HARRISTON – After a busy summer of performing and recording, Bernie Hale released his first EP this month.
With multiple shows lined up in the region, he is seeing exciting momentum in his music career, he said, propelling him towards a dream that started at the age of 15.
The now 19-year-old recently moved from his hometown of Harriston to attend school at the University of Guelph.
“I’ve gigged around this area for the last three summers,” Hale said.
“This summer has been by far the busiest, but I’ve also started treating it more like a business than a hobby.
“I’ve been making sure to stay on top of the social media part,” he said, and makes posters for gigs and promotes newly released songs.
“It’s gotten a little bit busy lately with going off to school, but I’m still trying to promote is as best I can,” he said.
First time in studio
With a seven-song EP entitled A Songwriters Pawn Shop, released on Sept. 19, Hale described his recording experience at Escarpment Sound Studio in Belwood.
“It was the fastest day of my whole life. We were there for seven and a half hours and it felt like two.”
With the opportunity to explore a vast musical dialect through the session instruments in studio, Hale was inspired by the ability to add in a number of instruments – all of which he played himself.
The goal was to stay true the original intent of the EP, which he says was to provide a stripped-down and laid-back vibe.
“When I play my gigs there are a lot of times where all of a sudden, I just like, get into the zone and it’s kinda like I forget where I am,” Hale said.
“There was a bit of that in the studio and I would say the one moment that sticks out to me the most is Lovelorn. I wrote that song at the end of last year, just as the comeuppance of everything that happened that year.
“I kind of poured everything into that one, so in that song I’m wailing on the guitar the whole time … and the engineer that was helping us, Brian Hewson … he said, ‘you know, you could use the drum set too…’ and I was like, ‘oh yeah, that sounds like fun’ and I just went at it on the drums.
“I was definitely in the zone.”
Music notes /school notes
Hale described the challenge of splitting focus between music and education.
“It’s definitely going to be a struggle to keep it where it was, not to put it on the back burner – I obviously need to focus on school as well, more than the music, but that doesn’t mean I want to put it completely on pause.
“I’m close enough to home where I can come home on a weekend and play a gig … and there’s lots of opportunities here for that kind of stuff.”
Intertwining passions seems to be a skill Hale began developing in high school, mixing his acting and sports interests with education.
At Norwell District Secondary School he was cast in leading roles such as Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Warbucks in Annie and Adam in Freaky Friday.
At university, Hale is majoring in English and hoping to minor in history with thoughts of becoming a high school English or history teacher.
Having written his first song in Grade 8 and building on hits and misses over a few short years, Hale said there’s a lot to gain from getting those first misses out of the way, building aptitude to get to the good ones waiting to be written.
“I wrote some really bad songs in Grade 8. They were horrible but whenever I talk to anybody about writing music, if they’re looking to get into it, I always say, just like anything else you just need to practice it and do it all the time.
“You’ll get better at it but you got to know that the first 10 or 15 are probably going to be really bad. So, get the ones that suck out of your system so you can get to the good stuff.”
Harriston release party
Hale will be hold an EP release party for A Songwriters Pawn Shop on Sept. 26 at 7pm in the courtyard at The Old Post in Harriston.
“Thank you to everyone who’s supported me and got me to this point,” he said.
“I’m grateful for where I am and all the people that helped get me there.”