International recording artist Brett Kissel, originally from Flat Lake, Alta., will be performing live at the Juno Awards in Winnipeg on March 30, showcasing his talents in the hopes of picking up some hardware, as he has also been nominated for Breakthrough Artist of the Year, and his album “Started with a Song” is up for Country Album of the Year.
“The Juno nominations came out and I was just beside myself to hear that I was nominated for two awards, but then they called us back and asked me to perform at the award show,” Kissel told the Journal, last week. “I don’t even know what to think, it’s such an incredible honour.”
The 23-year-old country artist comes from the small community of Flat Lake, but said he does not look at himself as having overcome the odds, he’s just happy to be following his dreams.
“In some ways (I feel that I have overcome odds), but at the same time there haven’t been too many obstacles for me to overcome. I’ve written my goals down and tried to chase my dreams as best as I can,” he said, adding he takes pride in the support he receives from his hometown fans. “Everybody around St. Paul and the area that have been cheering for me and rooting me on over the past many years, it’s just great for us all to enjoy this moment together.”
Kissel said he hopes to make a stop in Flat Lake in March to visit his family, before they all make the trip out to Winnipeg together for the Juno Awards, adding he hopes to spend time with his parents and “get grounded again where it all began,” by helping his father out around the farm.
“I hope that by mid-March I’ll be able to make it out there and spend some time with my dad, maybe help him out with calving a little bit before we head to Winnipeg,” he said. “It’s always great to come back and just kind of get my feet back on the ground in a sense. My grandpa Ron, we call him Grandpa Bear back home, he had a very famous quote that I’ll never forget. He always reminds me that I’m no country star on the farm.”
On top of his recent Juno Award nominations, Kissel has also been making waves across North America with the debut of his new music video for the song “3-2-1.” The music video is a chilling, cinematic portrayal of a violent end to a romantic relationship that has garnered a good deal of attention for its harrowing theme and violent content.
Kissel said that while the song itself did not take the same traumatic approach, he was compelled by director Shawn Silva’s interpretation of how to represent the song on screen.
“I explained to him that the song ‘3-2-1’ is a very passionate and intense love song, and he just took it in a completely different direction. I’m thrilled that he did, because this video has started up a great conversation in the music industry and with my fan base,” he said, adding it was a collaborative process, and he is very happy with the end result.
“We had a few meetings before we got out there to the video shoot, (talking about) exactly about how it was going to turn out: are we really going to test the boundaries? Are we really going to have all this fire? Are we going to hire the bad guys? Are we going to do this all? We finally said we need to go big or go home, and if we’re going to do it we need to do it well, and go the extra mile to make it as intense and traumatic as we can . . . We were all on board, and it turned out to be one of the coolest experiences I’ve had so far in my career.”
Kissel added he is excited to represent his hometown on stage at the Juno Awards, and that anyone interested in following his journey can follow him on Twitter @BrettKissel, or start up a conversation on his Brett Kissel Music Facebook page.
