KISSEL DIVES RIGHT INTO DEEP WATERS
Country star engages in self-reflection on new album, What is Life?
It was a hot day on the dusty outskirts of Camrose. The cowboy hat looked disproportionately large on his small frame, but it couldn't hide the flushed cheeks and elation from the performance he'd just given on the ATB Family Stage.
Eleven-year-old Brett Kissel had placed second in the country vocal spotlight competition, and while it didn't come with a trophy, it earned him this inaugural performance at the Big Valley Jamboree. This would be his first of many.
Covering the festival as a young music writer, I'd taken photos of Kissel on stage and afterwards, met him and his mom Brenda outside the little white tent for a chat. That introduction has stuck with me, and catching up on a Zoom call with Kissel this week, he actually remembers that afternoon vividly.
“I think you can come at all of this from a very unique perspective because you've watched, you've seen, you've been a part of this pretty crazy journey,” Kissel says.
Crazy is one way to describe a career that's taken the preteen from a farm near Bonnyville to opening main stages across the country for Brad Paisley, racking up awards (18 CCMAS and two Junos) and gold and platinum plaques for popular tracks (15 singles in the top 10 and three No. 1 hits). Not to mention sharing the stage for a song with his hero, Garth Brooks, a couple years back.
FAMILY IS HIS FOUNDATION
With his short beard, ball cap and familiar smile, 30-year-old Kissel updates me on his family life. He married his high school sweetheart — Cecilia's two years older so he kept his age a secret to ensure it wasn't a barrier. She went to a Catholic school near the public school he attended so the age gap wasn't obvious, even after she graduated and he was studying remotely.
“I was doing my school through correspondence, so if we were going to do something on a Tuesday night and stay up late, it was totally fine and I was very specific to just not tell her,” Kissel admits. “We were finally hanging out long enough that I invited her to my birthday, and it was at the Ranch in Edmonton, so she thought `OK, so you're probably turning 19 or 20, just like me.' I'm like, `No, I'm actually turning 18.'”
Twelve years and three kids later, the short-term ploy turned out well, but the crazy descriptor applies to more than the intense trajectory of a rapidly rising country star. Even a well-planned, wellplayed life wasn't immune to the chaos and hardships that come with a global pandemic.
On Jan. 1, 2020, Kissel made a new commitment with the release of Now or Never, an album born of mortal inspiration to buck the safe path and take every risk needed to reach the stars. And it came with a promise to release new music on every subsequent New Year's Day.
`OUT THE WINDOW'
“That went out the window,” he says, reflecting on a year that's left no room for fabrications. “Financially, absolutely awful year, just like, I got kicked in the youknow-whats, and everything that I thought I was going to do, all the things that I … we were almost ruined.”
But he hasn't lost touch with the insight that went into last year's album, the deeply personal and creative risks he took, including the track She Drives Me Crazy, a “pop banger” that didn't break the top 10 but went platinum in two months due to popular demand, “which kicks the you-know-what out of any other song that I've had,” he says, the pride palpable.
“I doubled down all of my efforts, my time, my money on this concept that it's now or never. And actually, I'm glad that I did because the world ended three months into that. And if I would have waited to do this stuff in April, or do this stuff in May of 2020, or the summer, I'll get to it in the summer …”
This hindsight is a blessing, and one of the few career-related moves he can hold onto as predictable norms have all but dissipated. The last four or five years had already ushered in questions and debates about relationships and priorities, shifting like the sands of time. But the last year found everything — beyond his little family — thrown into question and he began contemplating and creating in the abstract and unfamiliar realm that consumed so many in 2020.
AN EXISTENTIAL DIVE
“In all this time of self-reflection, I got into a whole new creative process to really pull back a bunch of layers, to not be as superficial as I used to be with all my previous records, with the way that I used to live my life. Understand, and look in the mirror and realize that everything I did was externally driven, all about external validation, which you kind of need — to a degree — to be an artist.
“However, maybe that's not the real secret to life? Well, hold it, what is the secret to life? What is life in general? What am I doing here? What am I good for if I can't get on the stage? If you take stage out from under me, a microphone out of my hands and a guitar from around my shoulders, what good am I?”
Kissel's unbridled rhetorical questions continue as he tries to create context for the new album he released last Friday, What Is Life?
“This is the most personal record I've ever done because I would have never thought that I would have even taken a deep dive, or even dipped my toes into the waters of this very heavy topic; what is life? I'll probably never find out the answer, but if you listen to these songs, each one — to a degree — is a potential answer to the question.”
Kissel did dive right in, philosophically and creatively, turning out 14 tracks that depart from anything he's done before. With no space given to sugary pop singles, the album opens with his own spoken monologue while each of his kids — five-year-old Mila, fouryear-old Aria and Leo, who's two — have their own conversational track, clips taken from a vast collection Kissel has recorded with them. And each stands as a question of exploration, free from the expectations of a concrete answer.
LESSONS OF SELF-REFLECTION
“This year in particular really showed me a lot about myself, the people I surround myself with, where we're at in terms of just our whole thought process,” Kissel says of the clarity that came to light in these depths. “Cecilia and I are working very hard to navigate through this in our own way, and at least at the very end we're very positive and very happy to say that
we're coming out on the other side, I think, a lot better. So, we're learning.”
While rolling with the uncertain punches, Kissel also committed to the mindset of finding the silver linings present only in the darkest clouds. He's had more time at home with his wife and kids than he ever expected, insisting, “Without question, I've been able to steal time back. Everything I've missed, I made up for this year.”
And he wasn't completely removed from his fans. One of the ingenious performance efforts of 2020 was pulling off 11 sold-out parking lot concerts across the prairies, and he turned the proceeds around and gave back to the fans that support him.
“One of the big things that has been tugging at my heartstrings and just weaseling its way into my brain this year has been showing appreciation and gratitude for everybody in all walks of life,” he says with no effort to hide the emotion. “In a year where I made no money, I was so proud — we raised like a half a million dollars for different charities through different drivein shows that I did or live events that I did or whatever.
“That, to me, is the greatest achievement in this dark time, regardless of CCMAS or Juno nominations or any of that stuff.”
A conversation like this — much like the one presented with his new album — isn't brief, especially with the reminiscing we did on top of the philosophizing. Fun clips from our Zoom conversation, like him talking about the time Brenda gave him and Danny Hooper timeouts, or the plant mantra the Kissels recite every day, will be online with this story, and a new video from What Is Life?
Well, hold it, what is the secret to life? What is life in general? What am I doing here? What am I good for if I can't get on the stage?