KID KOALA
AS HEARD ON ...
DENISE DONLON
TIM HICKS
KID KOALA
For the full interview , listen to the Feb . 8 , 2017 episode
AS HEARD ON ...
CM : The title of your new album , Music to Draw to : Satellite , is quite literal in that you created it while working on your last graphic novel . You ’ ve also called it a “ winter album ” because it ’ s quite ambient and melancholic . Do you usually conceptualize your music that way ?
Kid Koala : I ’ m always playing to some imaginary film in my head or imaginary utility of that music . Those people who ’ ve been following my music for a while will know that radio play is not one of my goals . Possibly , it ’ s not even creating bangers for the dance floor . I love playing that stuff when I DJ , but when I ’ m in the studio , there ’ s eight feet of snow outside , it ’ s four in the morning , and it doesn ’ t really feel authentic to me to make that kind of music . It ’ s more just about letting the environment affect what I ’ m doing . I ’ m sure if I moved to an island somewhere , I ’ d be making different types of music in a warm climate , but I live in Montreal …
PHOTO : GRANT W . MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY
DENISE DONLON
For the full interview , listen to the Jan . 4 , 2017 episode
CM : As you detail in your memoir , Fearless as Possible ( Under the Circumstances ), you moved from running MuchMusic to being the president of Sony Music Canada in 2000 . How was it being one of the first female executives at a major label at a time when the labels were massively disrupted by Napster ?
Denise Donlon : On one hand it was very challenging because , being a woman , I was the first female president at Sony Music Canada , and when I would go to my international meetings , I was the only woman in the room that was running a country . Everybody else , the heads of France and Germany and Latin America , they were all men . A friend of mine said , “ Did you lean in , Denise ?” I said , “ Are you kidding ? I was leaning in so far my feet were off the ground .”
And there were no female mentors . There were powerful women at the company , but asking them to mentor me would ’ ve been like asking them to help me tie my shoes . It was just competitive and it wasn ’ t done . That said , there were great male mentors , like my boss Rick Dobbis [ then president of Sony Music International ]. He was fantastic because I started at the company thinking , “ Oh , the record business , it ’ s got lots of money and it can celebrate its artists ” and I was looking forward to getting out of baggage class and flying business for a while . And then of course Napster happened and the rug got pulled out from everybody . But Rick was one of those guys who would say , “ You know , Canada is a little bit under the radar and it ’ s a great company operationally . You ’ re running it really well , but we need to reinvent the business , so R & D your heads off in Canada ,” and so we did .
TIM HICKS
For the full interview , which also included Chad Brownlee , listen to the Dec . 14 , 2016 , episode
CM : Do you have a theory as to why country music ’ s fan base has skewed younger over the last 10 or so years and is no longer just rural music ? You ’ re now seeing people in their teens and 20s living in cities listening to country music …
Tim Hicks : I do have a theory about that . I think that a lot of bands that came out in the ‘ 70s under the umbrella of “ southern rock ” would be considered country in this day and age . And I think one of the reasons that the genre exploded is because we live in a time when people have 3,000 songs on an iPod and that ’ s going to run the gamut from Skrillex to Johnny Cash and everything in between . From what I understand , this debate has been going on a long , long time about what ’ s country , what isn ’ t country , why is country changing ? A guy like myself , I listened to a lot of different music when I was growing up and so that comes out . So you ’ re going to get a little bit of Led Zeppelin because I listened to a ton of it as a teenager and you ’ re going to get a bit of Blue Rodeo because I listened to a ton of it . You know , somewhere in all those things is what I do . I think because country has been so accepting of doing different kinds of things , whether it ’ s rock country , pop country , or the rap country thing that was happening there for a while , it ’ s a great home for somebody who walks a few different lines such as myself .
Listen to new episodes of Canadian Musician Radio every Wednesday at 8 p . m . ET at www . canadianmusicianradio . com . After premiering , each episode is archived at the site and can be accessed at any time or downloaded as an iTunes podcast .
18 • CANADIAN MUSICIAN