Jon Bryant is more at home

ep49 Jon Bryant is more at home

Glen Erickson (00:00)
You know, coming home air quotes coming home is a familiar trope in storytelling well worn in my lifetime, from the seminal prodigal son religious allegory to the deeply imprinted garden state story. It seems though that there needs to be a significant portion of one’s life and time spent away from home, not at home, of course, in order to create the differentials in your experience of life, so much so that your return

Glen Erickson (00:29)
To whatever you consider home becomes peak cinema in your own story. And what always makes a good story is how the aspirations and expectations that you may have held in your early life, which are intimately tied to the experience and place called home, inevitably take significant twists and turns, shaping and molding and changing who you become. So we return to air quotes home.

Glen Erickson (00:57)
Lands all of the jarring irony of feeling so unfamiliar in what is supposed to be the most familiar. Throw in a young quirky Natalie Portman and a shirt that matches the wallpaper, and you have a potential script. Jon Bryant is a multifaceted Canadian singer-songwriter and actor whose career spans indie folk music, television, and voice acting. Originally from Nova Scotia, based in Vancouver, and recently returning.

Glen Erickson (01:26)
Home to his Nova Scotia roots, he has released five studio albums to significant commercial success, as in singles like Headphones and At Home, amassing millions of streams and appearing on popular television soundtracks like NCIS and Shameless. Beyond his musical achievements, of course, Bryant is an established voice actor for major video games like Resident Evil 4. Get that.

Glen Erickson (01:56)
And has held various roles in like various television series as well. Jon is the living reality and the metaphor of homecoming, literally revisiting his geographical roots right now while also returning to a more stripped-down, vocal-first songwriting approach on his latest forthcoming album, Harbor. My name is Glen Erickson, and this is almost famous enough. Thank you for spending your time with us. This

Glen Erickson (02:25)
Is Jon Bryant.

Glen Erickson (02:37)
Anyhow, it’s

Glen Erickson (02:37)
great to see you. I’m really glad we could make this work.

Jon Bryant (02:41)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (02:41)
I mean, obviously, going back to June when I got to cross paths with you in Vancouver at that church event,

Jon Bryant (02:50)
show.

Glen Erickson (02:50)
that you did that gig for that fundraising effort of that sort of inner city inner city church.

Glen Erickson (02:56)
in Vancouver that works with the disadvantaged people around East Hastings, which is obviously maybe the hardest work around. I mean one of my favorite

Jon Bryant (03:05)
Bro. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (03:06)
one of my favorite authors is Gabor Mate, right? And and he

Jon Bryant (03:09)
Yeah, yeah.

Glen Erickson (03:10)
had spent all those years down there. but anyhow so yeah he’s seen it all. But

Jon Bryant (03:12)
Yeah. He’s seen it all. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (03:17)
yeah my friends Greg and Alexia were like, do you want to come out to one of these things our group does and and

Jon Bryant (03:23)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (03:23)
it’s it’s a guy named

Glen Erickson (03:24)
John, and they’re like, I don’t know if you know John Bright. And I’m Yeah, I’m I’m very familiar. Thank you. So that was exciting. Well, and

Jon Bryant (03:29)
you, okay, cool. Yeah, yeah.

Glen Erickson (03:31)
and just thinking of hearing you in that setting, right? This is like a very sort of the

Jon Bryant (03:35)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (03:36)
old Orthodox church kind of sanctuary with the big cavernous ceilings and

Jon Bryant (03:42)
Nice.

Glen Erickson (03:43)
and stuff. I was like, this is for sure gonna be very, very cool.

Jon Bryant (03:48)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (03:48)
You know, which maybe we’ll touch on a bit, like just even your musical style. Like i I mean, I usually like to go back on these John, you know, and sort of sometimes I find it easier to work like timeline way through somebody’s career and then just kind of, you know, the highlight

Jon Bryant (04:01)
Sure.

Glen Erickson (04:05)
the highlight bits kind of come out and the story tells itself and stuff. But but as far as going back to where I intersect with y you is

Glen Erickson (04:15)
You know, your third record in 2016, 20 something, and the song Heroin had gotten onto some playlists that

Jon Bryant (04:24)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (04:24)
that I was involved or I was sharing with some people and fell in love with that track. And I was that era for me, I think, was right on the heels of you know, just getting hit with the the Bonavere version, the the echoing falsettos.

Glen Erickson (04:40)
you know, male falsetto

Jon Bryant (04:40)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (04:41)
voice and then chasing down everything. I got you know, getting into Novo Novo amore and and

Jon Bryant (04:45)
that was in that world. Yeah, yeah.

Glen Erickson (04:48)
a guy named Nick Wilson and Axel Flovent and all these I have like a whole playlist from that era still. and it just I think that the deep and emotional connection, right? That that singing guys singing in their head voice can can

Jon Bryant (05:02)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (05:03)
carry out. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (05:04)
Yeah, definitely.

Glen Erickson (05:05)
Yeah, so I mean that was

Glen Erickson (05:06)
definitely sort of how I remember discovering you at least.

Jon Bryant (05:11)
Right.

Glen Erickson (05:11)
and then sort of getting that on. And you came through Edmonton where I was in I think the spring of twenty eighteen and played this little backroom show on way to Av. And I think my friends Yeah,

Jon Bryant (05:22)
Was it like a tiny, tiny room?

Glen Erickson (05:24)
it was a tiny room in the back of a bar that just had this little stage with a with a wood panel behind it thing they made. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (05:27)
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, pretty much.

Jon Bryant (05:31)
Yeah, I remember that. I can’t remember what it’s called, but…

Glen Erickson (05:34)
Yeah, it’s gone now, so

Glen Erickson (05:37)
but

Jon Bryant (05:38)
That was a call I can’t remember. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (05:40)
well I should because I like made my own record and released and played it in there, so it really should stick in my head,

Jon Bryant (05:47)
cool.

Glen Erickson (05:47)
but it does not. Anyhow, but yeah I mean the most you could put was like I put like a drummer and a and a slide player, I think, and the slide player

Jon Bryant (05:58)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (05:59)
had to sit off of the front of that.

Glen Erickson (06:00)
Stage. I think only only me and the drummer could stand on that thing. But yeah, but but I loved it because the room was

Jon Bryant (06:01)
Yeah, yeah, that’s the classic, the mini stage. Put the pedal steel guy down there. Relegated.

Glen Erickson (06:10)
like absolutely full. Like if you get into a

Jon Bryant (06:13)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (06:13)
a 50-person room and it’s not full, it’s gonna suck, especially for you when you’re playing.

Jon Bryant (06:19)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (06:19)
I just remember sitting at the back and hearing you play the song heroin, and I was like super excited. And and

Jon Bryant (06:24)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (06:25)
then I think maybe I told you this when I met you.

Glen Erickson (06:27)
in June, but and I don’t remember how or what the circumstances were, but I’m friends with an artist named Sycamore, Jordan Ostrom, who had said that and in s

Jon Bryant (06:36)
Yeah, yeah, Remember that.

Glen Erickson (06:38)
at some point her and I had a conversation where your name came up and she talked about already knowing you or having played gigs with you or done something. so I always kind of felt like yeah, a little bit of overlaps, which is typical in the music industry.

Jon Bryant (06:54)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (06:54)
make that

Glen Erickson (06:55)
connection. But then like I I probably lost my my meter on you over the pandemic, like probably has happened with a lot of people and artists. So

Jon Bryant (07:02)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (07:03)
it’s been really fun picking this up again. And I hope that I wanna I wanna talk through sort of some of your history and your experience in life, you know, as as a creative, as an artist. And if it’s okay, touch on some of the big themes that you’ve been pretty open about through your life and

Jon Bryant (07:22)
Sure.

Glen Erickson (07:22)
mental

Glen Erickson (07:22)
wellness and stuff as well as just what you’ve learned, you know, that way as an artist and in general, pursuing the career you have. so first for everybody listening, I would want to sort of establish this isn’t like I mean you still look like a very young man, John. So congratulations. Good for you, despite that you’ve been releasing records since 2009. So that’s that

Jon Bryant (07:39)
Thank you. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (07:45)
probably feels like quite a bit of

Glen Erickson (07:48)
History behind you now. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (07:48)
It’s a lifetime ago. Yeah, yeah. I can’t even remember.

Jon Bryant (07:52)
I can’t remember much from 2009. I know I released an album kind of on accident or just as like a hobby project. And

Glen Erickson (08:01)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (08:02)
then it just sort of changed the trajectory of my life from then on.

Glen Erickson (08:05)
Yeah, so you have like on record, like five full length releases, like three EPs, a new record coming out. That’s that’s how the discogra discography tracks online, at least. I’m sure you

Jon Bryant (08:18)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (08:18)
have a million little singles and stuff and you’ve put out and

Jon Bryant (08:21)
Yeah, a bunch of little singles too. But you

Glen Erickson (08:23)
Probably bent.

Jon Bryant (08:25)
said five and I’m like, I think it’s five. I had to count them up in my head. Yeah, they’re five.

Glen Erickson (08:31)
Yeah, well, there you go. Yeah. And

Glen Erickson (08:34)
and six, which we can talk about with a new one coming out in November, I think, is scheduled.

Jon Bryant (08:38)
Yeah, yeah.

Glen Erickson (08:39)
Is that harbor? Is it? Yeah,

Jon Bryant (08:41)
Harbor, yeah.

Glen Erickson (08:42)
okay. That’d be great to chat about sort of how you’ve landed at where you’re at now. But yeah, that’s like you’re right. Like you look back, and it’s funny for you to say that because I’m always curious. You know, if you say that was sort of just not an accident, but the way that first one gets made, right? It’s not like

Glen Erickson (08:58)
I’m assuming what’s behind that statement is it wasn’t like this is I’m all in on this career when I’m

Jon Bryant (09:04)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (09:04)
releasing a record. It’s just a thing you did.

Jon Bryant (09:08)
Yeah, I just happened to be in school, an art school that had this illustration class that I loved. And so I think it was the second year, third year illustration. I got an assignment to design and illustrate my own album, any album cover I wanted. I could pick a band that existed or make up a band that didn’t exist or I could make it my own. And it was right around the time when I started doing

Jon Bryant (09:34)
open mics around Halifax.

Glen Erickson (09:36)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (09:37)
And then, and then I was like, well, why don’t I like I finished the assignment, I made a whole album cover. So was like, well, I could probably put some music to this now. So I made some, I wrote some songs.

Glen Erickson (09:50)
That’s so the opposite direction of how it would normally happen for people, right?

Jon Bryant (09:52)
It’s, yeah, yeah, visual,

Jon Bryant (09:57)
the visual arts kind of got me doped on music. And it just sort of spiraled from there. Yeah. And cool things happened after that.

Glen Erickson (10:04)
So were you

Glen Erickson (10:05)
so obviously you’re a designer, visual art designer. I feel a lot of parallels there. I ended up in the career of graphic designer and then a lot in the website world as well, but used it to pay my bills when I was pursuing things that wouldn’t pay my bills, of course.

Jon Bryant (10:22)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (10:23)
you know, and I grew up loving music, you know, from the time I was young before I even started getting any good at the guitar through high school and would doodle.

Jon Bryant (10:30)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (10:31)
would doodle pretend band names and and design the graphic logo ish presentation,

Jon Bryant (10:36)
nice.

Glen Erickson (10:36)
right? you know, through high school and all that kind of stuff. Was that was

Jon Bryant (10:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Glen Erickson (10:40)
that sort of in your wheelhouse too? Was there an overlap with your design and music kind of just all along, just hobbyist wise?

Jon Bryant (10:47)
I really into drawing and sketching, like doing art, like a pen illustration, guess, of pointillism.

Glen Erickson (10:55)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (10:56)
I was big into that and I was designing all sorts of stuff, like everything from strollers to, in school at least, and not in my spare time. My spare time I was doing faces. I was obsessed with drawing faces.

Glen Erickson (11:07)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (11:10)
Early on it was cars, then it became faces, then…

Jon Bryant (11:14)
it became a bit more like abstract, think in art school. That’s

Glen Erickson (11:17)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (11:17)
what I think art school does. It makes you venture away from the things that you’re comfortable with. But yeah, then I landed kind of in this weird, I don’t know. It’s not that weird though. It’s pretty standard, like pointillism, I think is what I really enjoyed the most. Cause it’s very

Glen Erickson (11:30)
Okay.

Jon Bryant (11:31)
therapeutic for me. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (11:32)
Okay. I think this is gonna weave into a lot of my questions throughout sort of just setting the stage. I love the fact and I love the fact that you’re a lot of people might claim I’m I’m mostly this, but I’m a little bit of these things too. But you seem

Jon Bryant (11:48)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (11:49)
so securely spread between some very different artist disciplines as a

Glen Erickson (11:54)
as a creative, right? As obviously you’re a indie

Jon Bryant (11:56)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (11:57)
folk singer songwriter. You’re obviously a voice and screen actor. So that performance part, and then obviously in visual arts and design, which have been intricately a part, the benefit of being an artist is you can take the reins on that if you want and have a canvas your whole career, which is pretty awesome, amazing.

Jon Bryant (12:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (12:20)
I and

Glen Erickson (12:21)
So I mean I think that’s really interesting. The one place I’ll track all the way back before even all that starts, which is a little strange overlap for me and you also is I s I was surprised when I read you you grew up in Halifax, but you graduated high school from Caronport, Saskatchewan,

Jon Bryant (12:39)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (12:39)
which is a little Christian community of schools, both a high school and a Bible college. which is like a strange

Glen Erickson (12:47)
Shift bounce in the internet doesn’t really tell me how that bounce happened. The the interest part for me is I I got familiar with Carnport because I grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, and I went to the Canadian Bible College

Jon Bryant (12:59)
yeah.

Glen Erickson (13:00)
there when I was deep in my religious upbringing. And you know, so our rival

Jon Bryant (13:04)
Yeah, yeah. Cool.

Glen Erickson (13:06)
sports college was Karenport all the time, and and

Jon Bryant (13:09)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (13:10)
stuff. So how did the bounce happen from that you

Glen Erickson (13:15)
end up graduating from Kernport. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (13:18)
Yeah, so I grew up in Halifax. went to high school. So I started in homeschool. I was homeschooled for the first four years. And then I went to a little Christian school in Halifax. And then I went to public school for three years. Then I decided, like my brother and my dad both had gone to this school, Caronport. And I think it was the allure of like living in a dorm, living on my own.

Jon Bryant (13:44)
kind of being like being out on my own for once. And I just had this adventurous spirit. I was like, well, I want to go too. I want to go and play hockey and play football. Like I was really into sports at that time. So yeah, I went out because my dad had gone there pretty much and his whole

Glen Erickson (14:03)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (14:04)
family and they’re from Watrous, from Watrous, Saskatchewan. Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (14:06)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very nice. And

Glen Erickson (14:09)
so obviously you had the full support of them to send you off there, which isn’t always easy to send your kid off that far

Jon Bryant (14:16)
Yeah,

Glen Erickson (14:17)
away. But

Jon Bryant (14:18)
yeah, we found we actually found a loophole. Want to know the loophole? It’s pretty great.

Glen Erickson (14:22)
Y yeah, that’s of course.

Jon Bryant (14:25)
So we we my my parents, my guardians, my legal guardianship. If I had legal guardians in Saskatchewan, the cost of the school, I think it went down like 75 % or 80 % from what

Glen Erickson (14:38)
wow.

Jon Bryant (14:38)
it what it would have been if I was an out of town resident.

Glen Erickson (14:41)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (14:42)
So

Jon Bryant (14:42)
We found that my aunt and uncle live in Saskatoon. we just, we became legal residents of like legal, under the legal guardianship of my aunt and uncle for those, for those two years. Probably saved like 12. Dude. Yeah. Yeah. My parents, my

Glen Erickson (14:52)
Yeah. For those two years. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, man. a hundred percent.

Jon Bryant (15:00)
parents definitely couldn’t afford what they were charging. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (15:03)
Yeah, yeah, I I

Glen Erickson (15:05)
believe that. My my mom worked at the college, so because

Jon Bryant (15:09)
Okay.

Glen Erickson (15:10)
she worked full time and my dad worked for the denomination, I got I got my tuition not free. Maybe I got my tuition free or massively discounted also. So you gotta

Jon Bryant (15:23)
Sure, sure.

Glen Erickson (15:23)
it’s it’s yeah, those things determine our path for us more than more than we knew at the time.

Jon Bryant (15:27)
Yeah, they do. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (15:30)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (15:30)
So much.

Glen Erickson (15:31)
so let’s let’s jump in. I just I love part of what I love about doing podcasts, by the way, is like that I’m familiar most of the time with the people that I’m talking to, but then I do some research and then

Jon Bryant (15:44)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (15:46)
I get way more familiar and I’m like, this is cool stuff I wish I knew before. And at

Jon Bryant (15:51)
yeah.

Glen Erickson (15:51)
first I was a little afraid doing research on you because it starts with your website, which is just a merch site. So not a it doesn’t

Jon Bryant (15:57)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (15:58)
It doesn’t have all the normal shit, right? Of it doesn’t have all your bio and your history and your you know.

Jon Bryant (16:01)
It

Jon Bryant (16:04)
used to and then I let it lapse like I yeah, I let it lapse during the pandemic

Glen Erickson (16:07)
Ha ha ha

Jon Bryant (16:09)
because I was like well Yeah, I think I just I went into like a cocoon during the pandemic and I just kind of shut down a bit

Glen Erickson (16:16)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (16:16)
Mentally and emotionally especially with the career the music thing But yeah, I have yet to relaunch it and I need I don’t know how to

Jon Bryant (16:28)
make a really good Shopify website. if you know anybody, I don’t know.

Glen Erickson (16:33)
Well, I know

Glen Erickson (16:35)
I know AI. I’m working with

Jon Bryant (16:37)
Uh-huh.

Glen Erickson (16:38)
like I work in a marketing agency now. So one of the things that have bubbled up is that it’s actually one of the easiest platforms to manipulate now with AI. ‘Cause

Jon Bryant (16:48)
fires.

Glen Erickson (16:49)
it was always really hard to make it look like not just an an an online

Jon Bryant (16:52)
Yeah, door.

Glen Erickson (16:54)
ordering shop. Like it’s not meant to design in very well. So

Jon Bryant (16:58)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (16:58)
So yeah, it’s maybe there’s some hope for people who wanna get outside of all the templates and feel like it’s custom.

Jon Bryant (17:05)
Yeah, I have to, I gotta

Jon Bryant (17:07)
do some like digging again. I got fed up the other day. It took me like a day to put things together and then I gave up. It wasn’t working.

Glen Erickson (17:14)
Yeah. And it changes fast.

Glen Erickson (17:16)
That’s the not hopeful part of these days is like anything I learned today is not going to be the same in four months. So yeah. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (17:22)
Yeah, it’s going to be antiquated information.

Glen Erickson (17:24)
It’s feeling like that. so I mean, the first few years, I’ll even frame it as like the first three album span, maybe 2009 to 2016. I mean, I read some interesting things, how you’ve been able to describe in retrospect, like what you learned about the grind.

Glen Erickson (17:43)
you know, about trying to find a way to kind of create have control over your own creative world. you know, and even like what that grind and surviving that kind of felt like cost you down the road a bit mentally.

Jon Bryant (17:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (18:02)
how did that sort of period sort of unravel for you? You said like it felt like, you know, you released that first record.

Glen Erickson (18:09)
happenstance and then how it’s kind of opened a door to a life for you. so how how does that normal stage, I think lots of especially early musicians always want to hear how did some, you know, how did the lightning how did the

Jon Bryant (18:13)
Yeah. How did it take off?

Glen Erickson (18:23)
lightning strike for somebody or did they just have to like push their way through every door or what version of that? So how did sort of that first phase for you kind of open up?

Jon Bryant (18:35)
so yeah, like I said, I was in school, I had made this

Glen Erickson (18:38)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (18:38)
album, this album cover of art. And I was like, well, I need to make the music now. So I started writing music around the same time. I had a few songs under my belt and I wanted to write a few more to finish an album. And I put them up on a MySpace and I just shared it. I it was on Facebook at the time, but it…

Jon Bryant (18:56)
It just sort of like caught the attention of an old friend of mine from Ryrecrest, from Carromport. His name’s Jordan Weiberg and he was like, hey buddy, you should come record these songs out in Calgary because I have access to a studio after hours. We’ll just do it for free. We’ll do it on the cheap and we’ll just keep it acoustic. I was like, sure. So I flew out for two weekends in a row or two weekends, I think maybe a month apart, but we’ve recorded the whole thing in the span of like four days.

Jon Bryant (19:22)
And for me, was a bucket list thing. I always wanted to make a record. I had no ambition to become a musician really at that point. I thought it’d be cool, but I just didn’t think I had much of any chops to do it. And I was really dead set on design and studying and working at a design firm in Toronto. There was one that I was looking at. I can’t even remember the name of it now, but yeah.

Jon Bryant (19:49)
did finish the record, put the record out in October of 2009. And around the same time, the producer that worked on it, Jordan, he sent it off to his friend or his brother who worked for WestJet, who knew who, whose boss was the former executive at Apple music. So there was this like connection of like people

Glen Erickson (20:09)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Bryant (20:11)
that, so the album landed on his desk and he was like, I really liked this. I’m going to send this off to the new exec of

Jon Bryant (20:18)
of Apple, Apple Canada. And they liked it. And they made it a single of the week for January, the first week of January, 2010.

Glen Erickson (20:26)
Mm, that’s cool.

Jon Bryant (20:28)
Yeah. And so that, that was huge. And I remember getting the phone call where I was, who I was with, it was one of those like really potent memories. I was at an Italian restaurant with people in my class and my teacher. And, and I go outside and I’m on the phone.

Jon Bryant (20:42)
And I’m like, I remember being crouched down on the street and it’s kind of raining. I’m like, yeah, it’s like, what? He’s like, you’re the next single of the week in January. Like the Starbucks single of the week. And I’m like, my gosh, this is, this was nothing like what I expected at

Glen Erickson (20:57)
Hmm. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (21:00)
all. I had no, and that’s, that’s a hard thing. Like when young musicians ask me like, how’d you get started? I’ll tell them that story. I’m like, I got lucky. I got lucky.

Jon Bryant (21:09)
And I had, knew the right people and I would happen to have the right album at the right time. yeah.

Glen Erickson (21:13)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (21:14)
So then, then that record, that single got picked up, I think 60,000 times. Like it got downloaded just

Glen Erickson (21:21)
Wow.

Jon Bryant (21:21)
in Canada alone. And so I kind of, I asked like the, the Apple people, like where territorially, where are the most of these people downloading from? And they’re like, it’s pretty much like spread out across Canada pretty equally. Most of it’s Ontario, BC.

Jon Bryant (21:35)
and then Alberta, the Maritimes, Montreal. Like, okay, well, I guess I gotta do a tour. So I planned a tour for summer of 2010, dropped out of school. And I had one semester left. So I was like, well, I’ll just defer it. I’ll do it next year. But I wanna do this

Glen Erickson (21:51)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (21:52)
tour and like tour in the fall as well. And so I did those tours and then kind of kept doing it and kept getting asked on tour and kept getting asked to play.

Glen Erickson (22:02)
So 2010, 2010, like you said, downloaded. So I mean that’s I think it’s what’s interesting is like that’s when people were still downloading singles for ninety-nine cents off of iTunes, right? Before it kind of became Apple Music. I think right now, like musicians would think, especially indie musicians, like there’s no way you’re ever gonna contact or be able to contact a human being from Apple Music and like talk to them. So the story seems outrageous. I remember back then, I know, I remember pro

Jon Bryant (22:27)
Those days are gone, man. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (22:30)
promoting a guy back then and also getting a message from somebody from Apple Music Canada saying like we really like this. We’re gonna move it all the way up in this whatever category that

Jon Bryant (22:41)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (22:41)
it’s that it’s been getting traction and charting and like yeah, that never happens anymore at all. So that’s pretty that’s a pretty wild start.

Jon Bryant (22:48)
Yeah, human,

Jon Bryant (22:50)
like just human beings at the helm is sort of an antiquated like possibility now, like at the helm of like a playlist. There’s only a few playlists that are curated by humans now. There are only a few humans that work in these offices.

Glen Erickson (23:04)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (23:05)
mean, correct me if I’m wrong. I’m not sure, but it just seems like everywhere I go, every business is now just an automated, you know, so it’s, yeah,

Glen Erickson (23:12)
Yeah, I mean,

Jon Bryant (23:13)
it sucks.

Glen Erickson (23:14)
especially the places where it always felt like there was a pretty thick veil and you didn’t know

Jon Bryant (23:19)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (23:19)
what was behind it. And now there’s far more reason to be suspicious than ever. Yeah, I think a hundred percent. So so you get on the

Jon Bryant (23:25)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (23:30)
road and you start to do the things that you’re supposed to do in an era when there were still probably way more venues than there is now to at least hit up, even as just a small solo guy.

Jon Bryant (23:41)
Yeah, 100%.

Glen Erickson (23:43)
and just try to, and I mean, like most people now would understand and know, like, yeah, I’m gonna go out and try to build an audience or or something, but that was the era that was still so you were doing something before you knew the language of building an audience or doing a record, an album cycle, or

Jon Bryant (24:02)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (24:02)
any of these kinds of things. You were just thinking

Jon Bryant (24:04)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (24:05)
this is what you do if people are listening all across these cities. So how

Glen Erickson (24:09)
How does that start to form for you where you’re actually learning the chops of like, this is what it means to be an artist and performer? And it’s a grind, but then there’s gotta be this other side that was like a pretty dazzling diamond to you to wanna keep going after it.

Jon Bryant (24:27)
Yeah, the first year that that tour, that tour, then the fall, and then beginning of 2011, like 2011 to 2013 were very memorable years for a number of different reasons, some of them not great. But the initial year of touring and playing my songs and meeting new fans,

Jon Bryant (24:47)
that to this day still come out to show and still support is so that’s, you know, it’s the most potent of all, like the career memories so far. And I think, I think I just learned, but I had the design background. So I knew, I knew a bit of process and like developing products. I’m like, well, I’m a product. My music is a product. So how do I market and develop a plan, do market research?

Jon Bryant (25:12)
figure out how to like get into these communities, who do I have to contact, how do I get boots on the

Glen Erickson (25:17)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (25:17)
ground to like share that I’m coming to town. But yeah, I just sort of figured it out. Maybe, I want to say it wasn’t completely on my own. I asked some friends for like connections and contacts, but yeah, I was kind of just booking the tour on my own with a friend from Montreal. She booked a few of the shows as well.

Jon Bryant (25:37)
And then we went on a train. We did it so cheap. We were on a train. The train took us between each provinces. Then we’d get off, a car. And I actually made money on my first tour. Usually that’s pretty rare. But I actually made a little money. Like it was hundreds of dollars maybe, but it was still really cool to do that. Not in the black.

Glen Erickson (25:59)
Yeah, that’s it’s not in the black, man. That’s pretty good.

Jon Bryant (26:03)
Yeah. So I was really proud of myself for that.

Jon Bryant (26:05)
designed the poster, designed all the, you know, I guess all the marketing around it, but yeah, that was fun. It was a fun, fun year for sure. It was so like

Glen Erickson (26:14)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (26:15)
monumental.

Glen Erickson (26:15)
And back then the grind, you know, yeah, you could be designing posters and sending them to venues to try to use and send them templates. There’s just a whole different version of the design and the marketing and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I think it’s interesting you said like you kind of took this background in like, you know, your design courses in your school and product design and understanding all of that.

Glen Erickson (26:39)
And and used it to just kind of figure out how this like cross you know, correlates over into the music industry. Like so that quick intuition. I mean, I find it interesting. Like I I’ve watched a bunch of your like reels and shorts over the last little while since since kind of watching your show back in June and and

Jon Bryant (27:01)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (27:03)
So you definitely I I mean I see the acumen even now to like the way a lot of indie artists are, you know, using reels and and kind of going against the grain of what seems like logic, which is like I shouldn’t post the same little song clip like twenty, twenty, twenty times or versions just

Jon Bryant (27:20)
Yeah, over and over and over. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (27:23)
slightly tweaked, but you learn how like not everybody sees. You gotta stop thinking everybody sees.

Jon Bryant (27:29)
Most people don’t see your stuff. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (27:29)
You’re one, you’re one effort.

Glen Erickson (27:32)
So you gotta come at it and do all the little algorithm tricks to try to just get people to do the little, you know, clicks or buttons or whatever signals

Jon Bryant (27:41)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (27:41)
to the platforms that this is noticeable. And

Jon Bryant (27:46)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (27:46)
have you I guess my question about that is because you indicated like you were figuring this out at the very start of your career.

Jon Bryant (27:54)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (27:54)
That’s the stuff that grinds a lot of people right out of this, you know, because it’s

Jon Bryant (27:58)
yeah, yeah.

Glen Erickson (27:59)
not the making of the music. Do you do you feel like

Jon Bryant (28:03)
No.

Glen Erickson (28:04)
do you feel like your love of design and just at least your acumen for this has made that easier and maybe helped you survive over the long run? Cause I just know a lot of people, like this is the thing that just

Jon Bryant (28:14)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (28:15)
if they don’t they just they can’t stay indie forever because they just can’t stand doing all of it themselves.

Jon Bryant (28:21)
Yeah, they look at the mountain of marketing they have to do and they’re just like, nah, not for me. know, like it’s that kind of

Glen Erickson (28:27)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (28:28)
like, I get it. I totally get it. And I’m like, I’m right there with them too. There’s most days, like in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been really unmotivated to do market and put out these new songs. I released a song last week and I love the song. just like, I don’t know how to do this anymore. know, and there are…

Jon Bryant (28:46)
Because I think I’m so like, want something new, I want something fresh. It’s really hard to go back to the same kind of, and I don’t want to use this word. Yeah, I don’t know if this is the right word, but like the trough of marketing hooks and like gimmicks. I don’t want to do that for too long because I don’t want it to become that. So I’m now like, I’m like, how do I?

Jon Bryant (29:10)
How do I find a new way to market this that is fresh, that is not the exact same as every other folk artist that I know doing?

Glen Erickson (29:16)
Yeah, like how do you not be okay go and have your whole career defined by viral videos and that’s it? Yeah.

Jon Bryant (29:22)
By this the schtick. Yeah. Because

Jon Bryant (29:25)
I had a schtick and it was working and it was it was getting hundreds of thousands to millions of views on posts. And it was working, you know, and I just was like. And but then the other side of my brain is like, who cares? Just do it again. You get millions of views, you get your song heard. Who cares how

Glen Erickson (29:41)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (29:41)
they get how they hear your song? But to me, it’s like, well, what world am I building if if it’s all like kind of the same sort of schticky like

Jon Bryant (29:49)
Hey, please stop post, please stop scrolling. If you give me five seconds of your time, I’d love to show

Glen Erickson (29:54)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (29:54)
you why the algorithm meant for us to meet, that kind of stuff. It’s gimmicky and I don’t know.

Glen Erickson (30:02)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (30:02)
There’s something in the back of my head that’s like, you can do better. Try something, think for a little while. Use that creative brain and come up with something different.

Glen Erickson (30:11)
Well, I mean, that’s where trough is a good

Glen Erickson (30:13)
a good choice, because like it’s not yours, right? It’s just like it’s sitting in a pool of things that someone else tried and made, and now everybody’s gonna try it. I mean, I’ve seen the same stuff a lot from a friend of mine and a former guest on here, Mike Adele. he’s

Jon Bryant (30:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (30:29)
done a lot of the same in an effort to try to, you know, because he just he’s been pretty savvy his whole life. So I totally get I get that concern. I think.

Glen Erickson (30:37)
It’s what’s interesting to me is like, I don’t know if you agree with this. I think both are obviously really valid, right? Like both sides of the like, yeah, who cares, man? Yeah. But

Jon Bryant (30:44)
Both sides of the argument are super strong. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (30:47)
but your statement about like what am I building, I think that’s where the real truth is. And maybe what is probably really hard for most artists is maybe most artists aren’t fully equipped to build something that’s like an actual entity. Like some just wanna play the song.

Glen Erickson (31:04)
Right. And s

Jon Bryant (31:05)
Yeah

Glen Erickson (31:06)
and some feel driven to like control the narrative all the way along.

Jon Bryant (31:10)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (31:11)
And I guess what you’re showing is like that intuition and that self-awareness, you know, to to be like, this could be fine and who really cares how it happens, but but at some point you could lose control of the narrative if you know if

Jon Bryant (31:26)
That’s just

Jon Bryant (31:26)
it. Yeah, it’s like, I don’t want people to hear my music to be eating. It’s like I’m feeding them candy. It’s like I’m feeding them

Glen Erickson (31:33)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (31:34)
these like really addictive little candy treats. And I don’t think it really builds a world. It gets people engaged for like 60 seconds, but it doesn’t tell a story. And I think that’s what I need to hone in on now is like, I need to be able to like tell a story with every post. I need to be able to…

Jon Bryant (31:52)
But that’s also scary because the stories that are the most interesting are the ones that are the most vulnerable and socially terrifying.

Glen Erickson (31:57)
Well Yeah,

Glen Erickson (32:00)
but but you have done it. Obviously, like your YouTube shorts I was just looking at last night, you know, are full of full of exactly that, right? I think it’s the song the best part.

Jon Bryant (32:13)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (32:13)
We’re like pretty vulnerable like little shorts and reels. but you’re right, like you’re using the story. Have you f have you been able to see

Glen Erickson (32:23)
Have you seen like like value and stuff or like the worst would be if you tried that and then those are the numbers that were the worst comparably. Like do you have

Jon Bryant (32:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (32:33)
but have you felt like people have caught the story out of that and like made connections to it?

Jon Bryant (32:38)
The best part

Jon Bryant (32:40)
tells a really broad story that’s so specific to so many people. It’s so broad

Glen Erickson (32:44)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (32:45)
in that like, I’m talking about, you know, really common themes, but it’s it’s stuff that everyone goes through and everyone deals with. And so that one really connected well on all social media platforms.

Glen Erickson (32:56)
What’s what’s the most

Jon Bryant (32:57)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (32:58)
I gotta ask you, like I’m just curious as another dude, what feels the most vulnerable about putting those out there? Cause I know for me, I mean, I’ve spent my life trying to be a vulnerable male. And yet the times when I’ve tried to put things like I get acutely aware very quickly on social media, you know, that.

Glen Erickson (33:20)
It reveals the part that I am less confident about despite how much confidence I can show in it, which is like I still am worried about being looked at as weak or unable

Jon Bryant (33:30)
Hmm

Glen Erickson (33:31)
to control my fate or any of these things. What what

Jon Bryant (33:35)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (33:35)
for you sort of strikes the most difficulty when it’s being vulnerable online?

Jon Bryant (33:41)
Yeah, I guess it’s

Jon Bryant (33:43)
Yeah, it’s just that those feelings of being inadequate or being unequipped to…

Jon Bryant (33:49)
to overcome I-

Jon Bryant (33:50)
Like any sort of challenge that comes my way, like, I just feel like if I’m talking about these things openly, do people get, I don’t know, like.

Glen Erickson (34:00)
I’m afraid of people’s perceptions because everybody looks at everything

Jon Bryant (34:03)
Of course.

Glen Erickson (34:03)
differently and you again, the lack of control over the narrative.

Jon Bryant (34:07)
The lack

Jon Bryant (34:07)
of control of the narrative when it’s broad and even when you get specific people will still find a way to like, and there are people out there who genuinely like, hate themselves that will say terrible things to you. with comments and things that people will make fun or they’ll like, know, shit on your song or whatever. I always come to is while those people, like if they’re willing to say these things, then they,

Jon Bryant (34:36)
they probably hate themselves to some degree or they don’t like something about themselves so they’re taking it out on you. And that’s kind of what keeps me, like I do fixate on some comments sometimes. Like something will hit me and I’ll be like, dang, like that doesn’t feel, I don’t like that and I’ll think about it night and I’ll

Glen Erickson (34:54)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (34:54)
go to sleep thinking about it. But at the end of the day, the next morning I’m like, you know what? That person’s just miserable and they’re sad and.

Jon Bryant (35:01)
They just need to be loved. That’s kind of where I go to. They

Glen Erickson (35:04)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (35:05)
just need love. So usually I’ll respond back and be like, with something really kind and validating for them. Sometimes I snap back and I try not to, but it’s too tempting sometimes.

Glen Erickson (35:16)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (35:17)
But most of the time I’m going to be kind. And actually that worked one time. Some guy was like, he said something really rude about me and his name was also John Bryant.

Jon Bryant (35:26)
He was like, this, this look at this,

Glen Erickson (35:27)
With an H.

Jon Bryant (35:28)
look at this loser, look at this. Yeah. Pansy or something like that. And,

Glen Erickson (35:33)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (35:33)
he’s like putting all our, these Johns to shame with this kind of this, this, vulnerable music. You know what I mean? Like I can’t,

Glen Erickson (35:41)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (35:41)
I’m not going to say verbatim what he said, but you know, he wasn’t very friendly about it. I wrote him. was like, Hey, like I didn’t care. I can’t remember the conversation exactly.

Jon Bryant (35:50)
Eventually it went from him not liking my music at all, not liking me, just right out the gate, to him confessing that he did actually like my music and he’s also a musician and he sent me a song to listen and give him feedback.

Glen Erickson (36:07)
Wow.

Jon Bryant (36:09)
Within like a day or two, we had gone back and forth so many times that he was like,

Glen Erickson (36:12)
that’s crazy cool.

Jon Bryant (36:13)
he’s like, actually, I’m a new musician and I don’t know what I’m doing. actually, I don’t know why I said that. It’s just, so that to me, it’s like, there’s a lot of people that do that too.

Glen Erickson (36:23)
That’s just like so classic about what the online world is actually about and

Jon Bryant (36:29)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (36:29)
like. I mean, what’s interesting, right, is that the whole history, I mean, up until the social media era, you know, what you the only thing we were afraid of was media, right? That the media would write a bad

Jon Bryant (36:40)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (36:40)
review, say something really mean, tear down the integrity of us as an artist or a person, maybe even. that was it. And

Jon Bryant (36:46)
Yeah, a bad review. That’s what I was worried about.

Glen Erickson (36:50)
You know, but we were maybe worried because the stakes. The stakes were that one person’s opinion could influence hundreds or thousands. Whereas

Jon Bryant (36:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (37:00)
now we’re so worried about one person’s opinion because so many people have access to it online, but but do they have this that level of influence? It’s like we’re attributing the same level of stakes to that one other John online.

Jon Bryant (37:15)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (37:16)
that we did to these massive media outlets, you know, in the earlier

Jon Bryant (37:19)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (37:20)
days, it’s pretty hard to disconnect that, I think.

Jon Bryant (37:24)
It is tough and I think that’s it breaks a lot of brains and people

Glen Erickson (37:27)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (37:27)
get really have a friend who had has millions of followers

Glen Erickson (37:33)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (37:33)
on these social media apps and he had to take a break for his own mental state, sanity and safety because

Glen Erickson (37:39)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (37:40)
of the things that a very small percentage of people were saying, but it was still they were getting through these comments were getting through and it was just like, it was just really terrible and mean and he just like, I hate this. I’m done.

Glen Erickson (37:52)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (37:52)
So he, I think he stopped using it for like six months to a year. He wouldn’t touch it. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (37:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (37:58)
And it’s so hard now because shutting it off always seems like a good choice, but it’s like

Jon Bryant (38:04)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (38:04)
it’s literally your only marketing business tool, right? As as a creative.

Jon Bryant (38:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (38:10)
So how do you how do you justify going dark on on all of that? So

Jon Bryant (38:13)
heading off.

Jon Bryant (38:15)
You can’t, I mean, you can’t if you want, if you want people to know about your music, because the labels won’t, like unless you want, you want to give it up to chance that the

Glen Erickson (38:25)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (38:26)
algorithm will like, just play your music for all these people.

Glen Erickson (38:30)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (38:33)
Yeah. I was gonna say something else about social media, but anyway, yeah.

Jon Bryant (38:38)
Yeah, you do have to be present. You do have to be very

Glen Erickson (38:40)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (38:40)
active if you want your music to be heard.

Glen Erickson (38:42)
Yeah. So I guess a couple of the big changes I noted, I I’m curious about how this evolution happened for you. Like 2016, I think it’s said 2016 you moved to Vancouver, you kind of make that sort of life change and shift 2015.

Jon Bryant (38:55)
Yeah. 2015. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (38:59)
you’re still going through the process of making some music.

Jon Bryant (39:03)
And then.

Glen Erickson (39:03)
during that time, you have a pretty

Glen Erickson (39:06)
You were openly sort of so there’s stuff documented about your interaction with that cult group, Nexium. and sort of, you know, a record essentially kind of does doesn’t come out of

Jon Bryant (39:16)
Like loosely dedicated, yeah.

Glen Erickson (39:18)
it doesn’t come out of that, but since that was a big

Jon Bryant (39:20)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (39:21)
part of what was going on, and you obviously write from the hip on a lot of this stuff that

Jon Bryant (39:26)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (39:27)
well, I guess naming it cult classic is gonna like make it make

Jon Bryant (39:30)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (39:31)
make everybody on the media who writes about it draw a straight line. But yeah.

Jon Bryant (39:35)
It’s pretty on the nose. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (39:37)
But I mean, so from the outside, that feels like that might have been in the ebb and flow of a growth trajectory career, like a dip, or a a bit of a valley to go through. But I mean, that kind of runs up to twenty nineteen and you kind of putting a record out, right? And then like the cult classic, but then

Glen Erickson (39:57)
And then the pandemic hits, which is like the massive valley that artists went through, especially the ones, you know, who try to

Jon Bryant (40:05)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (40:05)
support themselves at that point up to then, you know, everybody said you have to just keep playing live and tour is the only way to make money anymore. And then the pandemic

Jon Bryant (40:14)
Go.

Glen Erickson (40:14)
happens. So I I’m curious for you, because two things are happening, I think, for artists. Like we’re always evolving, you know.

Glen Erickson (40:23)
And I’m even curious about your visual art and you getting to do all your own art on your projects and everything that you make. Obviously, you know, you came into it loving pointalism and and how, you know, what things were evolving for you and how influenced they were by these things happening in your life, just the same way as your music might have been. I’m just wondering you can just describe how.

Glen Erickson (40:49)
What happens during those dips as far as like your ability to keep going, your ability

Jon Bryant (40:52)
Mm.

Glen Erickson (40:55)
to continue to grow creatively, or if you felt like maybe you just weren’t or you were surviving, or that’s a pretty couple of significant chunks of your career to

Jon Bryant (41:06)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (41:07)
have gone through that.

Jon Bryant (41:08)
But yeah, I mean, the first Big Dip was prior to 20 something, but I got a divorce in 2013.

Glen Erickson (41:14)
Okay.

Jon Bryant (41:15)
That really, so that 2016 album 20 something was really informed by that experience. So all the songs pretty well are, yeah. Yeah,

Glen Erickson (41:25)
Well, no wonder heroin was so heartbreaking for me. That makes way more sense now. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (41:30)
like Love and War, Heroin, Milk and

Glen Erickson (41:32)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (41:33)
Water, all these songs are like of that era when I was living in Seattle.

Jon Bryant (41:37)
basically like, kind of homeless, living off of friends, like living on a friend’s floor, the mattress on the floor, he was growing weed in the basement, like right on the beach. was awesome. was an epic era of my life. I loved every

Glen Erickson (41:51)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Bryant (41:52)
minute of it, but it was also really heartbreaking. Yeah, it was a sad kind of moment to go through, but out of that came the immense joy and growth and

Jon Bryant (42:06)
Yeah, like a pretty rapid healing, I And return to being able to myself to love and receive love as well. But yeah, and then Nextium came in 2016, 17, after 20 something came out. And for me, that cult experience that when I was actually there and in that group was awesome. That’s the crazy thing.

Jon Bryant (42:35)
Yeah, I talk about it like it was an awesome experience. I loved all the people I met Everyone was sweet but I had only scratched the surface and I had only met the people that were The people that were being preyed on by the people at the top of this thing, you know

Glen Erickson (42:46)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (42:48)
This business or corporate whatever they want to call it cult but yeah, was it was shocking to To get the news of it and it was shocking to see friends of mine being talked about

Glen Erickson (42:58)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (42:59)
in

Jon Bryant (42:59)
the news and to be a part of something that was so worldwide and talked about around the world. was wild. yeah, so I wanted to write an album that was both like endemming the horrors of what they were doing at the top, but also trying to like, celebrate the good aspects of it too. And I think coming from church, a church background

Glen Erickson (43:23)
Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (43:26)
helped me parse through

Jon Bryant (43:28)
What’s bullshit? What’s not of like, of God, of like a loving source? What’s human? What’s…

Glen Erickson (43:34)
Yeah, because we grew

Glen Erickson (43:35)
up with, I’m assuming e sort of an evangelical based on Karenport version of Christianity. And

Jon Bryant (43:38)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (43:42)
you’re convinced all these things are normal. Like all the practices, all of the participations, everything is so normal until you become adult and all of a sudden you look at it through maybe someone else’s eyes or something, and you’d be like, that actually

Glen Erickson (43:57)
reflects a lot

Jon Bryant (43:57)
That’s kind of weird.

Glen Erickson (43:58)
that that feels a lot like what they’re talking about this cult on this show, you know, T V show. Like that’s not very

Jon Bryant (44:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (44:04)
far removed from the way we did did things. It’s a little jarring. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (44:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (44:08)
Yeah. And I’d been, and because I’d gone to Bible school, like I went to like a traveling Bible school in, in, Europe called Cape and Ray. And,

Glen Erickson (44:16)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (44:17)
and, and then I started touring with that sort of friend of mine who we played at every church denomination you can name. We played at like hundreds of churches through Canada and the U S and so you just get like a sense of. Church culture.

Jon Bryant (44:30)
It’s all, some of it’s sort of the same, there’s some weird stuff, some different things. So like having all of that information in my brain and going into a cult was interesting because like all these things, all these bells started to ring. even when I was in it, I was like, that’s weird. That’s like a really cult

Glen Erickson (44:47)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (44:48)
like thing, but that’s also churchy too.

Glen Erickson (44:51)
Love that you didn’t condemn

Glen Erickson (44:52)
it all though, man. Like, like just the way you said that, because you talked about the people I knew were just the people who were getting preyed on. And so if I think about that the same way a lot of people just a hundred percent condemn church culture of whatever denomination and type. What they don’t realize is that the people on the surface, the people who are just going, who just sincerely are there because

Glen Erickson (45:16)
They’re lacking meaning or purpose or a place where they feel loved or accepted at its most basic core. That’s why they’re there. They’re not there for all the bullshit behind the veil. And if that’s where your interactions lie, it can be very fun and sweet and wholesome, you

Jon Bryant (45:33)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (45:34)
know, for a lot of people. And it kind of sucks that we have to dismiss those beautiful interactions and memories with people, you know, just because.

Jon Bryant (45:43)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (45:43)
it was inside of a building that’s associated with some, you know, pretty pretty ugly

Jon Bryant (45:48)
Pretty like terrible evil shit.

Glen Erickson (45:50)
stuff, yeah.

Jon Bryant (45:51)
Yeah. Yeah, no, you can’t throw it all out. That’s the one thing that I think maturity teaches you. I used to know a lot of Bible verses, but there’s one that I kind of still remember, but it’s like avoid all extremes. It’s in Ecclesiastes, but it’s

Glen Erickson (46:09)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (46:09)
like avoid extremes of either side. Whatever the argument is, just like.

Jon Bryant (46:15)
Find the middle ground of like, well, what are these people saying? What is this? Or, you know, what’s going on over here? What’s going on over on the other side? And

Glen Erickson (46:22)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (46:22)
like, where, where is like the middle ground of rationality? having like come to a, rational decision, not an emotional, emotionally driven decision. Cause those can be pretty, I don’t know, misleading and one

Glen Erickson (46:34)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (46:35)
sided.

Glen Erickson (46:35)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (46:36)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (46:37)
running up to when the pandemic happens and all the shifts that obviously had to happen, and I think it’s kind of cool some of the things that you tried to pivot quickly to do as an artist.

Jon Bryant (46:46)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (46:47)
I’m just curious. I don’t I like I I’m not trying to pry and you can only answer to as much as you want, but like you’re already working with network group by this point, you know, which is like

Glen Erickson (46:59)
Got a really great history. musically, is that like traditional label relationship or is it just the publishing and the sync and all that stuff? Is it all of it at once? Okay.

Jon Bryant (47:10)
of of it. Yeah,

Jon Bryant (47:12)
so I signed on the label side in 2016, 2017, you can read 2017. And then

Glen Erickson (47:18)
Okay.

Jon Bryant (47:19)
I signed on the publishing side right after COVID hit. Because I ran out of money. was like,

Glen Erickson (47:22)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

Jon Bryant (47:26)
I don’t know, I got to make some money. So I signed my publishing.

Glen Erickson (47:29)
Well, I mean, that’s

Glen Erickson (47:29)
partially what I wanted to ask. I mean, it’s pretty it’s been already pretty well dispelled, you know, that signing a record deal doesn’t all of a sudden mean it’s like you’ve got your really good full time job and a consistent like ever we’ve everyone’s dispelled that really well, that myth. But I’m just curious

Jon Bryant (47:45)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (47:46)
for you, you know, you’ve had some songs that had some really great placement and some success, like when you release headphones and it, you know, has pretty big placement and the

Glen Erickson (47:57)
And a song on NCIS with a really great placement, which that you know made that song kind of take off stream streams-wise. I’m just curious at that time, kind of in that little era running up, are you do you feel like I’m doing well? Like I’m doing well financially? Like this is a career and I’m confident in that. Like a lot of people

Jon Bryant (48:16)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (48:17)
sometimes express that they’re never comfortable in this business or this job. And I’ve heard other people.

Glen Erickson (48:24)
Like a Danielle Danielle from

Jon Bryant (48:24)
Mm.

Glen Erickson (48:26)
well from Lark but from Dear Rouge was

Jon Bryant (48:28)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (48:30)
talking about this with me as well of like the era when she finally felt like some security, which evades most people. I’m wondering if is this an era when you felt some security in this as a as a career choice and what was happening and and the different ways that maybe the income streams were coming in.

Jon Bryant (48:48)
Yeah, think that the run up to my Europe tour in 2019, I to Europe in November and I did a month tour. I think the run up to that was like the most momentum I’d ever had. It was right on the heels of an album release. I’d just done CBC Q, did CBC First Play. I was

Glen Erickson (49:08)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Bryant (49:08)
getting like, doing some pretty good sized podcasts and

Jon Bryant (49:12)
I had a Canadian tour to follow up the Europe tour. But yeah, that era of like end of 2019, beginning of 2020 was like, that was probably one of the most like, yeah, this is really going well. Like, it’s really growing and and had a tour lined up for April of 2020. And then and

Glen Erickson (49:36)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (49:37)
then it all it all kind of came crashing down.

Jon Bryant (49:40)
So yeah, it was like, it felt like a lot of work had been like erased and to figure out a new path forward.

Glen Erickson (49:48)
Yeah, yeah.

Glen Erickson (49:51)
I that so yeah, that period of time.

Glen Erickson (49:54)
Obviously you did some really cool stuff that I saw. Like you went on a project of fifty songs in fifty days. You started

Jon Bryant (50:01)
Yep.

Glen Erickson (50:02)
shit, I lost the name of it. You cleverly named your live stream. A lot of artists started a live stream sort of version.

Jon Bryant (50:09)
yeah, what did I call it again?

Glen Erickson (50:11)
I lost where that was. That was some really good

Jon Bryant (50:12)
It was like a play on a rap lyric, I think.

Glen Erickson (50:15)
well was it? yeah, it’s not on the page I’m on, but

Jon Bryant (50:16)
It was, it, it was all

Jon Bryant (50:18)
a, it was all a stream. It was all the dream. Yeah. was, it was all the stream and I played biggie at the beginning. Yeah. It was all

Glen Erickson (50:20)
Yeah. Yeah. I’ll stream. Yeah. That’s great. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (50:26)
the stream. I sing that at the beginning. That’s, that’s great. I kind

Glen Erickson (50:29)
That’s great.

Jon Bryant (50:30)
of forgot about that because I have a new, I have a new TikTok live group that it’s called the closet crew, but it’s all a stream. Yeah. That’s fun.

Glen Erickson (50:37)
Nice.

Glen Erickson (50:39)
so that whole sort of phase, which obviously topsy turvy, but you’re writing obviously a lot of songs during that time. And then you get up to to therapy notes. and again, a lot more open, vulnerable talk then about even just the concept that you can’t afford therapy because you don’t, you know, obviously have

Jon Bryant (51:00)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (51:01)
Coverage as artists, we don’t, you know, you don’t walk around with somewhere that someone’s offering you insur insurance that would pay those kind of crazy numbers for that. And

Jon Bryant (51:13)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (51:14)
and I mean, I think it’s almost like a trope, the way people talk about how like songwriters do their therapy and their songs. you

Jon Bryant (51:21)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (51:22)
know, that it’s almost become a pejorative that’s like it doesn’t feel nice.

Glen Erickson (51:28)
But you kind of like kind of openly played on that. and were kind of really open about a lot of that kind

Jon Bryant (51:33)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (51:34)
of stuff. I think the one that got some notes, but the one that really I felt I felt super relatable because just about the serotonin crash, the the idea of what happens to an artist, you know,

Jon Bryant (51:46)
Mm.

Glen Erickson (51:47)
the highs of performing and then the lows of walking off to just isolation and

Glen Erickson (51:53)
hotel rooms

Jon Bryant (51:53)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (51:54)
and not being able to sustain this feeling like people cared for very long was just so jarring for people. And it for me, the minute I read that, like I associate it literally to sitting

Jon Bryant (52:07)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (52:08)
in a van, you know, in Windsor, Ontario beside a venue or sitting in a hotel room in Kitchener, you know,

Jon Bryant (52:15)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (52:16)
and where those feelings like really felt dark and crushing, right? And

Jon Bryant (52:20)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (52:20)
I guess the big question I want to ask you is because you’ve gone through a lot of this stuff. I like that you s can tell your story. You’ve done it twice already in this conversation of talking about a dark period, and then when you recount some specifics, you’re like, well, that was really fun, actually, during that time. And so, like,

Jon Bryant (52:39)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (52:39)
you haven’t let that stuff get like pushed out of the picture.

Glen Erickson (52:44)
And just the growth part I was talking about as an artist and maturity about just life, but also how you’re gonna translate that stuff into songs. I’m wondering how you feel about

Glen Erickson (52:54)
As an artist, do you feel like when you write a song, we don’t write them as if we’ve like, I’ve already learned this lesson and now I can write this song. We’re just writing

Jon Bryant (53:03)
Hmm

Glen Erickson (53:04)
that we start to understand these concepts, which feel personal, and also

Jon Bryant (53:08)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (53:09)
I know how to turn them into a little story that

Jon Bryant (53:12)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (53:13)
make it and you hope that it’s going to make sense to people, but it has to make sense to you and just the song first.

Jon Bryant (53:19)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (53:20)
But

Glen Erickson (53:20)
then you walk away and we create this thing, which now lives forever.

Jon Bryant (53:25)
Hmm.

Glen Erickson (53:26)
And I’ve seen so many times, right, where like a fan will like idolize an artist in like in like grander, you know, we’re talking like the cajillion selling artists, right? Where it’s like this

Jon Bryant (53:39)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (53:39)
person now represents all of this thing to me. But for

Jon Bryant (53:42)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (53:43)
you, it was a song at a moment in time. I’m wondering how you feel about.

Glen Erickson (53:48)
That because you’ve written so many vulnerable songs and walking on, and then you meet people, you meet people who love your music. You might not still feel as good about some subject matter as you did when you wrote them. Does that

Jon Bryant (54:00)
yeah.

Glen Erickson (54:00)
happen to you? How do you sort of process that and work through that? Even just reconcile that as a as an artist?

Jon Bryant (54:08)
I’ve been really fortunate to have been contacted by so many fans over the years. I’m talking like hundreds of people have written me with really interesting and like sometimes really profound and sad and docking stories of like how my music’s been a part of their life, you

Glen Erickson (54:28)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (54:28)
A lot of people…

Jon Bryant (54:30)
I’ve had a lot of people say like songs have helped them get through periods of time when they wanted to kill themselves.

Jon Bryant (54:35)
That’s more common than I really had ever thought. It’s more common than I had originally thought those thoughts were going through people’s minds. Does that make sense? Am I saying it right? Yeah, so

Glen Erickson (54:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (54:47)
it just sort of like gave me just this level of understanding and grace for people. Just because you don’t know what people are going through. That’s been eye-opening and incredible. And also just a testament to the power of music. Because I think these songs…

Jon Bryant (55:02)
that I write, once they’re out in the world, they’re not mine anymore. I own the rights and the IP, but they’re the world songs. And so they kind of use them and absorb them and connect with them in ways that I can never anticipate. I had one person reach out. is probably the most, this is the most docking, profound and incredible story.

Jon Bryant (55:27)
that someone’s ever told me. So they wrote me and said, my fiance and I, bought your album. We went to one of your shows and we bought your album and we listened to it all the time. And we’re really like active hikers. go spelunking in caves and we have your CD in our Jeep and it never leaves. And we just listened to it on the way and on the way back. And she said,

Jon Bryant (55:55)
And then this one trip we went out and my partner died in an accident. And so he said, there’s this one lyric in 20 something in deep dark Valley.

Jon Bryant (56:07)
in the middle of the mountains till I hear that voice. And that’s like, for her, was like the connection to him. And that was a song that they, because they were, they were cavers, they loved going into caves and exploring caves.

Glen Erickson (56:21)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (56:22)
That song in the middle of the mountain, like just, she was just like, it just, it’s my, it’s my only way to cope with this loss because it’s so fresh. It was like a couple of weeks previous that it happened. So.

Glen Erickson (56:33)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (56:33)
She wrote me and it was like, yeah, it took me like 45 minutes to read through it. Cause I was reading through tears too. And I was like, I need to read this again. And I’m like, I don’t even know how to respond to this person, it was one of those, you it was one of the most profound kind of like, I guess my music, I guess my music’s doing something, you know,

Glen Erickson (56:55)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (56:56)
more than I would have ever imagined.

Jon Bryant (56:58)
on a personal level for people.

Glen Erickson (57:00)
Yeah,

Glen Erickson (57:01)
and I mean in light of something we already talked about, which is how soul sucking the business part or the marketing part or the thing that actually requires more hours than the writing and production of the music and how soul sucking

Jon Bryant (57:13)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (57:14)
that can be, how crucial those moments are for anybody, I think at every stage of their their career, right? I know like I know

Glen Erickson (57:25)
When the band that I gave most of my musical creative space to in my life, when that ended, we had I was left with like these handful of same sort of stories, right? Like this guy we ended up going on his head like a public radio show at Ryerson, I think, in Toronto.

Jon Bryant (57:45)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (57:46)
he’d had forever. And and he said, This is the record that I this was the soundtrack of me going and building a barn.

Glen Erickson (57:53)
on my dad’s property after he died and I missed him and and I

Jon Bryant (57:56)
Wow.

Glen Erickson (57:57)
and I built a barn and went through grief with like this record. So yeah, so how do you like

Jon Bryant (58:01)
With this record. Yeah. Amazing.

Glen Erickson (58:04)
you you never shake that right for the rest of your life as a as an artist.

Jon Bryant (58:08)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (58:08)
But yeah, I think yeah, I I deeply appreciate just how vulnerable like you’ve allowed yourself to be in your music.

Glen Erickson (58:18)
through all of this kind of stuff.

Glen Erickson (58:20)
You’re also the performance artist and you’ve done like voiceover acting on pretty

Jon Bryant (58:25)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (58:26)
like this is where I think a lot of people who just might obviously just follow along and find a new musician or a new artist, would never

Jon Bryant (58:33)
Yeah

Glen Erickson (58:34)
like there’s not a whole bunch of like again, you don’t have like a website where it’s like John Bryant, like songwriter,

Jon Bryant (58:39)
Yeah, I know.

Glen Erickson (58:41)
actor, blah, blah, blah. Right. So it’s not like being thrown at everybody’s face, but yet you’ve

Jon Bryant (58:45)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (58:46)
you’ve

Glen Erickson (58:47)
Done voiceover on Resident Evil and on like on a is it for in a video game for Silver Surfer? Like a Marvel thing. A trailer for okay. Which is yeah, which is like it’s kind of crazy, right? And then you’ve had

Jon Bryant (58:54)
Yeah, it was like a trailer for a Marvel video game. Yeah, that was the voice of the Silver Surfer. Yeah. It’s kind of crazy. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (59:05)
like a lot of acting bits on a lot of shows.

Jon Bryant (59:09)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (59:09)
So it’s not just that you’ve had like music placement on some like pretty significant

Jon Bryant (59:13)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (59:14)
shows and

Glen Erickson (59:15)
And it’s not just the significance of the show, it’s also where it gets placed, right? On the in the episode

Jon Bryant (59:19)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (59:20)
or even in the series. I mean, I had a friend Leroy Stagger way back when it was super lucrative, he got a song at the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy, which you know that was enough

Jon Bryant (59:35)
Cute.

Glen Erickson (59:35)
to that was enough to pay his bills for the year, that kind of whole thing. So

Jon Bryant (59:38)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (59:41)
but but you’ve even gotten

Glen Erickson (59:42)
Acting, you’ve gotten roles on, you know, they would

Jon Bryant (59:45)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (59:45)
like to throw on Riverdale, but like a a a lot of shows to name here. So how does that is this again just meeting the right people at the right time? I mean, you didn’t sort of indicate any version of like acting chops or interest, you know, in those upbringing years, alongside the visual arts

Jon Bryant (01:00:02)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:00:02)
school. But how so how does that happen? How does that un unravel for you?

Jon Bryant (01:00:06)
Well, for me, I’d always kind of thought like, it’d be fun to be an actor. Growing up, think that would be a, I think everyone thinks that, that’d be cool. I’d love to

Glen Erickson (01:00:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:00:18)
be an actor. I had that kind of thought in my mind every once in while. be like, that’s cool. But I never did drama in school. I never did any plays, live theater. But I got a divorce in 2013 and soon after I was like, well,

Jon Bryant (01:00:35)
I’ve all this time now, so I can’t afford therapy. I can’t afford like proper counseling. So I’m going to join this like really cheap acting class in Seattle. So I went to that religiously every week. It was a Meisner

Glen Erickson (01:00:51)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (01:00:51)
technique. And the teacher there, he was like, he’s from Seattle, but he he had worked in Hollywood at the time. And he was like, you should, you should consider acting up in Vancouver. Like if you ever go back there. I’m like,

Jon Bryant (01:01:04)
He’s like, there’s a lot, you know, there’s a lot of work up there. I was like, well, I don’t know if I’m going back to Vancouver. We’ll see. Cause I was living in Seattle and I did for another year, year and a half.

Glen Erickson (01:01:13)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (01:01:14)
But then I did move back to Vancouver and met my wife, my, my now wife. she, she, and she was an actor. That’s why she was in Vancouver. I was like,

Glen Erickson (01:01:22)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Bryant (01:01:23)
maybe I’ll, you know, you’re in this world. Tell me what do I need an agent? How do I get an agent? So she was really like encouraging and.

Jon Bryant (01:01:31)
And then I just kept going with it. And then actually it was really during the pandemic when I really buckled down and like.

Jon Bryant (01:01:37)
put more time into it and tried to actively get better because I wasn’t great. I wasn’t a great actor or good. was just, I was like, it wasn’t actually, it was really bad. All the early stuff was really bad.

Glen Erickson (01:01:50)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:01:51)
But 2020, 2021 is when I really started to like, yeah, lean into it and embrace it. It was weird though, as an identity thing, cause I’ve always been a musician or I have been for almost 20 years.

Jon Bryant (01:02:06)
So like, people knowing me as an actor or like people in the Resident Evil community, knowing me as the voice actor for Bitora’s Mendez and not as a musician is kind of weird for me. it’s, it’s,

Glen Erickson (01:02:18)
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:02:19)
it’s a strange, it was just, it was a bit of an adjustment, but I think now I’m like, I’m just this to embrace what I am. And at first I was like, well, I want to keep everything separate, but I think I’m at this point where I don’t, I don’t really care anymore.

Jon Bryant (01:02:31)
I want to build this music thing, but I’m not going to.

Jon Bryant (01:02:36)
It’s not going to look the way that I had envisioned. And

Glen Erickson (01:02:39)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:02:40)
that’s okay. I need to learn to pivot. think that’s where people, especially with social media and like putting themselves

Glen Erickson (01:02:46)
And

Jon Bryant (01:02:46)
out there and marketing themselves, they’re not like, cause I find it super hard to adapt. think, I think a lot of people have a hard time adapting to what is current and what is like, what’s going to take them out of their comfort zone and reveal the truth, the truth of who they are. Cause I think at a certain point,

Jon Bryant (01:03:04)
especially in the early days, we’re all trying to become the next lumineers or, you know, Bon Iver or City in Color, who for me, you know, those artists were,

Glen Erickson (01:03:14)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:03:16)
but and I wanted that my career to look like theirs, but it’s not going to be theirs. And so just need to embrace my own timeline, my own

Glen Erickson (01:03:24)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:03:24)
sort of trajectory and lean into it more. Because the honesty

Glen Erickson (01:03:28)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:03:29)
and the vulnerability of

Jon Bryant (01:03:30)
of being yourself is what I think most people, at least I’m most attracted to in people, is when they’re themselves and they’re not putting on a face or trying to cover up who

Glen Erickson (01:03:39)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:03:40)
they really are, you know? Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:03:42)
And

Glen Erickson (01:03:42)
I’m consistently hearing from people who we would deem successful or we think have quote unquote made it that they talk about that, that like the moment didn’t come for them until they felt like they let go of all the other stuff and just stopped being afraid and were just themselves and then were surprised at that that that was the thing that got embraced the

Jon Bryant (01:04:04)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:04:04)
most, surprisingly, not surprisingly, the you know, the the actual version of yourself.

Jon Bryant (01:04:08)
Surprisingly for

Jon Bryant (01:04:09)
them, like not surprisingly for everyone else. It’s like, that’s

Glen Erickson (01:04:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:04:12)
the coolest part about you. Like is the flaw,

Glen Erickson (01:04:14)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:04:16)
the strangeness, the weirdness is

Glen Erickson (01:04:17)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:04:18)
kind of what people want.

Glen Erickson (01:04:19)
Yeah. I do like the picture of you going to the like the local theater workshops things that in Seattle. It makes me strange, but having like this secret identity as a musician and

Jon Bryant (01:04:29)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:04:29)
makes me think of Bill Hader and Barry. but

Jon Bryant (01:04:32)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:04:33)
just not the serial killer kind of not serial killer, but the hired gun murderer that he was

Jon Bryant (01:04:38)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:04:39)
type thing. but

Jon Bryant (01:04:41)
Yeah, that was fun.

Glen Erickson (01:04:43)
that’s a pretty great development. I mean

Glen Erickson (01:04:45)
I think I had read and and it and it sort of thought like, yeah, I would maybe you’ve been asked this way too much,

Jon Bryant (01:04:51)
Hmph.

Glen Erickson (01:04:51)
but playing characters like in in acting the typical question is like how does like acting translate over to being a musician? And I guess for me it’s more like how does the

Glen Erickson (01:05:06)
Like playing a different person like opens

Jon Bryant (01:05:09)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (01:05:09)
yourself up to you know, some of my favorite actors have related it, you know, through the window of empathy of like even John Kerry or Jim Carrey has gotten to the point where he’s like, Jim Carrey is just another character I play. He’s like

Jon Bryant (01:05:23)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:05:23)
he feels so strongly that like you can literally become

Jon Bryant (01:05:27)
Anything.

Glen Erickson (01:05:27)
if you tap into it, anything. But but

Glen Erickson (01:05:31)
I think you open these spaces up in yourself when you spend enough investment into becoming something different than what you were, because you have

Jon Bryant (01:05:40)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:05:40)
to truly empathize to get there. And

Jon Bryant (01:05:44)
Mm.

Glen Erickson (01:05:44)
I’m just that’s the part that I’m curious because you like truth telling and vulnerability and storytelling in music.

Jon Bryant (01:05:52)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (01:05:52)
I’m just wondering how that have have they shaped each other? I guess is really my question.

Jon Bryant (01:05:58)
Sure, yeah, I think the acting has changed me. that, you know, the Jim Carrey documentary about him playing Andy Kaufman was like bananas. Like it was so, you’ve seen that one, right?

Glen Erickson (01:06:09)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jon Bryant (01:06:12)
It kind of affected me for days after, because it was like, yeah, I was like, who am I?

Jon Bryant (01:06:20)
Who’s John Bryant? I’m just a character. Am I just playing a character? But I’ve had all these experiences too, so it’s hard to disconnect from those things. And I guess I’d call it my baseline of who I am at my most, strip away all my ego, like who am I? And

Glen Erickson (01:06:41)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:06:41)
I guess if I’ve put that name, the name John Bryant is what comes out. But yeah, it’s…

Jon Bryant (01:06:48)
Playing characters is a fascinating kind of mental exercise and emotional exercise because you’re, yeah, you’re empathizing with, like when I’m playing a bad guy, I’m empathizing with the reason why they became a bad guy. And they don’t think they’re a bad guy. They think they’re the good guy. They’re doing all the

Glen Erickson (01:07:03)
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:07:04)
right things. like, you know, that’s what makes, yeah, that’s what makes character development fun with acting. And you’re, yeah, you’re…

Jon Bryant (01:07:11)
You get, yeah, you get to kind of peer into other aspects of like, people’s lived, lived realities. You get, you get to kind of imagine that, which is fun. And I mean, your world,

Glen Erickson (01:07:20)
I think it’s a it’s a similar

Jon Bryant (01:07:22)
and you’re still world building too. You’re in the same way a song builds a world for somebody in their mind. Like you’re building

Glen Erickson (01:07:27)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:07:28)
a world for someone, you know, it’s in their mind. You’re doing it visually and you’re doing it, you know, it’s so it’s a similar thing. I don’t know. But.

Jon Bryant (01:07:35)
As an actor, I’m one of many instruments.

Glen Erickson (01:07:39)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:07:39)
You need other actors, need good cinematography, you need music. It’s like there’s a whole team behind it. Whereas a musician, you can do pretty much everything yourself.

Glen Erickson (01:07:49)
Yeah. And I mean, as far as your part in a st you’re a part in a story. And as a musician, you’re writing the story and you’re creating the singular snapshot all by yourself. Like you’re you’re the director and the producer and the writer and the actor in it all at the same time all at the same time. But

Jon Bryant (01:08:04)
You’re writing all yeah, you’re wearing all the hats. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:08:08)
yeah. But I mean, I think I think one of the cool differences I’m really s it just

Glen Erickson (01:08:14)
I’m becoming more and more hyper aware of as time goes by is the specific art of music is how even, you know, you go and you you perform as an actor, you know, even if it’s a voice actor role or a screen actor, theater

Jon Bryant (01:08:26)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Glen Erickson (01:08:27)
actor, theater actor might be a little bit different than what I’m where I’m going with this. But you know, that snapshot gets taken, right?

Jon Bryant (01:08:35)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:08:35)
And then like people can have access and play it over and over and over again or

Glen Erickson (01:08:39)
Or do whatever they do. But, you know, a painter paints, a designer, you know, I do a lot of websites and I t I joke with people all the time, I hate websites because they’re they don’t go away. Like I love designing a poster because when I’m done and if I get it printed with hopefully no mistakes,

Jon Bryant (01:08:56)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:08:56)
then it just lives forever on that canvas. But

Jon Bryant (01:08:59)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:08:59)
the work is done and I’m not stressed about that, like that exercise of getting that creative thing onto the canvas anymore.

Glen Erickson (01:09:07)
So many disciplines are like that, but a musician has to go out and play that song like with the same feeling and a mode of control as if I just wrote it today and I just felt those feelings five minutes ago. And you have to do it

Jon Bryant (01:09:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:09:20)
night after night after night. You create that art over and over again. Is

Jon Bryant (01:09:24)
Yeah. Yep.

Glen Erickson (01:09:26)
that do you feel the difference between these different creative outlets of yours in your career? Is it

Glen Erickson (01:09:33)
Does it feel different to you like if I’m creating stuff with design, I’m kind of going through a a different, you know, cathartic experience than if I’m doing it as an actor versus I’m writing songs? Or does it feel

Jon Bryant (01:09:47)
Why.

Glen Erickson (01:09:47)
all s similar to you?

Jon Bryant (01:09:49)
Yeah, I think because I haven’t written and directed myself in a film. None of the film roles I’ve done have, they’ve touched on aspects of my personality and I’ve been able to draw from experiences to like pour into the character.

Glen Erickson (01:10:07)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jon Bryant (01:10:08)
But I think playing my own song and knowing that it’s my story.

Jon Bryant (01:10:13)
that is now being like absorbed, being consumed and absorbed and impacting people’s bodies and minds. You know what I mean? Like that sort

Glen Erickson (01:10:22)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:10:23)
of connection with an audience is like, is super, super like peak. It’s peak life, I think.

Glen Erickson (01:10:29)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (01:10:30)
Like I’d say like the birth of my child and like looking into her eyes is like on the same level as, or maybe a little more now.

Jon Bryant (01:10:39)
I’m obsessed with my daughter now. But the feeling of standing in front of a crowd and singing your song is still pretty incredible. And I think on set, like if you’re working on a movie, you do the scene so many times, you sort of numb yourself to it a bit.

Glen Erickson (01:10:55)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:10:56)
It’s more technical than you think. And I love acting. I love all the art forms that I do. But I think music is…

Jon Bryant (01:11:06)
The one I found that’s been the most like…

Jon Bryant (01:11:08)
rewarding in every way.

Glen Erickson (01:11:09)
you mentioned your wife and your daughter. your daughter’s just a year old or coming up on a year old, or

Jon Bryant (01:11:19)
Coming up in a year, yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:11:20)
yeah, so amazing the first year of life and the amount of the amount of evolutions you go through in just a year

Jon Bryant (01:11:28)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:11:29)
of that, which is pretty amazing. and you have a new record coming out.

Glen Erickson (01:11:35)
Harbor

Jon Bryant (01:11:35)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:11:36)
and so I’m just curious where that one is going with subject matter, how influenced that is by, you know, this chapter of your life of of of this relationship and like obviously

Jon Bryant (01:11:49)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (01:11:50)
a level of security people get to and they’re being like, Let’s be parents together.

Jon Bryant (01:11:55)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:11:56)
so I’m wondering just how much is that playing into where this album is going or

Jon Bryant (01:12:01)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:12:01)
Making

Glen Erickson (01:12:02)
ge I’m making guesses that it will.

Jon Bryant (01:12:04)
Yeah, so

Jon Bryant (01:12:05)
the whole record was written around the time when my wife and I found out we were pregnant. And the pregnancy is when we were working on it. And so it was like

Glen Erickson (01:12:15)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (01:12:16)
from the January when Bri got pregnant to the September when she gave birth, we basically like started the album and finished it. We finished mixing the day that Nazar was

Glen Erickson (01:12:26)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:12:27)
born. So, and then add on top of that, I decided

Jon Bryant (01:12:31)
I think it was March that it’d be nice to spend some time back in Nova Scotia with my family and and Bree’s families from there as well. So we just packed up our bags, kind of took the essentials and lived in Nova Scotia for six months.

Glen Erickson (01:12:49)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (01:12:50)
Like right before the baby was born and then five months after. So, yeah, the album was just about like that journey back home.

Jon Bryant (01:13:00)
to Halifax, that’s what’s called Harbor.

Glen Erickson (01:13:03)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:13:04)
and just all of the emotions and feelings about like where we thought we’d be in life, this point where we thought.

Jon Bryant (01:13:11)
Like the song I just released, Another Life, is kind of touching on like, what if we hadn’t have like, what if we had jumped on that train that day and gone to, you know, who knows where and just seeing where the world takes, you know, like those kinds of thoughts. And then like, Hard to Be Humans about bringing a baby into this world and struggling with, you know, the prospect of AI ruining everything.

Glen Erickson (01:13:35)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:13:36)
and then Harbor

Jon Bryant (01:13:38)
being about the journey back and like all the songs sort of are, are touching on these like themes of like, you know, and, and, when you call is kind of about like saying goodbye to the arrow when I could just like pick up the phone and, and go out and have a night out with friends. You know what I mean? Like, so

Glen Erickson (01:13:56)
Mm. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:13:57)
it’s just, yeah, it seems, it felt like a fitting kind of, all the songs feel like they fit together.

Glen Erickson (01:14:02)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:14:03)
in that way. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:14:04)
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think you’ve been pretty good in your history, obviously, of your albums seem to be pretty cohesive sort of projects and concepts, not concept

Jon Bryant (01:14:15)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:14:15)
albums, of course, but just weaving threads through everything. yeah. Yeah, that’s great.

Jon Bryant (01:14:20)
Yeah, like weaving a vibe is what I always try to do. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:14:25)
So is there did this bring about

Glen Erickson (01:14:29)
Any changes stylistically in your choices, both just the geography change and how

Jon Bryant (01:14:34)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:14:35)
you were gonna record. I mean, different things sometimes influence our choices, but it you know, you’re kind of at a point where you can just choose to do whichever version of a thing you want. So where where did that land you now?

Jon Bryant (01:14:48)
Yeah, so the last record I did was, was, what was it called again? Therapy Notes. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:14:56)
Therapy notes one? Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:14:57)
And I did that. I wrote that in like Vancouver. I was writing in Nashville. was writing in LA and it felt very, just, it felt disjointed. Not in a, not in a bad way. It just didn’t feel like.

Jon Bryant (01:15:09)
like I had focused on one particular thing. I think it was dealing with a lot of things over the past like four or five years of life. So

Glen Erickson (01:15:16)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Bryant (01:15:17)
was just sort of like picking up the pieces of like my own process and trying to put something together that made sense. But at the same time, was like, I really want to do a record all at once, right at front to back, and then do it within like a few months of my life, not take like four years to do another one.

Glen Erickson (01:15:35)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:15:36)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:15:36)
That was really important to me. so stylistically, was like, well, I really love the styles of my early records. 20 something. I just felt this calling back to like the basics of, I guess, folk singer songwriter music. So I wanted to just feature, feature really organic sounds and keep it as simple as possible. And yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:16:02)
There’s some part of me that’s like, want to keep like, like, I want to keep exploring new sounds. But there’s another, there’s another part of me that’s like, I like the safety of what I was doing already. So with every album, I think I’m going back and forth between those things. I’ll try new sounds. I’ll try new, new kind of songwriting styles or genres.

Glen Erickson (01:16:24)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:16:24)
Like I’ll introduce like a bit more psychedelic.

Jon Bryant (01:16:28)
rock or you know with cult classic it was a lot of that and then some albums have been more r &b influenced and pop

Glen Erickson (01:16:37)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:16:37)
influenced so but this one I was like I’m going home so if I’m gonna go home like literally and figuratively I want to go home to the sounds that kind of got me into

Glen Erickson (01:16:47)
Mm.

Jon Bryant (01:16:49)
the career or this music career as it were

Glen Erickson (01:16:52)
I don’t want to assume that that’s easy either. because the sounds

Jon Bryant (01:16:57)
You know.

Glen Erickson (01:16:57)
that the the way you played and recorded, like on your first record, your second record, like s that’s often the product of experimentation doesn’t even seem like an adequate word. But like sometimes you can create a sound that just came out of like, well, this is as I only had a Casio keyboard and now

Jon Bryant (01:17:17)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:17:18)
now

Glen Erickson (01:17:18)
People think I’m associated with this sound when I just like this is all I had, man. Like, you know, and

Jon Bryant (01:17:22)
Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:17:24)
so like a sound can get created. It was it’s not so easy, it’s just like, I’m just gonna go back to being stripped down or whatever more generative

Jon Bryant (01:17:32)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:17:33)
turn term we might use. so was it was it easy to go back or was it at was there some challenges to say, like what what was I really doing back then that makes me want to do it again?

Jon Bryant (01:17:48)
Mm. Say that one part last, the last thing you just said.

Glen Erickson (01:17:51)
I said like, you know, was it like is you know, as easy as I thought or, you know, have I got, you know, some things to figure out essentially, now

Jon Bryant (01:18:01)
Hmm.

Glen Erickson (01:18:01)
that I’m actually trying to to recreate it.

Jon Bryant (01:18:04)
Yeah, I don’t think it was like, I’m going to recreate the sound. We never were like, we’ll A and B like back and forth the instruments just to, it was all just, it was kind of just in the, in the, like, I, I

Glen Erickson (01:18:16)
Is it a a vibe?

Jon Bryant (01:18:18)
wasn’t like, how do I put this? I was just writing without trying to be clever. If that, if that makes sense. I was not,

Glen Erickson (01:18:26)
Mm. a lot of sense, yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:18:28)
like, I was like, I’m not going to try to be clever on this record.

Jon Bryant (01:18:31)
I’m not going to try to be super like heady and meta and like, I just want to make music that like, I really enjoy listening to that I like to make and going to make it as like honest and true and vulnerable as possible. That was kind of why I got into music in the first place. It was just because I

Glen Erickson (01:18:48)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Bryant (01:18:48)
loved that style of music. But it was hard because yeah, like I’m always, yeah, I want to push boundaries. I want to try new things. want to, as an artist, I want to develop and evolve.

Jon Bryant (01:19:00)
But this felt like an evolution in a way, because it was like I’m evolving to like this new version of an old self.

Glen Erickson (01:19:08)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:19:08)
Like a bit of a reawakening of like returning home to the

Glen Erickson (01:19:12)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:19:13)
stuff I truly love and enjoy. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:19:16)
That makes a lot of sense. I think if you’re leading with the concept of or if you’re leading with the values, not the actual practice, right? That that that’s the thing you were trying to reconnect with first. Because

Jon Bryant (01:19:27)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:19:28)
you’ll never, and the last part of what you said, because you can never shed all the ways that you’ve evolved, right? Like you you’re bringing

Jon Bryant (01:19:35)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:19:35)
the current version of yourself, even if you try to do something that’s in a different pocket. Like you can’t

Jon Bryant (01:19:41)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:19:41)
shake, you can’t shake who you are.

Glen Erickson (01:19:44)
Or what you’ve become. So

Jon Bryant (01:19:44)
Yeah, you

Jon Bryant (01:19:45)
can’t your voice. that’s, I really wanted the voice to be at the center of everything. My voice to be kind of,

Glen Erickson (01:19:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:19:53)
and that’s kind of what I think every album has had, has done well is like keeping the voice on the forefront and as the focus of the music and not the cool riff I did on that. know, maybe light

Glen Erickson (01:20:06)
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:20:07)
might be the only riff that has any sort of like, like

Jon Bryant (01:20:10)
street cred, but like other than that, it’s all just pretty

Glen Erickson (01:20:12)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:20:12)
basic, like pop, singer songwriter music, but it has heart and has soul, I think. And I think that’s what has kept me going these years.

Glen Erickson (01:20:20)
Well, I think that’s what

Glen Erickson (01:20:21)
your voice has always done, man. And like I said at the very start, like, you know, it tapped into this emotional quality, you know, that I know I was looking for at a certain

Jon Bryant (01:20:31)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:20:32)
era that was sort of profoundly impacting me in the music I was listening to. And and I love that it’s carried you for this long. I mean, we just I just had our folk festival in Edmonton and Simmel played. And

Jon Bryant (01:20:46)
yeah, yeah,

Jon Bryant (01:20:47)
Brian.

Glen Erickson (01:20:47)
And yeah, and

Glen Erickson (01:20:49)
just sitting there and I knew like probably everybody, the hill for that stage was packed and

Jon Bryant (01:20:55)
Hmm.

Glen Erickson (01:20:56)
and everyone’s waiting for him to p play one transcendent song, you know, that he recorded, you know, the Where’s My Love song and and

Jon Bryant (01:21:00)
one. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:21:03)
And he was such a pro. He was so good. He was playing on a board guitar because West Jet screwed up the stuff. And it’s just

Jon Bryant (01:21:10)
yeah. Shoot. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:21:12)
him and his best friend on a stage. And yet, yeah, because he’s made a career out of this style of music that really just needs his voice and a little something underneath that

Jon Bryant (01:21:22)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:21:23)
he could just deliver. And then I was sitting there and I was surprised. I’m like, yeah, I know this song. Yeah, I remember this other song.

Glen Erickson (01:21:30)
But it was so good. And when he gets to the end, you know, he delivered on that tune so well. And

Jon Bryant (01:21:34)
sign. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:21:36)
and it just and it it just made me, you know, think of you and your career at the time too, is that you’ve, you know, had a voice that essentially can like it transcends a lot of the stuff that you can get trapped into and the fact that you just sort of noted that you’ve always known that it’s your voice that’s at the front.

Glen Erickson (01:21:54)
is for me pretty poignant, you know, you know, to what goes into success for people to try and have a career or to build something is to stay true to the thing that

Jon Bryant (01:21:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:22:06)
they that they honestly know, you know, is the what connects with people. And

Jon Bryant (01:22:11)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:22:12)
yeah, it’s it’s pretty sweet.

Jon Bryant (01:22:13)
It’s

Jon Bryant (01:22:14)
like, yeah, your voice is like the home. It’s like the chorus of people’s like, or people’s ears, if that makes sense. Like the

Glen Erickson (01:22:23)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:22:23)
music is kind of the pathway there, but like your voice is always like, has to be that thing that comforts and brings, that serves the music, but like brings that like feeling of home. And it could be

Glen Erickson (01:22:38)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:22:39)
like an upbeat EDM song, but like if it has that feeling of…

Jon Bryant (01:22:42)
familiarity that people need, I think, in their artists that they love,

Glen Erickson (01:22:46)
Yeah.

Jon Bryant (01:22:47)
you know.

Glen Erickson (01:22:47)
Yeah. Well man, this has been a lot of fun and really great for

Jon Bryant (01:22:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:22:50)
me. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you more and getting more of the story. And

Jon Bryant (01:22:55)
Ain’t that? Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:22:56)
I really appreciate you taking the time obviously

Jon Bryant (01:22:59)
Of course.

Glen Erickson (01:22:59)
to do this and make it work out. And I’m really looking forward to hearing the new record. I mean, there’s a good handful of songs obviously off of it, it looks like so far out

Jon Bryant (01:23:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:23:10)
in the world, that I’ve been enjoying, but

Glen Erickson (01:23:12)
Yeah, I really hope to be able to get a hold of

Jon Bryant (01:23:14)
Damn it.

Glen Erickson (01:23:15)
the new one and get to see you on the road again. I loved

Jon Bryant (01:23:18)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:23:19)
that I loved that church show. It probably won’t won’t match the little magic parts that that that that brought, but

Jon Bryant (01:23:24)
Yeah, that

Jon Bryant (01:23:26)
was a nice show. That was really beautiful.

Glen Erickson (01:23:29)
Yeah, you used the

Glen Erickson (01:23:30)
you used the moment that every artist, if they have any smarts, would probably know how to do, but you did it really well, which is like, when do I stop playing any instruments and invite people to sing along and just fill this place with

Jon Bryant (01:23:45)
Mm-hmm.

Glen Erickson (01:23:46)
voices, like the old choirs would do? you

Jon Bryant (01:23:48)
Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:23:49)
you you played that perfectly in there. It was like a very poignant moment. I loved it. So

Jon Bryant (01:23:51)
that’s good. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:23:56)
Yeah, so I appreciate this very much and just wish you all the best with it, man. And thanks for taking

Jon Bryant (01:23:58)
Sure. Thanks, Glen.

Glen Erickson (01:24:01)
the time.

Jon Bryant (01:24:01)
It was great chatting with you. All right.

Glen Erickson (01:24:03)
Okay, cool.

Glen Erickson (01:24:14)
Some of the things. okay. Hello. Welcome back to Alexis Postfame with Glen Erickson. you were quick on that one. Thank you so much. I can appreciate that. Yeah. Welcome back from the hiatus. Thank you so much. A bit of an extra hiatus. Yeah. I figured it might as well I might as well just Was it because of your recording schedule or my crash out schedule? You’re you’re it wasn’t anything to do with you. beautiful.

Glen Erickson (01:24:42)
it was all to do with me. So I mean the goal was to be live exactly a month ago, like the last week of August. And I knew by the first week of August that that wasn’t gonna happen. And sometimes you’re like Because quality over quantity. Yeah. Or how about you don’t like crash your life out just you know what I mean? Like if you don’t have to. Like that’s the easiest summary for me, which is

Glen Erickson (01:25:13)
Yeah, that I, you know, I could wait on some things to happen that I needed to happen and nobody’s as far as I could tell, nobody was you know, really upset about it. Well no, because what’s what’s a month to have a good It’ll be fine. It’ll be totally fine. Like there’s no like prescripted I mean I’ve tried to do things on a pattern and if I have to like break the pattern or flex it a little. No problem. It is what it is. Yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:25:43)
So that’s the explanation on the wait, but season four is here. Yippee. And we are starting season four off with a, as I described on the social post, a long time crush in the falsetto indie folk pop vein. Yeah. Which started with Bonavera, like it did for everybody. Love. And then it moved on to like a little side.

Glen Erickson (01:26:10)
with his bandmate S. Carey but then like Novo Amor especially took over that. And then I found in about twenty I’m gonna say twenty eighteen, I found this Canadian indie guy named Jon

Glen Erickson (01:26:26)
Bryant. Mm-hmm. And he had this song called Heroin and it went on a whole bunch of my playlists and I absolutely loved everything about him. So

Glen Erickson (01:26:37)
and then I didn’t hear anything about him for a really long time. And then like literally didn’t hear him. Like I I think I even said this to him when I first like met him again recently, which I’ll explain in a sec. But the only time I’d heard his name is there’s a Canadian, like aspiring country artist living in Nashville goes by Sycamore that I’ve talked about before.

Glen Erickson (01:27:04)
And somehow I don’t even know how randomly the name came up and realized like that she that she knew him. Like I was just talking anyhow, I can’t remember how all that went down. I just remember with her being like talking about yeah, having like played shows together and stuff in the early days of careers. And anyhow, so that was kind of cool. And then visiting Vancouver back in

Glen Erickson (01:27:33)
June. Yeah, the beginning of June. Yeah. they my friends Greg, who is yes, has an episode on the podcast. My best friend Greg, him and his partner Alexia, namesake, invited me out to this La Cool show with Jon Bryant. I’m like You’re like, I know that name. Yeah, I will a hundred percent come to that show. It was a magical show.

Glen Erickson (01:28:03)
It was like one of those really old churches in like, you know, that would have been built early Vancouver. Like a very old Orthodox style church. It’s like literally a half a block off Hastings around the like epicenter of what East Hastings is in Vancouver, downtown Vancouver. And so they run this music series.

Glen Erickson (01:28:29)
and lots of people who’ve like

Glen Erickson (01:28:33)
Like pro like pretty well na well known especially well known names. I’m having trouble. Especially in Vancouver area, have like come out and contributed and played and then proceeds from this thing. But I mean you get this like quiet acoustic performance in this big old Orthodox church. That’s a really good vibe. And yeah, and he nailed it. And then I talked to him afterwards about being on the podcast and as a busy guy, and then we made it happen and I’m really happy and

Glen Erickson (01:29:02)
I felt like it was a really scenario. Yeah. Dreams come true, Lou. It I I just thought it was a good way to start the season off. I agree. so it was a fun conversation with Jon about h the arc of his career, like all the things, you know, I go to research him and all the things I didn’t even know. I only knew him as the Canadian like you know, songwriter, indie.

Glen Erickson (01:29:29)
Yeah, not everything else. Well, not yeah, that he like started off and was just doing graphic design and him getting in that’s what he thought his career would be. And he just made an album in a sense, kind of by mistake. Yeah. Or on a whim for a class, and then that turns into him doing more music, and then that turned into his career. But then he is an actor. There’s not a name for it, but it’s like

Glen Erickson (01:29:59)
One decision leads to another, and that’s like all these events in your life have led to each other and they lead you in an outcome like you wouldn’t have expected from the action. I know what you mean by the butterfly effect. I mean that I don’t think it’s quite that. No. But you you see what I’m getting at. It’s adjacent. Yeah. So he’s like been an actor. He’s been on a bunch of TV shows, you know, and had parts and like a voice actor on some like

Glen Erickson (01:30:25)
Huge things like Final, I think it was it Final Fantasy said Final Fantasy Four. yeah, like to kind of get that call. In fact, even the first time I was trying to schedule with them, and we said, okay, let’s do X date, right? Yeah. And I was trying to get him in at the very end of last season, actually, I think. And then he he’s like, I got a call. They want me to come down to I don’t remember if it was Nashville or somewhere.

Glen Erickson (01:30:54)
basically to do a whole bunch of recording for voice actor stuff. So then it worked out way better anyways with having a woman. Worked out way better. But just a super just interesting career of just keeping it going no matter what. Totally. You know what I mean? Despite kind of what the obvious challenges are, but also finding lots of different ways of expression. And especially like his full circle moment right now, kind of going back

Glen Erickson (01:31:24)
More back home to his roots in Halifax and yeah, all that kind of stuff. So I can always appreciate that kind of an open conversation with somebody. And I especially liked his bit which I was curious to find out about where he had in a period of life when he was like de I think he had deconstructed his sort of religious upbringing, but then felt like kind of that vacuum of like, well I need something and

Glen Erickson (01:31:53)
Like the what’s gonna replace it in my life? At the same time as like, what is my life really about? Some of these things haven’t worked out for me, maybe. Some of these things have, and and you know, he started going to this thing and it just turned out to be a cult, and he kinda he exited long before where most people get into like really not great stories about having, you know, sort of touch base with a cult in their life. But but it he was close enough to at least see firsthand.

Glen Erickson (01:32:23)
The things that it was and why there was such a pull and what happened to friends of his that were really into it. And I’m also fascinated by like cult stories. Yeah. Or like cult adjacent stories. Yeah. Because there’s like this incredibly powerful two sets of things happening, which is the obvious, like, how did this

Glen Erickson (01:32:52)
Well, how did this person like have such get to such great ideas of grandeur that they, you know, could become charismatic enough to convince regular people to like do crazy things? And then and then the other half is like, how does such normal regular people keep getting pulled into these things and

Glen Erickson (01:33:17)
You know, we have enough of them at this point that like everybody should be able to do a checklist of like is it this is it this? Is it this? Huh? Have you watched Midsummer? No, I don’t think I have. That’s like a that’s quite literally a cult classic. It’s about a cult. A cult classic. You need to watch that one. It’s literally like about regular people getting dragged into a cult and like every step of the process. It’s so interesting. Well, okay. It’s like yeah.

Glen Erickson (01:33:46)
Just don’t watch it late at night. Just then you’re it it’s literally one of the only movies that’s left me being like WTF. I was young when I watched it, but when you were really young is when The Walking Dead came out and I would watch it after I put all of you to bed and stuff. That’s Meg. No, well no, Meg didn’t watch that one with me at first. That was the Sopranos and

Glen Erickson (01:34:09)
True Blood. That was the one I watched. I just had a bunch of shows going downstairs through the walls when I was trying to sleep as a little one. Well, maybe, but The Walking Dead, I remember I would be watching in the bonus room at the last house in the little couch. Yeah just with like like my iPad or something. And I just remember being like and I’m not ever like shook by anything, but I remember the first few episodes, I was like, my goodness. okay, so happy to be back.

Glen Erickson (01:34:37)
Yes. For the another season and put some things together and talk about music. And talk about music because it’s been such a summer and fall of like music, like so many cool things happened at we always talk about Folk Fest and I never because we didn’t know we never really got to talk about another like special episode, I think. Yeah, but it’s so compass, I don’t know if it will be a special episode. Always relevant to me. But I mean we could talk about it more at some point because I felt like

Glen Erickson (01:35:07)
Everybody who’s asked me about it, remember like our joke on here has always been like all the bands I missed. Yes. And then I kind of let you sort of help me curate a not a playlist, but my actual schedule. Yes. To a degree. And then I did a lot more research with our shared playlist. Yep. And then you broke, which we never talked about. I was sure. But now I have two of them on my Spotify and I’m like I’m like, which one do I just like shut off and get rid of?

Glen Erickson (01:35:37)
And which one do I want to stay there? For everyone listening, I got a text. I think I was at work. I was out, I got a text, and it’s like, Did you delete our shared playlist? And I was like, yeah, you did. I think you did that. Well no, I didn’t. I think you did that. I would never commit such an atrocity. It was gone. For you, it was still on mine. I think you deleted it. Anyways, and then I had to take the old one that he deleted off his phone and add it to a new one. Plus, the problem with you saying things like that is I have spent

Glen Erickson (01:36:07)
Literally the last two and a half decades of my life, being the competent source of tech support for everybody in my life. And you are, but you deleted our shared playlist. You just like torpedoed that a little bit. You just shot some you know Because what do you mean? You know what I’m saying? Because that was so old of you. Okay, well there it is. So where’s our playlist? Well I didn’t say it like I had fallen down and I can’t get up.

Glen Erickson (01:36:36)
You did. I d no, I just see our playlist. I can’t see it on my new screen. Okay. I not my new screen. It wasn’t like I got a new phone and I was completely confused. it says Glen and Lex Folk Mix Twitter. Okay, that’s one of the ones I have on my phone right now. Yep. but I’ve like had this thing in the years past where I totally miss out and fail. And part of it was

Glen Erickson (01:37:05)
I’m being a little vulnerable for a second. Part of it was because I would feel sometimes a little overwhelmed or aversion of social anxiety, stuff that I haven’t experienced before in my life, and I’d get uncomfortable and I would sort of maybe just hide in the back and just drink a pop or and I would miss a lot of things or go home early or whatever it was. There was different reasons that that contributed to me missing some things. And this year I was determined not to.

Glen Erickson (01:37:34)
And I ended up going to so many good shows and I felt like every single performance I went to was like very valuable and very good. And so afterwards, when some people would say, How was it? I heard it wasn’t like didn’t have as many big names or that version of like, maybe it wasn’t as good a year. What did you think? And then I’d be like, I actually had my best year that I can remember in a really long time. Yeah. So that was amazing. The the

Glen Erickson (01:38:04)
Feather in the Cap, the whole thing was like, I didn’t see Fantastic Cat until the last day, the Sunday afternoon. Remember, they had their concert stage. I don’t remember because I didn’t go to work. But you remember the start of it because I didn’t even know you were up on the hill with your friends somewhere, and they start playing. And I was talking with this guy, Scott Cook, and all of a sudden they start playing. And I texted you right away, like first song, and I’m like, This is the best thing I’ve heard all weekend. And you’re like, I know.

Glen Erickson (01:38:33)
And you were up there on the hill too listening. And they were that was a cool, a great show. Like they were really good. And I listened to them a lot after that. Anyhow, so that was kinda highlight of that for me. But then I And Truesdale. yeah, you liked Truesdale a lot also, right? Yeah. Well I just heard so many people take take that away from Folk. Okay. Yeah. I missed I had them on my list on the Sunday. I didn’t get to see their actual show and everyone raved about it.

Glen Erickson (01:39:02)
I just saw their one of the other main stage nights, they were who performed before the last main stage, like the in betweener. Yeah. And they killed it. Yeah. Yeah. And they I think on Sunday they got that unfortunate thing where like six people, six artists all get their concert at the same time that are all really good on the afternoon. which is always unfortunate. But anyhow, so that was great.

Glen Erickson (01:39:32)
And then the other revolutionary thing that happened for me was I had work to do out in BC again and was in a rental car and Serious XM and I found a station that just gave me like new thing after new thing after new thing. So I’m gonna I had pulled them all off. So I ended up putting them all down here. So Dove Ellis, which we should talk about at one point from the thing. But

Glen Erickson (01:40:02)
So, like a band called Witch Post with a song called Twin Fawn. And then I discovered Dr. Dog again, who I hadn’t heard since the late 2000s. Throwback. That’s a great throwback. And there was like a modest mouse song I’d never heard before, was so excited. A Julia Jaclyn song. This band called Bridget Calls Me Baby. And a song called Slumber Party, Feeble Little Horse, Genesis, Owusu, and then the one that totally well, there was a few others. Sorry, Sun Casino.

Glen Erickson (01:40:30)
And then the one that killed me was Dogwood Tales, which for those like fans of a group, a guy called MJ Lenderman, who feels like late nineties too, like it literally every time it comes on makes me feel like I’m listening to a mix of everything from like Buffalo Tom to Dinosaur Jr. to like Sunvolt. yeah. Slenderman. But this Dogwood Tales had a new record coming out.

Glen Erickson (01:40:58)
This song called McMemories is amazing. I think people should check out Love. Dog O’Tales. It was one my favorites. I like that. And then you just got to see a concert. A concert that I’m jealous that I didn’t get. That was a big fumble. To see. yeah, I went through a big thief last night. Yeah, you saw you said big things after Big Thief last night. I did say big things after Big Thief because love. yeah, because

Glen Erickson (01:41:25)
Very, very authentic of a show, which I feel like that’s making a comeback in concerts because I was saying to Eric, like I’ll I’ll pr preface with this is when I went and saw Daniel Caesar too in this hiatus, I’ve seen him twice now in Edmonton. Last album and this album. That was late August, right? Yeah. Mid late August, yeah. Late August, yeah. Or mid, yeah, whatever. last album, the concert was so good because it was a really good production. Like

Glen Erickson (01:41:53)
Every single like timing of like the lights and the curtains and how the stage was set up and how how he was positioned, like everything was very just done very well. And it was a really good concert. And then this one, he had like three bandmates, like he’s obviously worked very closely with, just like sitting on stools with their instruments and all their gear on the floor and like chords just sprawled out.

Glen Erickson (01:42:21)
And then he brought in like this choir he’s been traveling with, that’s like an all black choir, probably a dozen of them. And then him. And it was just like he didn’t have anything on the stage except the instruments and the chords and the tech and the people. And he just kind of walked around and smoked a joint. And like it was just so like lax. And you could tell there was no really like setless. Like he he was kind of like chatting with his people on the stage, being like, I’m gonna do this one, I’m gonna do that one.

Glen Erickson (01:42:50)
And I don’t know, it was like very very authentic and it was like was like a really different like he brought something new to the concert game that was like, you know, I guess bringing it back. Anyways, Big Thief did a similar thing. Their stage was like a big carpet on the floor and then all of their instruments and like sound boxes and like their little like feedback loop gear on the floor and then them. And that was it. Like drummer, bass.

Glen Erickson (01:43:20)
guitar and then like Adriana Linker with she had a bunch of different guitars that people were bringing in and out of the stage for her on the side. And called guitar techs. Guitar techs. Or roadies if you wanted. I’m not calling them that. anyways, but even like Apple Music always like does set lists now apparently for like big shows that are touring for extended amount times. and theirs for this concert is just a big jumble and like triple the length of the concert because they’re just

Glen Erickson (01:43:50)
On the fly choosing their songs. And like there’s even one that she chose and she like kept messing up. And then she like, and then like while she was playing, she’s So I haven’t played this one in like years. And it’s just like, you know, zero focus on playing hits. Like, it was just like it literally just felt like you were sitting like a fly on the wall into their studio watching them practice together. And And you liked that.

Glen Erickson (01:44:19)
I loved that. Because you realize, like, if you say it like that, that’s the reason a lot of people might hate it, right? It was just like I didn’t pay all this money for see somebody just sitting in their studio screwing around. But they weren’t screwing around, that was the only difference. I they weren’t. What I’m saying is like it’s funny that you say that, and I think I wonder if that like pissed a bunch of people off who went for the hits and for a produced performance. The thing is though. But if you know that band, you would know that. Well, if you would know that band, you would know that.

Glen Erickson (01:44:48)
That was probably how the show was gonna be. And the typical fans, and you saw it, I’m sorry, you saw it based off the people who were there. Very artsy fartsy would be super into that kind of thing. I appreciate that y your generation or just you still says artsy fartsy. I’m I think it’s right, it’s choked. It’s I think it’s just me. Unfortunately. I like bring it back. I apologize then. yeah, it was super good. And I need to look up the name of the opener.

Glen Erickson (01:45:18)
Because let me let me Google the opener. Because listen to this. If you liked it. And this is No, listen. This is gonna sound offensive, but you gotta stay with me. You can’t say certain words. I I wasn’t going to. I’ll have to edit that out. Opener for big thief. Do you always talk your Google searches out loud with it? I’m using voice there, you were actually typing. Yes, I was typing.

Glen Erickson (01:45:47)
You could also just use the voice thing. I don’t like to Okay. This is who it was. No, because listen. So Eric and I go in, okay? We grab a little beer and Gross. No, listen, we grab a little beer and we Where was the show? I didn’t ask that. Okay, so this is yes, this is where I’m getting. So it’s at the jube. Which is also why people should know it’s not gonna be big production, right? Small stage, very like acoustic. Anyways. We were on

Glen Erickson (01:46:16)
the main floor right near the stage. And so we go around to the side and it’s the opener plane, but the doors are like closed. Like usually during the opener, they’re like open so people can like come in. But they’re like closed. And we’re like, that’s weird. And so we like open these big oak wood doors and the it’s pitch black. And the only lights are the people on the stage. And we’re like, and we didn’t Google who the opener was. And we turn and it’s just like

Glen Erickson (01:46:44)
Really sweet looking old man on the stage who looks like no, who looks like seven years old, and then this like flamboyantly gay guy on the keyboard, and that’s it. And we were like, what did we walk into? It literally we looked at each other and it felt like we walked in like when you walk into a wrong room. We’re like, we’re not supposed to be here. We take our seats and it’s like spoken word like gospely music.

Glen Erickson (01:47:13)
But then the guy on the keyboard is incorporating the audience in every song. So it’s like a choir. We were like, what did we walk into? We looked at each other and we were like, are we in the wrong place? Like, did we walk into the wrong place? This is him. Beverly Glen. Two N’s two Ns. Copeland. Hyphen Copeland. Yeah. Yeah. my goodness. So we walk in and we’re like a little bit WTF. Like a little bit, not judgmental, but we were like kind of WTF is going on.

Glen Erickson (01:47:43)
‘Cause it’s like very spoken word preachy and then like clapping and trying to get the audience in. It’s very like, you are loved. You are and we’re like, you know, not what we’ve ever listened to. And so we’re kind of just sitting there, like, I guess this is where we are now. And we kinda walked in mid song, it finishes. And then the next one, like the guy kind of is chatting, and then we we get through the next one. And I’m like, wait, I adore this. Like I love this.

Glen Erickson (01:48:12)
This guy is like in his 70s. He’s so lovable and so sweet. He speaks so gently. He’s like so kind. His voice is incredible. Like incredible. And the guy on the keyboard has an incredible voice. He’s playing along. He’s incorporating the audience. Because it’s a bunch of artsy fartsy people. Everyone is singing in the audience. So you have thousands of voices. And he teaches the melodies. Like it was.

Glen Erickson (01:48:39)
10 and 10. I said to Eric it was a little bit folk festy. It kind of felt like you were on the side stage. Was it like you were at Annie and the Caldwells at Folk Fest? No. Who played like the one gospel song for about 18 minutes? I didn’t like that at all. Anyways, I think it’s like. I think I’m just in love with him. He’s so. He has like stuff on Spotify from 1985 and also from 2026. I think he’s just the sweetest thing. And he was so good that.

Glen Erickson (01:49:08)
Mid like he wasn’t even done. Like he had s songs left and he got a standing ovation. Like people stood and clapped and cheered because this old guy was so like he’s so good that you didn’t remember his name. Well, ’cause I walked in at the end and I was like, I don’t know what’s happening. Anyways, and then people like cheered and cheered and cheered. And then he was like, I love you all, like I’m sending you blessings for the rest of all of your lives. Then took his little cane and walked off the stage. And I was like, Derek, I’m gonna sob. Anyways.

Glen Erickson (01:49:35)
But he was like unique and very like side stage folk fast artsy. And then Big Thief, yeah, they played like two of their bangers. Like I was look we were looking at their top five songs after, and they played two of them. And the rest were very like not deep cuts, but like not songs. Anyways, I was like this I think this is like a new movement. I think I’m calling it before it happens. Like concerts, some like con some concerts, not like rap artists and stuff, but like

Glen Erickson (01:50:05)
Concerts that have the genre to be able to do so are gonna revert back to like bare bones studio setup, like raw authentic concerts. Do you want me to burst the bubble a little bit? No. Why do it? That’s I think that it’s extremely financially motivated.

Glen Erickson (01:50:28)
It’s getting so expensive to tour because of the cost of gas and hotels and everything. That if you take less people and don’t like if you don’t have the production, you don’t have to pay for all that crew, right? To be on the road. Anyhow, the more you can trim down the thing, well, yeah. But then still build an actual. Well, and if you have the audience to do like everyone in that big thief, not everyone, but the majority of the people who listen to Big Thief probably have somewhat of an appreciation like for the arts and the process and

Glen Erickson (01:50:58)
Yada yada. So are more than happy to see a show in that regard. Yeah, I don’t I’m not saying that the fans wouldn’t appreciate it. I’m just saying But some wouldn’t. Well, I think s some some want to see like the whole thing. Yeah. Like I know some people who saw Daniel Caesar and were like, I I was expecting a show, not a performance. Well it wasn’t it was not cheap and it was at it was at Rogers. Rogers Rogers, sorry. It’s a Rogers, right? So I mean

Glen Erickson (01:51:28)
That expectation was there for a reason. Yeah, you expect that that’s gonna be something different. So I totally get it, but yeah, I can see I can get it all around. I understand. But Well, even I was supposed to go, I didn’t. my boyfriend went alone because I bailed, but MacDemarco. yeah. He said it was the same thing. It was just like Mac and his band on the stage goofing around, dancing and singing, no production, no like rigid anything.

Glen Erickson (01:52:00)
I like it. Well, here’s thing. You see, this is what I was saying last night. You see so much production on social media now, right? Like so many artists and stuff have like music videos, but also like posts and everything, like everything so curated that like where you see only the glamorous best. Yeah, but it was cool like before social media was so predominant to go to a show and see some really, really

Glen Erickson (01:52:28)
Curated production where like there was like, you choreography and like lights and like so everything was like, you know, to a T like planned out. But now it’s like, well, we see so much of that every day. Like it’s kind of nice to have a break from it. It’s like gone the opposite direction. Yeah. I think if they have the skill of still drawing you in, that’s all that matters. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. So yeah. And now I don’t have

Glen Erickson (01:52:55)
Well, I have one concert booked, but Eric’s selling my ticket. Smashing Pumpkins. he bought your tickets to Smash He bought me tickets in hotel in Vancouver to Smashing Pumpkins. What? Yeah, for just for funsies. Now he’s selling them to turn a profit to take me on a different date. He should. That’s crazy to me. I wanted to see. I saw them at Rexall Place in like

Glen Erickson (01:53:23)
What would now probably be the late nineties? Well, here’s my thing, I don’t even like them very much. But I think they’re just like kind of it’s just like a fun and silly like you know. But yeah, they’re playing in Vancouver, but we’re selling them ’cause it’s expensive right now there. And there is. So we’re just gonna go on a different adventure. But I have no I think for one of the first times in a long time, I have no concert tickets booked. I feel naked.

Glen Erickson (01:53:53)
Well, it’s going to come around. Do you know where? Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah. things can come around. You never know. Anyhow, I’m glad to be back in the qu saddle. In the grind. the grind of I’ll be more locked in. I just looked at how long this ha episode has been and I’m just letting everyone know I’ll be more locked in next time. Yeah, we were like doing okay and then

Glen Erickson (01:54:21)
Yeah, your energy went up a little bit and then we added another eight minutes. So started my life, man. I’m not complaining. although it will take the episode to over almost two hours. But it’s okay. Let’s go out with a bang. Go in with a bang. Go in with a bang. Let’s go in with a bang and then settle down. And then settle down. Yeah. We took a hiatus a little extra long and we had a lot to say. Yeah. So that’s the way it goes.

Glen Erickson (01:54:51)
But that’s that’s it. That’s all for this one. Yep. Until the next episode. Until episode fifty. Next episode is fifty. This was forty nine. We should go celebrate. We should find a way to celebrate. I’ll bring you a cupcake with a candle that says fifty.

Glen Erickson (01:55:08)
Okay. Okay. Okay, bye. Okay, bye. Love you.