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Country singer Dean Brody hitting Red Deer on his tour

Latest album, Beautiful Freakshow, combines two genres to tell a story.
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BEAUTIFUL FREAKSHOW - Canadian country singer Dean Brody will be coming to Red Deer May 23rd to perform tunes from his latest CD 'Beautiful Freakshow'.

BY CARLIE CONNOLLY

Canadian country singer Dean Brody will be hitting the stage in a couple of weeks to perform in what he’s calling one of the most high energy shows he’s ever done.

He performs at the ENMAX Centrium on May 23rd.

“We’ve got some cool stage events happening and I’m just really looking forward to bringing this to my fans and getting out there and singing again,” said Brody.

The Smithers-born artist will be touring his latest album Beautiful Freakshow, and it’s not your typical country music album. The story itself, however, is country.

“I wanted to write a song about a country kid who falls in love with somebody that you’d never expect him to in a million years, like somebody from the wrong or the different side of the tracks.”

Brody thought the love interest in the song had to be completely different than him, so he thought to himself what the most polar opposite of country would be. The answer? Rap or hip hop.

He began asking around for that opposite genre attraction and stopped at his buddy in the hip hop community of Nova Scotia, who found an authentic and underground artist named Shevy Price.

Price, who hasn’t been exposed to any kind of commercial projects, was just the one Brody was looking for to team up for his song Beautiful Freakshow.

“Her music’s very edgy. When she tells her story she’s fearless, and it’s almost intimidating because she raps hard,” he said.

When meeting her, Brody said she was sweet, quiet and gentle, but that she has a storytelling side to her that really comes out to explain where she’s coming from. “It was quite interesting to see how two genres I thought had nothing in common actually do.”

He said they are both serious about telling their story, and Brody said he’s always found unique love fascinating, and that with love anything is possible, bridging any gap one might have.

The song celebrates the fact that it’s a ‘freakshow’ but it’s beautiful at the same time.

This album above all of Brody’s other albums, has reggae, old country, a cover from the 60s and a swampy, almost bluegrass-type song along with of course the Beautiful Freakshow song which has a ‘spaghetti western’ ring to it.

He said with the range of mixed genres, he decided he’d call the album Beautiful Freakshow.

People often asked Brody if his parents musically influenced him throughout his life. He used to say ‘no,’ but has started thinking about that a bit more.

“My granny and my dad always had the radio on, whether it was in the kitchen or the garage or the truck, and so through osmosis I had music in my life since I was born.”

When he was 14 he started a garage band with his friends playing rock music as he wasn’t quite into country music when he was young like he is now. And it wasn’t until country star Dwight Yoakam came along that he thought differently about country music. Brody said he thought Yoakam was different, and that he wasn’t scared to step outside of the template stuff that Nashville was putting out at the time.

“He was my bridge into this genre called country.”

Looking back on Brody’s own career, he said winning the Single (song) of the Year Award at the 2016 Country Music Awards for his song Bring Down the House was a big moment. He also won Songwriter and Video of the Year Awards for that song, too.

“For me, everything started with songwriting. When I was a kid I was writing songs and my dream when I first moved to Nashville was just to get a publishing deal. So for me it all begins with the song and it starts in the kitchen with no one looking.”

When it comes to his songwriting inspiration, Brody said it comes from everywhere. Sometimes it’s personal experience, sometimes it’s him trying to put himself in someone else’s shoes to tell their story or sometimes it comes from the movies.

“In the case of Beautiful Freakshow, the production was inspired by spaghetti westerns with the whistle, harmonica, baritone guitar, the surf guitar that’s in there in the solo, almost like old Hollywood.”

Meanwhile, Brody will be touring for the next little while and will be working on songs to get ahead for albums down the road.

For ticket information, check out www.ticketmaster.ca.

carlie.connolly@reddeerexpress.com