Off the Record with Cory Marks

This interview was done in March 2020 for Musicalypse.net and has been added to the Off the Record archives

Let's get right to it! I discovered you and your music a month or two ago. One of the local Finnish music reps sent us a link to "Outlaws & Outsiders" and I thought that, as someone who grew up in Canada on country music, this was the best country song I'd heard since the 2000s, as western settler/rancher culture disappears in favor of the modern world, country music moved in a poppier direction to keep up with what's popular.

Yeah, unfortunately, that's what it is. Nashville is all over that and they are stuck in their ways right now. That's exactly what we're trying to break out of with this amped-up country music. It's definitely a new sound and there's nothing like it in rock or country, so we're trying to pave our own road here. So far the response worldwide has been incredible. In North America alone we're over 6 million streams in under 3 months, closing in on 10 million views. We're really happy with that and it keeps climbing every day, so we're very thankful.

Incredible. Country, back in the '90s, was all about renegades, drinking and dancing, cheating and heartbreak, your house burned down and your wife left you and your dog ran away... the usual cliches. [laughter] Do you think those traditional themes are an important part of country music, or do you just write about whatever feels right in the moment?

My writing is definitely based on stuff that I've been through, both good or bad, or things that people close to me have been through. I think country music is just that, it's about telling a story and painting a picture. That's what's so beautiful about country music, how sad some of those stories are... guys like Jimmy Rogers and Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and Hank Williams Sr. You go back to when country music was country music, those are all real stories, real heartbreaks, real things that happened to them, unfortunately. You can also get into the mid-'80s, early '90s, like Toby Keith and Alan Jackson, where there are great party songs and great love songs as well, whether that's lost love or gained love.

This project, you have music like "Outlaws & Outsiders," which is definitely a completely different sound from anything else out there, mixing rock, metal, and country music. That being said, we're creating a new sound and on the record, you have that rock/metal feel, if you will, but there's also a song that I wrote called "Whiskey & Wine" that's more stripped-down classic country music. If I compare it to anything, it's more Vince Gill mixed with Merle Haggard. I'm a huge Merle Haggard fan. [laughter] You get the best of both worlds on this record.

Do you have any modern-day issues that you're interested in lyrically, or is it more just about people, experiences, things like that?

I talk about my issues. [laughter] We've all got those. I'm not really a political guy. I try to stay out of politics. First of all, I don't get them… [laughter]

Who does?

I don't think anybody really does. [laughs] I just try to stick to my guns on what's important, which is family, love, friendship... animals of course, I've got my dog. A good old bottle of whiskey or a few beers here and there with those people. That's kind of what I stick to at the moment.

Fair enough. Do you feel like country music is still a largely North American genre? At least out in Finland we might get a Shania Twain show once a decade if we're lucky. Do you think it's ever really crossed the seas anywhere else?

I think so. Guys that are bringing country music back, like Chris Stapleton or Tyler Childers or Sturgil Simpson... that's more leaning towards real country music and the classic sound, both melodically and lyrically. Those guys are doing a great job, and of course there's Eric Church who has more of a rock vibe to him as well, but he's such a great songwriter and storyteller and that's what really makes him country in my opinion. He's got some love over in Europe. Also, in the last 3 months, I've been getting lots of love from the UK, Finland, Switzerland, and a lot of European countries, as well as Australia and Brazil.

That's what I plan to do. I would love to definitely expand the genre of country music, if you will, but not only in North America but the UK and Europe as well. So far, on social media, it's been great. I'm hoping for some tours out that way in the near future and that's the goal, the plan.

Very cool! Now you're a pretty fresh, new artist, so could you tell us a bit about your background, when you started listening to what, what instruments you learned, that sort of thing?

I come from a very musical family. My dad was a drummer in his late teens/early 20s, and also a great songwriter, although he hasn't released anything. He just writes about himself and I think that's probably where I got it from. My uncle, Wolf Milestone, is a country artist as well. So I was lucky enough to grow up in a house where my parents listened to classics like George Jones, Buck Owens, Jimmy Rogers, Merle Haggard, Brad Paisley, and Alan Jackson. My dad was a huge Merle Haggard fan and a big Waylon Jennings fan, so I got to grow up on that.

On the other side, he's been to almost thirty Rush concerts and I started drumming at the age of 10, so I was also listening to Rush, Deep Purple, Ozzy Osbourne. I didn't pick up a guitar until I was about 16-17 years old and it was just, you know [laughs] "Smoke on the Water" basically. Closet writing and all that. I was in a few high school bands, one of which was a heavy metal band, so I totally get you [on the metal side of things]. Bands like Arch Enemy and Dream Theater. I covered a very wide range of music, thankfully, in the household I grew up in.

That said, with this record and this sound that we've created, my producer, Kevin Churko, and I, and of course with the help of his son, Kane, we're writing these songs and creating this sound that mixes all those genres together. In my newest release, "Blame it on the Double," there are Pantera breakdowns, which you definitely do not hear in country music. But we talk about whiskey and fighting and all that good stuff, with some heavy, rockin' guitars.

How would you describe the album you're working on?

The best way I can describe it, honestly, is like a mix of Merle Haggard, Eric Church, and Ozzy Osbourne. [laughter] It's crazy but it is what it is and those are all incredible artists who've done very well. I hope to do the same one day; they're all legends. If I can have half their success I'll be pretty excited. There's still a lot of work to do but I'm hoping this record is definitely going to reach a huge audience in the rock and metal lovers and, of course, the country music lovers.

I've seen some live clips of you online from bars and I've read that you've also done some touring already. Do you have any stories or memories from that time when you were just getting started that you're willing to share?

Probably none that we should talk about. [laughter] Before this project started, I was signed with an independent country label called Big Star Recordings. I'd released an album back in 2015 called "This Man," songs from my songwriting and in Nashville, which started in 2012 up until 2015, when we released the record. Since 2014 up until about 2017 before when this deal with Better Noise was in play, I toured across Canada several times, playing hundreds of shows.

My career started... I was actually enrolled at the Royal Military College of Canada playing hockey, so I'm also a hockey player - of course, Canadian boy [laughter]. So that's where it all started for me. While I was playing hockey, I was enrolled as a pilot. I wanted to be a fighter pilot, so I started playing and singing in any spare time I had.

It all started going out with the boys one night at a bar called The Brass. My good friend Smitty, who's been playing there for years... they found my videos and I had not sang in front of anybody before. Of course, one night they went behind my back and told Smitty that, when he took his break, he should call up Sunshine. They called me Sunshine because I was on the military hockey team, the only one with long hair, and I was just upgrading, I hadn't full enrolled yet. So they related me to the star quarterback from the movie, Remember the Titans. That's how I got my nickname, Sunshine, and long story short, I started playing there once or twice a week when people started asking me, you know, "Where else do you play?" "Where can I buy your music?" "Where can I listen to you?" It was like, man... nowhere, really.

It's bittersweet that it didn't work out at RMCC but everything happens for a reason and once I left there - I think that was in January-February 2011 or 2012 - I started playing small bars in North Bay, my hometown, and then branched out to other cities, including Ottawa, Ontario. That built into smaller festivals and fairs. Then I signed my first record deal with Big Star Recording between 2014-2015 and released a record up here in Canada. It was #1 on iTunes for about a week, which was really cool to see considering it was just an indie label. That was a lot of fun, I still love those songs a lot, and it was really great for me to start my touring experience in Canada. Now this whole new project with Better Noise is going to kick things up a notch and open up a whole new door for me, I hope.

Since you've already done some touring, have you recently or are you going to get to go anywhere new this time?

At the end of February I [did] a showcase for the label in New York City, and then I [performed] in Las Vegas, Nevada, on the 28th. Then we ship over to Idaho, so we're starting to get a string of US dates, which is really exciting, and in May we're off to Texas for three, hopefully four dates.

Can you tell me anything about the older songs from the older album that we can find on YouTube [or Spotify under Cory Marquardt]?

There's a song called "Nowhere with You," "This Man" - the title track, "Smartphone," and "Don't Count Saturday Night." Those are the four songs from the previous record on YouTube. My music there was definitely available on all the other streaming platforms, that entire record, but there are definitely some videos on YouTube of the older stuff from back in 2015-2016.

Will any of those songs potentially make a comeback or are they locked in with the old label and untouchable?

No, even up until this summer, I'd only played a few festivals around North Bay here and [many of those songs] are still loved here in Canada and, of course, with songs like "Outlaws & Outsiders" and "Better Off," and the new one, "Blame it on the Double," I'm also seeing a huge increase in the streams from the 2015 record, so that's pretty awesome to see. "Nowhere with You" went from about a quarter-million views on YouTube to now closing in on four hundred-thousand. So pretty excited about that and if we get more love on those songs then of course you might see them in a setlist, especially up here in Canada.

You hear a lot of tales about what the music industry was like in the '70s, '90s, etc. Nowadays it seems like there's a lot more business involved for the artists. How do you feel as though the industry holds up these days? 

It's both good and bad. I think the business side nowadays for the artist... you know what, to make a long story short, it's less about the music, unfortunately. To me, that hurts because there are some great songs out there but for me personally, most of the stuff out there just doesn't do it for me and you can tell that it's been [fabricated]. It's stories that are made up, I guess. It's just meant to sell and doesn't have any significance to it. You talk about those old heartbreaks... you don't really hear those songs anymore. They're still out there, but less and less on mainstream radio. We hope to bring that back.

For me personally, it looks like in some ways it was a lot more fun in the '70s and '80s [laughter]. You could get away with a lot more, of course, and now you can almost say it's like that with anything. Whether you're an athlete, an actor, or an artist/musician, you've got to really be careful of what you do out there, considering all the smartphones. That's exactly what "Smartphone" is about, really; it being harder to get away with things, good or bad.

I definitely like to take part in a certain amount of the business involved in this industry, but I'm a singer/songwriter and performer and that's my job, so that's what I try to really focus on.

As you said, you've written a lot of material about personal experiences. Are you willing to share any of the backstories or are they too personal to elaborate on?

Sure. I don't think anything's too personal when you're an artist. That's your job. I feel that there's a lot of people that are afraid or too skeptical to tell their story. For example, "Better Off" is a great example of that. It was a song I wrote about a relationship that really turned sour but was never really good in the first place. That being said, I like relating that to not only your boyfriend/girlfriend, but any relationship, between your parents, your siblings, or best friends. You can love that person or at least think you love that person and try to help out as much as you can, but sometimes you can only do so much and it's up to them to figure this stuff out. Really, they're only hurting you at the end of the day, so you're better off without them.

It's great that, even if you write it with something deeply personal and specific in mind, the listeners will hear their own parallel experiences. Do you hear many stories from fans about how they've connected with your lyrics?

Oh yeah! I think "Outlaws & Outsiders" is another one where, for me, the idea behind the song came from a tour called the Outlaws and Outsiders Tour back in 2015, with Canadian country star, Aaron Pritchett. It was a cool tour but also gave me a song idea, which was that song.

It was always a struggle for me to get on Canadian country radio because I was different, I was outside the box. Even on the first album, [the music had] a little more of a rock-y edge, less pop. I'm not really one to play the game, if you will. I really think, being an artist, that it's important to write and perform the songs that you want to write and the image you want to get across. I think it's a lot easier, as your career grows, to maintain that because it's not something that's made-up or fabricated. As you grow as a person, it's easier to grow as an artist too, and that song is for anyone who has ever felt like an outlaw or outsider, in a sense, where they couldn't be themselves. So a lot of people have related to that.

Or there's "Better Off" again, where everyone goes through at least one bad break-up, so I've been getting lots of fan mail based on that song, saying this song really helped me out, I'm going through just that, I'm better off without that person. That's also great and I love hearing that from the fans too.