Donovan Woods' shifting sense of self

"The way a human brain notices something...the way those things sort of pulse in and out - that's the feeling of being alive. And the closer you can get to those very specific things, the more the general things will take care of themselves for some reason."

Woods' very nature exists in the unremarkable. No flashy, bolshy, musical backdrop, just a delicately attuned strum of six strings occasionally accompanied by other instrumentation. But, as the years have gone on, he's noticed that around this canvas of everyday colour exists an ever-changing landscape, one that he's a part of, the passive observer and active documenter.

To be an artist – particularly a songwriter – is to be selfish in figuring these changes out. "It's like intensely self obsessed," Woods chortles to me over Zoom from his home. "In a way, and it is probably not entirely healthy, I would say. You get a space to process your interior life more than most people do, or probably more than would even be considered healthy."

His place in this world has been shaped by his journey as a songwriter. First penning songs as a teenager, he's worked his way up byway of JUNO award winning albums (2018’s Both Ways) and critical acclaim, through to his seventh album, Things Were Never Good If They're Not Good Now, released today. It's the result of a journey into self via therapy. It doesn't shy away from grief or the spare moments that envelope the cutting and inane. "And I'm in a Hampton Inn fuckin' unraveling / And you're giving away my things", he professes on "Living Well", whilst the album opens with "It's Been Like That For A While"'s vivid shot: "On the Peace Bridge in a Kia Soul / Telling me all the facts on black holes / Most of which I already know / I could hang myself with your purse".

There's an element to Woods that positions him as an outsider. Disconnecting himself from who he could have been to who he is has been a journey of questioning and introspecting. He explains to me the ins and outs of his therapeautic journey as equating to learning how to be yourself: "Not the best version of yourself, but to be entirely yourself all the time, instead of building a double of yourself," he says. "Not to go down the modernity hole, but the way that we all build the double of ourselves online, we have a way that we present ourselves to the world and then we have the way we actually are. That's a recipe for disaster."

Woods found himself disconnecting from the version of himself that would stare back in promotional photographs. Somewhat ironically a version of Woods peers over his shoulder on a framed silver disc as we discuss this. "You start to feel the ceiling of yourself…I don't know how to explain it," he pauses to gather his thoughts. "You get to the point where it's interesting how much of your physical self…how much I have to divorce myself from the idea that I'm the person in the pictures for the music. I don't love pictures of myself. I don't love any of that stuff. And as you get more used to it, you dissociate from that side of things and try to focus on making songs that you feel are going to be meaningful to you in 10 years, and are not embarrassing or trying to chase something that's happening. Because we can all feel the things that are happening…but instead of doing that just trying to write the thing that you would like to write inside yourself."

These light bulb moments are what led Woods to his latest offering: "All the therapy that I went through is trying to undo the years of the projection that I gave everyone in my life of how I was and who I was and my values and then my actual self was much different than that," he tells me. "All the therapy that I've done is in service of realigning those two people, of being honest about my faults to people and being unabashedly myself and owning the things that I need and the things that are my weaknesses."

Songwriting, for Woods, has been a continuous lifetime of learning. It was his early years hearing the sounds of Boyz 2 Men and their R&B ilk crackling through the US radio that would reach his hometown that sparked that creative buzz. "These things were the first things that I heard where I was like, Oh, this is a really special thing, it sounded like something that was my own," he recalls. "It didn't sound like what my parents listened to, because most of the people in the town that I grew up, listened to country music, and that's still how it is."

Raised in the remote border city of Sarnia, in the depths of Ontario, he eventually embarked on a journey to Toronto where he would establish himself. Sarnia is a place where, Woods explains, "Men in particular don't have interior lives." A city on a striking blue sky coast, it's a natural harbour situated perfectly between the US and Canada, a figurative representation of Woods' future journey.

Whilst Woods has become a global traveller, long leaving this juxtaposing homestead behind, who he is, and what he does now, is the antithesis of what he could have been. "Being able to think about yourself a lot on a day to day basis, and to make something out of the thoughts that you have about yourself is an indulgent behaviour," he laughs. "Especially from the place that I come from."

While he may be on a different trajectory than most from Sarnia, he still retains that salt-of-the-earth judgment. For instance, any of those doe-eyed preconceptions we all have about music, and its being on any elevated platform, have been duly silenced by Woods' interior framework. "When people react to the way that you are, you can be tricked into thinking that you're unique in some way," he offers. "Music is a trick, like singing words is a trick, there's something about it that fools people into thinking that it's really important, so much so that they will tattoo lyrics on their body. You have to be really careful with that trick, because it's really powerful and people can take advantage of and some people do take advantage of that I would say."

There's a serenity that radiates from Woods. I ask if he sees himself as an optimist or pessimist these days. It's after a pause and a hearty chuckle he offers, "I think probably I'm a pessimist. But in my day to day, I think a lot of my therapy is about not being a pessimist. I think a lot of what I'm trying to achieve is not being pessimistic and being hopeful that good things can happen or that like, even the bad things happen slow, and that there will still be time for nice things. I don't really think of myself as an optimist."

Having survived his confessed "chaotic couple of years" he now feels more in tune with himself. There's also a flip-side to this, which is warmly received, "I feel much more in touch with myself and much less ashamed of myself all the time, the way that I was before," he says. "I feel I'm almost the front facing, fulsome individual I'd like to be." This also ties in closely to his work as an artist. Now he's realigned himself and removed his double, which has had an impact on his craft. Mentioning that making music now is something he actively pursues, he adds "there are moments where I think I don't know if I can still make music. I know that I will. But I don't feel like it's so much of my person anymore. I remember a therapist being like, what are your hobbies? And me being like, 'Well, I do music,' and she said, '...that's your job.' I was like, 'Yeah, I guess I don't have any.' It was my whole sense of self. I don't feel like it is as much anymore."

Woods has wisened, perhaps beyond his years, but he's unlikely to concur to this fact. Every missive he lays out on the table is guided by a deeply intense knowledge and experience. For one example, he explains the inherent nature of an artist and their resulting work. "By paying attention to the way what life does to you and realise that it's happening through you. It's not just all happening to you. Your attitude is what is shaping the things that you're seeing." This is why his catalogue is a textured spillway that lets the floods of Woods' life run rampant as he looks on from above. To look at Woods' work is to understand that what you see is what you get.

Speaking to Woods gives an insight into the mind behind the journal. When our conversation turns to what music has been and what he expects it to be, Woods delivers a loving diatribe: "A good song keeps you company in your misery and maybe makes you feel strong enough to be able to do the annoying thing that you don't really want to do," he explains. His memories from his day-job days were lit up by a soundtrack of songs that shone through him, his commute being a forging of his realisations that would come to pass years later in his musical career.

"That's the [biggest] compliment to me. When someone's like, I was on a road trip that I didn't want to be on. I listened to you the whole time…That is the highest compliment to me that it's something that's used in your life the way toothpaste is." To Woods, music isn't supposed to provide answers or guide, it's simply a passive companion. To stress the point, Woods exclaims, "You don't want answers from Don Henley!"

Woods' relationship with creativity has grown inextricably since being able to explore his inner workings as well as see the world as a touring musician. He's someone who takes a keen interest in art in all forms – bar films. The type of art that inspires Woods is plain-faced. No metaphorical coating. For instance, he cites the George Clooney film The American as a particular favourite: "It's very little speaking, but I love that movie. I don't like very many movies, to be honest with you. I wish that I did. People seem to really enjoy them," he softly chuckles.

On his relationship with creativity, he explains that it's fuller these days. "I have a fulsome understanding of what creativity is," he explains. "And why something resonates with me personally, and what it is about the commonality between all types of art that I like; painting, the novels, everything that I like, I think there's a common element in all those things that ties it together, that becomes the thing that I like in the art that I like, and I'm getting better at articulating what that is, and trying to seek it out for myself."

One thing he is incredulous about is people who claim to have no discernible interest in music. "There's something up with those people, they're in the minority," he chortles. "Most people, like you said, have something that's so immensely connected to a song. It would be like if we connected a whole industry to somebody's falling in love for the first time. Like, it's such a real visceral piece of us. And then a whole bunch of guys in cool jeans make money off it, which is in itself, it's fucked."

Woods' scope for critique falls easily to his chosen career. He has multitudes of criticisms and opinions of the inner workings of the industry that surrounds him. This is why he's successfully embarked on his own, independent label throughout his career, with only his debut coming under a different label. "You can't imagine a funeral without music, or a wedding without music, it's as guttural as a thing that exists in us. And at the same time, it's also a business where everybody makes a little bit of money. It's a scam!" He proclaims. Driving the point home, he continues, "If every single person who worked in the music industry that wasn't a musician, was in a stadium and the stadium blew up, music would still exist. There would be no change to the output of music. So it's a bit of a scam that we even make money off of it."

The power of music is indisputable. For Woods, it's taken him from a well-worn path which was awaiting him in Sarnia, down his own. It's clear Woods has enough figured out. There will always be more to unfurl, but in the meantime, the passive observer has more active participation to undertake. The canvas will always need more colour.