Being on stage seemed like the place Joel West was destined to be, but drugs and alcohol have a way of poisoning destiny.
West is a Burns Lake singer-songwriter, a member of the Lake Babine Nation, and the son of an active musician. His father Alec passed down the chords and choruses of classic rock, gutsy blues and golden-age country from the time West could sit at his knee and soak it in. As a little boy, he couldn't get enough Credence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash, Jeff Healey, Garth Brooks, Chuck Berry - anything that had distinct vocals and ripping guitar.
Tonight in Kamloops, West will represent northern B.C. at the Road To Riverfest live performance competition. He won the six-week regional playoffs held at the Treasure Cove Show Lounge and now he carries the northern banner into the provincial finals. The ultimate winner gets to open for headliner Sam Hunt during the Rockin' River Country Music Festival held in Merritt today through July 31.
The distance from his father's knee to the provincial finals was much further than his 32 literal years. His voice can now reflect the scars and bruises and jagged edges of a life that spun out of control but never let go of the music.
"I drank hard and heavy drugs too," said West. "I overdosed one time. I don't even remember doing it, I just woke up in the hospital and the doc said he didn't know how I'm still here. I died on the way to the hospital, and they brought me back with the jumper cables, the defibrillator."
It wasn't a one-time incident. His life was a roadmap of traumas and situations. Some were inflicted upon him, and he still shies away from discussing the details of things in his childhood. Many were self-inflicted or the result of poor judgment or a sense of self-destruction he was wrapped up inside. And some things were beyond anyone's control, like the day his worksite, Babine Forest Products, exploded in the night. He had been there only three hours earlier. It didn't matter that he wasn't standing on the inside when it erupted in a fatal catastrophe of flame and debris, his mind was blown and his spirit - already fragile - was shattered by that climactic event.
"I was on a huge downward spiral already: cocaine, crack, oxicontin, T3s. I had a lot on my shoulders and then the mill blew up, and I went at it hard," he said. "I was a mean person. I wanted to breathe fire, inflict hurt on everybody because I was hurting so much. I wasn't a nice person, that's for sure. And to tell you the truth, there's a big long story behind why I got sober."
And he is sober.
Every morning he counts another clean day. It wasn't easy to reach that first day, and he stressed to those in the throes of addiction and destruction right now that it was no single thing that finally pulled him onto a healthy, humane path again. One was the time he set up a suicide plan, ran around the house and gathered up all the pills he could find, intent on overdosing on purpose. He laughed at himself when he sat down to do the tragic deed and discovered the only pills he had left were vitamins.
Another time was when he was let back into the house he had been evicted from and he was assaulted by the smell of the squaller he had allowed himself to sink into.
Yet another handhold he grabbed was when he was kicked out of his home for partying too hard and the only person in his life that would take him in was a beloved auntie. He lay on his basement bedroll and overheard other family members arguing to throw him out or risk damage to their own home. Hearing those reasonable, rational arguments against his mere presence was also part of the dawning of his turnaround in life.
He finally confessed to his family that he had lost control and needed their help. They pounced on the opportunity. Lake Babine Nation administration put in a call to the Haisla Treatment Centre in Kitimat and they had a spot for him. They also had the ways and means to make a difference in his addictions and their root causes. As of January 6, 2013, he has been drug and alcohol free. He even kicked cigarettes and chewing tobacco.
"My push was always to sing. I'd lost my push. I didn't even want to do that. My spirit was broken," he said.
He added two things to help replace the absence of drugs and drinking.
"I cry and I pray, now," he said. "Those are so important. I'd been denying myself those things. Everybody needs to cry and pray."
He also needed to join his community. Burns Lake was in a prolonged state of mourning over the deaths, injuries, traumatic stress and economic gut-punch that roared through the walls of Babine Forest Products. He was suffering alone, but he found he could heal with others.
"The help everybody gave each other afterwards - the whole town pulled together. It was miraculous. How a town can start healing as one - it was so good. All of Burns Lake turned into one big family."
He also needed to feel those thin strands cutting into his fingertips. He needed to build up his guitar callouses again. He needed to arrange soundwaves and pour his heart into songs.
"I've been through the wringer a couple of times. It's not a story any worse than anyone else's but because I have my music, I can relate to people in that different way, and youth respond well to music. A passion I'm developing now is helping people, especially the ones other peopler look down on."
He still has his mistakes and potholes in life, "my train wrecks" as he calls them, but he is maintaining basic health with exercise and nutrition. Most of all, he is feeding his creative appetites. That has earned him trips to rural schools to talk with kids, it has earned him fans, opening spots for major acts like Digging Roots and performances as the Lheidli T'enneh Pavilion at the Canada Winter Games, and it earned him a trip to the Rockin' River finals tonight. From there, it might just be straight onto the Merritt mainstage in front of country star Sam Hunt.
