Country star Brandt Bares his heart of gold
Paul Brandt has a long history of embracing charitable causes and doing what he thinks is right
If you’re in the mood for a very real cry, please head to Paul Brandt’s recent, Joel Stewart-directed video, All About Her.
Woven through Brandt’s charttopping new love song run interviews with the 46-year-old country singer and his longtime life partner Liz, and a good-looking husband and wife — the Brandts’ friends Kim and Al.
It’s these two who share about the hardest story you can fathom. Kim, you see … well, maybe Brandt, a one-time nurse, can handle this better.
“They’ve become good friends of ours since we moved back from Nashville. She’s been struggling with varying bouts of breast cancer through the years.
“Now it’s gone into her bones.” In the video, keeping her smile on, Kim says, “We are living now with cancer. To the end.”
“I don’t want to lose her. And I probably will,” says Al, his voice breaking. “Sometime soon.”
Brandt agrees love can be both the greatest and the hardest thing.
He notes, “It’s not in the video, but there’s a moment Al was talking about the things that you miss when you don’t walk through the dark valleys.
“It’s pretty amazing to hear him relate it that way.”
Here’s a good place to note Brandt has never shied away from using his spotlight to deflect light onto tough subjects, be it asking for humanitarian aid for hungry kids overseas or a recent campaign in Calgary raising awareness of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking, to supporting local Indigenous wellness initiatives.
This project, #notinmycity, was created in conjunction with Brandt’s 1992 alma mater, Mount Royal College, which had chosen him as its storyteller in residence. With the help of the school’s business and marketing students, a sort of a museum of Brandt’s life and career sits in Calgary ’s National Music Centre. Yet rather typically of Brandt, prime real estate is given to this issue.
“The youngest human trafficking victim I met here was seven years old. Seven. When I talk to people about this they go from, ‘There’s no way ’ to ‘How do I help?’ And we’re actually moving the needle on saving people’s lives because of this.
“I love that; it hearkens back to the things that moved me to get into the medical profession early on.”
Back to the music: All About Her was the first single off Brandt’s latest album — sitting in a sweet spot between an EP and a full record — The Journey YYC Vol. 1. Its sequel, The Journey BNA Vol. 2, is due this fall, and the first single later this month.
“I was on a motorcycle trip coming up the Pacific Coast Highway about a year ago, that’s when this idea came together,” Brandt explains. “I was thinking again of those peaks and valleys we were just talking about.
“One of the big moments was after I left the record company in Nashville, and started putting out stuff on my own label, including Alberta Bound. But I spend a lot of time going the opposite direction, too. I thought, what if I wrote Alberta Bound in reverse? That whole concept. Those two time periods in my career.”
There was a time Brandt used to play 180 shows a year, pushing, pushing — forging his name across the states.
“In the early 2000s,” Brandt says, “me and Liz were going through a really touchy time from a business standpoint. The whole label thing was not working out. I remember they asked me a question that changed my life: ‘What’s more important, what you believe or your career?’
“I think they meant it as a bit of a dig. But I went home and thought about it really seriously.
“It’s no secret, I grew up going to this one-room, 75-person church, having spirituality and faith being part of my journey right from the beginning.
“And what you believe influences every decision you make. And Liz and I decided we were going to make what we believe the main thing, and not the career. But loving my neighbour, taking care of people, doing the best I can with this platform to make the world a better place — it actually helped me build my career.”
He laughs, and says “I’d rather put my feet up on the couch and worry about me. And there are a lot of selfish moments, don’t kid yourself. But I found when you’re outward looking, and looking for opportunities to serve, you get back so much in return. When I think about myself first, I don’t
really get as much out of life.”
One thing Brandt did authentically earn was an induction into the Canadian Country Music Association Hall of Fame last year. He thought about Anne Murray, Ian Tyson and Hank Snow (Brandt was the first Canadian country artist to chart in the U.S. as high as Snow in 1976, with his hit I Do).
“Just to be mentioned in the same breath with some of these artists. They all forged their own path and kind of did their own thing, and that’s something that’s been a struggle for me over the years.
“When I started I wanted to be Garth Brooks; I tried to emulate my favourite artists. I’d go through my Dwight phase, you know. What I started to learn: the reason those people are great is they do what they do.”
Being inducted, “It was one of those moments, maybe I’ve finally come to a place where I’ve come into my own, where I do what I do and let it rest there.”
Since then, Brandt enjoyed a dual bonus as All About Her broke the top 10 in Canada this spring.
“We found out My Heart Has a History has become the most played Canadian country song in history. To have a top 10 hit at the same time, it felt kind of good,” he says, and laughs.
“A little more than 20 years in the business, to continue rocking along, making music people are getting into.
“I work in a little 100-year-old barn here, just west of Calgary. And at the end of the day I walk in my door after recording,” he says, “and I’m just jazzed.”
I’d rather put my feet up on the couch and worry about me. And there are a lot of selfish moments, don’t kid yourself. But I found when you’re outward looking, and looking for opportunities to serve, you get back so much in return.