George Canyon knows that not many Canadian artists get to talk about the release of their 12th album.
“I kind of sit back almost every day and go, ‘wow, it’s a 28-year career that I still can’t believe is going on.’ It’s unbelievable,” the country singer admitted. “It still feels good. It’s still exciting. It’s still fun to go through songs and write songs and have them pitched to you.”
Canyon points out that Southside of Heaven, which was released last Friday, is really only his 12th major release. He figures there are almost 20 albums.
“My very first record, I don’t even have a copy of – and there’s a reason for that,” he said. “Every record that we make now, there’s a big piece of me in every song and I get so excited about releasing it to the fans because the fans are amazing in Canada. They’re unbelievable.”
MORE: George Canyon To Play Teen Angel In Grease The Musical
In an interview with iHeartRadio.ca, Canyon said nothing gets put out without his wife Jennifer’s stamp of approval.
“She’s got such a great ear so we sit down and listen and I get her vibe and her take on things,” he explained. “She’s the brains, the beauty – I married so far up. I give thanks every day.”
Canyon recorded Southside of Heaven in the studio with his band, a technique not typically done anymore. “It really does give you a magic that you can’t get otherwise,” he said.
The album blends original material with covers like Eric Church’s “Your Old Man’s Son” and the Stompin’ Tom classic “The Hockey Song.”
The 47-year-old singer also recorded “Falling,” the 1998 song by Bruce Guthro, a singer-songwriter from Canyon’s native Nova Scotia. Guthro lends his voice to the track.
“Bruce has been a friend of mine for a long time and I had tried and tried to find a record to put ‘Falling’ on because that’s one of my all-time favourite songs,” said Canyon. “Hands down one of the best written songs. This record was finally the right place.
“I called Bruce and I said ‘man, the only way I’m doing it is if you guest on the record’ and he was over the moon to guest on it.”
Canyon said “Falling” was one of only a handful of songs in his career that he was nervous about “making sure I didn’t screw up.”
He explained: “I had so much trouble in the studio because it’s such an emotional song. I literally had to keep stopping and collecting myself – and in talking to Bruce, he had to do the same thing. So it really hit me like it hit him.”
Canyon, who calls Alberta home, is anxious to get on festival stages across Canada this summer to test out some of the songs on Southside of Heaven. But, he knows fans want to hear the hits.
“I’ve been blessed with 34 or 35 singles in my career so far, so we don’t inundate the fans with a bunch of new stuff,” he said. “We sort of slowly start playing it and just let people get used to it.
“I’ve gone to concerts where an artist will play all new stuff and I just kind of stand there going ‘I love it, but I don’t know it.’ It’s important to play the stuff that the fans know and have supported."