Bold act pays off for Laird
Hailing from a rural town in Ontario, Ryan Laird said he grew up not knowing much about the music business.
At age five the Fergus native started playing the piano and guitar and eventually for crowds at local fairs and town BBQs. At age 19 he packed up his Honda Civic and moved to Nashville.
Now, the 28-year-old rising country singer has just been nominated for two Canadian Country Music Association awards, including rising star and video of the year.
“To see it over the last 15 years sort of evolve to this point, it’s just a really nice feeling as an artist,” Laird said Wednesday in a phone interview from Regina, hours after learning about his nominations. The singer is on the road for a radio tour across the country.
Laird will play in Windsor for the first time tonight at the Bull N’ Barrel’s one-year anniversary show.
The musician credits his success to a bold move he made in 2008 when he spent his life savings on a billboard ad.
Laird splashed a giant photo of himself on an ad in Nashville across from Taylor Swift’s record company that read “Hey Taylor, I love your music. Will you please produce my album?”
“Nashville can be really tough as a new artist to try and get attention and break in because there’s so much talent from all over the world that comes there,” he said. “So I wanted to think of a unique way to basically stand out from the pack and draw some attention to my music from the record labels.”
Laird grabbed the attention of Swift and the media and soon landed a record deal with On Ramp/EMI Music Canada. He’s nominated for his debut single I’m Your Man, which charted at No. 10 on the Country Music Television Cross Canada Countdown.
Visit bullandbarrel.com or ryanlaird.com.