Rock and Blues guitarist and singer Garret T. Willie has announced his debut album Same Pain to be released September 15th, 2023. He has also released his second single off the album titled “What It Means To Me”.
Garret T. Willie says:
That’s a real deep song, that one. It was years in the making. I came up with the riff a long time ago, in my teenage years. I was screwing around with ‘open-D’ tunings because I play a lot of slides – it’s like relearning the guitar, to quote Keith Richards, although his is an ‘open-G’ tuning but I couldn’t sing in that key so I went to ‘D’ and it seemed to suit my voice a lot better – and I just started exploring everything you can do with an open D.
He contines:
So, anyway, I came up with the riff and whatnot and I had lyrics that were originally more about my late brother Marcus, who passed away when I was 16 and was my best friend and was a sort of light in my life when all around me was darkness. But then somebody close to me and close to my ex passed away, her sister. And that kinda hit at a weird time for me.
Nobody’s ever ready to lose anybody, especially when it’s a tragic death. So essentially it’s about sitting there in Vancouver and thinking about back home and how I’m alone and I’m lost and I don’t really know which way is up or which way to go and I don’t really know my purpose in life, and just being full of fuckin’ trauma and all that stuff, y’know? It’s what happens when things like that happen. You can’t think because your whole life is upside-down.
Garret T. Willie hails from Kingcome Inlet, off the coast of British Columbia. In support of his new music he will be touring all year around.
Tour Dates
July 29 – Denman Island, BC – Blackberry Jam Festival
August 3 – Penticton, BC – The Dream Café
August 4 – Revelstoke, BC – REVY.live
August 6 – Kaslo, BC – Kaslo Jazz
August 10 – Nanaimo, BC – Nanaimo Blues Festival
August 18 – Chetwynd, BC – Sakawinow Music Festival
August 26 – Victoria, BC – Harbour Blues’n Roots Fest
August 12 – Whistler, BC @ Flagstop Theatre and Arts Festival
August 15 – Kashehewan, ON @ Resilience Festival
September 15 – Rossland, BC @ Between the Peaks Festival
