I mentioned to Kyle McKearney in an interview, that I’d read somewhere that he said he would rather have a deep impact on a thousand people than a shallow reach to millions – and he paused, surprised by his own words, and said: “Did I say that? Wow. It’s very true, though.”
Kyle McKearney grew up in Fort St. John – a desolate oil town, by his own description, with long cold winters and not much else to do but practice. So he played guitar. He wrote songs. He learned to sing. His dad had spent eight years chasing Nashville with the East Coast Riders. His grandparents had a family band. The music wasn’t something Kyle chose so much as something that chose him, and by the time he was ten years old, he already knew it was the only path he was interested in.
He did the touring circuit with We Will Rock You – 130 shows in six months, sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden, the Microsoft Theatre in LA, venues across two-thirds of the United States. And he admits he was drinking to sleep on the bus, missing his wife and his young son, grinding through something that looked like a dream from the outside. What that tour gave him, he says, was the space to start writing for himself. He came home and started posting songs online. His cover of What a Wonderful World hit 10,000 views overnight. And he hasn’t stopped since.
His album To the River is the record that came out of all of that – co-produced with his bandmate Russell Broom and mixed by Vance Powell, whose discography includes Chris Stapleton, Willie Nelson, and Beyonce.
(I did a double take reading those liner notes).
This summer, Kyle and The Outliers – which includes his wife Sarah on vocals and guitar – are bringing the To the River Tour to Vancouver Island. Sunfest at Laketown Ranch, Rock the Range in Qualicum Beach, and the Parksville Museum Concert Series. He plays it by ear, he says – arriving, reading the crowd, adjusting the setlist accordingly.
What he wants people to walk away feeling?
“Like it’s the best show they’ve ever seen in their life.”
Hear the full conversation with Kyle McKearney on The PULSE Community Podcast at: https://bit.ly/S2EP36PulsePodcast
Peter McCully is a multimedia creator and podcast host based in Parksville, BC. https://mccullymedia.ca/category/blog/