Three time Music Nova Scotia Award winner, Daniel James McFadyen grew up outside of Toronto chasing a ball, not a melody. But somewhere between the rec centre squash courts and the dark and dreary corners of the pubs filled with folk covers, music found him.

His new album, Back to the Country, was written in a cabin on the east coast and recorded in a cabin cum recording studio on the west coast. It’s raw, nostalgic, and wide open.

Like the places that shaped it.

It's When We Wake with Daniel James McFadyen.

Landmine Tour

@danieljamesmcfadyen

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@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

Charlotte Cornfield is one of those songwriters who can make a small moment feel like a revelation. And speaking of revelations, while I’ve been a fan of Charlotte’s for almost a decade now, going all the way back to her 2106 debut Future Snowbird, in our chat, I learned that Charlotte knew of me years before that even.

You can imagine my surprise.

I guess, I used to be somebody, you know?

Nah.

Turns out, Charlotte and I have more than a couple handfuls of mutual friends form our shared time in Montreal, but this was our first real conversation.

And it went in many directions.

In today’s episode we talk about a magical week in September that Charlotte spent at a songwriter retreat in Cork, as well as the friendships and collaborations that have come out of it; her love of the Toronto music scene and, well, for the city itself; we talk a lot about family and what it means to keep creating while raising one. Charlotte’s daughter, Odette, is now two and a half, and that shift from all-hours songwriting to daycare-scheduled creativity has changed how Charlotte works.

In fact, her new album, due in spring of 2026, was written in the 3 months between Odette starting daycare and Charlotte going into the studio (with an as yet unannounced “dream band”) to record live off the floor, with no headphones and no overdubs.

We bookend our chat with some live dates she’s playing.

Off the top, the Nowadays Festival in Dartmouth NS October 9, and on the tail end, a show she’s playing November 12th at Massey Hall in Toronto as part of an incredible lineup celebrating Neil Young’s 80th.

charlottecornfield.com

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

Yukon Blonde has been part of Canada’s indie rock landscape for more than a decade.

They're JUNO-nominated, they've picked up a SOCAN award, they've had tunes placed in shows like Grey’s Anatomy and The Summer I Turned Pretty, they’ve hit the Top 10 at commercial alt radio, and had #1s on the CBC Music Top 20.

Not too shabby.

And they don’t just write great songs. As anyone who has seen them live knows, they are electric , even if they wrote most of their new album on acoustics.

On today's episode I chat with Yukon Blonde's Jeff Innes and Brandon Scott about the band's new album Friendship and Rock’n’Roll.

We get into how they first met; the heavy metal band Jeff stole Brandon away from; their shared love of vintage cameras; their thoughts on AI in the music industry, and why they hope it might push people back toward playing real instruments.

I also asked the two of them what they’d bring with them to the future. Jeff’s answer won’t surprise anyone, but Brandon’s even caught his old bud Jeff off guard.

And of course, we chat about the songs from the new record, an album that really does live up to its name: friendship and rock’n’roll.

@yukonblonde

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

He grew up wanting to be an inventor. Turns out he is.

Jake Nicoll builds the places and the tools he records with right down to the microphones, compressors, and the bits in between. He moved to Newfoundland with his twin brother and one of his sisters for university and to make music, and he never stopped tinkering.

When the pandemic hit, he went to his family farm in Guelph ON for what he thought would be two weeks. It became a year and a half of sustenance farming with Dad.

Since early 2024 he’s released two albums with companion EPs — the homespun Lonely Mission and the synth-sparked Saturn Returns — jumping styles without losing the heart.

Today we talk about his time on the farm, his studio builds, his proclivity for a good dumpster dive, and, of course, the music... because there’s lots of it.

Overachiever? Maybe. Or perhaps, he's simply built for it.

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

A sense of home is at the heart of Ewan Currie’s songwriting, and after a lifetime of moving around, he’s landed on the East Coast, kinda like me.

But, I’ll put my cards on the table and admit that, ok, sure, folks might be a little more excited by his move than mine. I get it.

Ewan Currie is the frontman of one of Canada’s favourite Rock'n'Roll bands, The Sheepdogs, who, of course, were thrust into the spotlight in 2011 after winning Rolling Stone’s "Do You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star?" contest and becoming the first unsigned band to don the magazine's cover.

Since then, they have climbed to the top of the Canadian charts and have secured their place as one of this country’s premiere live acts. In fact, Ewan thinks their live show is the best it’s ever been.

In our chat today we talk about why Ewan is pretty sure that Rock'n'Roll may have peaked somewhere between 1968 and 1974, why Halifax might just be Canada’s Rock'n'Roll capital, and about how moving around as a kid shaped his perspective of the world. Ewan also shares how how his father influenced his love of music and ultimate his career path.

In June, Ewan released Strange Vacation, his second solo album, just in time for his move to Nova Scotia into a house up on a hill a stone's thrown from mine.

It's great to have new music from a new neighbour.

@ewanjcurrie

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

My guest on this episode is singer-songwriter Breagh Isabel.

From her Halifax home and basement studio, Breagh divvies up her work week co-writing with songwriters all over the world, writing music for kids' TV shows, producing for other artists, and, somehow, still finding the time to write for herself. Though, as you’ll hear in our chat today, sometimes the songs she writes for herself, are the ones left to linger forgotten on an old hard drive.

I had the pleasure of meeting Breagh earlier this summer when she came to lay down some vocals on my new Clever Hopes album, and, boy oh boy, the songs are better for it. She has a seemingly effortless ease to how she creates.

Breagh just released Things I Never Told You, her fantastic debut solo EP - yes, you read that right. After all these years, all these songs, it’s still somehow a debut, and, of course, we get into the how’s and the why’s of that surprising little nugget.

We also talk about how growing up in Cape Breton influenced her music, the producers who’ve shaped her approach, and she shares some of the stories behind the songs on this fantastic new collection.

@breaghisabel

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

Leanne Hoffman's latest album, The Text Collector, started as a personal experiment: write a poem every day for a year. From that mountain of words came a record that’s pop-forward, poetry-laced, and emotionally razor-sharp.

We talk about how seeing St. Vincent live in 2018 completely changed how she thought about performance — and how wild it is that she’s now opening for her at the Halifax Jazz Festival.

We also get into her journey from student of the sciences to full-time artist, her longtime collaboration with producer Erin Costelo, and what it’s like to walk that fine line between excitement and anxiety — about how they might actually be the same feeling, just showing up in a different outfit.

And, in perhaps my favourite part of our chat, we talk about preparation. About how planning, focus, and intentionality don’t kill creativity — they sharpen it. Leanne Hoffman might just be making rehearsals cool again, and I'm all for it.

Leanne Hoffman on Instagram

Wanna get in touch

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

It’s always a gift to sit down with a great artist — and even more so when that artist is an old friend.

Sarah Harmer is one of Canada’s most beloved songwriters, known for crafting songs that are intimate and expansive all at once. From her early days fronting one of my favourite 90’s bands Weeping Tile, to solo albums like her debut You Were Here and her most recent Are You Gone, her music has long been a reflection of both inner life and the natural world around us.

She’s also a passionate environmental activist — a driving force in efforts to protect Mount Nemo on the Niagara Escarpment and other threatened landscapes. For that work, and for the way she’s woven care and conscience into her music, she was awarded the Humanitarian Award at this year's Junos — and the key to her hometown of Burlington, Ontario.

We first met in Kingston back in the mid-90s, when I was hosting a college radio show on CFRC and she was already writing the songs that would later inform how I’d write mine.

This time, we’re catching up from her country home north of Kingston — where she’s waiting for a call from the lawnmower repair man — and talking about music, memory, activism, and the quiet work of keeping it all going.

Sarah Harmer on Instagram

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid