With the release of One Hundred Pages Later (Rex Goudie Entertainment/Fontana North), Rex Goudie showcases his unique talents as a singer/songwriter with more heart and honesty than ever before. Lyrically and sonically One Hundred Pages Later is the kind of record the platinum selling, 2005 Canadian Idol runner up has wanted to make since well before first setting foot on Idol’s stage – a fast paced, hard rocking set of songs and stories that owe as much to the East Coast tradition of musical storytelling as they do to modern rock and roll.
Nowhere is that more evident than on the album’s lead single, Comin’ Back For Good. But while the song’s title might tempt listeners to think Goudie outright stopped making music after the glow from Idol faded, they’d be wrong. The Newfoundland bred recording artist never stopped writing and playing, he just went about it his own way, quietly forming his own label and finding a home on the road and a growing audience for his signature brand of down home, east coast folk tinged rock and roll. More accurately, Comin' Back For Good is a statement about the importance Goudie has always placed on finding a home musically, as well as an indicator of the immense pride he takes in the unrelenting work ethic instilled in him by his father and grandfather.
“Whatever they did, they put as much pride into it as they could, and when someone told them that they couldn’t do something, it made them try that much harder to succeed.” That approach has informed every facet of Goudie’s writing and recording process for One Hundred Pages Later, and is underscored by every lyric he sings. “Everything on this record, at some point, I’ve lived the story behind. It’s the body of work I’m most proud of and the sense of accomplishment I’m going to feel when it comes out is going to be massive.”
It’s fair to say the 25-year old, Burlington, Newfoundland based artist already has plenty to be proud of. After entering 2005’s Canadian Idol contest on a dare and very nearly winning it, Goudie released Under The Lights (Sony/BMG), which yielded the number one hit single, Run, garnered a SOCAN #1 Award, two JUNO Award nominations for Artist and Album of the Year, as well as a CRMA for Best New Solo Artist. In short, order Under The Lights went platinum in Canada, and Goudie found himself splitting his time between touring and working on his follow up, 2006’s Look Closer.
Although Goudie always loved songwriting, singing and playing guitar, and worked hard to hone his chops as a musician, he never thought music was a realistic career to pursue in an isolated town of fewer than 400 people. With Idol all that changed, but though he recognized the show as an incredible opportunity and praises the franchise for giving people living in remote areas of the country, like himself, a shot at their dreams, he never intended to base his entire life around it, he says. Still, when Sony/BMG dropped him at the end of Look Closer’s album cycle, he wasn’t about to let go of his dream without a fight.
For East Coasters in general, and Newfoundlanders in particular, ‘not letting the bastards get you down’ is more than an empty platitude, it’s a way of life. “Everybody here has always had to work his ass off in order to make a living,” Goudie says bluntly, and he sees no reason why he should be any exception. As he put it succinctly on his Myspace page after getting confirmation of Sony/BMG’s decision: “No biggie, I can survive.”
Since then Goudie has done better than survive, he’s thrived. Instead of wasting time feeling defeated he did what he’d always done. He picked up his tools and got back to work – Performing everywhere and anywhere he could, from intimate open mic nights and large festivals like St. John’s George St. Festival and the Calgary Stampede, to Canadian forces’ bases in France and Afghanistan.
With One Hundred Pages Later Goudie resolved to take his time, road testing his growing catalogue of material and building up his audience the old fashioned way – face to face, night after night. “Writing songs is kind of like having kids; nursing them along until the day comes and you’ve got to put them on the school bus and send them off to school. This album was like that. I had to wait until it was exactly how I wanted it before I put the youngsters on the bus.”
If Goudie had any doubts about taking the slow and steady road this time out, they were set to rest after the 2009 release of Undone as a stand alone single. Though meant as an experiment – a teaser to generate interest for upcoming shows – Undone outperformed Goudie’s expectations by a long shot. It charted nationally on the Canadian Top 40, topped the East Coast Countdown handily and fuelled Goudie’s drive to finally take the raw material for One Hundred Pages Later into the studio and do it up right.
Recorded in 2010 at Backroom Recording and Vespa Studios in Toronto, and produced by long time bandmate, Michael Borkosky, the result is a collection of songs that anyone with a pulse can find their own life reflected in. But as universal as One Hundred Pages Later may be, the album also deals with very specific events in Goudie’s life. Featuring songs like Save My Life, inspired by his brother’s trip ‘away’ to work in Alberta’s oil fields, and Get Out Of My Head, a song originally written about the trials his father was having as an independent businessman, that ultimately became a metaphor for Goudie’s own struggles as a musician.
One Hundred Pages Later also features co-writes with the likes of Casey Marshall, Eric Paul (co-writer of the Trews’ ‘Tired Of Waiting’), Idle Sons and Social Code, as well as Canadian Pop/punk songstress, Shiloh on Goudie’s duet with Valerie Stanois (We Will Rock You) on Won’t Have To Wait. It also includes Ian Thornley’s Quarantine. A track the iconic Canadian guitarist offered to Goudie personally. “But only on the condition that I sing it like he would,” Goudie says, laughing. “And that I record it in the key he’d written it in, or he’d find me and kick my ass.”
But regardless of where the songs come from, every track has deep, personal significance for Goudie. None more so than Burn It Down, co-written in Nashville with Matt Evans and Jonathan Lawson in 2007, which focuses on the end of Goudie’s highly publicized romance with Idol co-star, Melissa O'Neil.
On One Hundred Pages Later, Goudie’s ability to fuse his love of Canada’s East Coast musical traditions with a set of diverse influences, which include fellow Newfoundlanders The Fables, AC/DC, Foo Fighters and Bruce Springsteen, is truly refreshing. But as much as those influences may have inspired him, Goudie’s sound has a soul and an independent spirit all its own. Proving, once and for all, that while Idol may have introduced Canada to Goudie, the show never truly defined him as an individual, or an artist. One Hundred Pages Later does – unrepentantly, enthusiastically and without a shadow of a doubt.
Follow Rex on Twitter!!
Click here: www.twitter.com/rexgoudie.
Liam Killeen Gets Tattooed
VLOG: Sept 20th, 2009
VLOG: Aug 31st, 2009
Video Update: Aug 18th, 2009
Burn it Down (Live on Air with 99.1 Hits FM)
Undone (New Single!)
2010 Rex Goudie Caribbean Cruise
May 2010 Video Update!
MANAGEMENT
Joel Baskin & Liam Killeen
management@rexgoudiemusic.com
For Booking Inquiries:
Joel Baskin - The Pilot Agency
joelbaskin@thepilotagency.com
http://www.thepilotagency.com
For media inquires please contact:
Samantha Pickard
Strut Entertainment
Phone: (416) 861-0387
samantha@strutentertainment.com
