![]() That very moment, that first exposure to Led Zeppelin is the reason that my life is based out of London today, a city I which consider to be the musical center of the world. ![]() That moment opened a world for this cowboy from the hills of Saskatchewan (which I still absolutely love being by the way). I remember looking at my best friend who was always about 6 months more musically advanced than I was, and asking him, “Travis, what is this!!?” He told me, “This is ‘Rock and Roll’ by Led Zeppelin.” I shouted, “This must be the greatest fucking song they ever made!” He replied, “Oh no… There is more…” And then to be clear, he nodded with another, “There is more…” I was trying to wrap my mind around what I was hearing. The music was pure power! The energy of it was not coming at me through my was blasting into my body through my chest! It was incredible. The DJ played a song, loud and late, in the Bengough Community Center. A friend of my brother’s began DJing after our band’s final set. It was one night when I was playing bass with my brother Matt’s band, the ‘Badland Country Band.’ We had finished for the night after playing for the Ladies Curling Bonspiel. I can remember the very moment well when the doors of my musical life blasted open. And then, of all places, in a town next to our village of Big Beaver, someone introduced me to rock and roll. I went to university (there were girls there!). My dad is playing rhythm guitar, my brother Dan is on drums, and my brother Matt is on bass:Īnd then further down the line, life changed. My mom as Dolly Parton with our family band in the 1980’s. I am Stephen Harris…Milson Harris’ son,” and the people answering the door would more than likely say, “Oh, the musician man?” Yes, come in! Even today, if my car broke down within that 100 miles of the farm where I grew up and I had to walk to someone’s house for help, when I got to the front door I could say, “Hi. For every wedding, rodeo dance, hockey wind-up, curling-bonspiel, community weekend festival, etcetera, within 100 miles of our farm/ranch through the 1980’s, our family band was probably the musical entertainment of the function. Two other men from towns close by filled out the rest of our family band and I spent at least two weekends a month, from birth until I was a teenager, in the back of our family van full of band equipment, usually laying on top of it, while travelling to gigs. My dad singing ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ with our family band, The Roadrunners’ in 1984. I guess we were probably more akin to the Partridge Family. We were like the Jackson’s with less weirdness. Myself, well, I sang in the band from the time that I was 5-years-old until I was 12. Sometimes my brother Matt would come to play bass for shows when he was not playing with another band. I was given a real musical gift coming into this world as I was actually born into a country music band called ‘The Roadrunners’ that involved my whole family. ![]() Since long before my own existence, my father was the most famous music man of the countryside. ![]() One was country music (“This is Nine-Eighty, CKRM!”) and the other one was country music (“Coun-try Eight-Hun-dreeeeed!”). There were two radio stations that I could listen to in fields. Starting in my early youth, I spent many many long hours and days in our farm machinery, working the land. Where I grew up in this world on a farm/cattle ranch 10 km from a small town called Big Beaver, we had AM radios in our tractors. I guess a better way to say is it that I did not find rock and roll until I was 21. That is not quite accurate, but it is kind of the truth (sure I had heard of AC/DC and sure I had heard the Proclaimers at high-school dances). To describe my life growing up, stretching it just a little, I often tell people that I did not hear rock and roll until I was 21. It is so unconventional in comparison to anyone else I have met in my travels that it makes my situation very unique. I am super proud to be from Big Beaver, Saskatchewan, Canada, population 55. It would be difficult for me to have come from a cooler life and cooler place in the world. I wish I had learned two languages growing up…. Dressed as Angus Young for a wedding, as per request from the groom.
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