| Patrick Watson | |
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Patrick Watson |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Montreal, Quebec |
| Instruments | Vocals, piano, guitar, organ, accordion |
| Labels | Secret City Records |
| Website | Official website |
Patrick Watson (born 1979) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and the name of the band which he fronts, whose blend of cabaret pop and classical music influences with indie rock has been compared to Rufus Wainwright,[1] Andrew Bird, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley and Pink Floyd for their experimental musicianship.
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Born in California and raised in Hudson, Quebec, Watson attended Lower Canada College. While living in Hudson, Quebec, Watson worked as a pool and hot tub water analyst at Piscines et Spas Hudson. He began his musical career in high school as a member of a ska band called Gangster Politics.
After leaving Gangster Politics, he released a debut solo album entitled Waterproof9 in 2001.
Watson co-wrote and performed on several songs on The Cinematic Orchestra's 2007 album Ma Fleur including the opening track "To Build a Home". His "Missing You" remix of Champion's "Guy Doune", from Champion's 2006 album The Remix Album, reached #1 on CBC Radio 3's R3-30 chart in early 2007.
In 2008, Watson composed the entire soundtrack for the French-Canadian film, C'est pas moi, je le jure!. The soundtrack features collaborations by Elie Dupuis and the star of the movie, who was 12 years old at the time.
Watson has toured with several artists, including John Cale, The Cinematic Orchestra, Cold War Kids, Amon Tobin, The Dears, Feist and James Brown.[1] He was Starbucks "Pick of the week" free download in September 2009.
After creating music and releasing albums in various styles, Watson put together a four-piece band that performed with artists like James Brown, The Dears, Philip Glass and the Stills. The band consists of Patrick Watson as lead singer, Simon Angell, Robbie Kuster, and Mishka Stein.
In an interview, Watson said regarding his band: "So we as a band are called Patrick Watson. How it started was that originally, some years ago, we were asked to do some music to accompany a book of photography. Having built a CD to go with all these images we thought it would be fun to do it live and it worked really well and people freaked. We didn't really think we were gonna be a band at that point but over a period of five or six years we got to a point where it became very difficult to change the name. It was difficult to find a name that suited us especially as we had such an eclectic music style. The second album was a kind of middle point, and now here we are at this third album which is much more song orientated."[2]
The song "The Great Escape" was featured on episode 16 of the third season of Grey's Anatomy, which aired on February 15, 2007, on a Tropicana Canada commercial and in the movie One Week starring Joshua Jackson. The song was also used for the finale of the television show ReGenesis.
The band received a nomination for New Artist of the Year at the 2007 Juno Awards.
On July 10, 2007, Close to Paradise made the shortlist for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize.[3][4][5] It was announced as the winning album on September 24. Their 2009 album Wooden Arms was a finalist for the 2009 prize.
Watson has been known to use unusual objects to make sounds for his music. For example, he "played" a bicycle in the studio for the song "Beijing".[6] Also, in the opening of the song "Man Like You" the drummer uses two spoons to create a tremolo picking effect on an acoustic guitar. He is further credited with the invention of the musical atomic clock, currently held at the University of Iowa.