Brad Paisley is not the only country radio star coming to CN Centre this weekend.
His Canadian counterpart Brett Kissel is also on the bill Sunday night, known, as Paisley is, for humour in his songs, party tunes, and bowing deeply to the country music greats who played a role in developing his career.
While Paisley made people laugh with hits like Alcohol and Me Neither, Kissel flipped a puck off people's funnybone in the song Hockey Please Come Back that went into six-figure viewership on YouTube during the NHL lockout. And still on the hockey theme, you can find him online singing in a little livingroom selfie dedicated to Vancouver Canucks fans who took offense at (major Oilers fan) Kissel making mention of the Stanley Cup riot. The ditty is a tongue-in-cheek apology to the tune of Alan Jackson's Gone Country.
Things get serious when you start looking at Kissel's accomplishments in the past few years. Although he's only in his early 20s, he's been pumping out albums of critical quality since his debut at age 12. The hard work added up to a pair of Canadian Country Music Awards and a Juno Award this year for the nation's overall Breakthrough Artist of the Year from all music genres combined. His breakout tune Started With A Song set national records for screaming up the country radio charts.
"That was the moment: when Started With A Song made the radio, that was moment I felt like I'd made the NHL," Kissel told The Citizen. "I was so lucky to bring that across Canada, and radio embraced it, and that translated into a great fan response, and I haven't gone back to the minor leagues yet. And each subsequent single has gone farther than the last one."
One of those tunes, a peppy love song called 3-2-1, also made Kissel a screen star because of the music video. It's a mini-movie thriller that riveted viewers even if they didn't know who Kissel was or appreciate country music.
Going the extra mile to promote his material, and forge relationships well outside of the usual country music circles is another character trait that is setting this small town Alberta boy (Flat Lake, northeast of Edmonton) apart. Like the stereotypical good Canadian boy should, he has done considerable musical outreach, making friends like punk-rock band Marianna's Trench and power-pop diva Serena Ryder as much as the legion of country peers he pals around with.
Those latter relationships started in his teen years, especially for his project Tried and True - A Canadian Tribute with feature duets with northern legends Larry Mercy of the Mercy Brothers, Corb Lund, Steve Fox and Prince George's Gary Fjellgaard.
"Gary Fjellgaard is truly one of the greats and one of the guys who took me under their wing," Kissel said. "A lot of great credit to Gary. He has been a longtime friend and a true supporter of my career. What he did early on in my career was he taught me the style of acoustic guitar that I play. I'm really, really enjoying getting a chance to take my guitar playing to the next level and know it was a guy like Gary Fjellgaard who is there in the background who got me to this place."
As much as he has worn the maple leaf on his sleeve, Kissel has also scored major attention south of the border. He calls the half-hour one-on-one conversation he got to have with his hero George Strait "one of the top moments of my life." But you could also add in the reception he got at Wrigley Field where he not only threw out the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs home game, but he was also the lead singer that game of Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the seventh inning stretch. And if he's making lists of great moments, how about the live duet he got to perform with David Foster on piano, or the time at soundcheck that Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler leapt onto the stage to sing surprise backup for awhile.
Not bad for a kid from a northern cattle ranch who took up the guitar his grandma bought him for Christmas when he was six years old. He took the spirit of that old Sears six-string and made it all the way to Parliament Hill where Kissel was part of a national panel discussion on the state of the Canadian music industry.
"As time goes on, the [Canada-US] border is getting to be less and less of a relevant issue. So many great artists are coming out of Canada putting out great material - guys like Dallas Smith, Dean Brody, Johnny Reid, Gord Banford. They way things are done in Nashville, they have a bigger machine, there's no doubt, but they have experiences in Texas you don't have if you're a logger in the Prince George or Williams Lake areas, or if you're an oilman in Alberta it's a different experience than being an oilman in Texas. We are drawing on our experiences because it's where we live and we are uniquely Canadian, but a song like Raise Your Glass [his latest hit] - you could be a kid in Alabama or a kid in Alberta singing those lyrics. So I'm just glad to be a Canadian but be relevant to people in those places too."
His brand of country music - the tinges of humour or drama, the emphasis on guitar picking, the universal chorus themes - touched a sense of relevance in Brad Paisley as well. Kissel was hand-picked to support Paisley across the entire Canadian tour.
"He and his camp have been so great to deal with just on a personal level," Kissel said. "But on a professional level, to get to perform in front of the huge audiences Brad Paisley brings in is a remarkable opportunity to tag along and learn from how he commands these types of crowds. He's a great writer, a great guitar player. I can't say we will get the chance to interact a lot while we are out on the road, but I can learn a lot just from watching him."
Kissel said, without a lick of pretense, that Prince George was a date he was particularly interested in playing on the Brad Paisley tour.
"I've been to Prince George before, but I've never performed in your city, so that's a show that's been circled on the calendar simply because I've never been there before with the music."
Tickets are on sale at CN Centre box office, Studio 2880 or online via Ticketmaster.
