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Royal Wood cuts to the chase on latest tunes

Emotionally charged and honest work set for release in March
Royal Wood
Royal Wood is planning to release his new album The Burning Bright in March.

Royal Wood, part of the Cap Global Roots Series, Friday, Jan. 31 at 8 p.m. at BlueShore Financial Centre at Capilano University. Tickets: $30/$27. capilanou.ca/

For his new album, The Burning Bright, Royal Wood made a concerted effort to write from his heart rather than his head.

Wood's last record, 2012's We Were Born to Glory, was very much a "pop experiment," he says, reached Tuesday from Prince George where, as part of his current Western Canadian tour, he was set to play a sold-out Cold Snap Festival show that evening.

The Juno-nominated We Were Born to Glory was essentially "a boutique homage" to the pop records Wood loved when he was a kid - by The Beatles, Tom Petty and the Traveling Wilburys included.

"It was a fun experiment, but I didn't feel artistically fulfilled," he says. "Even though it's the most successful record I've had and it led to a lot of great things for me -and it's not that I regret making it - but I just knew that the next record, I had to go back to making art for art's sake, and no other reason."

Wood, who when he's not on the road, splits his time between Toronto, Ont., and the farm he grew up on outside of Peterborough, took off to Ireland in May 2013. He rented a little cottage in the middle of nowhere, the nearest village, Slane, was about six kilometres away, and spent five weeks alone and completely unplugged - no phone, Internet or TV.

"It was just myself and a piano and a guitar, and basically a fireplace. Each morning I'd wake up and some days I'd feel like writing and other days I'd just want to take a walk or go have a pint in the town," he says of his sojourn, which proved to be a rather meditative and introspective experience.

The solitude proved fruitful and Wood was able to coax out close to 40 songs by the time he headed back to Canada.

"It was a question of having to be still. I wasn't thinking about, 'Is this good for radio? Is my label going to like this? Is my band going to like this? Are the fans going to like this?' It was more a question of, 'Why don't you actually listen and see what it is that

you're feeling emotionally and then put that into music like you used to when you

first started?' It's kind of a return to the way I used to write. I'm so connected to the new songs in a way that I haven't been in a very long time," he says.

Wood recorded part of the album in Toronto and Hamilton with producer Dean Drouillard (who's currently touring with him as his guitarist), and in Los Angeles, Calif.

Twelve songs comprise The Burning Bright, a "concept album that I'm really proud of," he says.

"While the songs were emotionally charged, the creation of them was so fulfilling in a way that I just missed in my life. This whole process has been cathartic to say the least. I definitely feel like an artist again and I kind of lost that for a bit," he adds.

The Burning Bright's first single, "Forever and Ever," is charting on iTunes, is a top 25 hit in Canada and is getting tons of radio play.

"That was an anomaly. It definitely is the one respite on the album, of sort of a happier tone. It's kind of infectious and fun and certainly about love and celebrating love and wanting it," says Wood.

"Forever and Ever" was initially co-written for a film project that fell through.

"It does work sonically but, from an emotional tone or undercurrent, it kind of stands alone on the album. But, thankfully, again it's a breath of fresh air I think. Otherwise you have 12 songs of melancholy heartbreak. It's nice to have the one happier tone for a moment."

Prior to heading to Ireland last spring, Wood separated from his wife, fellow singer-songwriter Sarah Slean.

"The last album was really celebrating life as much as anything else. This album is still celebrating life and it's still one that's grounded and life-affirmed but it's also more about just my place in my life, and within my family. My marriage was basically falling apart by that point, and just a lot of other things were going on. It was just a time that was definitely unsettled and to deal with it, I needed to disappear and figure it out."

"Music has always been the thing that's got me through everything in my life, be it the most joyous to the most difficult," he adds.

Wood is excited about the pending release of The Burning Bright, slated for March 18.

"It's been a long journey and it required a lot of emotional and artistic investments but we've now gotten there for sure," he says.

That said, it is a slightly scary prospect due to it being such an honest work. "It really tells the tale of what the last year of my life has been. But at the same time it's how I deal with my life and it's why I'm not on a couch talking to a psychiatrist somewhere. I get to get it out in music and then I feel better and move on," he says.

Wood's current Western Canadian tour will bring him to North Vancouver tonight, Friday, Jan. 31, for a show at Capilano University's BlueShore Financial Centre, then Whistler tomorrow night, Feb. 1, and Courtenay on Monday, Feb. 3. He'll then head back to his home province for a slew of Ontario dates in the coming months.

For more information visit royalwood.ca.