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Loss of record contract strengthens musician as artist

Shuswap singer-songwriter Dan Bremnes to release new CD
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Describing his life as nomadic and sporadic, former Salmon Arm homey will drop his new CD, Wherever I Go, on Friday, April 5. (Photo contributed)

Singer-songwriter Dan Bremnes will play to the hometown crowd for one night only.

Currently on a three-month tour with 44 stops across the U.S., Bremnes will be in Salmon Arm on April 5, the same day his new record, Wherever I Go, drops.

The Canadian Christian musician, guitarist and drummer who grew up in Salmon Arm, was on the road in 2016 when Captiol Records dealt him an unexpected blow by cancelling his contract.

Bremnes says he came close to ending his career after Capitol cancelled his contract out of concern for his family and their future. But his wife, Brittney, encouraged him to keep going.

“It all turned out better in the end; I was able to make the record outside of the influence of anybody,” he says happily. “To me it felt more like an art, not written from this is how to do it, but from the heart the way I wanted it.”

Bremnes, who had released a CD, Where the Light, in 2015, returned to Vancouver in 2016 and continued working on Wherever I Go, which was written and recorded between Nashville, Toronto, Vancouver and L.A. over two years.

“Before the record was finished, my music was shared and I unexpectedly had two major record deal offers and decided to sign a new deal with Word/Curb in Nashville,” he says.

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Bremnes started releasing a few songs one at a time from the record online starting last year and released the first half of Wherever I Go in September 2018.

The lead single inspired a music video idea that turned into a short documentary also. Bremnes filmed a video and went around the world in eight days. The documentary is split up into eight episodes on YouTube.

Bremnes released the song Wherever I Go to radio in August 2018 and it reached #11 on the Christian Billboard charts in the U.S. and #2 in Canada. The song currently has around two million streams on Spotify and 1.7 million views on YouTube.

Not only is April 5 the release date for Wherever I Go it is the launch of a 21-date tour across Canada. “

“It’s special that I’m able to do the actual CD release date in Salmon Arm.”

The concert takes place at 7 p.m. April 5 at the Salmar Classic.


@SalmonArm
barb.brouwer@saobserver.net

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