L.A. Beat

Folk Thief, aka David Hadgkiss has come a long way since beginning touring on his own just over a year ago. In addition to getting to see different parts of the country he has never seen, his debut CD “ Love, Heartache and Oblivion,”  has even been nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award for best album design.
The Kamloops raised folk/ pop singer  has to fly to Whitehorse the day after his Oct. 15  show with My Boy Rascal at the Owl Acoustic Lounge for the week long celebration of Western Canadian music.

“It’s very cool. I’m  kind of excited just to be part of the industry side of the music business for the week. I’ll get to meet a lot of people on the other side of the music business, the side I should know more about, but it’s also going to be an awesome week of live music,” Hadgkiss enthused over his cell phone while wandering around Montreal for his first time looking for a good place to eat.

In addition to solo sets  from both My Boy Rascal and Folk Thief, they also play together on one song they co-wrote called “Thunder Road.”

 “I’ve got a couple new songs that will be on the next record. I can’t wait to get back home and  dedicate myself to recording it,” he said adding  this show will be more polished than the last set, with some severely road tested songs from the first CD as well as new songs.
He is as enthused about seeing eastern Canada for the first time, almost as much as he is by the response to the new CD and the live show.

“St. John’s, Newfoundland has been  the highlight of the tour so far. So far it has been a very cool experience. But I learned not to drink in Newfoundland the night before you have to catch a plane to Halifax the next morning. That was a rough plane ride,” he said.

“But it is very cool to have somebody come up to me and say they bought my CD the month before and have been listening to it ever since and then saw a poster  saying I’m playing. That has happened a lot,” he enthused.

 

 As expected there have been well attended as well as poorly attended shows.

“We didn’t have a lot of people in Lethbridge. Hopefully there will be more this time,” he said.

“We’ve had shows where I played just for the bartender, but at least he really liked what he heard,” he said.

While he had originally planned to do some co-writing with tour mate Colby Ramsay, aka My Boy Rascal, he hasn’t had time to do it.
 Surprisingly when you’re on tour, there has been no time to co-write. It really feels that all you do is drive to the gig, play the gig, eat, sleep and then drive to the next gig. There’s really not much time for anything else,” he said.

“I’d encourage anybody who wants to tour to just get in their car and do it. It’s worth doing   because it is an awesome experience. But bring snacks and an extra can of gas because Ontario is a lot bigger than it looks on the map,” he said.