All directions home

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/08/2023 (1153 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brett Kissel knows a thing or two about life in a small town.

The 33-year-old country star, who headlines tonight’s country-themed Burt Block Party outside the Burton Cummings Theatre, was raised on a ranch near Flat Lake, Alta., a community so tiny it merits only one sentence on its Wikipedia page.

He bought his grandfather’s place a couple of years ago, near where he grew up. The nearest actual town is St. Paul, which is about 5,000 people and 200 kilometres east of Edmonton.

So when American singer Jason Aldean released the song Try That in a Small Town, which has risen to No. 1 on Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100 chart despite being branded as racist and having its video pulled from CMT, who better than Kissel to ask what life really is like in a small town.

Aldean sings, “Around here, we take care of our own,” but in Kissel’s rural world, taking care of his own means enjoying life with his wife, Cecilia, and their four young children, not fighting back against outsiders, as Aldean suggests.

“Just looking outside at our farm and my kids are feeding the ducks and the chickens and they let Tony the pony out to graze, so it’s pretty fun, that’s what I’m looking at,” Kissel says.

Kissel knows and has worked with Aldean — the country-music industry can be a small town too, where everybody seems to know everybody — and says small-town values are different than big-city values.

“I think that whole thing was blown out of proportion,” says Kissel, who has also lived in Nashville. “Every song is up to your own personal interpretation.

“Jason was just talking about there are a lot of things that fly in big cities that just don’t fly in small towns; I’m very grateful I grew up in a small town and I’m grateful I grew up in the country.”

Kissel hasn’t needed to resort to performing songs with contentious lyrics to earn three Juno Awards; he’s become one of Canada’s most bankable country artists, thanks to chart-toppers such as Airwaves (2015), Drink About Me (2019) and Make a Life, Not a Living (2021).

Kissel’s arrival in Winnipeg comes in the midst of the release of The Compass Project, four-part box set that celebrates his first decade as a national recording artist.

Each album corresponds to directions on the map and each focuses on a separate sub-genre of country music.

It began in January with South Album, which Kissel says points the compass needle to Nashville and is a new-country album full of bangers, including single Never Have I Ever.

“The East Album, that’s an all-acoustic album, that’s the singer-songwriter side of me and my business,” Kissel says of the April release. “The West Album is all country-and-western. I’m talking super-traditional.”

Missin’ You in San Antone, a single from the yet-to-be-released West Album, is a departure from Kissel’s usual style. It’s a lively western-swing number filled with jazzy fiddle and piano that hearkens back to the 1930s and ’40s.

North Album, a collection of live recordings of Kissel’s hits, is due out in the fall, likely in conjunction with the Canadian Country Music Awards, where Kissel is up for male artist of the year and the fans’ choice award.

“I’ve always wanted to do a giant project like this and figure out how to do it and how best we can do it,” Kissel says. “I don’t think anybody in Canadian country has done anything quite like this.”

Becoming an independent artist after a decade with Warner Music meant the only one Kissel needed to convince to go ahead with The Compass Project was himself.

“Between me and my manager, we’re the new CEO. We can do whatever we want and keep all the money,” he says with a laugh.

Tonight’s show includes Ontario’s James Barker Band and four Manitoba acts on the rise: Transcona trio Petric; Jason Kirkness, who hails from Kleefeld and now lives in Nashville; Kendra Kay, a six-time Manitoba Country Music Award winner; and Métis singer-songwriter Daniel Desorcy, from La Broquerie.

“You look at all these new artists that are coming up through the ranks, it’s really special to see,” Kissel says. “I think our genre of Canadian country music is arguably better than it’s ever been and stronger than it’s ever been.”

Kissel’s music has been part of Hockey Night in Canada telecasts and the ardent Edmonton Oilers’ fan has sung the national anthem before their games many times. He also teamed up with Portage la Prairie’s Doc Walker to sing it for the 2016 Heritage Classic outdoor game in Winnipeg.

His support for the Oilers has got him in some good-natured hot water, especially when the Winnipeg Jets swept the Oilers out of the playoffs in 2021.

He had made a bet with Winnipeg country station QX104, and when the Oilers lost, he had to sing The Jets Drive Me Crazy, a rewritten version of his 2020 hit She Drives Me Crazy.

It keeps coming back to haunt him.

“Just a couple weeks ago, I’m down in Nashville where Connor Hellebuyck is up for the Vezina Trophy,” Kissel says of the Jets star goaltender. “I’m actually sitting next to (him) and Connor has a version of that song on his phone and continues to make fun of me, as an Oilers fan, playing The Jets Drive Me Crazy. We had a great laugh about it.

“I love that I get to marry sports and music in a great way, even if every now and then it bites me in the ass.”

alan.small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall