MUSIC EVOLUTION
Dallas Smith discovers country fans embracing his eclectic sound
Four albums into his country music career and it’s obvious that Dallas Smith is continuing to evolve.
The former lead singer for the Canadian rock band Default burst on to the Canadian country music scene in 2012 with Jumped Right In, an album that straddled the line between country and rock. Smith followed with Tippin’ Point, an EP released in March 2014, along with full-length albums Lifted (November 2014) and Side Effects (September 2016).
While each of the albums produced quality singles that garnered strong radio airplay and success on the charts, each stood on its own as a unique record. When asked if he purposely set out to make each album sound different from the others, Smith confirmed that was his plan.
“Yes, if you go back to the first album, it’s as different as night and day,” said Smith in a recent telephone interview to advance his appearance Saturday at Country Thunder Saskatchewan.
“Every once in a while I’ll get, ‘I wish you would go back to what you did on the first record.’ You’re not going to make everybody happy, everyone’s going to have their own opinion, but for the most part, I haven’t really had any push back. It’s been really great that way.
"My fans have come along with me on this journey and they’ve been really good.”
His journey has been impressive. All 16 of his singles have reached the Top 10 on the charts with three — Wastin’ Gas, Autograph and Side Effects — hitting No. 1. When Side Effects hit No. 1 in April, it made Smith the first Canadian male artist in the Broadcast Data System (BDS) era to have three No. 1 songs and the only Canadian male country artist to have consecutive No. 1 singles. With Autograph and Side Effects reaching No. 1 consecutively, Smith became the first Canadian artist to have back-to-back No. 1 singles since Shania Twain in 1997 and 1998.
Lifted won the 2015 Juno Award as country album of the year and the 2015 Canadian Country Music Association award for album of the year. And on Wednesday, Smith collected four CCMA nominations for its 2017 awards — Apple Music fans’ choice award, album of the year (Side Effects), single of the year (Autograph) and male artist of the year.
While all these accolades are nice, Smith remains focused on his music and his career.
“To be honest with you, it’s nice when it happens but once it happens it’s ‘So what are we doing now?’ You can’t hang your head up on that stuff for too long or you’re continuously looking back,” said Smith. “It’s a great thing to happen. I’m honoured but I’m also real about it . . . it’s a feather in my cap.”
Smith has also been in the music business long enough to know that success is a double-edged sword. The awards and accomplishments are good but with those successes come increased expectations.
Did he feel any extra pressure when recording Side Effects?
“There’s always pressure. Radio has been great to me and everything’s been really good but the pressure for me is to keep building off my live base and building my fan base. That’s the pressure," said Smith. “I don’t want my fans or anybody who buys my record to be disappointed. That’s what keeps me going and where I feel pressure
because I want to deliver a product that they’re expecting from me and hoping for.”
Smith did take a moment to look back at the start of his journey in country music. When he released Jumped Right In, he wasn’t sure of the reaction he would receive from country fans. If they saw Smith as just another bored rock guy who decided to put out a country album on a whim, he was ready to accept that and move on to the next project.
The reality, however, was that the country community not only accepted Smith but embraced him and his music.
“I feel like myself. I feel at home in this but I know that the presentation of my version of country music and where it is allows me to stand apart from everybody else. I really felt the love from the get go,” said Smith. “There was some apprehension when I started and there were moments of apprehension when I released the Tippin’ Point EP because what we did with Tippin’ Point, compared to what we did with the first record, was probably the biggest sonic leap we’ve done in this project.
“But everyone seemed to understand the vision of where we were taking my music and they gave it a chance and got behind it. It’s really given me the freedom to do different things and to do what I want with a little less apprehension.”