As a Canadian citizen and a very proud Canadian—one million per cent Canadian through and through—one of the things that most disappoints me is that we didn't take a deep breath and look at what could be a huge travesty for our mental health, especially when mental health is first and foremost in the minds of most Canadians. In our industry, especially right now, because we have not recovered in the slightest—not 0.001%, not at all—mental health is a huge issue.
Just in talking to my team, which I try to maintain contact with to make sure that everybody is good, I see that everyone is trying to hold their head up and put a smile on—albeit fake. This is what we do in our industry. We're in the industry of hearing no. I've heard “no” so many times that I just kind of expect it now. When you're an artist and you're trying to get record deals or you're trying to get gigs and you're trying to climb that corporate ladder....
Right now, though, the artists I've talked with as of late, they just feel lost. It's not so much the artist in me. It's my family who made the sacrifice for us to get to where we are today after 30 years—my wife and my children. The sacrifices they've made, not just with my wife having to work three jobs at one time so I could play on the weekends, but with my children not having their dad there for the first day of school, not having their dad there when they learned how to ride a bicycle.... All those things add up to mental health, and now, seeing their dad just not being able to work at what they have been a really big part of my success in....