Grainswest - Spring 2019

GrainsWest: How did you feel about spending your childhood in small town Alberta? Drew Gregory: I loved it. The town itself had around 350 people, and my graduating class was about 22. There were quite a few of them who wanted to get out and leave, move to the big city, but I didn’t feel that way. While I did end up going to the city for college for a little bit, I knew it wasn’t the place for me. I knew [the farm] was where home was. That’s always where I was going to end up. It was good to get out and experience things, but I’ve always loved the rural lifestyle. GW: You knew you would come back to small town life after high school. How did that affect your life choices? DG: I write about it a lot. It’s nice to just know you have that home, and it was always just so comforting. Right after college, I did go backpacking in Australia for six months. While it was a really great experience, I’ll never forget getting home after six months of being gone. Nothing had changed. It’s all just that kind of comfort. I think it’s allowed me to go out into the world and explore and travel a lot. Of course, I travel a lot with the music, but I always still feel like there’s that comfort of home. GW: You can hear that sense of home in your music. Is that important to you? DG: It definitely has always been important to stay pretty true to that stuff with the music. I think every album I’ve done has been a reflection of where I was at in my life. At that time, when I was reading a lot about it or picking songs about it, it’s always been important to me to keep those roots true. I have trouble singing and writing about things that I don’t know about. You know, a lot of artists tell stories about other people and I’ve always had a lot of trouble doing that. I think it’s just easier for me to get more heart into it when it’s something I really know a lot about. GW: What was the first song you ever wrote? DG: This was after college, after Australia. I always sang at campfires, but just covers. One of the first ones was a song called “Lay It All Out There,” which was about giving your all. I had written it not long before I took my first trip to Nashville. There was an atlas on the coffee table at the friend’s house I was staying at. I was just flipping through it and Tennessee came up. And I thought I’d start mapping the whole trip out—what it would take to get down there. That kind of got it in my head, and it was less than a year later that I moved down there for three or four months to keep writing. Then I started spending every winter down there with the music when farming was pretty slow in Jan- uary, February. It was a good chance to get down there and really explore the songwriting side of things. GW : You grew up on a farm and you farm with your dad. How do you balance your music career with your farm career? DG: I just love both those things so much, so it’s about making time for both. People keep asking me, “When does your music get big enough that you can leave the farm?” A lot of people who Spring 2019 grainswest.com 19 COUNTRY MUSIC STARS DO SING SONGS ABOUT RIDING GREEN TRACTORS, WALKING THROUGH FIELDS OF WHEAT AND HAVING A HECTIC HARVEST, BUT NOT MANY LIVE THAT LIFE OUTSIDE THE RECORDING STUDIO. DREW GREGORY, A COUNTRY MUSICIAN FROM STANDARD, WON THE 2016 ALBERTA COUNTRY MUSIC ASSOCIATION ALBUM OF THE YEAR AS WELL AS MALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR IN 2015 AND 2016, AND RELEASED HIS LATEST ALBUM GOOD PLACE TO START IN 2018. HIS TIME AWAY FROM RECORDING AND TOURING IS SPENT WORKING THE FIELDS WITH HIS FATHER AND LIVING THE FARM LIFE WITH HIS GROWING FAMILY. BY ELLEN COTTEE • PHOTOS BY SIRROMA ENTERTAINMENT, TRAVIS NESBITT AND SCOTT PHOTOGRAPHY Drew Gregory balances farming, family and a growingmusic career A REAL COUNTRY STAR