Artist Profile: Garret T. Willie
Having a hell of a good time on stage
Photo by Matt Leaf
OLD CONCERT TAPES, rewound and replayed, were the gateway to classic rock for 23-year-old guitarist and vocalist Garret T. Willie, and the start of a dream to get on stage. Now he’s touring his debut album across the country.
“There’s this one tape that I gravitated towards, which was AC/DC Live at Donington, [recorded in] 1991,” says the Alert Bay-raised musician. “I watched it from start to finish, and every day after that I asked my dad to put it on until he would get tired of it and put on another.”
Willie started teaching himself guitar at the age of seven and, just three years later, opened the 2010 Alert Bay Music Fest—his first gig—with two AC/DC songs, channelling one of his inspirations, the band’s lead guitarist, Angus Young. “I just gave it my all. I was doing the duck walk across the stage and running around, and I was probably about the size of Angus too, so the SG (guitar) looked pretty big,” he says with a laugh.
Today, Willie’s rock ’n’ roll-meets-blues-meets-country sound and soulful vocals are nostalgic, yet instantly distinguishable as his own.
Willie’s debut album
The ten tracks on his debut album, Same Pain, run the gamut from the pared-back country-adjacent “What It Means to Me” to songs reminiscent of the good-time rock ’n’ roll Willie grew up hearing on drives and out fishing, like “Make You Mine Tonight.” While he has about 300 songs in the works, some just a title or basic melody, Willie co-wrote all new tracks for the album, released in 2023, with songwriter and producer Parker Bossley.
“He’s this sort of crazy, wacky, magnificent character who lives in Vancouver and is a great friend of mine,” says Willie. “We were writing in this apartment in East Van and it’s amazing just to think that this album came out of our two minds, an acoustic guitar, and some recording equipment in a real small apartment.”
All the songs are based on Willie’s personal experiences, from heartbreak and loss to “living pretty fast and pretty hard,” he says. The album’s lead single, “Same Pain,” was the first song the pair wrote together.
Photo by Aaron Mallin
“I showed up at his place and it was our first time meeting and whatnot, so he grabbed an acoustic guitar and said, ‘Let’s just jam,’” Willie says. “So I sat down, we started this twelve-bar blues jam and got maybe about two bars in and I said, ‘Man, I’m just so sick and tired of twelve bar, that’s all I do.’”
“When I write songs it’s either that or strumming, you know, Stevie Ray Vaughan-style things, and I love doing that, but I don’t want to have that just be the way it is.”
Bossley asked Willie if he had any other riffs or ideas in mind. “I had come up with this thing the night before on acoustic, and it was just the root notes, and I went over it over and over and it had this vibe to it, and this weird sort of haunting feeling.”
“I had just gone through a breakup, and in that relationship it was probably our 72nd breakup or something,” Willie says, with a bit of a laugh, “so I’m sitting there with my guitar, and I reached back on the bed where she usually was, and she’s not there.”
“And I thought to myself, I’ve felt this pain before, this is the same pain.” And in about four hours, so came “Same Pain.”
The recording process
After writing for about six months and recording their demos, the pair recorded the full album at Afterlife Studios in Vancouver, formerly Mushroom Studios, where artists from Diana Ross to Led Zeppelin have done the same.
“I think the biggest part for me was that recording process,” Willie says. “That was my first time in a real studio like that, with all the real-deal gear, you know, it was kind of a blur.”
The album was released last year, and Willie set off to tour it this summer, making stops across Canada, from Winnipeg International Jazz Festival to Rifflandia in Victoria.
In June, Willie performed at the North Country Fair in Joussard, AB, and—getting lost on the way and warm trailer beer aside—was pleasantly surprised by the rural festival. “It was a great crowd and it was like stepping back into 1965,” he says, describing the festival that draws about 5,000 attendants.
Performing in his home town
Willie also performed at CR Live Streets in Campbell River, which he now calls home. “We play loud and play hard, play fast, and everybody should bring ear plugs if they don’t like loud music,” he says lightheartedly. “We have a hell of a time.”
Willie was recently nominated for two Western Canadian Music Awards: Blues Artist of the Year and Indigenous Artist of the Year, and between writing his next album, working on some still-secret artist collaborations, and carving in his spare time, he’s deep in creative work.
“We’ve got some big things cooking in the pot.”
Originally published by the Strathcona Collective