Shawn Rosseau is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, composer and producer based in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. Forty-plus years of bar bands, road bands, punk bands, recording studios and TV soundtracks — and still writing, still playing, still having a good time doing it.
Childhood
My father was an RCAF pilot, so we moved between air force bases in Canada, Europe and England. I learned early how to make friends fast and settle into a new school. The hardest move was Canada to England at about age eight: short pants, cap and tie, and a double-decker bus to school with my brother. The desks had ink pots and we learned to write with nib pens. We were posted back to Canada before my penmanship developed, and the ballpoint pen ruined my handwriting forever after.
The Beatles were breaking while we were in England, though I was too young to grasp what was happening. Sundays meant piano lessons with Mr. Parkinson, an elderly gentleman who kept my fingers properly curled by holding a pencil under my hand while I played. I’m glad it was only a pencil.
Teens
At sixteen in Ottawa I bought my first car, a Ford Galaxie 500, by convincing my younger brother Dan to split the cost. We earned the money working summers on construction with our uncles in New Brunswick, where I apprenticed as a carpenter and drove the dump truck home for lunch — until I took out my grandmother’s clothesline and got demoted to an old jeep with very loose steering. Dan and I also started “Student Movers” (the original one) with Dad’s pickup. We knew how to pack a truck, and a little newspaper ad kept us in money for years.
First Professional Gig
My youngest brother Kevin, graduating from grade school, talked the student council into hiring my band “Circus” for the graduation dance. We loaded the gear into the pickup and played “Smoke On The Water,” “Could Have Been A Lady” and the rest. I was sixteen.
On the Road
I played cover bands around Ontario, then moved back in with my parents in New Brunswick and played the Saint John area and the French part of the province with a band called “Tandem.” Next came Toronto and the big time: the cheapest room I could find in Chinatown, a visit to Long & McQuade that left me blown away by the local talent, and a stretch of nearly starving on unemployment benefits from my New Brunswick job as a medical-records microfilm clerk.
Then a telegram arrived. A band in Prince Edward Island had heard of me and needed a guitar player. My cousin Pat Riley — who filled in on bass with The Guess Who and played in Scrubbaloe Caine with Paul Dean before Loverboy — vouched for them. So at eighteen I got on the bus to P.E.I. and joined “Tequila.” What a ride: a school bus, more gear than April Wine had at the time, and at one point thirteen roadies (counting the six band members). We played arenas, universities, barns and events across the Maritimes. I lived in hotels, made good money, and had a great time — but they didn’t want to record any more original songs. So I hit the road for London, Ontario.
London, Ontario — 1978
London seemed to have a bar with live music on every corner. I graduated from Fanshawe College in electronics so I could tinker with my own amps, then from the University of Western Ontario in business so I could figure out why the booking agents were making all the money.
It was the punk era, and I started “Hot House.” I was the only one in the band with experience — I could even tune the guitars. Our drummer’s father co-signed a huge loan; we bought a five-ton truck, a mountain of PA and lights, and hit the small-town bars of southern Ontario as an original hard-core punk band in a sea of cover acts. The farmers loved us. Our bass player wore a dog collar and a bell in his ear to his day job as a stationary engineer, and his “Born to Be Wild” involved strobes, flash pots and a fuzz pedal in a bar. We recorded one of the first — possibly the first — independent albums in the area, back when you needed a label to press vinyl. We found a fellow who mastered and pressed it on his graveyard shift. “Burn It Down” still gets airplay on Fanshawe College radio. Things went well until our singer left to study chemistry. I headed to Ottawa.
Ottawa
Ottawa was full of folkies. I played the bars with my band “The Movers” (yes, we had a cube van and did moving jobs), and toured with country recording artist Paul Henry, who also gave me a job in his other business as a funeral director. Good money, and a story for every party. I graduated from the University of Ottawa, did freelance sound work, and opened my own recording studio at the back of a record store above a Chinese restaurant on Elgin Street — a hip address at the time.
Studio work led to freelance sound with CBC on Parliament Hill and on television, which introduced me to the producers who finally gave me a shot at writing music for TV. I wrote, produced and recorded hundreds of national television commercials in those years. It was one of the best stretches of my life, shared with Maureen, my partner, and her three children who became my stepkids.
Moving closer to the music business meant Toronto, a substantial studio on Queen Street West, and the burnout that comes with Toronto overhead. I bought a little cabin in the woods in Muskoka with a plan to slow down. Then Maureen passed away after a long struggle with epilepsy. I loved her greatly and still do. When someone like that leaves, the future you had pictured leaves with them, and it took me years to put the pieces back together.
Today
I live and work in Muskoka, Ontario. After a long hiatus I’ve placed music with CBC again and reconnected with the business, but what I love most is playing live: open mics, special events, backyard parties and jams where people come to hear the music and hang out with the musicians. Most shows are in and around Muskoka, with the odd trip further afield. For upcoming dates, follow Shawn Rosseau Music on Facebook — that’s where the show schedule lives. There is always a new song, a new video and a work-in-progress on the go.
Watch the latest on the home page, browse videos with friends, or get in touch about a booking. Drop in again for an update.