BobbyCast Presents: Unsigned & Independent: Canaan Cox - From Cruise Ships to Music City and Everywhere In-Between

00:00:10
Speaker 1: Unsigned and Independent Season two, episode four with I got Kevin O'Connell, Hey, Kevin, who's in this week?

00:00:16
Speaker 2: We got Canaan Cox in this week.

00:00:18
Speaker 1: Now I know Canaan because Canaan came up and said hello. He was at the time waiting tables as he You know a lot of artists they have to work jobs so they can pursue their career music like most do. And so I met up because it was like, hey, I don't know if you have any time, but check it out. I saw his name and his Instagram, remembered it, went to it and that took him out and opened for me for sure. I mean we've kind of had, you know, a cool little experience together. Why were you intrigued by Canaan Cox.

00:00:44
Speaker 2: Because he reached back out and I was interested in hearing more of his story and we got in depth more if even his love story, which is the first time I've done this on the podcast, and kind of how that molded him into the artist he is today. It's a crazy one. His love story's crazy love story. Yeah, he flew to your don't give too much on a one way ticket. That's all I'm gonna say. Dang to try to get a girl back.

00:01:05
Speaker 1: I don't even know this, okay, and then at true or false, I don't know if you guys talked about it.

00:01:09
Speaker 2: He used to perform on cruise ships. Do you guys talk about that?

00:01:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, Canaan has done a lot of interesting things to lead him to this point. Now, So how'd you feel about him when you were done? Do you feel like he's a guy that could really take off soon?

00:01:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got a great character to him. He's funny, he's very energetic. He does it all, from dancing to songwriting. He does dance everything. Yeah, he does everything. He's just an entertainer.

00:01:31
Speaker 3: And isn't the case with a lot of these artists.

00:01:33
Speaker 1: They have to do everything because they are unsigned and independent, so they have to learn all these skills because they have a recor label putting a bunch of.

00:01:38
Speaker 2: Money into them.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: Yet yeah, exactly, So here we go, unsigned and independent. It's Kevin and Canaan Cox, which, by the way, his new EP, end Up in a Song comes out May fifth, and he said, hey, think he messaged me once and set His streams went up to like twenty four thousand a month to now a million after it came on the show, which is pretty good for the old Bobby Bone show. UF I do say so MYSELFE. And it also shows really how good he is. All right, that's the deal. Kevin O'Connell, unsigned and independent here on the Bobby Cast.

00:02:06
Speaker 2: Canaan. How are we doing today? Man?

00:02:08
Speaker 3: Living the dream? I'm glad you said Canaan. Sometimes everyone says Cannon like Canon Cox, like the most perfect poor name on the planet, is right.

00:02:19
Speaker 2: I didn't think about that until just now. It doesn't I've said, Yeah.

00:02:22
Speaker 3: There's been time. I like, what where did you What did you think that was? How you said that?

00:02:28
Speaker 2: I am glad you brought that up right away. I wanted to start with that because when I look at it, I mean, I didn't think you're king. But the pronunciation is Canaan, but it's spelled c A n A A n. Yeah, so where does that name come from?

00:02:42
Speaker 3: It's Biblical so like the land of Canaan. I mean that depends on where you're from and how much Bobo you've read, I guess in your life or where you grew up. But yeah, the land of Canaan, it's like where Moses took It's the Promised Land or milk. Yeah, so that makes me sound like a complete egotistical butthole. But no, I'm the Promised Land. No, but that is it, you know in the Bible, that's where it's from.

00:03:05
Speaker 2: Okay, well that shows how much I guess religion Bible. I am well versed in.

00:03:10
Speaker 3: You are not alone. Let people say Cannon Kanan is what Starbucks usually says, Canan Cox. I'm like, what the planetary? I mean, of course, like it's my name, so I know that it's that, but usually I just say a different name, or if my wife's with me, I'm just like, look, you have a name for the order. I'm like Kimberly, not even not even not even going to try, not even gonna try.

00:03:30
Speaker 2: Have you ever even used a fake name for yourself? Like mine's as simple as can be. I'm Kevin. Yeah, you know, have you ever said that I'm Kevin, I'm Dave Ben Ben I've said Ben. Here you go.

00:03:39
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm Ben.

00:03:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, have you ever told your parents or your mom like, well, why do you have to give me this name as people just mispronounced all the time.

00:03:46
Speaker 3: No, I mean I'm just like student to the skid with it. I love it. I've only met one other person with that name, so it's unique. But I've never never had any problems with it or never been like come on, and luckily now, like Starbucks is probably the only you know, coffee shops are the only place that ever like take your name for certain orders or whatever. And I just order online now so they can't get it wrong. You just order on the app. And it's like they still say it wrong, but at least I'll spelled right. Sometimes I'll even give it to them. I'm like c a n a a n and It'll come out k a an e en and I'm like, what the hell, Kenney caane, it's not my Instagram profile, and literally, because it happens so much that it's literally it's my Instagram Bio says, it's pronounced caanaan k a y hyphen n I N kanaan.

00:04:32
Speaker 2: So you're just like, right off the bat, I want everybody to know right now this is in on this. Yeah, don't start making grap up here. It's kanaan.

00:04:39
Speaker 3: It's Kanaan.

00:04:40
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of your mom family, parents, where are you from? Talk about your upbringing a little bit.

00:04:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, grew up in uh Hendersonville, North Carolina. It's just uh south of Asheville because no one ever knows where Hendersonville is unless you're here, and then you think it's Hendersonville, Tennessee. And yeah so but everyone pretty much knows where Ashville is. But yeah, grew up, grew up there, you know, a good old musical family. Mom still actually plays in a like a band around town, just kind of the bar scene over there. And Dad rights. We still write. We haven't written in a long time there before things started to kind of I don't know, quote unquote take off. We've we had a few songs like actually out there into Spotify and DSP's and stuff that he had actually co written with me. But yeah, so we just kind of grew up and music. My grandma played the piano. I grew up listening to you know, her play and Mom play and Dad play and those kind of things and just kind of surrounded myself.

00:05:30
Speaker 2: When did you move to Nashville?

00:05:31
Speaker 3: I did cruise ships for three years. I performed a cruise ships, just like playing the guitar on there and got the you know, traveling and play in the pubs and stuff like that, and then I moved right at the end of twenty and sixteen is when I moved to Nashville. Just yeah, I didn't know anyone, didn't know anything that was going on. You know, obviously you hear the cliches of you know, play downtown and right and there's no If there was a right way to do it, then we'd all be you know, famous by nowland country music, yah know, and there there was just isn't and definitely not not now I will get there. But yeah, So I went downtown, started playing some shows, just did my thing. I was literally what I was doing on cruise ships, just copy and paste towards you know, Nashville. But knew that that was just not a dead end, but it wasn't where I wanted to be. I know a lot of people get down there and they just get stuck down there. So I went down there for a few months and then started to do just trying to book anything outside of here. I mean, you know, go and look out, oh this place spend you know, random middle of nowhere, Kentucky has this brewery, Hey brewery, do you mind pay me one hundred bucks, I'll come up with my pa and play for three hours. And did that and did that for a while, and then it turned out to be something pretty cool later, like we did like a small radio tour to secondary radio, which is kind of the you know, more of the rural parts of the states and stuff, and there's like five stations in Wisconsin alone, and so we would I did a radio campaign there and I was again, You're like, hey, you adn't come up on a Wednesday, play in the corner from four to seven on our happy hour at the you know, off brand Applebee's. Yeah, you know, and you're like, all right, cool, and you go and you're playing right by the you know, men's toilet, and you're like, this is cool, I guess. But now having you know, you go and then those shows turn into full band shows, and then full band shows you turn into ticketed shows, and now like, yeah, we're going in May, we're on the road playing in Green Bay and Omaha, that's all ticketed shows. Oma Hole's almost sold out. Green Bay's a guaranteed show, and you know, yeah, the hundred hundred bucks show in the corner turned into those people who saw you there are also there and now they have every single shirt that you ever put out and know every single song in the world, and yeah, it's just it was a cool, cool build.

00:07:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. Did you ever have a time during that building where you were thinking to yourself, maybe one night and you're like, damn, I don't know, I want to do this anymore? Some long nights.

00:07:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. So two nineteen, we were like we were just sitting hard. I mean, we was just we can warrior stuff, a lot of cover gigs, and things were starting to progress because we were playing a bunch and again this was pre COVID, and then COVID happened, and like we had like chatted up with a few agencies I had opened for a few folks, you know, some repid old names, and I was like, okay, like this is going. We got into some of the publishing houses to write, and then COVID happened, and I'll see, it just screwed everybody over well depending on which way you looked at it. And then after the COVID kind of like cleared off, we started doing the cover things again, and it was right around I guess, you know, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, the things were back kind of renal quote unquote normal. I got off the stage a lot and I'm like, oh yeah, like we rocked, and I was like this sucks, Like I'm so tired of playing everyone else's songs but mine. Yeah, And before that, I don't think it was necessarily you know, it was it was putting food on the table. You know, it was putting you know, keeping the lights on, putting a roof over my head. And I got married, Yeah, in twenty twenty one, you know, got a little guy and to take care of as well, and so those you know, living at rock Star Weekend Warrior life became less and less appealing because I was like this, you know, this sucks. I don't want to miss his bedtime. And that's actually I went back to serving. It's when I gave Bobby, you know, Bobby Bonones the kosher at the restaurant. And after that, I think I worked one more shift and I picked up one of my friends needed someone to pick up a shift because there's something happened. I was like, yeah, I'll do it. And then why didn't work a single day again? I'm on a tangent. I was literally in the middle of this. I was like, where did we what was the question? The question? No, Yes, there will have been times when I'm like, this sucks. How do I get out of it? I think that was last year. Yeah, we got We played a show and one of the venues didn't pay us, and like looking at my band, I was like, yeah, guys, I'm gonna have to just pay out of my pocket and being sure you guys are taking care of I call my dad. I was like in tears, like I don't know what to do anymore, Like I hate playing these songs. I don't want to do this, but also I don't know what else I would do if I didn't do this. And that was like a huge journey moment just for like either you can go and keep playing those shows and hate your life, or get off your not get off your But I've always been like grinding and stuff, but it's like there, it was a different game plan. Yeah, I had different initiative. I guess.

00:10:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I get it. And then you talked about this story with Bobby. For those of listening maybe they haven't heard you before. You've been on the show a couple of times and you've told the story, But can you tell that again real quick right now, I'll snop this of it and just kind of what happened that night and how you came across Bobby and basically why we're sitting here doing this.

00:10:40
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So the serving job I have when I first moved into town obviously didn't do that anymore. I stopped doing that in seventeen when I started playing some acoustics. Shows went back during COVID. Obviously all shows got canceled in twenty twenty, so I was like, hey, restaurant, Dulfriscoes, do you guys want to have me back out? And yeah, long story short, I saw Bobby Bones come in. I was like, I have to say something, like gotta do something, So wrote my name down on a coaster and I just literally said, hey, and you know, love your story, love the hustle. I'm hustling, Like check me out, enjoy your dinner. And they just got him and Kaitlyn got married just you know, not too long or before that, and so I just like, congratulations, enjoy. Did think anything of it, and then literally I think it was at Walmart the next day, like getting groceries or something, and my phone round was like, Hey, this is a Micah. We just give Bobby your name. Would you like to be on the show? We'd like to give you a call at least on Monday, and I was freaked out, freaked out called was on the show, and then he invited me on the show actually two days later to sing and play, and it was yeah, it's definitely changed my life. He's been, He's messaged me a few times on you know, Instagram or I had a bunch of people come out to shows. We try to book shows that he was syndicated in with iHeart and some pds like reached out and it was really cool and I would take pictures like, hey, like this is because of you know, send him sending the pictures to him and he's like, this is, you know, super cool. And then he had me back out on the show about eight months later just to kind of check in, and he had me open for him at the Strawberry Festival awesome, which was yeah, which is super cool. But that was that story and here we are now.

00:12:19
Speaker 2: And that's the leads to this, What are some other hobbies you have outside of making music or songwriting anything else not musically involved.

00:12:32
Speaker 3: Literally, I I don't think I have I don't have hobbies. I hate to be that person, but it's like if i'm not dad husband or we're working on the career. I'll go to the movies, like I love cinema, and that's kind of my two hour window of like I'll actually turn my phone off and like not look at anything. I'll just be like just immerse yourself into this world and just not think about anything, which usually I'll watch it and I'll get inspired and I'm like, oh, that's a cool idea for a music video. So I'll have to tell myself to stop that. But yeah, I don't mean fitness. I work out. I love that. I used to be like two hundred and eighty pounds and so that's that's another story. But yeah, fitness is a huge part of my life. So that's again the five o'clock five am club, getting up, working out in the morning, getting that done.

00:13:18
Speaker 2: What is that fitness journey you're talking about. Then I read upon that you had a major turning point in your life physically mentally. Yeah, he talked about that story a little.

00:13:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, it was in a horrible relationship. That's the key of all good songs. And yeah, but she just led me for another dude, literally said she wasn't attraction anymore. And I was like, well, this is fun, this is fantastic. Wrote a lot of songs about it, but it did. Yeah, it hit me hard, and I was like, this is I just yeah, I didn't like what I was seeing in the mirror, not just physically but mentally. I was like, man, I've been in denial for a year and a half of this relationship. I don't like the guy I see like it just there was no security at all. It was just all insecure and yeah. I called my brother's friend who was a trainer. I was on a cruise ship at the time. I was in the middle of the Mediterranean, I remember exactly. It was like yesterday, and I messaged him. I was like, hey, man, this is Canaan. I'm a Casey's little brother. I know you're a trainer. Like, I don't care if you like tie me to a truck and make me pull it up a hill. I want to get in shape and like get my life back together. And left the cruise ship because that's where my my ex was at the time and we were on the same ship together. Oh wow, Yeah it was horrible. Well that's a whole nother thing. We'll won't get there. But yeah, so I had literally I was like, I can't be here anymore. The furthest we could be away from each other is like one hundred yards at all times. So uh yeah, flew back and just it's been a thing ever since, like literally since I think I did one more contract for Carnival instead of the other ship I was on. But then yeah, and then moved here, and then I met another trainer. But yeah, it was around two eighty five at my worst, I guess, and just went for it and I never looked back. And it's just a huge, huge part of like I said, yeah, my life. My it is a hobby. But I can go like two and go forty eight hours without doing cardio. I don't have to lift, but if I can go forty eight hours without at least doing some kind of cardio or I will turn into a monster.

00:15:18
Speaker 2: Yes, I know exactly what you're saying. Huge part of my life as well. Yeah, I mean physically mentally everything. I haven't worked on anything two days now, and I'm like, I'm going crazy a little bit. Meant yeah, not even just physically mentally. You were at two eighty five.

00:15:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, jeez, I was two eighty five and then the we shot, I did the trainer back home in North Carolina, and then I got here and then I wanted to We were shooting a music video and it was like a boxing theme, and I got with a trainer here and he just changed my life because it was always like, you know, always cool, like you know, you're eating granola and yogurt and like fru, like this is healthy life. So I dropped all that, like the excess weight up front, and I was like cool, but I still like wasn't looking like I wanted to. And then I met my trainer here and he was like, screw all of that, like you don't need to be in any of this. And it's because so obviously, you know, you talk about it and everyone let'say, oh blah blah blah. You looked fine the way you were and whatever all that kind of stuff. I was like, what I wanted to look like, what I wanted to be I was. He was like, you need to eat chicken and asparagus. That was it. That's it. That was it. And so we had one month for this music video and so yeah, for one month, I had a couple of egg whites in the morning, half a grapefruit, and then chicken breast and asparagus, protein shake and almonds at three chicken and asparagus, chicken and asparagus. And that's what I ate for an entire month before the video, and it was everything. But I mean, obviously that's extreme, and I'm not telling anyone to go out there and do that. Unless you have a video in four weeks, then sure go for it. After the video, I did smash a whole beer, nachos, and a burger. For those of you who are like, oh my god, body shaming, but yes.

00:16:59
Speaker 1: So.

00:17:01
Speaker 3: He just shanged my life with just like I didn't know what GI was of a I don't know if anyone else does too, but like a fruit, like oh yeah, like eating fruits good. I was like, yeah, well, actually, watermelon. The GI the glucose index of a watermelon. Basically, it's the speed of which something turns into sugar in your body. A grapefruit is low. You think of like a speed. So it's like cool. I could get this wrong, it could be the opposite, it could be whatever, but great fruit. Let's just say that. Like it's like a twenty twenty GI, which means it breaks down in your body very slow, which gives your body time to use it as energy. Where you eat a watermelon and it basically is eating skittles and you've got about fifteen seconds before your body goes, hmm, that sugar, let us store that away is fat. And so just learning all about that kind of stuff, it's a big I guess you could say fitness is a hobby because I do really love it in that sense of how excited I just got talking about glucose index. But yeah, just learning about all of those things and it's like, yeah, an apple a day knocked your away, but it'll also keep those love handles on.

00:18:02
Speaker 2: You know, what are some good ones then they eat?

00:18:06
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, greatefruit is the best, which I was surprised because it's so tasty. Grapefruits like cherries, like oranges are okay, blueberries are like right in that mid range. But sometimes like the watermelon's the kiwi's bananas, obviously it's a little bit different. It's a different carb, it's a different sugar, but it's still breaking down out your body at a certain pace. So you can literally if you're if you're actually interested in any of those whoever is listening, just literally go like GI level fruits and the same thing you do it with meats, you can do it with vegetables. Office of vegetables aren't that bad, but like the fruits are the big ones as far as like how fast something breaks down in your body?

00:18:45
Speaker 2: So okay, well if you you know you were tuning into health and yeah, yeah, there we are.

00:18:50
Speaker 3: Anyways, I got songs out to those.

00:18:53
Speaker 2: Back to the music. Yeah, back to your life. You know you said you had a bad relationship before and now you're married, you have a kid. I see on Instagram, beautiful kid wife. Everything you look at be what is that relationship? Like how'd you two meet? And what's the love story behind that?

00:19:08
Speaker 3: That is for an entire other episode. If I won't tell you all the things because it would take forever, and it's very sweet. It is a Nicholas Sparks book, if I do say so myself. And Lisa's over there. She knows a little bit of the story. She knows what's going down. But we met on cruise ships. She was a dancer. I was a performer. I had just gotten out of that crappy relationship that I was just talking about, So I was in a pretty vulnerable place. She was actually dating someone else. Yeah, and then whatever. A couple months went by, and then we started dating each other and I knew she was it, Like I knew at whatever, twenty five, twenty six years old. I was like, this is all my life and it could have just been like stupid love and young love or whatever. But I'm here to tell you that it wasn't because I married her, but we broke up. She's from England, so I got on a different ship, so we were about to do long distance. We only dated for like two and a half maybe three months, and that's how I kind of knew that she was it. I was like, we didn't date very long, but it still had the hold of me. But being this stupid twenty five year old boy that I was, I was like, we're doing long disneys. I don't know if this is going to work. I broke it off and it was. Yeah, it was just devastating. And then so, yeah, we separated three years past. I'd moved here, hadn't. I'd reached out to her a few times, like tried to like, hey, I've had dreams about us being together and waking up and just straight up tears crying because you're not actually in my life at all. She didn't respond to anything, never said a word to me. Yeah. And then in twenty nineteen, I get a phone call and it was her and I was like, oh my god, I've waited for this phone call from my enentire life. And she got the English accent though. You know what I'm saying is that I know what are you doing over that? I'm like, And so we chatted for like an hour and a half and she told me about the my son. It's not biologically mine, but he is. He is mine. We're actually like one more step we have like a to sign on Wednesday and he is officially adopted. So I thank you. I'm really excited about that. Yeah, so she called we just reconnected. I wrote a song literally as we hung up the phone. What's called When it comes to you guys, go listen to it and stream it on Spotify and Apple Music and iHeartRadio and everything whatever you listen.

00:21:19
Speaker 2: To, wherever you get it, wherever you listen to it.

00:21:22
Speaker 3: He legally downloaded on limeire alright, dating ourselves, Yeah a little bit or whatever. It's on my top five of MySpace. No, anyways, we reconnected. It took us a bit. Obviously we hadn't chatted for three years. I have you know, just had my head down, lost the weight doing this thing. I was just like I'm going to chase the stream and was doing a pretty good job. Like I said, it was twenty nineteen, like agents were kind of talking to us, we were about to do another UK tour, all of this fun stuff. So it took us about a year to finally be like who are we now? What is this going on? Like there's a kid involved, I don't know what's going on, Like there's a lot. So it took us about he and then we finally figured it out and then I flew over there. I surprised her the first time. I just showed up on a front doorstep, which could have gone one of two ways. It went the good way.

00:22:10
Speaker 2: Good.

00:22:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, happy to hear that.

00:22:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you got the ring on, so.

00:22:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, the rings on? She well that was that was one of the two. So the first time I went over, I was like, hey, I'm still super like into this, like if you are, and we you know, chatted and then like once went by and we were like okay, I'm still kind of scared, like what is this? I don't know? And then finally I got my you know, I stopped being stupid and I was like, I'm in love with this girl, like I don't care what it's going to take to be with her. But I thought I was losing her. She was kind of on the like hey, I've heard this kind of stuff before kind of stuff. So I got on another plane literally the next my drummer we were heading back from a show. He uh Daniel. I was like, hey, man, let me get back. We took me to the airport. I gotta go over there, like I've got to like show her. I bought a one way ticket. I was with a bag. I was like, showed him on a front doorstep. I was like, hey, I'm here to be with you, like it is your move. You tell me what you want me to do, but I'm here to tell you that I'm in love with you and I want to be with the rest of my life. And she told me to go home.

00:23:05
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, shut us. So yeah, I I was not anticipating.

00:23:09
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that the first time was great, this time wasn't. So I was like, can I get a ride back to the train station please? So got a ride got uh yeah. On the train ride from Norwich back to London, I wrote another song, one percent go stream it. I wrote it on the train and I just knew like we were going to end up together. I knew, like I was devastated. My dad called me and he was like, I had a feeling that that's the way that was going to go. But I just wanted you to have your own journey there. And I was like, thanks, Pops, which I wouldn't have listened to me if you told me not to go out. Se what over gone?

00:23:43
Speaker 2: It's good.

00:23:43
Speaker 3: So I wrote that song and then I just I messaged her and I just said, hey, like I don't know when or what, but I know that we end up together. And I was like there's stuff obviously, you know, biological dad stuff was going, you know, all this stuff, and I was just like, I will be here whenever you or are ready to be with me. Yeah, And about like a month later, she was like I miss you, and I was like, let's do this. I went over there, I visited, I landed in England and COVID they shut down everything. If I had gone one more day later, I wouldn't have been able to get into the country, got over there, got like a two week trip turned into a two and a half month trip. But we got engaged then, and so there was no better way to spend the engage. I had planned everything. I had talked to this bookstore, I had a photographer, had all of this stuff planned, and then COVID happened and I was like, do you want to go for a walk in the woods and like some pretty woods outside and I was like, my photographer was He was like, where are you guys. I'm like by this tree with a I don't know. It was like my old birds nests in it were somewhere over here, and it was it was very cute and how it all like the engagement thing happened. And I told her after I was like, I had this all planned and all this stuff. She was like when the photographer jumped out of the bushes, I knew was about to happen because it was just us and all of a sudden, some random guy with the camera was.

00:25:04
Speaker 2: Like, right, it's either a really creepy guy or you hire.

00:25:08
Speaker 3: And so I was like, going there this big speech or whatever, and she was like, yep. As soon as that guy jumped out of the bushes. I was like, ah, he's going to propose. So anyways, we got married and or we got engaged. There's some you know, crazy stuff with like you know, obviously green cards and all this kind of fun stuff. But she's here and he's here and we're just the happiest little couple in the world.

00:25:30
Speaker 2: That's awesome, man. I congratulate. Yeah, Thanky, love story. Thanks, we got fitting this love music whenever.

00:25:34
Speaker 3: You want whatever you guys, make sure you're eating those grapefruits today. Check out your latest rom com Regal.

00:25:45
Speaker 2: You had a couple of singles drop already this year. Hate Me More yep I dropped in January and then March was twice and tell me about that song? Is hate Me More? First? Had that song come about?

00:25:55
Speaker 3: And uh, that one was kind of inspired by something my wife said kimberly, but she jokingly like we talked, I actually reconnecting. We hadn't talked for three years, she said. She's like yeah, She's like I would come up with things that were complete lies, Like I knew they weren't actually true about you, but like I had to like try to push you away, so I would come up with stuff in my head. Like she said, mixer sound like a psychotic crazy woman, but she's not. She's perfect. But yeah, I was. I get that, like you come up, you kind of exaggerate something to just be like yeah, whatever, blah blah blah. And that kind of came up with that vibe of like I tell everyone I hate you, but I hate me more because I actually am, you know, I still in love with you. And that's what happened. I mean, that's where it came from. I knew that's when we went to the right. I wanted to write that, and I'd listened to a few like reference tracks of what I wanted, and I wanted this kind of upbeat, aggressive like it sounds like a banger, you know, this crazy rock upbeat song, but the those do the words. And I was like, oh, this is like really vulnerable and sad. But it was that was kind of on purpose because it's like I tell everyone I hate you, but the truth is I am actually really really sad, and I don't know why I try to tell myself that I'm not in love with you, because I totally so. If you hear the song, please come back to me. But I'm going to sing about it. Yeah, So that was that one, and then twice. I actually didn't write it was an outside cut, but when I heard it, Kimberly was actually with me. And as you now have heard the story of us like being able to love you, the hook on that song is if we loved each other once, could we love each other twice? And as soon as I heard it, Kimberly was with me, and I let her listen to it and she was like, oh my god, like this I relate, we relate, this is our story, Like, yeah, we obviously loved each other and then reconnected and we did in fact love each other twice. So once that kind of that that brought itself into the pile of the songs, I was like, this is the one I want to cut, like for sure, And I asked my distributors. I was like, I like a couple other songs. I'm like, Nope, that's the one you should definitely. We really love that for you.

00:27:50
Speaker 2: So do you find it a huge difference in songs that you write compared to songs that maybe you didn't write yourself, but you relate to, like the way that you sing them or the way that you feel them. Is it two separate emotions or is it similar? If that makes sense.

00:28:03
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've had enough experience with outside songs enough to say that. I will say that the publisher sent me about twenty songs to listen to, and I skipped anything with like beer in the title or liquor in the title, or if anyone was randy out truck or randomly driving by any body of water. Listening to Tom Petty, I was just like, I'm gonna skip this. And I listen to them all and I was just like, he's like. I was like, I like these two. You listen to those fast. I was like, yeah, I skipped eighty eight percent of them because I heard beer or whiskey or something. I was like, I get it, Like I like country music, I was like, but I feel like there's plenty of other things to sing about, so I don't. I think. Long Way Home is another song of mine that was an outside cut and I heard it and that was more vocally. I just loved the melody of that song. And when I demoed it for the producer and I was like, if you guys don't like if someone doesn't cut this and a couple of months like can I have it? Yeah? And he called me up and I was like, hey, do if you want to, it's yours. Uh So, I don't know. I don't think I've never I haven't had enough experience in like trying to relate to a Sartin song. But when I heard Twice, I was like, been there, done that. Loved the song. It was actually a female vocalist on it, so I think it was meant for, oh, like a female's perspective. But I was like, well, I'm just going to drop it down about six whole steps and I'll sing it.

00:29:25
Speaker 2: Like is that something that you try to stay true to yourself? Then if it's especially a song that you know somebody else wrote, you're you're not just gonna cut a song because somebody tells you, Hey, you should cut the song, like you have to kind of feel it.

00:29:35
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah, right, I've got a I will. I mean that's the kind of the great thing of being unsigned and independent. Yeah, is I do get to call my shots. I mean I talked about distributors about it, but it wasn't like, hey, you guys tell me what to release. I was like, I want to release this or this, No, no matter what these two songs are coming out, which one do you think would be better? You know for the next song. And so that's a good feeling to have. But yeah, that emotion in that song if it feels good to definitely be at that level to be able to choose your songs and yeah, not have someone be like, ah, this is more radio friendly And I'm like, what does that even mean? Like like I'm all right, I'm okay, Like I wanna it's whatever I'm doing is not to sound like a vain pos but like whatever I'm doing is working. So I'm just gonna keep authenticity always wins. I guess I will follow up that with that is uh, authenticity always wins. And I found that last year after all the meetings that I had, I had, you know, a lot all at once, and I was like, oh my god, this is like this is it? Like yeah, labels, but whatever, I think again, any labels listening to this, I do think they are resourceful when the time is right. But I feel like what you can do on your own is incredible, and there is a very big lane that is open for independent artists to go and do something, not to copy and paste like what they're seeing other people do. And I think that hit me hard last year when we had the meetings, I was having those people say is this pop? Is this? I mean, I think it's my biggest regret is ever second guessing. Like we went back and we're like, well, maybe we should like maybe we should put like a dough bro in this year or something, and it's like I loved that. I mean, I grew up in North Carolina. I played the fiddle, I played the mandolin, Like I understand they grew up playing bluegrass music and all this country stuff. And I was like it wasn't necessarily a big deal for me, and but I second guessed it a lot, and I kind of got super depressed because I was like, I don't really know what to do, and I got second guessing who I was and what my new music was sounding like. And I think a perfect stamp of whatever this this EP that's coming out in May, I said to hell with all of that with this, because last year, I mean, I thought was probably the most depressed. It was the first time I ever was like, what would I do if I didn't do this? Because I, yeah, I just like this sucks like I'm not country enough, I'm too poppy. I'm hearing pop on the country radio and I'm hearing country on pop radio, and it's like I'm trying to do something here. And then we released the album last year and it started to do its thing. When I was on the Bobby Show, when Bobby had me on in May, I was at like twenty four thousand monthly listeners and we are as of today, thirteen thousand away from one million.

00:32:21
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:32:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as an independent artist, that feels pretty sexy, Like it feels really good and yeah, so we hearing all of that last year, I was like, I'm never wanting to second guess what i want to do in my own music ever. Again, Like doesn't matter who it is. And like once the right person hears it and they want to help, they'll come along and they We're not going to go. I don't know, you might need to sing about Jack Daniels or something whiskey you can like to I don't know if we can say that on air. I don't know what you can say and what you can't say on air, but and be like, actually, Jack Daniels sponsors us, so you know, like whoops, you gotta say the Actually anyways, guys, I got a new song coming out called jack d But yeah, the point is is release the music you want to and the people who listen to it, if it's good, it'll reciprocate.

00:33:10
Speaker 2: What else you got in the works. As we close us out here, coming up this year, you said you have a EP. You're going back to London the UK coming Home? Is that correct?

00:33:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, the UK is Coming Home Tour, which is yeah, kind of for my my wife and little man. Obviously they haven't been able to go back to the country since then, so I was like, what a cute little way to call the UK tours coming home tour for them. The EP's May fifth, it's called ninety four Cord and we've got a few more things lined up after that as far as just like songs go and content and stuff like that, but again just playing those playing the ticketed shows. We're we're working hopefully get out to the West Coast soon. We're talking to Vegas and awesome, trying to do a little West Coast thing out in August.

00:33:48
Speaker 2: So awesome. Well, best of luck, man, I appreciate you coming on here with them. They find you on social media.

00:33:52
Speaker 3: Canaan Cox, not Kanon, not Cannon c A n aa n Cox. Yeah, Instagram, TikTok just pretty much anywhere. It's always it's just there's no like the Cannon Cox or Canaan Underscore got.

00:34:05
Speaker 2: Just not Canan Cox music.

00:34:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's I have a the you know, a pretty unusual name. So that's always the good part is like, ah, I don't have to worry about my handle being taken.

00:34:15
Speaker 2: Yeah that is true. That's true. I to deal with that and change mind to the kickoff Kevin, Like I don't really love it, but it is.

00:34:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll finish this little story. There is because football player. It's not like in the NFL. But his name is Canan Cox and I've we've known each other because of the name, like never met or anything. And I wasn't big on TikTok when it first came out. I didn't get until like twenty twenty, but he had already had it, and I was like, oh my god, the first thing that I'm gonna have to be like the Cannon Cox or Cannon Cox Official or something. And then I was talking to my guitar player on the road and he was kind of like giving me crap about it. He's like, oh, you're not really the can and Cox then if you're not on there, And we were joking around and we went and looked, and I don't know if he got kicked off or if he deleted or something, but we wouldn't search and he wasn't there, and I was like, oh my god. I was like, pull over and like grab the phone, went and said change handle and I was like at Canan Cox and it was like approved and I was like, yeah, I got it, like it's officially canon Cox.

00:35:10
Speaker 2: Who knows how long that would have lasted or how long it was even out there.

00:35:13
Speaker 3: I had, Yeah, have my guitar player not been giving me crap for it, I probably wouldn't have been like, let's see what this guy's doing on TikTok and I was like, he's not here anymore, Like grab it.

00:35:23
Speaker 2: So anyways, we'll go follow him at Canaan Cox c A N A A N c o X go check him out, follow him streamings music, look at all up boredom. I appreciate it, Canaan, this has been a lot of fun, man, and look forward to, uh what the future holds for you. Thanks Boss, we'll talk so all right, sounds good.