He's just breaking into the Canadian music consciousness, he's only in his 20s, but tonight Virginia To Vegas frontman Derik Baker will play for the second time on the CN Centre stage.
The first time he made it from his base in Ontario out to northern B.C. he was opening for Hedley.
Well, in full truth, Allyssa Reid was opening for Hedley. Baker was her bass player.
Well, in full truth, he also had another special task. He was her duet partner on a song very much shared between the two of them. Pop radio has been ignited by the tune We Are Stars. It rocketed up the charts in 2014 and in the short space since then Virginia To Vegas has flared three more songs up the hit list.
Well, in full truth, four if you count the other Virginia To Vegas collaboration with Alyssa Reid - the jazzy seasonal classic Baby It's Cold Outside. The scanners certainly counted it, the song made it all the way to No. 5 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart even though it isn't available on any album.
Now, Baker and his Virginia To Vegas project (named for the rural-urban bridge he tries to build in his music, plus homage to his state of birth before moving to Canada) have their own full album to work with.
The package is called Utopian which has some ironies to it. Life was not at all idyllic when he was composing and recording it.
"It's a crazy album for me, for a lot of reasons," he told The Citizen from a tour respite in Moose Jaw on his way west.
"I finished the bulk of the writing as I was dealing with my father passing away from cancer, so it was a really heartfelt project. I dedicated the album to him because he was such a supporter of my music. Whenever I'd have an idea I would bounce it off him; he was my musical sounding board. To see it released and see it come to fruition and go into a store and see it there, or have kids reach out to me on social media - that's the whole reason you do music. So in short: yeah, it's great, it's such a blessing."
What was it like to see his father's name posthumously embossed in a place of honour on those album liners?
"It was heavy. It was a very difficult thing to do," he said. "I talked to my brothers about it and we agreed it was a nice little memento to pops. It kinda made sense. It was the only option."
It was that big record collection his father and mother had that got Baker into music, growing up. The family wasn't bustling with musicians, and he wasn't an early student of instruments. But he loved those records, and his dad knew it. He would take his young son to blues jams, to stoke those fires of appreciation.
"I lived in blues music for a very long time, even though I was young, but just like anything, my tastes and ambitions changed. I became obsessed with pop music," he said.
In particular, he was fascinated with the way big emotions and detailed stories can be painted onto a melody the way an impressionist dabbles blips of paint onto a canvass and it somehow looks like a complex scene. Pop music was the genre that felt most universal to him.
"I want to be listenable, and that comes down to writing a great song that connects with people," he said.
Check out Don't Fight The Music, Our Story and his very latest single (already in the Top 10) called Lights Out for some indications of his progress, and check out his concert tonight at CN Centre opening the event for Marianas Trench.
