“It was basically me just packing my life up in a van and driving off,” he says. “I drove across the Nullarbor just to see what was out there. I had pretty much no cash and was just winging it – probably about two and a half years ago now. I set up a Pozible campaign to fund my EP and then came back to record it.”
Every artist reaches a point where it’s necessary to take a look in the mirror and ask whether a music career is worth it. When Campain came to this juncture, rather than letting the question linger, he opted to clear his head.
“I’d originally done a bit of music, just playing around with some acoustic stuff, but I was a little lost trying to figure out what I wanted to do,” he says. “I went over to WA on a soul searching trip. That’s when I decided that if I was going to create music, I wasn’t going to do it safe, but tell it how I saw it – put it out there as honest as I could. I suppose the HOWQUAname was a way to express that. It’s just a matter of saying, ‘Yeah, I’m going do this now and be as honest as I can.’ To not really be concerned about what people might or might not think – do it from the core.
“Predominantly you do it for yourself,” he adds. “But it’s interesting to see if other people have similar thoughts or emotions, see if we connect that way.”
HOWQUA’s experiences at Canadian Music Week are an indication of the extent to which people are connecting with his music. Along with establishing his name overseas, his appearance at the event reaped some less obvious benefits.
“I think these sort of showcase style events seem to be a great stepping stone to getting the right team around you,” he says. “For us, Canadian Music Week was when I got spotted by The Agency Group over there. They saw me play and booked me to tour America. I’m heading to North America in a week’s time for a Canadian tour and a few showcases over there as well. I’ve only played Canadian Music Week so far, but so far so good. It’s definitely been a step forward for what I’ve been doing.”
The connections that Campain’s made as a solo artist have seemingly come easy. But, although he performs alone on stage, he’s assembled a strong team to help foster his career. Some members of the crew are just as emotionally invested in the music as he is, which is a major advantage.
“It’s pretty important to have a bunch of people in your team who, for starters, really connect with what you’re doing, along with having the ability to take it in the right direction. My manager, Charlotte, she saw one of my first gigs at the Corner and said she really seemed to connect with it. I think it’s one of those things that if people connect with your music and have the ability to help you in different aspects of it. With these showcases, it’s what they’re about.”
BY THOMAS BRAND
