More Than the Music.

Singer. Songwriter. Entertainer.

20+ years of music,

thousands of performances and a

lifetime of stories along the way.

It Started With a Guitar and a

Really Bad Song About Pizza.

Music was part of my life long before I ever thought about making a career out of it.

I'm the youngest of 6 boys, and I grew up in a family where music was everywhere. My grandfathers, dad and uncles played in bands, my family was involved in building drums and musical equipment, and all of my brothers were ridiculously talented.

My oldest brother was so good at piano that he eventually needed a new teacher because he'd surpassed the one he had.

Meanwhile, I took piano lessons for 6 years and couldn't even pass Level 3. Eventually, my teacher told me I was wasting my parents' money and fired me!

I was so happy.

It wasn't until I was around 19 that I picked up an acoustic guitar my brother had left behind. I learned a few chords and started writing ridiculous songs to make my friends laugh.

One particularly sophisticated composition involved following my friend around while singing the lyric:

“Lisa tastes better than a pizza.”

It wasn't exactly Grammy material.

But something clicked. I realized how much I loved making people laugh, react and connect through music.

That feeling never went away.

One Song. One Terrifying Performance.

One More Gig.

In my early 20s, I wrote my first real song, Searching.

Around the same time, I went back to university to upgrade a math class. The plan was still to finish school and eventually own my own business.

Then music started getting in the way.

Thompson Rivers University held its first TRU Idol competition. I entered, somehow won, and the prize included studio time. For the first time, I got to record Searching along with a few other songs.

Not long after, a friend convinced me to perform at his birthday. I was terrified. Up until then, most of my performing involved making my friends laugh with a guitar. Now I was actually going to stand in front of people and play songs I'd written.

I played 4 or 5 songs that night.

When I walked off stage, I was completely hooked.

By pure chance, the owner of the Falkland Pub was there. He heard me play and offered me another gig.

Then came another.

And another.

Somewhere in there, the plan to go back to school disappeared.

I didn't really decide to become a musician.

I just kept saying yes to the next gig.

A Golden Ticket. A New City. And No Plan B.

For the first few years, almost everything happened close to home.

I was playing shows around Kamloops, writing constantly and slowly building an audience. People started coming specifically to hear the music, and every new opportunity made the idea of doing this for a living feel a little less ridiculous.

Along the way, I was lucky enough to land a few opening spots on some pretty incredible stages. Each one gave me another glimpse of what life as a musician could look like.

Then came Canadian Idol.

For years, people had told me I should audition and I always found a reason not to. Eventually, I gave in.

I earned a golden ticket to Toronto and made it all the way to the Top 40, the final round before the competition went to public voting.

I didn't win, but that experience changed something in me.For the first time, I felt like maybe I really did belong in this world. I came home with more confidence, more motivation and absolutely no interest in figuring out a backup plan.

I wanted to make music work.

In 2008, I left Kamloops with Vancouver in my sights and temporarily landed at my brother's place in Chilliwack.

Temporary turned into 3 years.

But that's when the road really opened up.

I started travelling throughout B.C. and Alberta for shows, with gigs eventually taking me into Saskatchewan and as far east as Ontario.

I was driving from town to town, playing wherever I could, selling CDs out of the back of my car and using one gig to help get me to the next.

There wasn't some grand career plan.

I just knew I wasn't turning around.

MAKING A LIFE IN MUSIC

Records. Road Trips.

And Figuring It Out Along the Way.

Once I decided music was the plan, I had to figure out how to actually make a life doing it.

One of the people who helped me do that was Henry Small of Prism.

Henry became a mentor, producer and someone who gave me a safe place to learn. I was still incredibly green when it came to songwriting and recording, but working with him at Small World Studios gave me the freedom to experiment, make mistakes and slowly figure out what kind of artist I wanted to be.

Together, we made my first 3 albums.

At the same time, I was on the road constantly.

I travelled throughout B.C. and Alberta playing wherever people would have me. Some weekends I'd head out with a car full of CDs and merchandise, play a string of shows, and use the money from one gig to help get me to the next.

There wasn't a tour bus.

There definitely wasn't a private jet.

There was mostly my car.

And a lot of driving.

But slowly, it was working. People were coming to shows. They were buying CDs, requesting songs and bringing friends. Every album seemed to open another little door.

Eventually, I wanted my recordings to show another side of who I was as an artist.

My first 3 albums lived mostly in the acoustic singer songwriter, folk and country world, and I still love that kind of music today.

But that was really only half of me. The other half had always loved pop music. Somewhere inside me was this upbeat, polished, Maroon 5 loving pop artist who just hadn't really made it onto a record yet.

Working with producer Jeff Dawson finally gave me the chance to explore that side of myself. Together, we recorded a 5 song EP called Paper Planes and Spare Change. It sounded completely different from anything I'd released before.

I'm not sure everyone who had followed my earlier music knew what to make of the change. But to me, it didn't feel like I was abandoning the artist I'd been. I was finally introducing people to another part of who I'd always been.

Some of my favourite songs I've ever written came from that record, including Falling for You, which went on to have the biggest radio run of my career.

Hearing something I'd written playing on radio stations across Canada was surreal.

But looking back, the part I'm proudest of isn't any one song, record or radio moment.It's that somehow, through all those shows, highways, CDs, mistakes and little victories, I had done the thing I was trying so hard to do.

Music wasn't something I was chasing anymore. It had become my life.

The Songs Changed. The Stages Changed. And I Changed With Them.

When I finally made it to Vancouver, music was still the only plan.

But making a living here taught me something pretty quickly: if I wanted this career to last, I had to be willing to evolve.

The original songs never disappeared, but slowly, covers became a bigger part of my shows. I started performing regularly at hotels, restaurants, weddings and events throughout Vancouver. And I played a lot.

At my busiest, I was performing 25 to 35 gigs a month, often more than once in a day.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered live looping.

I had seen people use loop pedals before, but it wasn't until I watched Ed Sheeran command an enormous stage with nothing more than a guitar, his voice and a looper that I really understood what was possible.

So I bought one.

At first, I thought I'd use it for maybe one or two songs a night.

That didn't last long.

People loved watching the songs come together. They'd try to guess what I was building before I started singing, and sometimes I'd hear people at a table celebrating when somebody figured it out.

One loop became another.

The setup grew. I added more sounds, more instruments and eventually built the live looping show I perform today.

Around the same time, I wanted to create something completely separate from Paul Filek the singer songwriter.

That idea became OK!FUN!

A full party band built around the same thing I'd loved since those ridiculous songs with my friends years earlier: making people react, sing, dance and have a great time.

Then, almost immediately after OK!FUN! played its first show, the world shut down. For the first time in years, the gigs stopped.

And strangely, I needed that.I had spent years figuring out how to make a living in music. COVID gave me the time to start figuring out how to make a life around music.

I learned Logic Pro. I started producing and writing again simply because I wanted to. And when live music eventually returned, I didn't want to go back to doing everything exactly the way I had before.

I wanted fewer gigs that meant more.

Better shows. Better events. More time to create.

I didn't need to stop being a musician.

I just needed to keep becoming a better version of one.

Turns Out, This Was the Dream.

For a long time, I thought success in music meant bigger stages, more radio play, more people knowing my name and maybe, somehow, making it to Hollywood.

These days, success looks a little different.

I get to make a living doing something I genuinely love. I get to perform, write, create and keep finding new ways to get better at something I've been doing for more than 20 years.

But somewhere along the way, music also became part of something much bigger.

I became a dad. Before my son was born, one of my best friends suggested I record his heartbeat and turn it into a song. I loved the idea. That recording became Little Heart Lullaby, with his actual heartbeat quietly playing throughout the entire song.

I wanted to create something he could have forever.

Something that would always remind him how much his mom and dad loved him before we'd even met him. What I never expected was that the song would become part of our family's life. It became a song that could calm him when he was upset.

Then our daughter came along.

Somehow, Little Heart Lullaby became special to her too. Watching a song built around her big brother's heartbeat bring comfort to both of my kids is one of those things I never could have planned.

There's something pretty incredible about that for me.

I grew up in a family where music was everywhere. It was passed down through my grandparents, my parents, my uncles and my brothers. And now, somehow, I'm passing it along too.

I still have things I want to accomplish. I want to become a better songwriter. A better producer. A better performer.

I want to keep creating music, whether I'm the one standing on stage singing it or someone else is.

I don't think I'll ever feel finished.

But I'm also not waiting for some future accomplishment to decide whether this all worked out. I have a family I love, a home I love and a career built around something that started with a guitar, a few chords and songs about Lisa and her pizza.

Turns out, this was the dream all along.