Dan Davidson has taken the country music world by storm and is about to embark on the “We Were That Song Tour” with Brett Kissel. In some cities, like London, ON, Dan will have multiple shows. When asked how he will make each night different, Davidson replied, “…I’m going to do my best to be best to be reactive to the energy and let that dictate what happens on stage. London is one of the best country markets in Canada. My last show there at London Music Hall was one of my career highlight shows -- people went crazy! [I] can’t wait to do that again!” Regarding the tour as a whole, Dan said, “It’s going to be killer! The whole crew are great friends of mine, and we are going to have a blast at over 35 shows together this year!”
Aside from this tour, Davidson has already started to fill up his calendar for 2018. He will soon announce some of the “amazing summer festivals” that he will be a part of. Additionally, Dan recently announced that he and Meghan Patrick will be heading to France this July. “So that won’t suck too bad!” he admitted.
Although Dan is a multi-award winning artist, he has always tried to keep his head down and “keep grinding”. The hard work has paid off with the 2017 release of his album, Songs for Georgia. “I work really hard at this so all these accolades are such a great bonus and inspiration! I try not to get too hung up on awards. For me, the real metric is how many people download, stream and love my music…. I just hope that the songs make people feel something! These are all songs that helped launch a very exciting career path for me. It’s truly a special group of tunes. I hope people love them and want to share them as much as I do! I can’t wait to see people singing along on the Brett Kissel tour,” he explained.
The album includes hits like “Found” and “Barn Burner” which Davidson co-wrote with Clayton Bellamy of The Road Hammers. According to Dan, he and Bellamy have known each other and played music together for over a decade. However, until these songs were written, they had never actually created their own music as a pair. “So, I called him up to change that! Glad I did! We became great friends and creatively really hit it off. We’ve written tons since then.”
Not only is Dan known for his catchy songs, but for the hilarious videos that accompany them. Recently, Canadian country artists lost CMT as an outlet for their videos. The Country Music Television channel now airs reruns of comedies like Will and Grace instead of its regular music programming. Despite all of this, it has not impacted Dan as negatively as one might think: “CMT shutting down was a real blow to our scene, but I’ve never been crippled by budgets as most artists are, so I have no problem continuing to develop my brand the best way I know how! … I think that I do my best to not let ‘what’s happening’ define my sound and writing direction. I really do want to pave my own way creatively -- and so far, that means not taking myself too seriously and having a lot of fun!”
One could say that Dan Davidson has “Found” his place in country music after having spent many years in the rock band, Tupelo Honey. His shift to country music was, in a lot of ways, due to the fact that rock music was changing. As he explained, “The band was starting to wind down. We’d been at it for a long time and had some major accomplishments and great memories but times were changing -- rock was a harder and harder scene. [There were] fewer bands to tour with, radio playlists were confused, and we started to take that as a sign that it was a good time for us all to try some other things we had always wanted to. For me, that meant exploring a solo career.”
And what a career it has been so far! When asked about advice for anyone wishing to follow in his footsteps, Dan replied, “The words I live by are to do your best to ‘be great and don’t go away’. This isn’t easy and it takes some time and commitment! Look at me!” He laughed, “I was nominated for ‘Rising Star’ after 14 years in the business!”
For more information, please visit www.dandavidsonmusic.com.
Photo by Annette Dawm.
