MONTREAL — Sixty-five years ago, Canadians helped liberate Holland in the Second World War. Now, the first Dutch solo artist on the famed Motown label is preparing to invade Canada.
Waylon’s debut foray across our borders will be purely friendly, however, and he’s looking forward to a four-city swing that will take him to the Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa on May 15, followed by shows in Toronto on May 18, Montreal on May 19 and Vancouver a day later.
The close connection between Canada and the Netherlands is not lost on the soulful rocker, whose raspy vocals make him sound a little like a young Rod Stewart.
“The town where I was born, Apeldoorn, is like a royal city and every year there is a huge parade of all the old Canadian soldiers so I really grew up with that feeling,” the 30-year-old said in a telephone interview.
He added that one of the first songs he recorded, when he was around 13, was with a Canadian couple who were living in Holland at the time.
Waylon, whose birth name is Willem Bijkerk, had a variety of musical influences going back to childhood but two of the strongest were Michael Jackson and country singer Waylon Jennings, from whom he took his stage name.
Jackson had a strong influence on him as an artist, Waylon said.
“He did everything. He acted, he made music, he wrote his own lyrics and all things. He danced. He was everything. He was the whole package. That’s what inspired me.”
His father was a big fan of Jennings and the young Waylon tried to imitate the country star, strumming a little plastic guitar and wearing a baseball cap with a Waylon logo on it.
“People started calling me ‘Little Waylon’,” he said.
He actually met his idol after he released his first single on EMI when he was around 20. Jennings called him and invited him to join him on tour.
“I worked with him and lived with him for a year in his house in Nashville. That was an amazing time, of course, to get to work with your idol. It was pretty deep.”
The tour never materialized. Jennings, who suffered from diabetes, had to be hospitalized and never toured again. His death on Feb. 13, 2002, hit Waylon hard.
Jennings had given him his guitar and a lot of life lessons, although Waylon says those didn’t sink in until a few years ago, after he had become addicted to drugs.
“I was pretty hooked,” he said. “It almost killed me because I overdosed one night. I woke up in the hospital and after that I decided to change. This was not the way to live my life.”
He thought back on what Jennings had taught him — “the only person that you can be is yourself . . . and don’t ever limit yourself.
“I think you need to get older to understand those lessons. I was 20 years old and thought the whole world was mine but it wasn’t.”
Waylon channelled his experiences into his new CD, Wicked Ways.