Dan Mangan is still nice

ep1 – Dan Mangan is still nice (transcript)

[00:00:00]

Introduction to Dan Mangan’s Daily Life
Glen Erickson: What, uh, what does, you know, renowned recording artist, Dan Mangan’s Mondays on a November afternoon look like at this exact intersection of your life?

Dan: Well, I just got, I was in Tofino over the weekend for a couple of gigs. So just prior to logging on here, I was counting merch, uh, stock and, um, sort of in my, in the corner of my basement, I have like a shelving unit with a bunch of, you know, it’s where I keep all the records and t shirts and stuff. So, uh, I was, I was preparing getting that all counted.

So I know what’s going on in my merch world. Um, yeah, you know, it, it honestly. How do I spend my days? There’s a lot of different things going. Sometimes I’m working on recordings. Sometimes it’s stuff like this. Sometimes, uh, honestly, it’s just a couple hours of email. Um, I, I try to clean out. I have like a text message thing.

People can text me and there’s like thousands of, you know, unread messages in there. So I’m always going in there trying to clean out that [00:01:00] inbox. Um, yeah. But also at these days, I’m, uh, we’re mixing the new records.

The Reality of Being an Artist Today
Dan: So, uh, a lot of listening, , you know, and then like, man, I feel like if you applied, like with a resume for the job of an artist today, 60 percent of your job description would just be like, um, content creation, which is, uh, Mm hmm.

Glen Erickson: you seen the meme going around with the Seinfeld clip about like CEO right now realizing they have to become a content creator and

Dan: Everyone. Yeah. Like it doesn’t matter. Like, you know, you can’t market an idea unless the person at the top is a good storyteller, you know? Um, yeah, it’s like this weird thing where we, we banished the gatekeepers. We no longer need the magazines and the meat like print media to tell us what’s good. No, the reviews don’t mean anything anymore.

And so what that means is that to cut through the fray, [00:02:00] You have to kind of have some kind of viral visual audio visual thing happening. And so, uh, everybody has their own marketing. It’s like, like even if you hire a really great marketing agency now or something, they’re just going to be like, okay, well, you know, here’s how we’re going to tell your story.

And you, you sign with a record label. And the only reason any label would sign anyone now is if they are really good at social media. And, um, It’s so it’s like you sign with them and they’re like, okay, yeah, we’re going to dump some money on your social media account and, you know, turn it all into paid ads.

But like the creator, the person is still, they’re the ones who have to come up with all this, you know, inane daily ways of engaging their audience. And, um, so nobody really has any good idea, any ideas anymore.

The Evolution of Social Media and Content Creation
Glen Erickson: well, and I think in this day and age, people might be more surprised to hear you say that you’re still at this point in your career counting the merch more so than being surprised that you are, you [00:03:00] know, 60 percent content creator in your, in your role. We’re so used to it. I’m wondering what your thoughts are like, you know, five years ago, maybe just before the pandemic.

I mean, that was a pretty common rhetoric. Still, if you were talking to industry people, right, that they were just starting to look at even long before that people’s social counts and, and making decisions based on that. But I mean, that world has changed so significantly, even over the last five years that we’re using this term content creator, like content becoming a pejorative essentially for

Dan: Uh huh.

Yeah, I mean, I think I resisted it for a while. Many artists of my generation did because they’re like, this isn’t what I signed up to do. This is not, you know, um, I cut my teeth touring and making records and, you know, You know, all of a sudden I have to spend all my days like, you know, in front of a ring light, trying to figure out what the best angle [00:04:00] is to make this guitar look cool or something.

And, um, you know, I, I eventually, uh, I resisted, I resisted, I resisted. There was a moment where I was like, okay, if I want a career in the new ecosystem, I have to play ball. Like I have to be a part of, Socials. And, um, it was like a decided thing. Like, you could probably scroll back on my feed far enough back and see, like, there was years where I never even posted a picture of myself.

Like, Instagram was like, you, you would post the things that you see. It was your perspective. That’s what Instagram was for.

Glen Erickson: yeah,

Dan: And then eventually some people were doing selfies and that was like kind of cringy. Like, Ooh, you put a picture of yourself on your Instagram feed and then it fully flips and now it’s just, you’re so now you’re supposed to go on tour and have someone follow you around just videoing you being cool.

And then like post that, you know, it’s like this weird, it’s completely shifted,

Glen Erickson: yeah,[00:05:00]

Dan: but I, but I, but I really had to play, I had to play ball in whatever fashion. I mean,

Early Career Struggles and Breakthroughs
Glen Erickson: me, because, um, I think when I was taking a look at this and preparing to talk to you, I was realizing, you know, the length of your career and some of the things I’ve seen, there’s just a few things that, you know, there’s a thread that goes through so many of your things.

And I think what I’m really interested in talking as much as we can in the time we have to. pick apart some of those threads. I think,

Dan: Um, Mm hmm.

Glen Erickson: when it, what it took [00:06:00] to jump off and do this full time and become an artist. And maybe I, I recollect that because I’ve got a longer history with you,

Dan: Mm

Glen Erickson: you

Dan: hmm.

Glen Erickson: transparency, we could probably

Dan: Oh, my pleasure. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Glen Erickson: needed you to be the first person I talked to because when I thought of this whole

Dan: Yeah, we

Glen Erickson: the very beginning, but pretty close to it. And

Dan: time [00:07:00] ago.

The Journey to Success
Glen Erickson: record in the fall of 2007 and not typically it’s, you know, your first release, it’s very local centric only, but I was doing all this work cause I so desperately had to succeed on CBC radio three, who are the curate, the curators of indie.

And that’s all I wanted. Right. I want

Dan: At Grant Lawrence R 330, man, that was it,

Glen Erickson: percent that community, the 650 people that would come on and chat. While,

Dan: every day,

Glen Erickson: was live every day. And, um, and so in January, they put out the ones to watch list and we were on that list and you were also on that list. And I think you had just put out, uh, robots on the EP,

Dan: hmm.

Glen Erickson: um, around that time.

And obviously that caught fire on radio three and [00:08:00] had a lot of success, but, it got my attention and I know that. Soon after we crossed paths at some places. Um, probably most famously, um, was breakout West in Brandon, Manitoba. we were there and we had two gigs on the same night, which was a big deal then.

’cause now they had two gigs out to everybody, but they didn’t back then. So were feeling, you know, pretty. Plumed and, um, but in between the gigs we were going, we made a point of stopping the van at your gig and

Dan: Mm.

Glen Erickson: near the end of the set. And, uh, I don’t know if you probably don’t remember, but I, and my bandmate ran up on stage and started singing robots with you, like, the arrogant assholes that we were.

So, um,

Dan: That’s great. I’m glad.

Glen Erickson: yeah. Okay, good. Uh, I’ve kind of inserted myself in your storyline along the way, it seems sometimes. But, I [00:09:00] think what I wanted to do today, cause I see so many threads and I’m going to try not to jump around too much, but I’m a, I’m such a sidebar rabbit hole person, uh, it’s going to inevitably happen.

So I apologize, but I did, if you can believe this, I actually charted out your album career so I could, cause I’m a visual thinker.

Dan: Mm. Yeah.

Glen Erickson: to this is, where the strings go through things is, and I named it peaks and valleys. So, which, you know, apropos for your song title, but, what I kind of did and, and I didn’t do this to be mean, but I literally started to draw a line underneath the chart of your timeline

Dan: hmm.

Glen Erickson: My public, because I think I share the perception of the public for this, not a personal one [00:10:00] on the

Dan: Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Glen Erickson: were going up where I thought maybe they were coming down they were going back up

Dan: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: I think I’m interested on what your perspective is. And the reason I am down is because nobody actually knows what the hell’s going on, right? Like,

Dan: Mm hmm.

Glen Erickson: look like a peak and you may have had who knows what going up.

Navigating the Music Industry
Glen Erickson: so the first point of entry I was hoping you could talk about was I saw a trajectory going right from probably around the time file under music picked up your first record, right?

Dan: Mm hmm.

Glen Erickson: 2007. And that kind of led into the momentum towards. Nice, nice, very nice.

Dan: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: to me, looks like it’s going straight up. Like things just keep growing and building. You know, all the way past Old Fortune.

Dan: Yeah, I would say like, cause, cause there were that first record Postcards and Daydreaming was actually [00:11:00] released with different artwork and a slightly different track list in 2006. And then I went on my 2005, sorry. And then spring of 2006, I did my very first tour, which was just BC and Alberta. I booked it all on MySpace, um, like literally like mailing ahead, you know, port, uh, do a Tangs with, with a eight by 10 glossy photo of me and.

Glen Erickson: you had to print out all the maps back then. Before

Dan: Yeah, there was no Google Maps, you had to do, you see, there was MapQuest, so you could go on MapQuest and then print it out, um, but then if you missed your turn, like, you’re screwed,

Glen Erickson: Yeah,

Dan: um, so there was a good long while there where there might have been like an incremental slow incline. But it was slow for, for a couple of years and, you know, 2007.

So this is like a full year and a half after that record was first put out, they picked it up and they said, Hey, let’s give this a proper release with distribution. Um, and I said, great. We gave it a new, a new [00:12:00] cover, took a song off, added a new song, called it the first record. And then from there, I went anywhere that would take me.

I went to Europe. I went to Australia. I went to the States. I booked it large, you know, booked a lot of stuff on my own. I had a little bit of help from various people here and there. Um, I had an early manager for a little while. That relationship didn’t go very well. Um, and there was like a, a real, you know, it was growing in that like I was doing stuff.

I was still broke as hell and I was serving tables and I was just like riding on, I was going deeper and deeper into debt. I’d taken out a line of credit to record that first record that hadn’t been paid back. And um, I had all these new songs for Nice, Nice, Very Nice, but I didn’t really know and have any money and I didn’t have anyone that would pay for it.

Like I would, you know, file into music, we’re like, we’re not going to pay for you to make a record, you know. Um, they were just a tiny little indie label. And so [00:13:00] I, with like, you know, 11, 000 in debt from the first record, I made up a business plan of what I was going to do. And this is before GoFundMe, this is before Kickstarter.

I went to family and friends. Like, you know, I went to like friends of my parents and stuff like that, people who had known me for a long time and I said, look, this is what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to raise this money. Um, and you know, like my bless them. Like my, I think my, my, my mom, my step mom’s like old university pal who’s a lawyer.

Kicked in like a thousand bucks. Like, you know, cause he just, he had, he had seen me play in LA and he, he was like, yeah, I’ll kick in some money on this. And, um, I raised 11, I was like already a 50, maybe 15, 000 bucks in debt or something like that. And I raised 11, 000 to make nice, nice, very nice. And I went out to Toronto and I spent a month sleeping, uh, at a.

Another, you [00:14:00] know, another, I leaned on so many people. I was staying with family, friends in the beach and taking this, the, uh, streetcar all the way across town to Parkdale to create, you know, to record that with John Critchley in Parkdale. it was like a month there, you know, every day, maybe we’d take off like one or like one weekend day or something.

It just seemed like we were there all the time. And, uh, and by that time, like I was sort of do or die. Like I felt like I had these songs. Like particularly like basket and robots and road regrets and sold. Um, I was like these songs, like every time I play them live people, I can see it in their faces.

There’s an exciting thing going on here. Um, and I was terrified. This was like my last try. You know what I mean? It was sort of like, I’d gone so deeply in debt on both things. Now I’m in debt to all these like people in my life.

The Challenges of Sustaining a Music Career
Dan: And I do remember having this like tenacious, audacious, and like kind of just naive optimism that I, [00:15:00] I was just going to do it like this is the only thing.

And, and I kind of remember I was made, I had like a store on my website. I made my own PayPal widget. I was going to the post office every week and mailing off like five to 15 CDs that were selling on my own website directly to me. Um, there was like, I was, I, I ended up at Grant Lawrence’s party, Christmas party, said the whale were playing there.

And Tyler from said, the whale says to grant, like, you should let Dan play, like give him a guitar. I didn’t, you know, I was just attending. I was just like hanging out. And, um, Grant’s like, nah, I don’t know.

We don’t need a singer songwriter now. Like let’s crank the ACDC kind of thing. And Tyler’s like, no, let Dan play. And, uh, so I played robots, brought the house down. Everybody’s singing. Grant Lawrence is looking at me like, who the fuck are you? And, um, And I, you know, kind of got in his head with that song and him right away.

He was like, do you have that song recorded? I’ll put it on the podcast. And I was like, no, I don’t have it recorded yet. I had to live with a crappy demo. [00:16:00] And he’s like, okay, let me know when it’s ready. And, um, so when we put that out, um, we had a publicist, uh, Ken Beattie. Uh, I remember going for a beer with him being like, let’s do this.

Glen Erickson: had the

Dan: Um,

Glen Erickson: Great man. Great man.

Dan: guy. He’s done so much great Canadian music. It’s unbelievable. Um, and, uh, we put out robots on an EP robot hearing EP is what it was called. I have five songs on it and, uh, it went right to number one on the, on, because you know, Grant had, I’d already like sort of fused my way into grants. And he was the tastemaker.

Like if you could get on grants podcast, then you’re going to be up, you’re going to be played right alongside black mountain and, you know, Chad Van Galen and, and feist and broken social scene and Sam Roberts and like all of those sort of people who are just crushing it, Joel Plaskett in the mid aughts.

and so that was like a big, big deal. And then I was up for the verge award that September. [00:17:00] Um, nice, nice, very nice to just come out and I was just like relentless. I was like emailing everyone on my newsletter, like, please vote for me for the verge award. Please vote for me for the verge award.

and basically like a couple of days before the virtual workers in Toronto, um, Jeff leak who ran the, he’s like, so you’re going to be here at the, at the awards in Toronto. And I was like, no, no, no, man, I can’t, I can’t afford to come up there. And he’s like, I think you should be here. I think you’re doing better on the voting than you think you are.

And I was like, Okay. So, you know, I scraped together a flight to Toronto, I get to Toronto. I won 25, 000 bucks for the verge award artist of the year. Yeah.

Glen Erickson: am I right in that you bought a Ford flex?

Dan: I bought a Ford flex and I named it Virginia because it was bought by the verge award. Yeah.

Glen Erickson: I did remember

Dan: And I took that thing back and forth. So it was just like, everything was happening, but honestly, like all of the lead up to that moment, there was. So much pushing the boulder up the hill and feeling like you’re getting nowhere.

I got a [00:18:00] thousand no’s. I, I emailed nice, nice, very nice to like the whole album, to every agent in Canada, like literally every agent. Like I went on every agent website and I found the email address of every agent at every agency that I could find and think of one person got back to me. So I worked with that one person.

Um, And he was like a junior agent. He didn’t, he had one other band that he worked with. And, uh, he was my agent for a couple of years. Um, so it was just like, it was like, everything was just like, I did not get the front entrance, you know, no, like I did not get discovered. Uh, you could say grant, you know, helped in a, in a big way, but like, I didn’t get a big record deal.

It was like, I went back and forth across Canada playing to five people, 10 people, 20 people, 50 people, a hundred people over and over and over again. And then eventually when that record hit. And robots was, you know, crushing it and then the verge award. And then I got signed to arts and crafts and it was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Then over the span of like [00:19:00] six months, it went from playing to a hundred people to playing to a thousand people. It was just like, wham. And every time I would show up in Edmonton or Calgary or anywhere, I would, my face would be looking at me from the, you know, arts weekly in the, in the, at the coffee shop.

And it got to the point where I was like doing so many interviews every day that like, I would forget which journalist was which article. And it was like, there came a point where I just stopped reading the articles anymore because there were so many of them. And it realized that like, I was getting the benefit of the doubt in a very, very real way.

My CD was the top pot on the pile on their music editor’s desk. They’d heard my name mentioned. They were like, okay, we might as well talk about this guy. Um, and so when you’re talking about that trajectory, it was like a hockey stick. It was like, wham, but there was so much lead up before then of just nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, where you’re just trudging through the mud.

 

Reflections and Lessons Learned
Glen Erickson: well, I mean, that’s where maybe that’s why I’ve always [00:20:00] felt, this like personal set of kinship. because again, not just the timing of the band that I was in at the time, and a couple of those things, but similarly, I like hounded Grant Lawrence. we had like a men’s rec league hockey team of like beer league hockey players.

Which he was really into and there’s a tournament exclaim put on in Toronto. So we, uh, we had just gotten our first single on radio three and I got the guys to scrape together money to go and play the tournament in Toronto, just so I could run into Grant Lawrence there. And.

Dan: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: And I convinced him to play a second single, which they normally didn’t do for people at the time. And even in 2009, when Ken Beattie hated me for this, but, um, I, I went to Vancouver to pick up our CDs that were printed in Vancouver and see my parents who were in the lower mainland. And I decided to take a CD and make an [00:21:00] appointment and go and see Grant Lawrence live on the air. And this was. two months before the actual release of the CD, to which Ken Beattie was very upset.

But, so that relentlessness I totally get and relate to. You know, the story of my band was within three and a half years after that, we got to a point where we had to have the talk about How do we keep going? Should we keep going? Do people really give a shit? And I, I’ll never forget to this day sitting around a pizza place before a gig.

That was kind of one of those soul sucking gigs and having a hard conversation and realizing like, A couple of the guys sitting across from me had lost their hope. And I think that’s one of the things you’re talking about. I’m,

Dan: Yeah, that’s it. That does.

Glen Erickson: like, yeah, when you pull that back out of yourself, what, what was the thing[00:22:00]

Dan: So I, I,

Glen Erickson: hockey stick turned up?

Yeah,

Dan: yeah, I had a, I had a band in high school called basement suite. And my best friend, Simon was the guitar player in that band. And he played lead guitar on my first record. And there was a moment where I’m like, okay, let’s do this. Like in my mind, I’m like, we’re going to be cold play, you know? And, uh, he was like, uh, Dan, nobody cares about this as much as you do.

Like, He was like, I got plants. He’s like, I’m going to go to school. I don’t, I’m going to go do poli sci. I’m not interested in trying to, you know, have a fantasy being a rock band. And he’s like, I love music. I love playing it, but that’s just not me. And I was, I took it really personally. And, um, you know, at the time, Jerry Maguire was, uh, was kind of like, uh, uh, still really in the zeitgeist.

And there’s this moment there’s a moment in Jerry Maguire where she, she goes, I thought I was in love enough for the both of us. And, uh, and I, that’s how I felt with him. He’s like, I, I felt like I was so excited about making a [00:23:00] go of it in music that I, my enthusiasm could make up for his detriment that I was so enthusiastic that, uh, it didn’t matter.

Like I could pull him along and then realizing, Oh shit. No, actually, uh, he’s out. And I’m the only one that can do this. That was, it was a really hard moment, but it was a really important moment because I realized that no one else was going to do this for me. And still to this day, like, even if you have Coldplay’s manager on your side.

He can make a couple big phone calls for you and maybe he can get you a couple support slots with other, you know, bands that his friends manage or whatever. I don’t know, but he cannot make your career. Like it’s only you. It’s really, it all hangs on you. If you’re Billie Eilish or whoever, like it’s all you, it’s like 99 percent you.

any, like anything in this world, the hardest thing to do in this world is an effort. That would die if you just stopped doing it, you know, if you, if you’re like a sales rep for Microsoft, [00:24:00] if you quit, Microsoft keeps going, you know, but you are the chairman, the CEO, and like the artistic director of the Wheat Pool or Dan Mangan, like, if I just decide to go, I’m not into this, literally that day it dies, it’s over, there’s nothing more.

Glen Erickson: in the world right now, maybe you agree, are telling you that that’s the reason you should stop, Like, I hear that rhetoric a lot, except, except in the music community or the arts community where we hold these dreams so sacred, right?

Dan: think, I think two things, I think one, everybody should have music in their life on some level. You know, whether you love it or you play it or what it’s good for your brain, it’s good for your mental state, it’s good for everything, or if not music, some other creative outlet painting or dance or, you know, writing or whatever, like everybody needs something creative in their life.

There’s, I think that that that’s, but not everybody needs to do this professionally. This is, and in fact, I think you [00:25:00] should quit unless you can’t. Because it’s like, unless you actually realistically think that you will not make it, unless you, unless you do it, that’s how I felt. I felt like there was no, I hadn’t, I could not imagine getting a day job and like working in a cubicle somewhere.

That to me was death. That was worse than death. And so I was just like, Willing to do absolutely anything to make it work. And then what I figured out, you know, in a roundabout way was that that doing absolutely anything to make it work is the same thing as you would be doing in a cubicle. I had to like, you know, the art is separate from the business.

There are two different things, but when it comes, when it comes to the business, you have to treat it like a job. If you want this to be your job, if you want to be a full time musician, then you have to treat. being a musician like a job, not the music, not the writing and the recording of it, not the performing of it, but literally everything else has to be treated like a job.

If you started up a coffee shop, you’d be there [00:26:00] 18 hours a day for the first two years. You’d figure out, you know, where are you getting your baked goods from? Where are you supplying? You’re sourcing your coffee from, what are the chairs feel like? What is the font on the sandwich board? How are you going to get people in there?

How are you going to get them coming back? How are you going to make it feel cozy and community driven in there? Or whatever. So all of those things you would do for your coffee shop, you have to do that for your band. I had no money, so, you know, I needed photos done. I remember like literally like setting up like.

Like timers on a like a crappy early digital camera on a thing and like posing for it and looking at me like, oh, it’s so stupid. And then I would, you know, I didn’t know how to make a website. I couldn’t afford to hire someone to make a website. So I, like, learned early HTML and I made myself a crappy website.

And then I was like, oh, it’s actually not that hard. And I. Figured out how to put a PayPal widget in there and I had a little store going and stuff. And, you know, most things aren’t that hard if you just apply yourself to it and you get over the imposter syndrome of feeling like, oh, that’s not what I’m, I’m not a web designer.

I don’t know how to do that. [00:27:00] I didn’t know how to use Photoshop, but I learned how to use Photoshop so that I could make myself a one sheet to print off and send around. I just had nobody else that could do it. And. I couldn’t afford to pay anyone to do it. So I just figured it all out myself. So in, in the weird roundabout way, I didn’t want to have a job.

And then I ended up having a job that was 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You know, my, my ongoing joke is, uh, every day of my life is Saturday, but I work Saturdays. And that’s, you know, that’s how it’s felt ever since, you know, and I, and I still feel that way. And I know we have, we have, you know, you probably have a thing you want to get into with the timeline and the ups and downs and stuff, but to this day, I still feel like I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.

And I’m just skimming along being, you know, thankful for whatever has, has happened and just wanting so much more.

Glen Erickson: Yeah. No, that’s good. Like, fuck the timeline. I don’t care about that. But, I’m more interested in, in that part because I think this thread, I think Runs [00:28:00] through everything. I think a lot of people would be very surprised that you still feel that way. You don’t

Dan: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Glen Erickson: is what are the shifts that have. you the most because I think in everything we do, right, we work hard because what you just described is, I loved and I wanted what I wanted so bad. I was willing to do all the other work to make it happen, you know, and, um, I think some people wrestle with, know, what if I don’t, maybe they question whether they have the scrappiness more than they question whether they have the chops as an, as an artist and what are the things that have [00:29:00] happened in your career that might have taken that down a notch?

What are the changes that are. occurred again, if I was talking timeline, know, it looked like you went on a straight incline up to club meds and then

Dan: Mm-Hmm.

Glen Erickson: you didn’t, you know, you got the critical acclaim. You didn’t get the same,

Dan: Well, sort of,

Glen Erickson: acclaim. Well, sort of,

Dan: yeah.

Glen Erickson: I mean, there was

Dan: I,

Glen Erickson: there.

I mean, the way you’ve put it before, you could tell me if

Dan: Mm-Hmm.

Glen Erickson: accurate. Um, The expectations that you had didn’t roll

Dan: me.

Glen Erickson: that, that, that takes a piece out of you.

Dan: Oh, yeah.

Glen Erickson: what, what places along the timeline have, have had these things take a piece out

Dan: Yeah. Okay. So, you know, nice, nice. Very nice. Sort of gives me a career and then there’s all this pressure to deliver with the next one, which was a fortune. and. That record was, I feel like more artistically daring than Nice, Nice, Very Nice. And it did great. Won some Juno [00:30:00] awards. Uh, it’s sort of like solidified.

A bunch of the hype prior that was still kind of like foggy and smoky, and it made it into something solid, you know, like a nice, nice, very nice. We were sort of like getting those side stages at festivals. And then for a fortune, it was like, okay, now we’re getting the main stage. And if it’s a smaller festival, we’re going to headline the main stage.

And if it’s a big festival, we’ll go, you know, Second last or third last before metric or whatever. And, um, so it sort of solidified us as like a live band and it’s solidified at me as a songwriter in a certain particular kind of way. Then I had kids and I was so burnt out. I’ve been playing like 200 shows a year.

And I said to my manager, Kieran, I was like, I think I need a break from this. Like I need to hunker down and we’re going to have a kid. And I want to be, uh, you know, hands on dad, I want to be around. So, you know, maybe we take a break from touring for a little bit and, you know, find some other, so I, I did some work doing some scoring and stuff like that.

Stuff that I could do without [00:31:00] being away. I wanted to be home. And then a couple of years passes and I’m like, I, and I, I, I’m the first to admit, I had taken it for granted. I said before, like I was getting the benefit of the doubt. And I was like a person that the name was flying around the Canadian music scene enough that it was sort of like You know, it was just like, Oh yeah, that guy.

Sure. And then, uh, I kind of went away for a couple of years and I dipped my head back in the sand, had kids focused on, you know, being a dad. And I remember feeling like I could turn the faucet back on if I wanted to and get that familiar feeling of, yeah, everything’s going my way. And I remember the, the metaphor of turning back the faucet and it was just like drip, drip and saying to my manager, okay, like, let’s go full guns of blazing.

And, uh, they were like, okay, well, you need to make another record. We made club meds. Now I killed myself for that record. It was like, Six, seven months of just day in day out pain and, and, you know, [00:32:00] glory and glee and, but it was this like dystopian opus and I felt like nice, nice, very nice was my, you know, simple folk record.

Oh, fortune was my expansive orchestral record. This was my, this was the one, like this was my okay computer. This was my, you know, I was going to go deep. And we were going to be daring and the record is complicated and full of polyrhythm and it’s dark and it’s like a dystopian kind of narrative of things that I foresaw on the wall.

Uh, it turns out in many ways I was sort of, um, seeing much of what was to come. And, uh, and I thought that when that record came out, you know, I’d be going on tour with Radiohead and we were going to be, you know, the, the biggest. coolest thing. Um, we got a handful of amazing reviews. Um, and we made a mistake of saying in an interview with exclaim that we were not going to play robots on the [00:33:00] tour.

Uh, because I was like, you know, in my sort of arrogant, State of mind. I was like, I’m over that. We’re done with that song. and it tanks the tour, the ticket sales of that tour. Now this is back when print media really kind of still meant something.

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Dan: And, uh, and I think that, you know, truthfully the band I had at the time was very intense.

We were an extremely intense ensemble vibe wise, music wise, the shows were great, but I think we were pretty cocky and pretty, um, a little, a little arrogant. Uh, about, you know, just thinking that we were, we were awesome. And, I think that that energy didn’t really help us in that time. And the record, just didn’t really go anywhere.

And, you know, the industry, it was sort of like a flop. Also, we changed the name to Dan Mangan and blacksmith, and that was like a whole new thing. And now we’re marketing a brand new project instead of like continuing. It was, it was just complicated in many ways. And. There was a couple of [00:34:00] really tough tours, Canadian tour, European tour, that was really hard.

And then, uh, the band kind of imploded. And I was like, am I done? That’s it? Oh, and then the other thing, you know, was I felt like I had gotten increasingly more artistically daring along the way. And as I did that, the sort of cred community, the cool community in Canada, which is, you know, the Polaris Music Award had gotten less and less interested in me.

So, you know, short list for Nice Nice Very Nice, long list for Oh Fortune, snubbed entirely for Club Meds, and I took it as like, so personally, and I realized how deeply I needed that affirmation at the time. I was just like, I wanted so badly to be included at the table with the cool kids. Um, And after that record came out, 2015 came out early 2015, 2015 was the hardest year of my 41 years on this planet in so many ways, just gut punch after gut [00:35:00] punch after gut punch.

And I really wasn’t sure about, you know, whether or not I had a future in music. I was sort of like this. Maybe I’m done. Maybe I go get a real job. I didn’t really have a lot of songs in the can. Uh, I was, I needed money, you know, I was sort of like, Hey, I got to figure out how we’re going to make this work.

And I did some small regional touring and it was just humbling in every way. And I was no longer what the industry thought was cool, you know, back in. 2009. This was like pre Mumford and Sons, you know, and it was just on the rise, the sort of like folk revival thing. And then Mumford and Sons had sort of, you know, kind of taken that folk thing and made it arena rock.

And it was no longer a gritty underground kind of thing anymore. And now we’d moved on to Lorde and now we’d moved on to, you know, kind of like A lot of young female synth, synth pop and like the gravelly voice, you know, older white guy with kids was no longer [00:36:00] like what was cool. And rightfully so. I mean, white guys with guitars have been getting the benefit of the doubt for

Glen Erickson: Yeah,

Dan: years.

So maybe it’s, maybe it’s okay. Like maybe it was time for the pendulum to swing another way, but it was

Glen Erickson: things

Dan: deeply troubled.

Glen Erickson: question. Let me ask you this one, Dan. okay, you said two things that were of point of interest to me. Like, so you’ve been sitting there, you said you’re sitting at home asking these questions. firstborn is. within their first year or about a year old by that point.

Dan: Uh, by then, by then they’re like two, two and a half.

Glen Erickson: Okay. So, I mean, I fully understand what that looks like. I’m wondering what were the things that you were really starting to put your anchor on? I, I think two things, like you’re like, what, you’re like 31, 32 by that point. Um, that’s like a pretty big shift. you have a young child. [00:37:00] You’re, you’re not a go to the office person.

So you’re at home when you’re not out doing all these things. trying to figure out what that like, which is extremely challenging, asking some pretty deep questions about, like, where are the things you, maybe I’m making an assumption. You can clarify where am I going to hang my hat

Dan: Mm hmm.

Glen Erickson: validation of the cool kids or what did I get in? To this perhaps in the first place for,

Dan: Mm hmm.

Glen Erickson: and maybe, you know, that tension between asking your or having the luxury to ask yourself, like, what kind of art do I want to make versus how do I to earn a living for my family that I now have? I’m wondering what that was like. What were you going through?

Dan: And like every Rick Rubin type will be like, just make what pleases you as the artist. That’s the thing. And you know, like, you know, don’t worry about trying to reverse engineer something for the radio. The, you know, the radio won’t care. Just do what you do and it will find the right people. And I’d [00:38:00] sort of been doing that.

And my, the signal I was getting from the industry was the more you trust your gut and go down your own artistic. rabbit holes, the less we care. And I was, you know, it was, it was hard feedback to get. but I remember my dad saying to me at one point that, uh, you know, it’s hard to believe now, but one day you’ll be happy this happened.

And at the time I was like, you know, that means nothing to me. Screw you. Um, but he was completely right because I did have to really go and ask myself those hard questions. Why am I doing this? Am I doing this? So pitchfork will write about it. Am I doing this? Cause I want to be famous. Um, am I doing this because it’s like of all the jobs you could have, it’s the coolest, you know, um, and coming out of that and realizing like, what is the thing that actually gets me off, you know, and realizing it’s connection.

It’s like being in a room full of people and feeling like we’re all in the same wavelength and we’re all tapping into something real. Something meaningful and you [00:39:00] know, like, you know, if you’re at a party and you’re floating around, you’re kind of larger than life and you’re kind of playing it up or whatever, like, you know, if you’re being yourself internally, there’s like a switch that you can turn on and off of like when, you know, you’re being your earnest, genuine self and when you’re not and um, and I just always wanted to be on the genuine side of that.

I just like, I wanted music to, to be truthful. I wanted, I wanted music that would unlock certain hidden truths about me. Yeah. And put that out on the table and say, this is how I feel. And then when, when people, when any of us, when we see something real on the table, we all go, Oh, okay, thank God, something real.

And then we, you know, we appreciate it.

The Power of Authenticity
Dan: And in the articulation of sort of sending that signal and receiving those signals, it makes us all feel less alone. And feeling less alone makes us feel like the pros of cons are, you know, outweigh the pros of living outweigh the cons and that we’re here You know, for this fleeting moment, um, maybe [00:40:00] we can make this fleeting moment easier and more beautiful for each other.

And, and kind of coming around to that and being like, well, that is what I want. That’s the feeling. Cause the truth is anytime I did get, uh, you know, feedback from the world that was like, Dan, you’re cool. First of all, I didn’t believe it. I was like, well, no, clearly, if you think that you’re not cool and then the second thing is that if you do start believing it, then you’re living up to that.

Like, then you’re trying to, like, continue to be cool or like change. It’s like, it’s like you’re acting like there’s a camera on you. So you’re like, kind of pretending to be yourself or something like that. Um, yeah.

The Struggle with Self-Worth
Dan: And the worst thing that could happen is that if you feel like you’re not being genuine to yourself, if you’re sort of playing a character or you’re, you’re sort of faking it, and let’s say you’re on stage and let’s say it’s working, let’s say there’s an arena full of people that paid to come see you and you’re on stage and you feel like 20 percent of a fraud.

Like you’re kind of pretending and the feedback you’re getting from [00:41:00] the people in front of you. It’s like yay And they’re screaming and they’re so excited You’re gonna look at them and you’re like you guys are idiots because you believe me and I know that I’m not being real right now That’s the worst case scenario is that you’re not genuine.

You’re not honest and it works Because then you’re getting the feedback from the world that like, oh, yeah, I keep doing this thing that makes you feel like shit And so, you know, I think that just leaning into gratitude, leaning into, you know, how special it can be to be in the moment in a dimly lit room with other human beings, and doesn’t really matter if it’s 20 of them or 20, 000, you know, like I’ve had gigs.

To 35, 000 people that were less fulfilling than gigs to 200 people, you know, in a spiritual kind of way. And so, um, you know, what are we in this for? What are, what are we after?

Finding Fulfillment in Music
Dan: And, um, kind of honing in on that, [00:42:00] because the thing is, like, you put all this stuff into the zeitgeist, you write these songs. I know when I’ve written a great song.

And. They don’t, they’re not always the ones that get picked up by the world. And so if you’re like accounting your, or if you’re like sort of certifying your own self worth by what the feedback coming back to you is, you’re going to be screwed because there’s going to be this like cognitive dissonance.

Whereas if you can actually, you know, Wes from the, uh, from the Lumineers, he put it this way. He said, you have to keep your own score. You know, you have to like, you know, Keep your own score, know when you are on track, know when you’re doing the right thing, and, because you can’t control the other stuff, you can control you, but you can’t control the zeitgeist stuff, like whether you get lucky again, like, you know, that nice, nice, very nice era, I got really lucky, and, um, it’s not that the music Was bad or that I wasn’t didn’t not deserving or something like that.

It’s just that you have to be [00:43:00] deserving. The music has to be good and you have to get lucky. There’s so many bands that are amazing. So many, honestly, so many people I see who are way like more technically talented than I am, like people who can sing way better than I can. People who can play an instrument so much better than I can, but, but they can’t be me and I can’t be them.

Embracing Vulnerability
Dan: So what is me? Like, what’s the thing that I’m good at and, and what, you know, when I get feedback from somebody after a show and they’re in tears and they give me a big hug and they tell me a story about what a song meant, you know, at a certain time in their life that was really hard. And that’s like, that is so.

Life juice, you know, that is like soul affirming in a particular kind of way that is so much more meaningful than like pitchfork gave you a good review. You know,

Glen Erickson: this is exactly one of the strings that I’ve been looking at, uh, with you. And when I, when I think about all of this, The [00:44:00] authenticity part. Well, let me just put it this way. Like the way you were just talking about that and finding out who you are and seeing how people respond. I took a look. Well, there’s 2 things that interest me. 1 thread that goes through when I look at your career. There was this 1 part that I called niche. Which I think a lot of artists think they have to create some version of a niche, right, to get noticed, to stand out, whatever it is. So a thing that you were known for, and you’ve already identified it, was robots. And you were known for a long time past that album’s cycle for it being the anchor to your live show, for the antics. I’ve been in a half dozen Dan Mangan shows in the early days where you stood on tables and you stepped on people’s glasses and, and But you had everybody Dialed in exactly where you were and I think as an artist what you’re saying like there is nothing more [00:45:00] sacred or more hundred percent than feeling like everybody in this room is exactly where I am. It’s the same feeling when you leave the movie. With a whole room of strangers and you’re like, we’re all feeling the exact same thing. It’s the same thing. you had a post like three or four days ago, sort of comparing your upbringing in church, the, the reasons you left it, but then the things that you you loved that somehow, again, tie a string to now you still seek and you still, Have found a place where you’ve realized that there’s some truth in some of these experiences with people in communities, getting rid of the bullshit to be able to make it happen.

Rediscovering ‘Robots’
Glen Erickson: guess the string that I also see is like, you chose to stop playing robots for a while and then, then you had a moment where I read the article where you had talked about the tragically [00:46:00] hip final shows kind of gave you this illumination of, uh, they didn’t play my songs. And then you as an artist were like, I should probably be playing robots, but, but beyond that, the thread I see is you, you brought the, uh, so much for everyone this new anchor to your show, which became a sing along, which really is a callback to what really started your niche. And I feel like so much for everyone is. So much more powerful, so much more engaging for people. I still get shivers sometimes if I see the reels of it. I’m wondering what was that part of you deciding to bring that back in the way that you brought it back into,

Dan: Yeah,

Glen Erickson: and connecting with people?

Dan: I think when I, when I was really just starting out like an East Van playing open mics and stuff there, there was a big, um, Like slam poetry [00:47:00] scene, and there was a bunch of bands around town and like, kind of like blurring music and poetry.

Glen Erickson: came out of?

Dan: Yeah, yeah, for sure. He, yeah, Shane Koyczan and the Fugitives, and that’s where I met my friend Mark Berube, and um, antics was a big thing.

Like they would do these crazy things at their shows, this kind of, it would turn it into a bit of a circus, a carnival, where they would be like kind of commanding the room in a really powerful way. And I remember kind of watching that and being like, wow, it’s interesting. Like, they’re really blurring the lines of the stage and the pedestal and sort of like.

You know, causing a ruckus. And so robots had this big sing along thing. And there’s almost nothing more embarrassing than trying to get people to sing along to something and it doesn’t go very well, you know, and they kind of get like wisps of it, but it’s not really working. And so I learned. That if I was going to get people on board, I had to be a thousand percent committed to [00:48:00] making it happen.

And sometimes that meant stepping on tables, sometimes that meant walking along the bar, getting them singing, crowd surfing, you know, reaching down, grabbing a pint glass and pouring myself a beer in front of the bartenders who were like, Oh, what are you doing? You know, and like slamming a beer and then.

Crowdsurfing back to the stage or whatever, like I was willing to be so larger than life. And in those formative years, it was very authentic. I was like, let’s go, let’s do it. Let’s live. And then what happened is that that became such an expected part of the show that it had sort of outlived its initial.

Excitement or surprise and people started to expect it and if I was feeling kind of low with that day or whatever, it was hard to muster that kind of energy and then you start to feel like a monkey on an organ grinder or something, you know, you’re sort of just like, oh, I’m just going to go through the motions and and that disconnect earlier.

I was talking about that cognitive dissonance [00:49:00] that disconnect from between the authentic self and the sort of like, you know what you’re putting out there that really hurt me and I was like, I don’t want to do that anymore. And so I pulled out and I stopped playing that song and then I realized, you know, somebody paid whatever, between 20 and 50 bucks to come to the show, plus babysitter, maybe plus dinner, plus parking, and they have been looking forward to the show for months.

Maybe they only know two songs. And I’m not going to play one of those two songs that they know

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Dan: probably not going to come to another show after that

Glen Erickson: heh.

Dan: realizing that like, and I remember going to see like Ryan Adams and he didn’t play any of the songs I wanted him to play went and saw Bon Iver years ago, you know, in his more recent, uh, incarnations, um, and he played skinny love and people freaked out and I was thinking like, yeah, like, yeah, He would get slaughtered if he didn’t play Skinny Love, you know?

Um, [00:50:00] and I, I just, you know, and Grant Lawrence says it all the time, play the hits, play the hits, play the hits. Um, and kind of getting over myself and realizing as a spectator, I wanted the bands to play the hits too. Like, you know, you go see Ron Sexsmith and he doesn’t play Secret Heart. You know, like, What the hell, Ron?

Um, so I, I, I kind of got over myself a little bit and, um, and found a way to bring it back that still felt authentic. And that was important. And it happened by accident. We were at the Peterborough Folk Festival and the band before us went long. And so our set got squeezed and they were like, sorry, city ordinance, we have to turn off the PA and we didn’t get to play any, you know, our set got short and it was just me and Gord Grdina.

We played a duo set. And I was like, screw it. Let’s just go out in the field and we’ll, we’ll get everyone to surround us and we’ll just do a campfire thing. And I, that was the first night we played, I played robots in a couple of years. And I just, cause I was like, if there was ever a time to play robots, it’s now.

And I’m looking around and [00:51:00] people have their kids up on their shoulders and everyone is singing as loud as they can. And I’m looking around at all these glowing, smiling faces and the PAs off. And we kept the gig going in the middle of the field. I’m like, there it is. It’s back like that was the feeling of robots in the initial days was like capturing a thing that was like, Oh, my God, the community, it’s all happening.

And it was like, this is how to do it. So ever since then, you know, I’ve put robots back in the set, but I do it at the end and we do a campfire style. And I because the thing is, like, in the canon of my like, in my body of work, I would rank robots as like the 33rd best song I’ve written. Like it is not, it doesn’t even contend for me.

I think I’ve written so many songs better than that song, but it still means a lot to a lot of people and I need to acknowledge that. And I need to embrace that. And so playing it In the round, in the [00:52:00] crowd, getting everyone to sing the whole song. It sort of gives it back. It says like, this almost doesn’t belong to me anymore.

It belongs to you guys. It belongs to all of us. Um, and that’s a way to do it. That’s it feels good. Did it tonight? I did it, you know, two nights ago and it was awesome.

Glen Erickson: Yeah. You wonder if we like somehow, well, you seem to run into celebrities all the time. So maybe you, not me, but maybe you would run into Neil Diamond and be like, Do you like, is sweet Caroline number 33 for you? Or is

Dan: Yeah. Right. I wonder. Yeah.

Glen Erickson: Is it number one or two? Would you sing a karaoke? Would you but

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s a, that’s a good question. That is a good question. I don’t know.

Glen Erickson: what do you think at this stage? What is it that people connect with you like around? There’s I mean, there’s two things I notice about your songs over the history. I feel like I can almost divide it. In half, it feels like you [00:53:00] have a sharp wit and social commentary, and I feel like you have this incredibly vulnerable.

Evolution of Vocal Style
Glen Erickson: I just wrote this about myself about what happened yesterday, kind of, um, delivery and, and I think combined with how you’ve changed your vocal presentation somewhere halfway through your career, where you kind of, and you can tell me whether it’s definitely a You know, a correct assumption that it’s the kind of the guttural baritone, is just too hard on the voice to have a 20 plus year career.

And all of a

Dan: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: comes out and you’re in, you know, the, the falsettos and the, and the, and the softer whispers of delivery, I’m sure that’s part of it, but it also seemed to go with sort of the song and the songs

Dan: Mm hmm.

Glen Erickson: a new desire and connect people.

Dan: Yeah. I, I mean, part of it is just health. Like I, I, [00:54:00] I ruined myself and it, part of it was just screaming my guts out and part of it was like three Americanos a day and part of, you know, I just like ended up with these really chronic, uh, uh, reflux issues that were really affecting my singing voice and also, um, TMJ like jaw issues and stuff.

And so re approaching how I was singing, it was also timed in. With working with Drew Brown. And I think that, you know, he’s got great taste and he said right out of the gates, he’s like, I don’t want the guttural stuff. Give me, give me the soft stuff. Um, and so I, like almost to please him, I kind of was like, okay, and then working with, you know, vocal coaches and speech pathologists and stuff to figure out my reflex stuff and then re approaching singing with new, you know, technical, um, uh, intention, has allowed me to sing much more quietly and actually get way more resonance and way more tone out of my voice by doing it more [00:55:00] quietly rather than just lacking in tone and trying to make up for it with volume.

but I do think that there’s also a tenderness, you know, um, kind of coming to terms and getting really okay with writing about love. Not a lot of love in my early work, you know, um, there’s stuff to touch upon relationships and stuff, but there’s not a lot of devotion songs in my early work. If you go through it, like those first few records, there’s almost none that you would call like a devotional love song.

Um, I feel like as I get older, I mean, in, in the song peaks and valleys, there’s, there’s the line, see, I just get softer and the world gets colder. and I feel like. Funnily, two things. I feel in some ways so much softer, like so much more ready to cry at like, you know, a film or like, uh, the thought of like, you know, something bad happening to a child or whatever, like, like I’m just way more tender and way more okay with being tender and that okayness with the [00:56:00] tenderness.

is very strong. Like these, like real strength, actual strength, not like alpha bro macho bullshit.

Glen Erickson: Yeah,

Dan: strength comes with being okay with yourself in a tender, gentle, vulnerable state

Glen Erickson: yeah.

Dan: being confident in that vulnerability. That is real strength. That’s the real alpha shit. And I’m so like, like the zeitgeist alpha manosphere or whatever they’re calling it, like is so cringy and it is so clearly like all these douchebags.

Who are overcompensating so hard for an actual lack of a real backbone of a real strident strength within themselves and are trying to make up for it with posturing, um, is is so I mean, it’s so pathetic. It makes men look so deeply pathetic, um, and laughable. Which is sort of the inverse of the whole thing.

But anyways, what I’m [00:57:00] getting at is that I feel stronger now as a more vulnerable person. And I feel, I feel like more, I have more grit in me than ever in that. And that goes hand in hand with my willingness to be tender, to write about love, to talk about love, and to talk about being a dad. You know that actually coming to terms with that was I’ve had, you know, peaks and valleys.

I’ve had two careers. I had like Dan 1. 0, which was like what we’ve been talking about. 2. 0 was post club meds, you know, kind of rounding the track and feeling like, okay, what am I now who I’m no longer this 20 something troubador in the corner of the bar, you know, pummeling people into submission. Um, yeah.

So what am I, if I’m mowing the lawn and emptying the dishwasher and I’m a dad and I have to, but I’m still want to be a musician

Glen Erickson: Yeah,

Dan: and sort of though. So 2. 0 is sort of like post kids, Dan, and you know, I’m. Um, a part of that had to do with like [00:58:00] figuring out how to make it work, like as a business and figure feet trying to like create as, as direct a relationship as I can with the people who might care about my music.

So through email or through like text message subscribers, I’m like, I am deeply in touch with my fan base and I don’t even relate that word like supporter base, I don’t know, whatever listeners, you know, I am, I’m very much. accessible. You want to get, you want to reach out to me, you want to get to me, like, it’s not hard to do.

And, um, and I do my best to get back to people. And so part of it is like, sort of like shoring up that support and trying to make something stable and long term out of it. And the other thing is like artistically digging in to that tenderness and digging into what is real. And the cool thing is, you know, every one of my records has probably had a handful of songs that were really real.

You know, saying something real, saying something that I [00:59:00] can get behind and say that’s a meaningful thing that is saying a truth about existing. And then there’s like some other songs that were pretty good, but like, you know. Not as, not as real. The cool thing is that after, um, you know, I just made my seventh record.

It’s not out yet, but we’re mixing it. I have enough songs that I can do a full two hour set and feel like I mean every word and that that’s taken 20 years of work to harvest. Like that’s a, that’s a long game kind of thing. And I get jealous all the time of young upstart bands exploding online. They know how to do the virality thing.

They know how to be cool in the front of a camera. They know how to get people excited. They’re exploding. And I’m like, Oh my God, I’m so jealous of these young people. And they know how to use the internet. And I have to come back around and say, well, let’s see how they’re doing on their sixth record.

Let’s see how they’re doing on their seventh record. Um, and longevity. Is, is, [01:00:00] um, is something that I, you know, I’m very proud of the fact that I can, I’m making my best music now, like I’m, I, you know, the, this newest record, seventh record is so exciting to me. It is, it blows everything I’ve ever done out of the water.

In my opinion. I like, it’s not even comparable. I feel like that we have reached something, touched something with this record that I’ve always been trying to do. And the fact that that’s happening at 41 is really exciting to me. Now, then I feel terrified for what about after this? Cause I don’t, I don’t think I’ll ever match this record again.

That’s how I honestly, how I feel right now is I feel I’m up at night thinking I’ve just done it. I did the thing I’ve always wanted to do. This is the record I made rumors, you know, like what do we do next? I’m fucked. Like, how am I ever going to live up to this? And it’s not even out yet. Um, Uh, [01:01:00] Uh, Uh, Uh,

Glen Erickson: it’s a. frightening place to be.

The Importance of Kindness
Glen Erickson: I really appreciate the part about vulnerability. I know that for me, more or less came out. all this stuff aside of being like, who’s Dan Mangan going to be now, um, at that stage of your career or whatever, as a fan, as, a dad who had gone through the time of like, yeah, all of a sudden I could cry at a drop of a hat. Um, uh, I cared about vulnerability. I cared about things and it wasn’t a world that seemed like was allowing men. To show that they cared about things. So, I mean, I think cold in the summer to me sort of captured those two sides of you that you could deliver a verse with, [01:02:00] you know, your literary wit of, uh, cul-de-saccharine top up the margarine, like, but the same line to say, you know, I don’t know where the gig is.

I don’t know if I’m cool, know, but I still get lost

Dan: Uh,

Glen Erickson: it. got more to lose, like that’s the delivery of that is so intensely vulnerable.

Dan: That was the crux of that. That whole record, that was the, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know where the gig is. I don’t know if it’s cool, but I still get lost in it and I got more to lose. Those don’t like don’t that you could have like hung that entire record on those four lines in that song. Because that truly was the thesis statement of like, I don’t know what the fuck’s going on.

Yeah. I no longer know who I am or what’s cool, but I know that it still means something to me. And now that I have these kids, I have more to lose. You know?

Glen Erickson: So here’s the last thread, because what that what that looks like to me is saying, well, I asked you the question, what do you think people connect with you around for so long? Because [01:03:00] you’re probably like ultra aware of which people have been with you from the beginning, which people have come through, whether they’re 2.

0 Dan or 1. 0 Dan

Dan: Mhm. Mhm.

Glen Erickson: thoughts are, because, you know, art versus life is You deciding to put yourself on display as a real person, even the sidebar that statement, you allowing yourself to put yourself out there as a real person, not just a performer or these different versions that we see in this industry. I mean, if I had a half an hour, I would just want to go through your videos with you and talk

Dan: Mhm.

Glen Erickson: evolution, you know, because it’s. easy for me to jump at like, uh, call me up high and allowing yourself to dance in your car [01:04:00] like a crazy man. I mean, you

Dan: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: actually, you can answer a curiosity for me really quick.

Like

Dan: Mm hmm.

Glen Erickson: in the car when it’s not moving during the credits and it was your influence, the Muppets, the way you threw your body around

Dan: It’s, it’s, it’s a little, yeah, yeah. It’s a little bit like animal on the drum kit or whatever. Yeah.

Glen Erickson: Muppety, but you,

Dan: Yeah.

Marker
Glen Erickson: yourself. The vulnerability to look silly

Dan: You just have to commit. I mean, you know, and it’s funny because I’ve had people say like, I don’t mean this to be like self Patty on the back, but like I’ve had people say, it’s impressive that you’re willing to be yourself on stage. It’s impressive that you’re willing to be, you know, an earnest version of And to me.

Like, it’s not daring, it is a crutch, like, to me, um, it’s like a superpower, it’s like, it’s like, uh, it’s like playing with the cheat codes on, or something like that. It’s like, if I’m ever unsure of what [01:05:00] to do, oh, just be yourself, like, like, like, like, I want to be the same person on stage that I am off stage, and in doing so, in, in removing any mystique, right, it takes away, because the thing is, like, as soon as you sort of Try and come on stage like a storm and sweep everyone up in the, you know, crazy larger than life spoken smoking mirrors and yeah, and like mystique or something like that.

Then you’re trying the entire time to live up to that. I would way rather come out and be like, Hey, like let’s have the lowest expectations possible. Let’s be a bunch of humans in a room. Uh, and I’m going to trust myself enough that I’m a good songwriter. And I’m a decent performer. And that I’m in when I’m in my own skin.

And when I’m feeling confident like myself, that is going to be the most magnetic version of myself that will hopefully carry us through the next couple of [01:06:00] hours. And it’s, it’s weird because it’s like hard in the long, it’s a long game thing. Like, In the span of your life, that is the hardest thing to do because it takes the most amount of work.

However, if you’ve done that work, it’s the easiest thing to do because it can become your default setting.

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Dan: And, and so like, it’s, for me, it’s not like, uh, Oh God, I, you know, I have to be myself. It’s like, Oh, what a relief, just be myself. Like, and as long as you trust yourself. That you’re true yourself is an interesting person.

And that is the hardest thing. That’s where the work comes in is that every one of us needs to trust that you are interesting. You are a magnetic person that you are special in a, you know, I don’t mean it’s more special than other people, just that you are special when you are in your skin and then you will be the thing that gets you the furthest, but you have to do the hard work of getting there.

Glen Erickson: my wife has always told me is my superpower [01:07:00] and I think choosing to believe her some point along this way rather than the other narratives I can create for myself has been very important. I think I’m going to, I’ll, I’ll tell you this part. Um, I sat up last night thinking about this a little bit, about this string of, of you being yourself, sort of the way that you’ve risen above the peaks and the valleys, to have this version that I think still holds up to the same Dan that I met in 2008 or 9. And it sort of is being illustrated by to me what is interesting and how free you are in social commentary online currently

Dan: Uh, Uh, Uh. Uh, Uh, [01:08:00] Uh. Mm.

Glen Erickson: that you, you know, you still get lost in it, you know, I have more to lose.

That’s a, that’s a sense of hope. Like, that’s glass half full statement. So interestingly, what I did, Dan, was I messaged two friends of mine from different parts of Canada that are big fans of yours. And I said, if you can ask. Dan, one question. would it be? You want to know what their answers were?

Dan: Uh, uh,

Glen Erickson: Rachel. No, I think you do. Uh, shout out to Rachel who said, what is giving you hope as you look forward to

Dan: 2025

Hmm.

Glen Erickson: And then interestingly, shout out to Ariel. What do you do to stay hopeful when everything around us is

Dan: Wow, they both went to the same place. That’s so interesting.

Glen Erickson: other. Yeah.

Dan: That’s so wild.

Finding Hope in Everyday Moments
Dan: [01:09:00] Um, well yesterday I was on the ferry and I was coming back from Tofino and somebody had sent me Uh, I link to Laura Marling’s new record and I’ve met Laura a few times over the years. So by Southwest and stuff, but I don’t really know her well, we had a lot of mutual friends.

I had never listened to her music and I always kind of planned to, it wasn’t like a defiant thing. I just like never did. And so I listened to one song from her new record. I was like, damn, this is really good. And then I went back and I just like, well, okay, I’m just going to listen to this record. And I put on that record.

Glen Erickson: Uh,

Dan: it and the ferries cruising, and there’s this unbelievable sunset. And these two kids, these two stranger kids, I don’t know who they were.

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: that they could stand on. Basically, it’s like a little, I don’t know, like an electrical box or something at the front of the We’re inside and they, for like 20 minutes.

Climbed [01:10:00] up on the thing and then would slide down off of it giggling and just one after another copying each other in this state of glee. And of course, at one point, the dad kind of comes over and he’s worried that they’re making too much noise and that other ones going to be annoyed. But I’ve been like listening to this incredible.

Um, and it’s a new album that’s sort of like taking me on a journey

Glen Erickson: Um,

Dan: like crazy. And there’s a sunset in the back. It was just like, it was like a perfect, Oh my God, like life is all happening. And this is so beautiful. And I felt that for the dad, cause I want to be like, Hey, no, no, no, no, no.

Like, like, don’t stop this. Like, don’t interrupt what’s going on. Cause that’s what I would do as a dad. I would be like, guys, you’re being too loud and you’re bugging all these people or something like that. So I mean, like you want to say something cliche, like the thing that gives me hope is the children, but like the thing that gives me hope is that if you look for it, there are little bits of real life happening all the time.

And, you know, I saw a real or recently of [01:11:00] like Willie Nelson talking about worry, like he, you know, he’s like, I, you know, I believe that worrying about things, not only will it do you no good, it might, it might make you sick. Like Like the worry embeds in your like molecular levels and long term enough worry.

You’re going to get sick.

Glen Erickson: Mm

Dan: that our emotions are tied to our physical health. And I believe that there’s a, there’s a million reasons to be dread. Right now to dread the impending, whatever. Um, and I’m pretty vocal online about what that dread is means to me. however, I think for me, articulating that dread helps me go, okay, well, I’ve already written about it.

I’ve articulated it. I put it into a song. What more do I need to do? Like, you know, like it’s over and it helps me. Sit in the moment and just try and appreciate whatever is happening because I know what is happening is I’m talking to you on a podcast [01:12:00] and the light is beaming through this window behind me and, you know, my wife’s coming and going and, you know, like life is happening and, um, you know, all of these dread things that I’m worried that could happen, they’re not happening now and there’s things that we should be doing on a like, you know, sort of activism and, and preparing and protection, trying to secure society from, you know, authoritarianism.

my mindful state comes from, you know, trying to just find something ridiculous to enjoy in the moment. And it’s so cliche, just be in the moment, be mindful, but really like, what else is going to get you in a state of hope? You know, like, it’s not like, it’s not going to be something exterior. It’s not going to be like, Oh, well, if I watch enough episodes of friends, I’m going to feel hopeful.

You know, And, um, like in order to feel hopeful, that’s on you. Like you have to choose that in the same way [01:13:00] that, you know, this is a great David Foster Wallace commitment speech. I don’t know if you’ve heard it. I think it’s like Keene’s university or something like that. Um, or Kenyon. you know, he’s like, the cliche is that a post secondary education teaches you how to think.

He’s like, that’s not really true. But hopefully what a post secondary education could teach you is what to think about. And in your daily life, you get to choose what you think about. And he goes through this whole analogy of like how banal Your life will be working at a job. You sort of don’t like and getting in a car and dealing with traffic and going to the grocery store.

And you know, the lineup at the grocery store is annoying and everything’s annoying and it’s all happening to you. He’s like, or you could think about the person behind the cash register whose back hurts. He’s been there all day. It was up all night with their dying father or when, you know, and he’s like, it’s probable that that’s not the case.

But you can decide to look at the world with that lens and you can decide it’s like, you know, either like, [01:14:00] it’s what’s that thing about? Like, you’re not in traffic. You are traffic

Glen Erickson: yeah.

Dan: and life is not happening to you. You can decide, you know, how you perceive what life is around you. And if you want to spend your entire life in a state of misery, that’s the easiest choice to make.

And so. You know, trying to decide to, and you know, there’s other things and again, I will acknowledge privilege because some people, you know, single parent of three doesn’t have a whole lot of time to spend on self care, but like meditation, breath work, cold plunging, go to a sauna, go swim in the ocean, whatever you can do.

To reset yourself and get your like splashed cold water on the, you know, the face of your soul do that as often and as much as needed. And, and it will help you sort of like forget yourself. Also look at something big. This is what I say to anyone who is really struggling. Look at the sky, look at the [01:15:00] stars, look at the mountain, look at the ocean, look at that wave hitting the same rock for the last 200 million years.

Like, you are infinitesimal, you are tiny, you are space dust, you are floating on a speck of space dust that is floating through an infinitely expanding and contracting universe that we only barely understand. A billion years from now, nobody will No, nor nothing will know or have any record of Trump or Oprah or Napoleon or Gandhi or whatever.

It’s just space dust and you know, like there is no empirical importance to anything. So you get to decide where you place value. You get to decide where you find beauty. And you could look at the same tree on one day and be like, Oh, it’s just a tree. And look at the same tree the next day and be like, Oh my God, I can’t believe like the amount of life coming, you know, how many billions of insects is that tree housing and feeding and [01:16:00] how, Oh my God, I didn’t notice that it wasn’t that those leaves are flowering.

I guess it’s, you know, warmer this year or whatever. Like you decide. Decide to be hopeful, decide to work, uh, to, to help make others people hopeful and decide to, you know, find the joy in daily life. It’s like, you know, that other quote, life is happening when you’re busy making other plans, you know, it’s right now, this is the only, I feel like the past is as hypothetical as the future.

Everyone’s version of the past is different. Some people put a halo on the past. They want to go backwards. That’s dangerous. We’re here. We’re now we’re moving forward. What does that mean? Who am I in this moment? How can I also like, I say to her, sorry, I’m talking a lot. I say to our kids, like, like, um, you know, let’s say, uh, a grandparent passes or something like that.

You’re not gonna remember necessarily like much about them except for how they made you feel.

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Dan: And the a measure of a, I say to my kids, a [01:17:00] measure of a person is not their success. It’s not their status. It’s not, um, you know how much money they have. It’s not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s not how good looking they are.

It’s not how funny they are. It’s not how smart they are, it’s how they made other people feel. You know, and if you died tomorrow, got hit by a bus, you know, the people coming to your service of whatever, whatever that means, the reason they want to be there is because of how you made them feel. And if you make people feel good about themselves, if you make people like themselves in your presence, then your mark on this world is going to be a really good one.

Glen Erickson: Yeah, and to add one more quote, it just makes me think, and I’ll have to paraphrase, but one of my favorites was GK Chesterton says that, uh, think it says essentially, don’t disagree that we need priests to remind [01:18:00] us that we’re all going to die, but we also need poets to remind us that we’re not yet dead. And,

Dan: That’s great.

Glen Erickson: and I just think that, uh, cause we need to wrap up and I just think that you’ve been that, that poet and, and you talking about how you make people feel and how important it is. you’ve always been very generous to me. Dan, you’re being generous to me in the moment, right now. Again, you probably don’t remember, we crossed paths, maybe 2021? I think it was mid pandemic at King Eddie in Calgary. I was working on my own

Dan: [01:19:00] Okay.

cool. Um,

Glen Erickson: is the most important to me has been, what my two friends said that you give people hope and, uh, I appreciate your

Dan: for joining us today, and we hope to see you again soon.

Glen Erickson: to hear about. The new record is at 2025, early 2025. What, what

Dan: Yeah. Well, first, first,

Glen Erickson: hope for?

Dan: yeah. I mean, first of all, thank you, Glen. Those are very kind words. Um, yeah, I think we can look at sort of like spring ish next year, maybe late spring,

Glen Erickson: Awesome.

Dan: for a new record and probably little hints or singles of that, you know, coming sooner than that. Um, I, I just want to say that like, I don’t believe in altruism and I, I want to acknowledge [01:20:00] that be like, I put a lot of energy into trying to be a good person that makes other people feel good about themselves too.

And it’s not because I’m a saint, it’s because it makes me feel good. Like that it’s a selfish act to be kind because it makes your life more manageable. And, and I think that’s okay. I think people, I think part of the anxiety and misery in this world is because people feel like. Acts of kindness are selfish and therefore it’s bad or something like that.

It’s like, like acts of kindness. Um, you’re doing it for

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Dan: likes or you’re doing it for whatever. Uh, you’re, you’re being kind. So people will like you that’s gross or something like that. And that is something to get over is that I feel good when I’m kind to somebody the other day. I was, you know, just about to get on an on ramp and there’s a guy on the side of the highway with his bag and he’s, you know, got a sign up, he’s asking for [01:21:00] whatever, and I was like digging through my bag and had all this rider food from the gig in Tofino.

And so I had like a bunch of apples and some, you know, bag of chips or something like that. And I was going to bring them home, you know, I was like, okay, this is great. I got a bag of food right here. And I got a guy over here who needs food. Perfect. Like, you know. The universe is telling me, give this guy the food.

And like, looked him in the eye, shook his hand. He said, thank you. I moved on and I felt great. Like, like, and I’m not telling you this so that you think, Oh, Dan’s nice. And he gave food to someone who needed food. I’m telling you this because it’s embarrassing how good I felt. After doing that, and I think it’s okay like it’s okay to get over ourselves to be kind and to feel good for being kind because it just spreads, you know, like when someone is kind to you, it makes you want to exactly

Glen Erickson: right?

Dan: is to, you know, lean into the despair and coldness that is so evident [01:22:00] and obvious at every turn.

So lean into the thing that makes you feel good. Something makes you feel good. Do it and do it. You know, it’s that Sloan song feels good. Do it. Um,

Glen Erickson: Love

Dan: I don’t know, man. Like I, I just, I, I, I, I’m so thankful for you to have that perspective of me. Uh, and I also know that like, I have a reputation. People will be like, Oh, like I’ll get introduced on stage and be like, Oh, he’s the nicest guy in Canadian music or whatever.

And I just don’t want people to think that like, Okay. I’m like some saint, like I’m not. I have an ego. I’m imperfect. I am at times a total emotional roller coaster and at the heart of it, like I have found kindness to be a crutch because it makes me feel good about myself and that at the end of the day, it’s like, you know, that’s the existential key that I need to get through the day.

And, um,

Glen Erickson: But

Dan: so I, that’s me. Yeah.

Glen Erickson: is not just to believe that my celebrities [01:23:00] are the nice guys. I don’t want to just believe that the people I follow the nice guys or even my friendship circle are the nice people. What I want to believe is that just all the things you’ve said here are, they ask themselves the real true questions, regardless of what the answer is.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah.

Glen Erickson: Because I know that you do that, believe you, right? And it doesn’t matter, you’re right, what my source of motivation for goodness was. You made a choice, and I, and I know that you’re making the choice. And I think that’s

Dan: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: the difference. But I’m going to let you go. We’re going to have to cut her off.

Uh, I apologize. I want to thank you for your time and wish you all the best with the new record and I can’t wait to hear it I’ll send you some stuff after and for taking the time out of your day. It means the world to me.

Dan: yeah. You’re a sweetheart, Glen. My pleasure, man. Thank you. I wish you all the best with the [01:24:00] podcast and with, with your new music and everything you’re doing all my love.

Glen Erickson: Okay. Appreciate it. Talk again soon, Dan.

Dan: Take care.