Press
Life Lessons
Deon Blyan learns a few things from relationships and embraces his country soul
Published: Monday, November 12, 2007. The Edmonton Journal
The equation goes like this: Singer-songwriter writes tunes about relationship, relationship ends, singer-songwriter hits roadblock and then bounces back to write ... more songs about relationships.
This is the cycle in which we find 31-year-old Deon Blyan. The Wainwright-born tunesmith originally moved to Edmonton in 1994, seeking to join our growing music community. As a drummer, Blyan simply wanted to meet some of the local songwriters he had grown to respect: Paul Bellows, Chris Wynters (Captain Tractor) and Stew Kirkwood and his band Welcome.
Within a few years, Blyan's own band, Flowers Fade, had recorded a five-song EP and fallen apart, and Blyan found himself in the position where he could finally take centre stage. So he did what most singer-songwriters do - hit open-mic nights at various pubs and mingle with musicians and artists.
"As a new artist, you kinda have this idea of what you want to sound like," says Blyan. "Whatever your favourite is at the time, you want to do everything you can to try to sound like them. I was a real Radiohead/U2 fan back then - I was going through that phase. I think as you grow older, your influences become more dense, but at the same time, you let it be what it's gonna be.
In 2001, he recorded his full-length debut, Try To Be Kind, a Gin Blossoms-inspired roots-pop-rock album that was well-received in the singer-songwriter circles. But then he hit a wall. A long-term relationship came crashing down, and Blyan found himself at a loss for words. Blyan didn't write any new material for a year or two, trying to deal with the darkness that surrounded him. He slowly dug himself out of the hole, writing the material that would become his "bounce back" album, Lessons (And Other Things Learned), which he produced alongside Chris Wynters and James Murdoch.
All of a sudden, Blyan had regained momentum, recharged his batteries and found his true identity. He had gone back to roots and country, the music of his Wainwright childhood, polishing his songs and infusing them with the spirit of the Jayhawks, Blue Rodeo and John Cougar.
"I've really delved into that over the last four or five years - the original sort of country music: Willie Nelson, that sort of thing," he says. "The stories that are in there, the melodies and the simplicity - I've really gone for that.
Yes, most of his news songs are still about relationships, but it seems Blyan would rather look up than down nowadays. It is no longer a question of impressing his friends or trying to please the market, no longer about trends or pretending to be cutting-edge - it's time to reflect on the past and look to the future.
Blyan's true personality shines through on Lessons, which was released through Edmonton indie label Shameless Records last month. The album flows effortlessly and resonates with wisdom and clarity.
"I think that comes with maturity, right?" ventures Blyan, who now splits his time between here and Calgary. "So many people grab onto what's in fashion, but then you realize what you feel comfortable wearing. As you grow up, it's less about trying to impress strangers around you."
Sound CHECK testing one two
by Zoltan Varadi Edmonton Journal’s ED Magazine Oct.14th 2006.
No place like home, You can take the boy outta E-town - and he’ll miss it.
We already know tha money can’t buy you love, but musicians may want to note that increased purchasing power doesn’t guarantee audiences, either. On one of those seemingly damned –if-you- do, damned-if-you-don’t situations, Deon Blyan a roots oriented singer songwriter from Edmonton, pulled up stakes in March to relocate to Calgary. The move had nothing to do with furthering his artistic career, rather it was to pursue a job opportunity developing employee training programs for a major sporting goods firm. “I’ve always had it in the back of my mind – I don’t know if it’s healthy – the knowledge that I have to pay my bills, and music never did that for me” says Blyan. “ For me (the move) was an opportunity to climb the corporate ladder a bit. Needless to say, his Edmonton pals – especially fellow musicians Chris Wynters and James Murdoch, both of whom will be helping out with he production of Blyan’s second album, which he’s set to return here to work on later this month – weren’t all that impressed. “I was at a place in Edmonton where I was playing two or three times a month, and I was playing with a band now and again and we were getting pretty tight, so there was a bit of momentum there”, he say’s. “I had a really good cocoon of musicians that I played with, and they were pretty surprised and not happy that I was moving away and thought it was a bad move musically. They thought it was a derailment of the plan.”Unfortuntaley, so far anyway, their warnings have proved right. Blyan says that although he scored three gigs at a bar during his first three weeks in Calgary, his debut as a resident was less-than-stellar due to a poor sound system and even worse organization on the part of the promoters. “It was frustrating at best” he recalls, saying the experience came as a bit of a surprise. He was used to playing established Eville haunts like the Sidetrack where, “they have an established PA system and a soundman, and everything is pretty set as far as how much you get paid. “But Blyan, who describes himself as a “positive, glass-half-full” kind of guy, says he’s made some headway finding places to play, particularly at more intimate venues. And he loves the city, especially its bustle and proximity to the mountains. Still he admits, the loss of musical camaraderie has been difficult. “Edmonton is such a quite corporate city, but there’s like a million musicians. There’s bands everywhere, “he say’s. “And it’s really tight; when you find your genre it seems like there are 12 other people playing that, and it turns into a cool little community where you play gigs and hang out together.”“In Calgary, everything is really fast in the corporate sector, but…I’ve been to a lot of (visual) art shows. “I’ve met a lot of painters and photographers, but I haven’t really met a lot of musicians at all.”
Deon Blyan comes home to the Sidetrack on Oct 24th 2006.
MUSIC NOTES
By PHIL DUPERRON, Oct 2, 2005
Top Blyan
Deon Blyan • Opening for Luke Doucet and Danny Michel • Sidetrack Café • Thu, Oct 7 Pop music has been getting a bad rap lately. For most people, the term "pop" summons up horrible images of saccharine-sweet boy bands or tarted-up teenyboppers. But there's a swelling undercurrent of talented artists like Ron Sexsmith and Danny Michel who make music with substance that's still catchy enough for anyone to sing along with.
With an ear for quirky details and strong melodies, local songsmith Deon Blyan has been shamelessly writing what he calls "broken pop songs" since moving to the city from rural Alberta in 1994. He's not afraid to pen tunes with a smooth, poetic edge, as long as they come from the heart. "I think everyone's forgotten about the Beatles," he says. "They were definitely a pop band and they really had all that going on. Everybody thinks of the Backstreet Boys when they think pop."
Blyan's first real album, Try to Be Kind, was produced by local pop wizard Stew Kirkwood in 2001, but it wasn't released until late last year. Blyan says he wrote the disc's rootsy songs with an acoustic guitar, but recorded them with a full band in order to bulk up the sound and give it a "rockier" dynamic. Although the lyrics often have a dark element to them-Blyan has a penchant for sombre musings on relationships, love and spirituality-he keeps the sound light and playful. "They're not super-slick," he says, "but they have that melodic tendency to them."
Careful not to get painted into the singer/songwriter corner, Blyan's new material is flexible enough to be performed by a full band, even though he often plays solo. "I think in the four years since recording [Try to Be Kind] I've had a lot of chances to play live and a lot of different music has influenced me," Blyan says. "I think my guitar playing has changed quite a bit. When I play solo, I don't play an acoustic guitar so much-I play a Telecaster."
* deon.blyan@shaw.ca * or * info@shamelessrecordscanada.com * or * Phone: 780-231-3913 *