POWTER HAVING A GREAT DAY
Vernon hitmaker says thank you to the country with appearance on Canada’s Got Talent
Attention singer/songwriters who are hoping for a hit song: Be careful what you wish for.
In the first half the 2000s, Daniel Powter was a struggling musician living on Vancouver Island. One day on a ferry ride to Vancouver to record a new song, he saw a poster aimed at harried students. Lyrics started forming in his head. He added the words to a melody that he had written “in about five minutes” and recorded a demo of the song with the help of a producer friend’s Vancouver apartment.
In mid-2005, Powter’s label Warner Bros. released the minimally produced track in Europe. Buoyed by a Coca-Cola ad campaign, the song went on to conquer Europe, Southeast Asia, and eventually the Billboard Hot 100.
The song was Bad Day, and the Vernon-raised Powter has been alternatively blessed and cursed since.
“Sometimes I feel like I need to apologize to people who are sick of it,” he said.
“But I don’t know, man. It’s this incredible situation for me. I was so disconnected from it once it was sort of adopted by the world. I felt like it didn’t really belong to me anymore. I had a hard time playing it. But now I feel like I can own it again. I don’t mind playing it.”
Powter never had another hit like the one that became the bestselling song of 2006. But he’s kept writing and recording, first in Los Angeles and currently in Portland. He still releases the occasional album and plays the odd gig. And he’ll make an appearance in an episode of a new season of Canada’s Got Talent, marking his first Canadian TV performance.
The talent show debuted in 2012, and was revived by Citytv in 2022. Now in its third season, the show will be hosted by Lindsay Ell, the supporting act on Shania Twain’s Queen of Me tour.
In the show’s May 14 finale, judges Howie Mandel, Lilly Singh, Trish Stratus and Kardinal Offishall will decide the winner after 116 contenders will compete for a grand prize of $1 million.
The contestants are drawn from across the country, with B.C., Alberta and Quebec well-represented, although dwarfed by the number of Ontario performers. There are the usual singers, magicians, comedians and dancers, but the media release promises that “Million Dollar Season is upping the ante with wild and weird acts” and “world-record breaking stunts.”
The list of performers seems to bear this out, with Norbert the Toad, Maggie the Goalie, Miss T the Bubble Queen, The Ultimutts, and There is a Ball On My Head hoping to become household names.
When asked to do the show, Powter’s first instinct — typical for him, he says — was to say no.
“But one of the things that I always regretted was that I never really had an opportunity to have a presence in Canada. The label was always pushing you into the bigger markets, like the U.S., Germany, England and France.
“So then I thought, you know what, this might be something that lets me close that door or tie a bow and say ‘Look, I think I owe Canada a huge thanks for all the people who supported me.’”
Back in Bad Day days, Powter had hit-making machinery behind him.
Now, with the means of digital production in the hands of anyone and everyone, more voices than ever are competing over fewer resources in the Hunger Games that is Spotify.
Which is where a show like Canada’s Got Talent comes in.
“I had my shot,” Powter said. “It’s much more difficult to break through now. People need opportunities like this show more than ever.”