Justin Fancy confident about country recording
Country singer-songwriter’s first show since last October is Friday at The Bella Vista in St. John’s
In his teenage years, Justin Fancy was a shed party, singaround-the-campfire kind of musician.
But when he auditioned for Canadian Idol in 2008 at the age of 21, making it into the Top 200 for country music, it was a taste of something he couldn’t forget.
For more than 10 years after that, he found a niche playing cover songs on George Street, getting to know the owners and other musicians to the point where they became like family. And the whole time, he was doing research, trying to understand what makes a good song and, once it was written, how to take it to the next level.
“I had been writing for a very long time. I just really didn’t have the confidence enough to be able to put out something like an album,” he said. “I attempted it multiple times. Just the pieces didn’t fall in place for me, and I believed I had something, but it wasn’t really strong enough until now.”
At the beginning of 2020, 12 years after that first brief brush with potential success, he finally felt confident enough as a songwriter to pursue recording an album of original material.
The Newfoundland singersongwriter found Clint Curtis, a producer and co-owner of Sevenview Studios, who was capable of recreating the sounds of Nashville from his home in Springdale.
“His vocal delivery, his tone and his voice, how he communicates the song — it’s instant,” Curtis said of first hearing the acoustic demos Fancy sent to him.
“I just did what came naturally to me for the music. Which kind of works because I’m a rock musician … and where country is right now and his style, it’s very natural.”
PANDEMIC TROUBLE
After working together remotely, they were making plans to meet to finish the album. Then the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.
“I (thought), oh my God, what are we going to do now? We’ve got eight songs left to record and we’re a song and a half deep and … I’m well underway with promotion and publicity,” Fancy said.
But the feedback he got motivated and inspired him to continue to work remotely on the album.
“From what I’m hearing from music directors across the country, it’s some of the best-sounding Nashville-like country that they’ve heard from here in Atlantic Canada,” Fancy said.
Fancy would send a recording to Curtis, who would then add instruments, mix it and send it back. After three or four songs, Fancy’s eightyear-old daughter, Kayleigh, knew the process.
“She was waiting, waiting, waiting, (asking) ‘Dad, when’s the new song coming out? Dad, when’s the new song?’” Fancy said. “She’d ask, ‘You get a mix back from Clint yet?’ Eight years old (and) she knows every word to every one of the songs on the album. She’s my biggest fan by far.”
In September 2020, Fancy released “Sure Beats a Good Time,” which earned him two awards from Music NL — for Country Artist of the Year and Rising Star of the Year — as well as a nomination for Inspirational Album of the Year at the East Coast Music Awards. Winners will be announced at the ECMA virtual festival and conference this month.
While Fancy held an album release last October, he hasn’t been onstage since. But on Friday, Fancy and his band will perform at The Bella Vista in St. John’s. Tickets are available online at justinfancy.eventbrite.ca.
And though they still haven’t met in person, the collaboration between Fancy and Curtis continues. Where that will take them, Curtis believes, is up to Fancy.
“He’s got no fear of taking stuff to the next level, so the sky is the limit, I think, for him,” Curtis said.