Canadian singer-songwriter Royal Wood is back with a new album, Dear John. His ninth studio album, it represents his return to the joy of music.
He hit a watershed moment in 2022, performing on the iconic Massey Hall stage. “It was packed,” Wood says. “The band was sounding so good and all the things I’d been striving for in my career were there, including a consideration for the Grammys.”
He should have been elated, he says. “And I just remember feeling that I didn’t like being away from the boys. I didn’t like being on the road. I felt really burnt out.”
While still grateful for his career and fans, he found himself wishing he was with his wife and two little boys, not on a big stage.
“I walked off and I didn’t say anything to anyone,” he says, “but I knew I was done, or at least pressing pause.”
However, after some largely music-free time, he found that song fragments were showing up, unbidden. “I ignored them at first but these songs really started to come,” he says. He recorded some, not wanting them to go to waste.
“Suddenly I just couldn’t stop thinking about the music I was making,” he says. “I didn’t think anybody was going to hear it and so I just did whatever I wanted. I had so much fun.”
“Before I knew it I had this entire record and I just loved it,” he says.
The album ended up being a love letter to his very young self. (John Royal Wood Nicholson is his full name.) It’s also a reminder to his adult self that music is meant to be about joy.
Legendary American producer Ryan Freeland mixed the record. Wood wanted a bass player to add some extra colour to a couple of songs and called his friend James “Hutch” Hutchinson, who is in Bonnie Raitt’s band. Wood and Hutchinson became friends when Wood joined Raitt on tour in 2023. Hutchinson asked if he could pass some of Wood’s songs on to Freeland.
“I said, ‘ha ha, that’s nice but the bank account’s not that big,’” Wood recalls. “’Someone like Ryan doesn’t mix little indie Canadian projects.’”
Freeland loved the songs, however, and offered to mix it affordably between major projects.
“He took it to places that even I wasn’t aware it could go,” Wood says.
After his last record, What Tomorrow Brings, ended up “a bit of a Frankenstein record,” with “too many cooks in the kitchen” during the pandemic, Wood says he couldn’t be more proud of this one. He crowdfunded it, played most of the music and recorded it himself.
Soon he leaves to tour the new record, including stops in Calgary, Lethbridge and Canmore.
Royal Wood plays shows in Calgary, November 28, Lethbridge, November 29 and Canmore, December 2. All details can be found on his website.
“Sunshine” from Dear John: