Meet songwriter Donovan Woods, Canada’s latest – and unlikely – heartthrob musician

A music streaming fanatic tweeted out his 2020 listening habits this week. “I actually did hearken to 96 hours of @DonovanWoods this 12 months,” wrote a person named Reid.

Canadian singer-songwriter Donovan Woods, a genial and witty presence on social media, replied again to the fan: “I recognize you, and I’m sorry about your breakup.”

Reid (Twitter deal with, @reiderfever) hadn’t talked about any breakup. The wry assumption on the a part of Woods was that anyone who listened to his music for the equal of 4 days should be struggling a damaged coronary heart and that the melodic empathy of Woods was consoling.

Woods and his delicate, tuneful countryfolk balladry have caught a chord with listeners who discover knowledge in his phrases and pacification in his mushy, husky voice. He simply launched his seventh album, With out Individuals, and not too long ago signed a inventive take care of Nashville-based Harmony Music Publishing.

Woods has a rising foothold within the nation music capital, inserting his songs on albums by Tim McGraw and Girl A’s Charles Kelley amongst others.

Initially, I wished to write down about Woods’s feminine viewers, a legion who hook up with his light desperation, heartbreak narratives and relatable feelings on songs equivalent to Final Time I Noticed You, Seeing Different Individuals and the McGraw-recorded Portland, Maine.

Here’s a burly, bearded, tuque-wearing, 40-year-old father in a dedicated relationship, whose feminine followers specific their deep appreciation on social media and tattoo his lyrics onto their pores and skin. In any dialog about Canada’s newest heartthrob musician, don’t underestimate the rumpled, plaid-wearing native of Sarnia, Ont.

Seems Canada’s love affair with Woods is common. There are simply as many Reids on the market as Ritas.

“There’s this notion that each one my followers are girls, however the information doesn’t bear that out,” says Woods, calling from his house in Toronto.

In keeping with Woods’s staff, the troubadour’s fan base skews solely 10 per cent in favour of ladies. Males, then, are responding to Woods’s unguarded emotions in huge numbers; his catalogue has surpassed greater than 200 million streams.

“I get so much messages from males who say my music has helped them kind out an inner life for themselves,” Woods says. “They inform me that my lyrics are echoing what they’re feeling, however can’t put into phrases.”

If Woods’s viewers isn’t predominately feminine, his staff and household influences are. He prefers working with feminine songwriters – “the willingness to emote is there” – and his supervisor is Michelle Szeto, with Paquin Leisure.

He’s a feminist who takes after his mom. “Our pondering is aligned in such a wierd manner,” he says. He grew up admiring his older sister. “She’s been my introduction to all the pieces cool in my life.”

On the track new track We Used To, there’s a lyric that’s left unfinished: “You see, I come from an extended line of….” I ask Woods, an extended line of what? “An extended line of good guys who don’t get what they need, as a result of they’re good,” he solutions, rapidly.

A male artist displaying their delicate facet isn’t out of style, however Woods shows his with extra sophistication and fewer emotional manipulation than, say, Justin Bieber or Shawn Mendes. Holding again a bit, Woods believes, makes for higher songwriting.

“The language of a male narrator feeling vulnerability, however on the identical time restraining themselves to attempt to nonetheless have some masculine facade, there’s one thing in that stress that creates good lyrics. I stroll that line on a regular basis.”

Those that know Woods describe him as a humorous, considerate and, surprisingly given his affable stage banter, an introvert.

“He was a really shy child,” says Kathy Woods, his mom. “However he discovered to be a comic fairly early at college.”

Woods picked up his mom’s outdated Yamaha classical guitar and took to it instantly as a younger teenager. After graduating from the College of Guelph, he pursued an performing profession in Toronto. When that didn’t work out, he turned to songwriting.

“He’s a really delicate man,” his mom continues. “He’s a good one that needs the world to be so much fairer than what it’s now. I believe it’s useful what he’s writing about. He’s emoting about all of the issues all of us care about most. Individuals need to discuss these items, however they don’t know the way.”

Brad Kennard, senior vice chairman of artists and repertoire at Harmony Music Publishing, chased Woods for just a few years earlier than signing him. “There are millions of songwriters who work each day to search out that track that’s going to grant them success,” Kennard says. “It’s a repetitive course of and the issue is that the grind wears down their creativity. And of their exhaustion, they lose sight of the guts of the purpose of what they’re making an attempt to do.

“Donovan is an artist in each sense of the phrase, although. He places his coronary heart into the songwriting course of, and I simply can’t get sufficient of it.”

He’s not alone. A month in the past, an Italian fan, Antonia Mariani, tweeted a photograph to Woods. She had tattooed the musical employees to Portland, Maine on her forearm. She wrote that the track had saved her life.

The adoration isn’t at all times simple to take care of. “I’ve met individuals who imagine I’m in possession of some nice knowledge, however I’m definitely not,” Woods says. “I’m extra afraid of being weak in my actual life than I’m in my lyrics.

“The lyrics are a secure house for me – they’re a aim. The true me shouldn’t be fairly that fantastic.”

Self-deprecation. Some folks discover that attractive.

Maintain updated with the weekly Nestruck on Theatre publication. Sign up right this moment.