Breaking borders
Singer-songwriter saluted for helping to ‘export’ Saskatchewan music
REGINA When Megan Nash gets a media mention these days, it’s usually to do with her burgeoning musical career — including a recent Saskatchewan Music Awards win.
That wasn’t so 15 years ago, when Nash was making headlines for her political protests, standing up for Canadian cattle ranchers.
“A few friends and I got together, made some T-shirts and protested outside the Burger King (in Moose Jaw),” said Nash. “We were trying to encourage the Canadian fast food industry to use Canadian beef rather than importing U.S. beef, because at the time the border was closed to us exporting our beef ” due to the BSE crisis.
Three days after their protest, Burger King moved to use 100-percent Canadian beef.
“That was my second time being in the news. First time was when I was 12, when I shaved my head for cancer research in my school gym in Mortlach.”
As a 13-year-old, Burger King sent Nash to Toronto to “flip burgers with the premiers of Western Canada” at the SARS benefit concert in 2003.
That was her first trip to a big city and she was “very much right off the farm, had never been to a large city centre like that.” Things have changed since then. On Sunday, Nash was recognized for “breaking borders” at the Saskatchewan Music Awards.
Presented by the Derek Bachman Foundation, the Breaking Borders award is for “an artist who has represented Saskatchewan through exceptional work ethic, excellent product, and effective effort to export their product beyond Saskatchewan and Canada.”
Nash is doing this next week, on her third tour of Germany.
The first was in September 2017. In April 2018, during her second German tour, “There were familiar faces and things were starting to grow.”
She’s excited to see what the
third time will bring.
When Nash was starting out in music, she said she marvelled at a Moose Jaw band that had booked a small Saskatchewan tour.
“That, in my mind, was just like they had made it, you know?” said Nash, who lives near Gravelbourg.
“I’ve learned since then, it’s a lot of those little moments, those small successes of, A, booking your first tour yourself, B, doing that first tour, C, feeling comfortable playing to nobody, and then agreeing to go back to that same place and try again and hoping you have three people there.
“It’s been a bit of a grind, for sure.”
Nash’s musical career began when she was 17, writing songs and playing guitar to help cope with the death of her grandfather, Darryl
Woodward. Her song Salted Salamanders is about him.
Even though he didn’t play music — although he was an expert whistler — “he kind of set me on this path in a way.”
Gerilynn and Rodney Nash supported their daughter’s career aspirations, driving her to Regina to get her first Saskmusic membership.
“I guess I’ve always wanted this lifestyle and at the end of the day, my goal has been, I just want to try to write good songs,” said Nash, who studied music business at Nova Scotia Community College in 2009.
She was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award in 2016 and 2018.
At the 2018 Saskatchewan Music Awards, she was nominated for alternative
artist of the year.
Hard work has been a major part of her success.
“I always had the idea that if I just kept at something, at one point people would notice. Like, ‘Oh wow, that lady really hasn’t quit yet.’ Because I knew I wanted to have a career in music; very naively, I just knew that I wanted to be in the music industry.”
She remembers booking her first tour in 2010, after playing one-off shows at venues such as Wagons West Cook House in Mortlach or the hall in Chaplin.
“All my touring in small towns, bringing my own sound system, setting up in small, small spaces in different parts of the province, has helped me get ready for the international stage,” said Nash.
“It’s been a really cool process and I’ve just had a lot of support.”
For the past two years, that support has included Regina band Bears In Hazenmore, which doubles as Nash’s backup band.
“(They’ve) helped me take my career to a different level.”
Nash’s seven-date tour of Germany begins in Munster on Dec. 2.
Her next scheduled Saskatchewan dates are Jan. 11 in Saskatoon at the Bassment and Jan. 12 in Gravelbourg at the Renaissance Gaiety Theatre.