning different songs.
That's a cool.

(21:53):
Like I've had people be telling me, proximity speaks to me and I'm crying on the trainbecause of it.
And that's the second last song, you know?
And it's like, I feel like you write a batch of songs and you feel pretty good about them.
And then the way that those songs get recorded, the way that you articulate them, itreally matters.

(22:13):
Like it can take a good song and make it great.
It can also take a great song and make it bad.
um And I think that this was for me,
It felt like it was ours to fuck up and we managed to not fuck it up.
What a miracle.
That's it.
Well, you know, it's really interesting that you think of it like that because I kind ofthink of it, I again, I wasn't there, but hearing how you describe doing it, it wasn't

(22:43):
yours to fuck up because it wasn't there.
You guys just kind of put this whole thing into play.
it's just like, it's kind of like the miracle is really that it exists.
It wasn't a miracle that you didn't fuck it up.
It's a miracle that it exists in a way because you had no intention of doing it.
I like that.
There's also like, you know, a few things.
We've got a century of recording experience between us.

(23:04):
know, we've all been doing this a very long time.
There is some sort of deeply ingrained muscle memory and, and, you know, development inour bones as musicians to be able to play music together.
You know, which when you're 18 and you're making a record in your bedroom on a laptop,you're applying all kinds of creativity, but it's a different.
thing than making music in a room with people that, you know, that takes years to kind ofget there.

(23:29):
So there's a combination of that.
also, you know, I've written hundreds and hundreds of songs.
Many of them are not good.
Some of them are good.
And it's sort of like a long, slow development and then the lightning quick execution ofit at this place.
Um, and also, you know, there's just, there's an embodiment of love on this record.

(23:51):
The four of us, when we're together,
I never feel anxious.
I never feel like, what am going to say?
Or I never questioned myself or think about, I don't feel bad about myself or dislikemyself when I'm around these people, you know, and that's, that's not been the same with
every group of people I've ever been in my life.
You know, there's a lot of times you're in a group of people and they, they're, could beyour best buds in some ways, but like at the same way you're, you're second guessing

(24:20):
yourself or whatever.
And.
It's also to me personally a bit of a miracle to fall into the hands of these threeindividuals with whom I feel so relaxed and we all love each other so much.
You know, we just really, really enjoy hanging out.
We love playing music together.
We appreciate each other.
If anything comes up, there's any problems, they get voice.

(24:43):
And I think that there's an inherent kind of sense of trust and deep appreciation betweenus that I can sort of hear.
in the record if that makes sense.
No, it does.
um know, one of the things that struck me that you said is like, you know, well, we'vebeen doing this for so long.
As you know, I mean, that is no guarantee of being able to put anything good together,like having a bunch of cool that have done it.

(25:07):
And so I still think that there's a there is something really special in the way that thisalbum came together for you guys, regardless of how long you've been doing it, regardless
of how many songs you went there with or how many ideas you went there with.
you know, I think it's easy for you to maybe
I'm not saying your minima, but to kind of think about it in one way, because you werethere, you were in the room, right?

(25:28):
But for me to like, look at this and look at the way it happened and be like, my God, youyou had shells of songs and you go into a room and you go, and I know, you know, those
guys really well, but, um, you come out with 13 songs.
mean, that's crazy.
I mean, it's crazy in six days.
It's, it's, it's, it's bonkers.
And it's not like you went back and recorded them all again.
Like you did everything while you were there.

(25:49):
You basically wrote them, you fleshed them out.
You, there's a lot of space around them, but, um,
You did it all.
And we did add stuff later, you like we added strings and woodwinds and some horns and umstuff that we just didn't have access to there.
know, there's a, you know, I probably played a little bit of piano on a couple of songsafter the fact or whatever, you know, but it was 90 % at 95%.

(26:10):
Yeah, I honestly, like I, it's, it was, and it's, feel like I'm just like repeatingmyself.
Thank you.
I feel like you're gently trying to get me to take more credit for it than I'm willing totake.
No, no, no, no, I'm not.
I'll give you the credit.
You can take it or not.
No, I'm not trying to.

(26:31):
That's up to you.
But let's move off a natural light for I have a few more questions about it, but let'slet's move on to something that I am interested in.
I'm sure that you've dealt with this before, but I kind of wanted to know.
And this is always interesting to me.
How does music come into your life to begin with?
Like when you were a kid, you know, growing up like what?
What brought you to music?

(26:52):
Like what were the albums?
What was the circumstance?
Who brought you to piano?
Who brought you to guitar?
How did that happen?
Yeah.
well, there was always instruments around, uh, when my, my parents split up, my momremarried a guy who had three sons who were much older than me and my brother and my
sister.
And so for a while I was the youngest of six and one of those older step brothers wasliving with us for a time.

(27:17):
And he was like a PhD guitar player that he was very, very established guitar player, notreally in like the rock scene or anything like that, but just as like an instrumentalist.
And, um, and so he, it was almost like his room and board, like to live with his folksagain, kind of thing was that he had to teach me and my brother and my sister how to play
guitar.

(27:38):
And so I remember in the living room, we had this like couple of big binders and there'dbe like me and Bobby McGee and, you know, the Rose and, um, like all of Beatle songs and
brown eyed girl.
And, you know, it was just a huge book full of lyrics and chords.
And so we would sit around and we would play the songs together and we kind of learnedthat's, you know, I can't really read music, but I can, you know, I can pick it up pretty

(28:06):
quick.
And then I remember like laying on the floor with my headphones on, listening to CDs for awhile.
We lived in the country in Ontario and there was this program where you could order 10 CDsfor $1 or something.
Yeah, it was, uh, what was that called?

(28:27):
some B-House.
That's it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
so we did that.
ordered and so 10 CDs would arrive.
We, you know, as kids, we had no idea how it worked.
Like we would do this work without our parents knowing.
And then all of a sudden we'd be getting like collections bills like later on.
Okay.
You have to keep buying CDs now.
And, um, and I remember just sitting there and I'd flip open the lyric booklet and I'dread every lyric and I would soak in these songs and like records, like Aerosmith, get a

(28:55):
grip.
And I was a lot of Canadian, like CanCon, know, Canadian stuff, the Tragically Hip, TheGrapes of Wrath, Sarah McLachlan, 5440.
And I would air guitar, jump around on the couch.
My sister and I would do fake radio shows.
We had a show called The Bob and Shirley Show.
That's cool.

(29:15):
Bob and she was Shirley.
And we would use the cassette recorder on the stereo to record our, you know,
Well, what do you think, You're the next song is going to be.
And then we would sort of fake DJ and it was great.
It was like, you know, we had three channels on the television.
Yeah.
Before smart devices were invented and we had a lot of time to kill.

(29:39):
And we just spent a lot of time farting around, listening to music and sort of, you know,dreaming about music.
And I, if I'm being honest, I think even way back then when I was like six, seven, eightyears old, I had.
I had these inclinations.
I wanted this from a really early age.
For a long time, I thought it was going to be a veterinarian.
I was very, very good at school when I was in elementary school and I kind of breezedthrough and then around grade seven, eight, I sort of realized that I didn't want to go

(30:11):
into the sciences and in order to be a veterinarian, I had to be going to science.
I just sort of, from that point on, I was like, okay, it's all music.
Okay
And I wrote my first song when I was about 15.
um But I was always like through high school, you know, I had so much self doubt and somuch ennui um and malaise and lethargy.

(30:35):
And I do remember like I wasn't good.
I wasn't that good at sports.
I wasn't that good at snowboarding.
I wasn't like all the things that my friends were good at that they got positiveaffirmation for.
I wasn't good at any of that stuff.
But I could play guitar and I could play guitar better than any of my friends.
And, you know, I could play Rana songs and Pearl Jam songs and Dave Matthews songs and BenHarper songs.

(31:00):
And I got a lot of positive attention for that.
I like, you know, I've got a relative who was going through quite a depression and it wasinteresting.
Like he kind of discovered he was a great runner and now he's like a track star.
But I remember talking to his dad when he was a teenager and he's like, yeah, it justturns out if you can run faster than everyone, you'll feel good, you know?

(31:24):
And that's sort of like, you know, within all of our little niches, it's not like life's acompetition and you have to out spar people.
But if you can find something that gives you joy doing, you know, and then also on top ofyou, your own catharsis and joy that you receive from it.
Other people are like, hey, good job.

(31:44):
That's cool.
You know, that does a lot for a teenager who's feeling a lot of conflicting internal
But when you're a teenager, mean, doing that takes a certain amount of courage, right?
I to put yourself out there, especially if you're singing, I don't know if you were justplaying guitar at that time, which is a lot easier than singing too.
But to put yourself out there, I mean, I remember my son started playing guitar when hewas, you know, well, I I have pictures of him in diapers trying to strum one of my guitars

(32:10):
and he like, as soon as he could put his fingers around it, he did.
And he was playing open mic nights at like seven.
And yeah, it was so young and it was so good.
was, was, it was like Oasis covers and stuff like that.
It was so good, but you know, he has this really high little voice and one of the kidsthat was like 13 or 14 made fun of him.
He's like, you know, you're, and he stopped singing for like years and it was justhorrible because it takes the amount of courage it takes to put out there and then to get

(32:33):
made fun of and just squashed by someone that like, you know, you're kind of looking upto.
It's really hard and singing.
singing is such a vulnerable instrument, right?
Like if you're bad at violin or you're bad at guitar, people are pretty forgiving of that.
But if you're bad at singing, and that's the thing is like, there's this special bubblethat has to burst of like, you have to kind of be willing to be vulnerable and put

(32:57):
yourself out there.
And the more vulnerable you are, it's sort of like the better you have to be, you knowwhat I mean?
And there's like a,
I don't know, there's a funny thing there.
It took me years before I would call myself a songwriter.
I'd probably written like 20 songs before I would call myself a songwriter.
uh And same thing with singing.

(33:17):
Like I was not a confident singer.
I did not have like a naturally beautiful voice or anything like that.
If you hear um recordings of me singing in my late teens or early 20s, it's rough, it'sraw.
It's like, and even like,
So the record that kind of changed my life in 2009, it's called Nice, Nice, Very Nice.

(33:42):
And there's a song on there called Robots.
And that song like kind of rose to the top of the charts in Canada in a particular niche.
And it just sort of all of a sudden was playing instead of playing to 80 people, I wasplaying to a thousand people kind of thing.
And when I hear that recording, I can barely stand it because my voice, I don't know whatis so gruff and raw and.

(34:06):
scratchy and I guess that's part of maybe the appeal is that it's unique.
But since then, I kind of lost my voice um through dealing with like TMJ and silent refluxand all these health issues.
I had to kind of relearn how to sing and be much kinder to my voice.

(34:27):
I'm a much better singer now than I was then.
But you know, like I think the thing that I had then
And the thing that I still have now is I'm willing to be embarrassed.
I'm willing to embarrass myself.
um Even on social media, I'll do stupid stuff on social media and two seconds later belike, why did I do that?
I'm going to delete that.

(34:48):
But it's like, but you kind of have to be willing to, to look like an idiot.
You can't take yourself so seriously.
And it's so tough as a teenager.
If someone else is like, Ooh, yeah, good job idiot.
You know, like good singing.
And you were trying your hardest and now they're crushing you and it's that's reallyreally tough.
But even like with social media and things like that, mean, the rise of the keyboardwarrior, right?

(35:13):
The guy with the courage behind the anonymous screen.
mean, it's like the wizard of ours, Oz and our day now.
you know, it's still, mean, you're 42, it's got to still like someone says, nice album,dude, this music sucks.
And I don't know if anyone ever says those things to you online or what have you.
Like, yeah, but it's gotta be like, you know,

(35:34):
It's mostly in response, because I get pretty political online.
I'm never shy of my opinions online, and I tend to speak up about particular causes.
Most of the critical feedback I get about my music is from people who actually don'tlisten to it.
It's like, I'll write something about like, oh, this pipeline sucks.

(35:54):
We need to move to clean energy or something and be like, what do you know?
Your music's terrible or something.
Yeah, actually, now that you say that, yeah.
That seems a lot easier to take though.
And it's like, when you know, like it's very transparent as to what it is, as to somebodyjust, I don't know.
mean, you know, it's, it's a brave thing.
Like you said, it takes a lot.

(36:15):
I've been hurt though.
Like I, you know, I'll tell you this.
I, in 2010, we sold out the horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, which is a legendary club beenthere for whatever 50, 60 years or something.
And like everyone's played at the horseshoe kind of thing.
And we sold it out 500 tickets.
was packed.
was this incredible night, had the best time.

(36:35):
And the next morning, this article comes out in the Globe and Mail, which is a nationalpaper in Canada.
And, uh it's.
You know, it basically says the Indy Emperor has no clothes.
This guy is full of crap.
ah All of his fans are idiots.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
He's a bad songwriter.

(36:56):
It was like the most vindictive, like ill-intentioned.
And I've spoken with that journalist like several times since, you know, that was early inmy career.
Luckily, I'm still here.
I've spoken with him on the phone.
I've been interviewed by him several times since.
Neither of us have.
Everman.
We just have chosen to not mention it, but you know, I took, was for weeks.

(37:21):
I was just like destroyed, you know, just like, cause the thing is he, he wanted to takethe wind out of my sails.
And what frustrated me so much in that moment was that it worked.
He did take the window to my sales and I felt deflated.
And I just thought like, what a mean thing to do.
Like, and I've.
I've said mean things about other bands at times when I was younger online and I'veregretted it every single time.

(37:46):
I, uh, you know, early on, I, I really was not, I would always get compared to Mumford andsons and my, you know, my kind of breakthrough record came out six months before their
breakthrough record.
Just their breakthrough record happened to be a billion times bigger, know, massive sortof like arena folk was, was, was born.
Um,

(38:07):
But I would always get compared to them and I would always say, no, I'm doing a differentthing and stuff.
I, for a couple of years there, just mostly out of jealousy and out of sort of like aspite, I would just crap on Mumford and Sons any chance I had the, anytime I had the
chance.
that band sucks or whatever.
um And then I got invited to play a festival that they were curating.

(38:31):
so I went to do it, really good opportunity.
And I'm kind of wandering around the fairgrounds in the backstage and just getting mybearings and mini van kind of drives by me and then goes like, know, and reverses back and
all four Mumford and the sons all get out of the van and like, you Dan.
No, nice to meet you.

(38:52):
Thank you so much for playing the festival and blah, blah, blah.
And like they were going over and above and I afterwards I was like, my God, it's like thenicest guys ever.
And I called.
my wife right after was like, I'm such an asshole, rapping all over this band for yearsand they don't deserve it.
And you know, and it's, their music is different than my music.
It's like, there's a bit of a different North star at play here, but I'll say this, like Istood side stage watching them play to like 35,000 people and the energy coming off the

(39:25):
stage and the energy coming back to the stage from the people was pretty incredible.
And I,
I think when I started out, like I really had a disdain for anything that felt like popmusic.
I like, that's gross.
Like anything pop.
And as I've gotten older and I've started to realize, you know, just what a miracle it isand how hard it is to have any kind of career in music.

(39:45):
I've started to appreciate more and more and more how hard it is to carry that kind ofweight and to be that kind of level of success and to maintain it for any amount of time.
Um, I really respect it.
And I just, I think I've been humbled so many times by this industry that if someone's agood person and they've lasted, I'm like, I'm all for you.

(40:12):
Like, I don't like, even if I hate your music, even if I think your music is garbage, ifyou're a good person and you've worked hard and you've managed to like have a career, I'm
like, way to go, dudes.
You did it.
Awesome.
I've kind of like had that same sort of trajectory where, know, when I was young and alittle brash, you know, you'd be like, oh, how, why is anyone going to see them?

(40:32):
They suck or, know, and you just have these like, blanket statements that are just, youknow, first of all, they don't do you any good.
They certainly don't do the other band any good and they don't do the world any good.
And so for me, I think about that.
like, you know, now I think about it like, okay, that music might not be like, I'm not ahuge Taylor Swift fan.
Um, and I wasn't a huge Lady Gaga fan when I listened to like that produced music, but youlistened to her at a piano alone.

(40:55):
I'm just like, my God, it's amazing.
Like, like she got this great voice.
She's a incredible piano player.
Like, why would I be, you know, all down on lady?
seems like a great person, you know?
So kind of the same thing.
It's like, you know, I, I just kind of like, might not be my cup of tea, but so what.
Yeah, we like last minute we got offered some face value tickets to see Taylor Swift andit was actually it was the second last show of the entire like three year errors to a lot

(41:22):
of here in Vancouver and uh my wife was like, go and her niece is a huge Swifty and youhave to go you have to go and so we went and I don't you know, I didn't really know her
music very well and I left.
Pretty impressed.
I was like, this is amazing.
Three and a half hour show.
Everyone's freaking out.

(41:44):
um Her ability to hold 70,000 people on every word that you're doing.
um It's not easy.
It's not easy.
And anyone who slags her has no idea of how she's able to gracefully sort of balance itall.

(42:05):
And lots of bangers, man.
Endless bangers, just like.
Here's a big banger, here's a big banger.
Over and over over again.
And again, it's like this music isn't made for me, I'm not the demo.
It doesn't speak to me on a really high level.
But I left going like, yeah, I'm with you, Taylor.
You go, girl.
Yes.
I was very, very impressed.

(42:26):
And that's the other thing, like the different kind of exposure that you can get to anartist.
Like I said, listening to someone like a Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift on the radio, it's justnot for me, but you go see them or you see them in a different situation and you just get
this new found respect.
So I've kind of tried to bring that whole idea of other artists sucking out of my psycheand out of my vocabulary.

(42:47):
Cause it's just not health.
That's really cool, like, um if you can approach it with that sort of childlikewonderment, you know?
Because kids, when you're like six, you don't go like, this sucks and that doesn't suck orsomething.
You're just like, cool, everything's amazing, you know?
And I've met some really accomplished, incredible, like avant-garde niche badass musicianswho will get down with like,

(43:18):
NWA or Taylor Swift or, you know, uh subversive, like 70s, experimental sax music, all atthe same time.
Like, like, like they don't, they don't put a hierarchy on what is art or not art.
They're just sort of like, they they're able to sort of take the wonderment of each thingas it comes, which is there's some higher level, you know, consciousness.

(43:43):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And I think that it's really healthy.
mean, you know, I've tried to expose myself to a lot more of that, especially as I'vegotten older, not be such a like a one genre type of, you listener.
But, know, it takes, yeah, I mean, it just takes time and it takes some focus, but it'sjust like, it's the negativity that just doesn't, especially in a world where we have so

(44:05):
much of it with the rise of, you know, social media and, you know, political media andeverything else, there's just so much negativity out there anyways.
It's doesn't, it's not helpful.
put any more toxicity in the you know why piss in the well we all have to drink from it.
Exactly.
So a couple of other things that I wanted to talk to you about.
Like one, you you have, mentioned robots earlier and robots, I know it's probably yourmost well known song, maybe.

(44:29):
don't know.
know, it, it, well.
In some ways, yeah.
I mean, it was sort of like a career defining song, you know, when it, when it happened,if you look at statistics, streaming numbers or radio play, not, you know, there's, other
songs.
And it's actually not my most requested song.
The most requested song I get by far is a song called basket from that.

(44:54):
The sort of introspective long crescendoing sort of like
an old man looking back on their life kind of thing.
And so that song has been, you know, and I think that that's, it's like the fan favoritesare rarely the radio hits because, because for, you're like a true, true fan of most

(45:15):
bands, you're like, no, no, that song's played out.
Like the one song I love, you know, you're going to, you're going to, you know, go for thedeep cuts that are maybe again, coming back to what we're talking about, like tick tock,
you know,
It's the deep cuts are the ones you play at the funeral, right?
Once you play at the wedding, you know, it's it's rarely like the big poppy sort ofnumbers.

(45:36):
But the neat thing about Roblox to me is that is not like, you know, again, it wasn't thesong itself that I mean, it's good song.
I mean, I'm not critically, but but what drew me to it was um seeing you do it live andhaving you be drowned out by the crowd.
You know, they're essentially singing louder than your PA.
Right.
I mean, to me, that's kind of like.

(45:58):
That's like a dream, right?
mean, like every artist wants their song sung back to them louder than they're able to putit out there to them.
That's gotta be like amazing.
though, even if it's not like your most requested song or your favorite song or whatever,to have the crowd participate with you in that way with a song uh that's yours has gotta
be amazing.
Yeah, and I, know, particularly in those early days, I kind of felt like a call it like athe ring master, you know, at a circus or carnival.

(46:25):
we'd, we robots would be the sort of climax of the set, you know, the ending and I wouldcrowd surf and I'd be shaking a tambourine while I'm crowd surfing.
And I would, uh, you know, it got to a point where people were dressing up like robots,like most shows, it was half a dozen people who came in robot costumes and I would.
pull them up on stage and they would dance on stage and then I'd crowd surf or, know, andI was, I would do all kinds of stunts.

(46:50):
Like I remember we were playing at South by Southwest or something and I kind of stompedfrom table to table to table and got all the way jumped onto the top of the bar and
grabbed a pint glass and poured myself a beer and then chugged the whole thing whileeverybody was singing the chorus of robots, you know?
And it was like,
Yeah, it was a little bit theater and a little bit performance art, know, and a littlebit, you know, just sort of folk rock or whatever.

(47:17):
But the song took a life of its own and it was part of that trajectory, that part of that,you know, really magical sort of time in my life where I was given a career.
You know, I kind of had the benefit of the doubt from a lot of angles for a few yearsthere.
And and I, you know, I fell out of love with it, I think, eventually because I started tofeel like a monkey.

(47:39):
I was like,
I had to every show go bigger and bigger and bigger than the last one and try and makethis ending.
So, and if you're feeling that way, that's fine.
But if you're feeling not larger than life, if you're feeling kind of like small and thenyou have to sort of act in a particular way that creates a cognitive dissonance that, you

(47:59):
know, drives a little wedge in your psyche.
Um, and it's, not helpful.
And, um, so I stopped playing it for a few years.
Um, and then eventually kind of fell back in love with it, you know, through anotherexperience where we were playing at a folk festival and the festival was running late and
we only got halfway through our set because we were finishing, we were playing last, butthere was like a strict power curfew.

(48:21):
Yeah.
So they shut down the PA.
So we went out into the crowd and we played at campfire style.
again, like thousands of people singing that song and we're standing up on a thing.
Like, you know, basically just, I don't know what I was standing on a chair or somethinglike field.
and seeing all the kids on the shoulders smiling and singing and clapping.

(48:41):
And it was like, okay.
This song has re-earned its place for me, you know?
em And it's, played every show, you know, for the most part.
And it's just sort of like a signature song.
I don't think it's, as you say, I don't think it's not, I don't even think it's in my top20 best songs I've ever written.
I would say it's like on the, in the span of my catalog, it would rank like 46th best songwritten.

(49:03):
But that's not for me to say.
what is going to resonate with other people.
And if that song is meaningful, whether it's because of nostalgia or something fresh orwhatever, you know, I'm mercy of the audience because I'm just so grateful that they're
still kicking around.
They're still buying tickets, you know.
Well, you know, the other one that struck me and maybe like this one more in terms of likeyour overall catalog and where you'd rank it, but it's one that was off your first album,

(49:32):
which is so much for everyone, which kind of took that same thing, but in a much more in aquieter way, I thought.
And to me, that one really like that one really resonated to me.
Like I love like there's no chorus.
There's no, you know, and you talk about this on you have a you did like a three videoseries of
more or less songwriting series, I think you called it.

(49:53):
But you talk about, you know, so much for everyone on there.
And that's kind of when I went into a little bit of a deep dive on it.
And you just see like videos of you singing it could be in a field.
It can be like, you know, you're just singing that sitting there with a guitar andeverybody's like, it's that one to me is a lot more emotional than than than robot.
it feels like the connection there is a bit different with the crowd.

(50:13):
But I mean, I just I loved that one, too.
And it's another, know, so you kind of had to at least
Well, at least two that have done this for.
mean, crowd involvement's always kind of been important to me.
I try to dissolve the pedestal between the stage and the audience.
I've never, like anytime I've been positioned or introduced in a way that's kind of evenremotely like rock star-y, I get really squeamish.

(50:38):
I feel like I'm able to give the best performance and give the audience the bestexperience when I feel the most just like myself.
Like I want to be the same person on stage that I am off stage.
um, and so getting the audience involved from really early day in my career was a, sort ofa means to creating that connection and that unity and, um, singing's amazing.

(51:03):
I mean, like I, you know, I'm a pretty secular dude.
Um, but I grew up going to church and my mom was a minister and, uh, I remember when I wasabout 12, I was like, do this anymore.
And to her credit, she said, fine.
Um, but.
The things that I loved about church was A, inclusivity.
Everyone was welcome.
There's all sorts of fairly strange people from the community who had community at thechurch because that's where they knew that they would be accepted.

(51:30):
Probably, this is in the 90s, but by today's standards would be neuro-atypical kind offolks.
And I remember being, well, that's cool.
Clearly these people don't have a lot of friends, but they can come to church and theyfeel like they're part of something.
That was cool.
The other thing I love is singing with people, you know, and Christmas Eve, hold a candle,silent night, choral kind of vibe.

(51:53):
There's something really magical about that.
And I, I'm not here for the patriarchy and the dogma and the shame and the guilt, but I amhere for the unity.
And so I like to feel like you should leave a show exhilarated.
You should leave a show feeling like full of life and love and appreciation for all ofyour existence.
And.

(52:14):
If I can, the church does not own the feeling of community.
That's, know, they would, think that many churches would claim that they do or that that'sGod or whatever, but it's, it, to me, it's not God.
It's just the interconnected.
Yeah.
Call it whatever you want.
and so I like to reclaim that feeling.
I like to reclaim the idea that like, we can be together.

(52:35):
We can feel like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
And the best way to get people out of their inhibitions is,
to force them to sing.
uh so over the years, I've gotten really good at getting people to sing and people whonormally would be like, no, I can't sing.
If you get those people singing, like the smile on their face after when they had a good,positive experience singing and they felt free and alive in the moment.

(53:04):
Yeah, that's really cool.
uh Before you mentioned a little bit about what it means to be successful.
mean, for you, you've had a long career, you know, and you're only 42, that's not old.
uh
What?
By my kids standards.
It's ancient.
you're super old.
mean, you know, by, you know, for, I don't know how old your kids are, but for any, anyonethat's a teenager or younger, you're freaking ancient.

(53:27):
Um, so, but you know, to me, you know, I'm in my 50s, so you're, you're, you're a kid,you're young.
So, um, how do you define success now?
I mean, like what, what's success for you?
Because like you said, you haven't had like the, did have the hit in, in, in, you know,Canada with, robots.
But you haven't had something that's like, like a Mumford and Sons type of thing where youhave 70,000 people screaming your name, but that's not success.

(53:54):
Right.
So what I mean, it's a version of it.
It is a kind of success, but I mean, that's not, that's not the definition.
That's not the only definition.
One thing I know is that if I had some kind of rocket ship success out of a song that Ididn't like or I thought was cheap or I thought was sort of like some watered down thing,

(54:15):
I don't know if I would be able to handle the dissonance of looking out at a crowd andgoing, you like this, you know?
Yeah
And so I, I'm, I'm, feel like there's a couple of different topics here, a few differentlanes.
One is like just pure success and like, you know, in the classic sense in terms of like,how many people are listening to you, how many tickets can you sell?

(54:41):
You know, are you making money doing this?
And there's a business element to music, you know, I would, if I could play to that sizeof crowd that I can play in like a major Canadian city.
uh
anywhere in the world, you know, anywhere in the Western world, let's say, mean, crackingAsia, it sounds pretty ambitious, but like, you know, if I was to play in Cincinnati to

(55:03):
1500 people or something like, to me, that's like a perfect career that kind of like, kindof like Wilco career, you know, maybe Wilco is even a little bit bigger than that.
But like, you know, that idea of being able to play to like a thousand or 2000 people inmost major cities, to me, that's like a, that's the gem.
That's sort of like, okay, that's a perfect career.
You're probably making really good money.

(55:26):
You're having a really great lifestyle, um creative freedom, and yet you can buy your owngroceries.
You're never getting followed around by paparazzi.
You're not a celebrity in that crazy sense.
I'm sure Jeff Tweedy can still go to a corner store and nobody bugs him.
Yeah, very few people who know will bug them, but not too many.
Yeah.
And if they do know them, they'll probably be really respectful.

(55:46):
Exactly.
And that probably seem around the neighborhood and they're like, Oh, that's just Jeff.
Yeah.
Um, the Beaver thing or like Justin Timberlake or, or, you know, Lizzo or something liketo me, that's just, I would not want that.
Yeah.
You know, uh, it's doesn't, doesn't sound good to me.
I also don't know how to do that.
I don't know how to be a pop icon.
That's not like, Oh, that's not a game that I know how to play, but,
Well, would say that nobody really knows how to play.

(56:08):
You get thrust into it and you have to.
Yeah.
mean, but you you'd probably.
Yeah, you'd learn if you had to maybe or maybe it'd make you miserable, like you said, andyou'd be more like Kurt Cobain and I don't mean with a suicide, but you know, he was up.
He was famously miserable with with with fame.
And it's very isolating, right?
It's like, and all of sudden everybody wants a piece of you and you start to questioneverybody's intentions because you think that they're just trying to get it because they

(56:31):
want some of your glory or whatever.
That's like the business side of things.
um On the sort of like art side of things, m I will say I have never felt success like Ihave felt success in natural light.
I remember um
You know, you work on it, you work on it, you're editing, you're tweaking, you get to themixing stage and you mixing all the songs and you're listening to different bounces and

(57:00):
different takes and all the blah, blah, blah.
And you get to the, and then you're mastering.
listen and like, by the time you finished your master, you've heard these songs thousandsand thousands of you just spent endless hours with it.
And so there was a period after we finished the master where I was like, I'm not listeningto that for at least a month.
Like I put it away, you know?
And then I was in a rental car on tour, not with the band, I was on my own.

(57:24):
And I remember going like, after a month or two had passed, I was like, you know, I'mgoing to listen to this.
And I put it on and I had a beautiful drive through the countryside and I was justcranking natural light.
And I felt elation.
Like I was just, I was just so lost in it.
And I was like, I can't believe that I got to be a part of this.

(57:46):
I can't believe that these are my songs.
how, how can.
And I made a video and I sent it to the band.
And I remember talking about like, you know, there's a time in my life where a pitchforkreview would have meant everything to me, you know, my God, to be accepted by the cool
kids at pitchfork or whatever.
And I felt in that moment, like I had achieved a thing artistically where there was noexternal validation that could make me feel any better than I was feeling, you know, like

(58:17):
pitchfork could review it or not.
it could get played on the radio or not.
That like, I know what this album is and nobody can tell me that it's not that thing orthat it is that thing because it's like a deep guttural thing.
Again, it's not super cool to like talk about your own work, like it's amazing.
But I had that experience of listening to it after some time away.

(58:40):
the sort of, I don't know how you even say that word like frisson or frisson or like theFrench word.
of like kind of getting chills, you know, from, like something happening musically.
Um, I, I feel like in that, in that feeling in that car, in that moment was a level ofartistic success and affirmation that nobody else can give me.

(59:08):
And, uh, that felt great because, you know, it's, I have an ego.
I like hearing nice things about my record.
I like it when you talk about it and you say that it's great or, know, obviously thatfeels good.
Um, but, uh, I don't, I, I, I feel like this album scratched an itch I've had my wholelife.

(59:29):
So I don't, I honestly, I don't even know what the next stage is.
I've written one song in the last year since making that, you know, it's been, been sobusy working on it.
And just honestly, it almost felt like writing new songs would be cheating on these songs.
know, it was like,
I just didn't, I didn't feel compelled to and I'm not in any rush and I don't know.
I'm kind of working on a novel and I'm kind of working on a few things.

(59:51):
don't, I feel like I've made seven records.
I do not feel compelled to just make more songs or make more music because that's what I'msupposed to do.
I would love the creative freedom and the financial freedom to not have to do much ofanything one way or another, but I'm not in a place that.
um

(01:00:12):
But I don't know, I just feel like I did it.
I feel like I climbed the mountain, I got to Mount Everest.
You're, you know, and again, I'm going to try to keep these next questions a little briefbecause we're at the hour mark and I don't want to keep you too long.
I to be respectful of, you know, your family and your time.
But I was listening to your albums and trying to figure out like, you know, I alwayslistened for like a career arc or is there an intention or what's going on with you in

(01:00:35):
terms of like, and I couldn't really do it.
try, you know, the way that I started with it was a little bit nerdy, but I tried it withlike a sine or a cosine wave.
Like it kind of felt like, you know, is there this like sort of like, you know, musically.
Like you get bigger and then you get smaller and then you kind of come back to it.
But I couldn't really figure it out.
How would you describe that sort of career arc through your albums, if any, or are youjust making like kind of whatever feels good to you at the time and however it goes, it

(01:01:00):
goes.
mean, if you think back.
I've had two careers.
There's an Act One and an Act Two.
Act One was being young, taking any gig I could, a lot of DIY, chomping around Europe witha train pass and playing in cafes, playing thousands of shows.
And then having that burst, know, was sort of like making this nice very nice and it sortof felt like there was a tipping point there.

(01:01:27):
And...
And then the next record I made won a bunch of Juno Awards, which is sort of like CanadianGrammys.
And that's when we started really getting played on the radio.
And, and I was so burnt out.
My wife was pregnant with our first son, 2012.
And I remember saying to my age, my manager, like, okay, I need some time off.
I've been playing 200 shows a year for six, seven years.

(01:01:48):
I'm so burnt out.
I need to lay low.
We're going to have a kid.
I want to be a good dad.
I want to be here.
And so that's when I started getting into, you know,
scoring music for TV and film, which I've done a bunch of.
And I, uh, I just sort of like put my head in the sand a little bit.
just like took my foot off the gas and because I'd grown so accustomed of getting thebenefit of the doubt during those years when everything was going my way, I presumed that

(01:02:14):
I could sort of turn the tap back on any old time and it would flow at the same.
That's right.
And it was not that way.
And I remember a few years past and we made.
record that I'm so proud of called Club Meds that I was sure we would be like on tour withRadiohead in no time kind of thing.
just wait till you hear this record.
And I'm so proud of that record.

(01:02:36):
Creatively, it was a success.
I got some incredible reviews, but it was, you know, from an industry perspective, it wasa huge flop and ticket sales were down.
Radio was down.
Everything was down.
It was not a victory like we had previously experienced.
And that was for the first time.
That was like a seriously humbling, oh,
shit, you know, and the phone wasn't ringing.

(01:02:59):
Can we play some more festivals?
You know, I need some money.
No, festivals aren't interested right now.
Can we do another tour?
Well, the promoters are losing confidence in you because of X, Y, and Z.
You know, what would really, really help is if we could, you know, come up strong withsomething on the radio or whatever.
And so I may have put out an EP that had a song called Race to the Bottom, which actuallydid really well on Canadian radio.

(01:03:22):
And that was sort of like a, okay.
So anyways, there was this like kind of peak climax and then like, oh God, and then acttwo, you know, 2.0 of my career kind of started in those soul searching, existential
questioning everything years around 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 more or less came out.

(01:03:44):
And that was sort of the beginning of me having another career.
What a miracle.
So.
It sort of resurrected things in a way.
it, in a way it didn't, it wasn't going back to old roots.
It was sort of a new chapter, new sound, new vibe.
And it worked.
It sort of, you know, started to rally the bass a little bit and the industry started totake notice again.

(01:04:10):
And in a way there's, and you know, so now I'm a few records past that now we're deep intoact two.
And I'm happy to say that, you know, my career has never been stronger in many ways.
And that's really exciting, you know, at 42 to be in that place.
But I have felt the depths of the sorrows and the existential quandary of trying to make alife in music and not feeling like it's working.

(01:04:37):
Did you think about quitting?

(01:06:11):
and funny and fun to be around.
it sounds like kids are maybe keeping you low grounded in that way too, like just likethat wonderment and seeing the world through their eyes a bit.
I might be there.

(01:07:31):
I a bunch to talk to you about the love songs and the, like how you blended political andlove and stuff like that.
It's like.
Yeah, that's great.
that's really uh nice.
That could have been a good title.

(01:08:06):
Right, right.
Yeah.

(01:08:47):
Well, you also had a little bit of success, I think, doing that.
mean, you we talk about getting smacked down and what the ramifications are of it.
So I saw you talk about, you know, the first love song that you wrote and stuff like that.
And it happened to be a really good song.
If that was the worst song you ever wrote and people were like, you know, my God, what'she doing writing about this kind of stuff?
It might've changed your trajectory a little bit, but you were lucky and skillful enoughto write a good, you know, first love song, if you will.

(01:09:10):
you know, I think that's helpful too.

(01:09:38):
Self-awareness is awesome.
Dan, thank you so much.
I've kept you for over an hour now and I really appreciate your time.
It was awesome to talk to you.
It was awesome to meet you.
I wish you all the success touring this new album and getting it played.
It's really, really good and I love the story about how it came about too.
It's just all around a good story.
Yeah, I love it.

(01:10:05):
as well.
Thank you.

(01:10:25):
Hey!
you

(01:11:33):
my interview with Dan Mangan.
He, like I said in the intro, has done quite a bit and is probably emblematic of one ofthe reasons that I do this show, to shine light on under known musicians that should not
be under known.
I mean, Dan is a two-time Juno Award winner, which is a big deal in Canada.
Multiple Polaris Prize nominations.

(01:11:54):
He's played at a bunch of festivals.
He's appeared on Late Night with David Letterman.
Like I said in the intro, Dave Grohl offered to play drums on one of his songs.
He's open for the Walkman, he's open for the Lumineers, he's toured with the Decembrists,Mumford and Sums picked him up to play one of their festivals.
He's done a lot and uh I really appreciate him taking this time to talk with me, to talkwith all of you and I hope you enjoyed it.

(01:12:19):
Right now I'm going to leave you with a song off of one of his earlier albums calledFortune.
It's actually uh the alternative album of the year that he won for the Juno Awards that Ijust mentioned.
and I'm going leave you with rows of houses.
Until next time, I'm Jan Perlow and thank you for listening to The Underknown.

(01:12:55):
You're so beautiful You're so beautiful

(01:13:22):
you