{"id":12743,"date":"2016-11-02T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=12743"},"modified":"2016-11-10T11:44:13","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T19:44:13","slug":"donovan-woods-brings-canada-to-nashville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/11\/02\/donovan-woods-brings-canada-to-nashville\/","title":{"rendered":"Donovan Woods brings Canada to Nashville"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto folk musician Donovan Woods knows when to admit his songs aren\u2019t up to par. After Woods released his fourth LP, Hard Settle, Ain\u2019t Troubled<\/i>, earlier this year, he released the They Are Going Away <\/i>EP, which he says consists of tracks that weren\u2019t quite ready to be included in the full-length album.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just weren\u2019t good,\u201d Woods says with a laugh. \u201cI tend to take a long time with lyrics, and I didn\u2019t think they were done. I thought, \u2018Oh, shit, I\u2019ve gotta finish these,\u2019 but I didn\u2019t want to rush them, and I didn\u2019t want to force them to be done. I don\u2019t really have a process; I\u2019m pretty lax. I wait for inspiration to strike. I\u2019m not one of those people who can write every day, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woods says that he\u2019s always considered himself to be more of a writer than a performer, which is ironic given his touring history. He kickstarted his career by making his way down to Nashville in the early 2000s with the help of a publicist who gave him a vote of confidence and a chance to pursue his dream of becoming a professional songwriter.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Donovan Woods knows a thing or two about songwriting. And vomiting (photo by Ryan Nolan).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI was really lucky,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve never really thought of myself as an artist, because then you start to think of yourself as this celebrity music person, and I didn\u2019t really think that that was the right route for me. I thought that I\u2019d always write songs for other people. I never thought that I would be on my own type of tours like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

One standout track on Hard Settle, Ain\u2019t Troubled <\/i>is \u201cLeaving Nashville,\u201d which Woods wrote about his time spent in that city. The song, although lyrically melancholic, has a sense of positive whimsy. It demonstrates the passion and tenacity that writers have, and their will and determination to not give up no matter what struggles and rejection they face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go down to Nashville to write,\u201d he says. \u201cThey drink a lot there, and I try and fit in, and in that, I\u2019ve ended up throwing up in a few parking lots. Nashville is hard work, and it\u2019s kind of addictive, and there\u2019s something about it that\u2019s enjoyable even though there\u2019s so much negativity. It\u2019s like a place like Times Square or Las Vegas. You look at it and go, \u2018This is everything I hate.\u2019 It\u2019s consumerism, gridlock, and gross tourist-trap stuff, but at the same time there\u2019s a wild energy that you can\u2019t really deny, you know? You feel like you love it there, even though it\u2019s representative of all these gross things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woods has penned tracks for many artists, including Tim McGraw, who picked up his song \u201cPortland, Maine,\u201d and Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum, who included \u201cLeaving Nashville\u201d on his first solo album. Woods is flattered that artists like these two perform his songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys have access to songs from the best songwriters in the world, and everybody\u2019s pitching them songs every day,\u201d he says, \u201cso to catch their attention was really flattering and exciting; I just couldn\u2019t believe it. Everybody in the Nashville business gets people taking their songs, so they\u2019re all used to it. But, whenever I think about it objectively, it\u2019s pretty amazing. I\u2019m pretty amazed that it happened, and I feel really lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donovan Woods
\n(with Joey Landreth)
\n$12, Thursday, November 10
\nLucky Bar
\nluckybar.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto folk musician Donovan Woods knows when to admit his songs aren\u2019t up to par. After Woods released his fourth LP, Hard Settle, Ain\u2019t Troubled, earlier this year, he released the They Are Going Away EP, which he says consists of tracks that weren\u2019t quite ready to be included in the full-length album. \u201cThey just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-2-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12743"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12749,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12743\/revisions\/12749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}