Tim Hicks had been a working musician since he was a teenager. He was proud of the fact that he was able to make the entirety of his living by making music. But there was a time, more than a decade and a half into his career, where he felt he had hit a wall. Married, with a young family, and a job that basically saw him away from home for weeks on end touring, Hicks almost packed it in.
Thankfully for him, and legions of Country music fans throughout North America, the Niagara Falls native received a pep talk from his wife that rekindled his passion, recharged his creative batteries and readjusted his attitude to one of gratitude and hopefulness.
A few weeks later the phone rang. Shortly thereafter he was signed to noted Canadian independent label Open Road Recordings and the rest, as the cliché goes, is music history. Since 2011, Hicks has released two full length albums and a host of hit singles. On the heels of his debut album, Throwdown, he was nominated for five CCMA Awards and two Junos including for Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Country Album of the Year. He won the 2014 CCMA for Rising Star and then was nominated for three more CCMAs in 2015 for his second album, 5:01, including for Male Artist of the Year.
He has dominated digital music sales and radio charts in the Country music genre and is generally considered to be one of the top Canadian country artists on the scene at the moment. And there’s a lot more to come.
On June 10, Hicks released his latest single, the rip roaring Stompin’ Ground to great critical and popular acclaim. It is the teaser for his summer tour, which includes a stop in Belleville on Wednesday, July 20, as the kick-off to the annual Empire Square Live Music Series. Also on the bill is up-and-coming band River Town Saints. Stompin’ Ground is also the lead-off single to a hotly-anticipated, but as yet untitled new album set to be released later this year.
“I think it’s coming out in the late fall – the suits will determine that. But I am happy that the fans seem to be really digging the single. I know it’s the number one Canadian Country single for a bit, so that’s fantastic news because it’s been feeling a little bit like I’ve been sitting on the bench waiting to get tapped on the shoulder to go in and play. I was making a record, so there was a reason for that, but it is nice to be back in the game and exciting that it seems people are connecting with the new material early on,” said Hicks, adding that he spent four months living and working in Nashville on the new album, with his family in tow.
He said there was some pressure to keep the momentum going after the success of his two previous albums and still perform and release more singles over the interim between albums. But already a veteran road dog, Hicks knew he needed time to recharge and that also meant spending as much quality time with his family as was possible.
“The last date of the tour was Nov. 28, 2015 and then I managed to get down to Cuba with my family for a week, which was nice. And then there were the Christmas holidays and after that we all headed down to Nashville on Jan. 4. At that point we were already well into the writing portion of the new album and I had already cut two songs the previous June. By the time we got into the studio down there I had about 70 songs to choose from and we picked what I think are the best 10,” Hicks said, adding that many other record labels would not allow such freedom to take a break because of fears of losing commercial momentum.
“And I am so grateful to the fans that I was able to take a little break and then finally put out a song and get the kind of reaction that we have been getting with Stompin’ Ground. It’s a testament to the loyalty of country music fans, who are awesome people. And it’s also a testament to the folks at Open Road. It’s like they are a big indie label and its super family oriented, man. Everybody there is out for the best possible outcome, whether it’s booking a gig or putting a record out. Everybody champions you as an artist along the way. And everyone on the roster is so supportive of each other too. It’s a great team to be a part of,” he said.
The new album sees Hicks teaming up with a different producer, Corey Crowder (who just had his second U.S. number one hit with Chris Young). Throwdown and 5:01 were both produced by Jeff Coplan.
“I switched producers and what that meant for the process for making this record was that it’s completely different from the way we made the first two – not that either way is better, just different. Jeff keeps everything very in-house: he plays almost everything, so he cuts bass with a drummer and then he takes those back to his home studio and does all the overdubbing of the guitars and things like that,” he explained.
“Corey has a band of guys that he likes to work with in a studio that he likes to work at and we all went there together and laid out the songs, live off the floor, which was really interesting for a guy like me who has spent his life playing in bands. We had demoed the songs ahead of time, so he sort of knew where we were at. I loved the studio as far as recording vocals, and Corey was great to work with. He let me warm up and then I would do multiple passes at the song and then we would start to zero in on certain things to tweak. It’s funny because there was really only one thing he was insistent I changed and that was of the way I said ‘sorry’. He said I sounded too Canadian. Americans say it more like ‘sawry’, which I thought was hilarious. Imagine being told you sound too Canadian.
“I had a great time making records with Jeff as well, but Corey just brought a different sort of energy to the project and I am excited for people to hear my music through a different lens. That’s really what a producer does – they take what you do and sort of give it a focus and direction.”
Hicks said at this point in his career, with album number three in the can and himself as a successful established recording and touring artist with a string of radio hits, he is “comfortable in his own skin as Tim Hicks, the artist.” And he differentiates this from Tim Hicks working musician, who would play five or six nights a week, rarely playing any of his own music.
“I feel way more comfortable with all the trappings and pressures and different sort of expectations at this level, which is why I am also more comfortable giving my opinion on things that I would not normally have spoken up about a couple of years ago. Let me tell you, man, the first couple of years that you’re at this level you’re just pie eyed. I couldn’t believe it was all happening after so long slogging it out in the bars and clubs. But once you learn how things work, you become more invested in certain things, like songwriting. It was really important for me on this record to write as many songs as I could,” Hicks said.
“I just felt like the songs that I had had in the past that really connected with people were the songs that I had a big hand in writing. We put out a number of songs from outside writers and they performed well and got me here, but for whatever reason I felt that I owed it to people to write as much as I could on this record. And I am proud to say that I co-wrote every track that we cut. So that’s exciting in itself. And I do feel a sense of artistic maturity in the sense that I was able to speak up and sort of set my own direction this time around.”
The years spent playing in the bars helped bring a level of stagecraft and life wisdom to the table that many artists of a less experienced vintage can boast. And what it means is that Hicks also knows how to entertain an audience in any sort of live scenario, and also now on record.
“I still approach what I do from the same point of view as I always have, which is just entertainment. I want to be as true as I can, but I still want to entertain people. That’s what people have come to expect from me and I continue to try to do that kind of thing. But definitely I am trying to go after a few different things and show a few different sides of me, including doing some ballads. I want to sing all kinds of different stuff in my set. And that’s really what the song choices come down to on an album – how does this song fit into our live show? If I feel we need a ballad, then I am going to do a ballad. We have got lots of different material on this record and I am really excited to get out there and play it for people,” he said.
Hicks was enamoured with music from an early age, growing up in a home where music was part of everyday life. His mom loved music and it was she who played a pivotal role in his wanting to become a musician. At age 10, she took him to the Friendship Festival in nearby Fort Erie where the bill was topped by Canadian rock royalty Colin James, and a plucky young band from Kingston, Ontario called The Tragically Hip that had just scored their first massive hit with New Orleans is Sinking.
“I listened to tons of classic rock growing up and a lot of bands that might even be labelled country today, like The Band or The Eagles. The Hip had just broken big with that song and it was blasting out of the radio all the time from the rock station in St. Catharines, so was Colin James’ Just Came Back. My mom had tickets to the show and the fellow she was dating at the time got the two of them backstage passes. They got a babysitter to stay with me when they went backstage,” he said.
“So I am standing there watching Colin James play and being completely blown away. Then I see my mom come out from backstage with two security guards and two scruffy looking dudes. She points to me, and the security guards lift me up over the barrier and the next thing I know I am hanging out with Gord Sinclair and Robbie Baker of The Hip. Sure enough I got to hang out with all the Hip that night and it was them who introduced me to Colin when he came off the stage at the end of his set. And I never forgot that moment – watching Gord Downie do New Orleans Is Sinking when that was the biggest, freshest thing going, using the microphone stand as a canoe paddle – I was mesmerized. I think that was the turning point for me when I said, ‘I want to do that.’ Watching everybody scream and the sound and lights and smoke was unreal. That was a big night for me.”
It also explains why much of Hicks’ music has a rock element to it, which is helping him crossover to an entirely new audience who appreciate his riff-oriented material.
The other big moment happened many years later when, now in his early 30s, with a wife and two little kids, he was ready to pack it in to get a “real job.” But his wife said he shouldn’t give up and encouraged him to continue to write music and play music and keep working on his craft because there were good things yet to come.
“I kept trying to get a record deal all through my 20s and there was nobody interested. So I just resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be a working musician. But I loved that. I wore it as a badge of honour: ‘yeah, I am a working, full-time musician.’ But I was starting to lose some of that energy. I did music for a living for more than 15 years and I was done with it. I was getting sick of playing Brown Eyed Girl night after night for people who didn’t really care. I actually asked my wife if she could get me an interview where she worked,” Hicks said.
“After baring my soul and getting a lot of the frustration out of my system and then hearing how supportive she was, I started to love it again. When I saw things through her eyes I realized it was a pretty good life. I let go of all the pressure I put on myself to ‘make it’ and isn’t it funny that the phone rings at that moment. As soon as you let go of that pressure and stress it’s like the next thing I know I am going down to Nashville to meet up with the guys from Open Road and the rest is history.”
And it’s a history that is still being written – in big bold letters – for Hicks as he chomps at the bit to play songs from his new album, and also get that album into the hands of his fans.
And many of those fans will have that chance to hear Stompin’ Ground and other new tunes as Hicks returns to Belleville, where he said he has had many great shows inside the Empire Theatre in recent years. For tickets or more information to that July 20 show, visit http://www.empiresquarelive.com/country-rocks-the-square/ For more information on Hicks, visit his Facebook page, or http://timhicksmusic.com.
* Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O2Oi2WIAPo
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