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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm Mario Tonogusi, Managing Editor of Canada's Podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_01: Joining me today on Calgary's Podcast is Paul Stoya.
[00:14] SPEAKER_01: Who is a singer in Calgary. Thanks, Paul, for joining us today.
[00:18] SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Mario. Thanks for having me on.
[00:21] SPEAKER_01: Well, let me ask you, like, you know, were you a Barnas singer?
[00:27] SPEAKER_03: You know, my, it was my mother who told me at four years old,
[00:31] SPEAKER_03: she would catch me standing on the kitchen countertop sometimes with a remote in my hand,
[00:41] SPEAKER_03: or anything in my hand, singing like I was like Elvis or something.
[00:45] SPEAKER_03: It didn't matter what music was on. I'd always pretend like I was on stage at four years old.
[00:51] SPEAKER_03: And what were you singing?
[00:54] SPEAKER_03: At that age.
[00:55] SPEAKER_03: Usually Elvis, she was a huge Elvis fan.
[00:59] SPEAKER_03: She also loved a lot of like gospel music as well.
[01:02] SPEAKER_03: So there's either it was either gospel music or Elvis.
[01:06] SPEAKER_03: And then my older siblings were born in the 80s, so they were really big into rock and, you know, bon Jovi.
[01:15] SPEAKER_03: So it's kind of a vast array of different music I was exposed to.
[01:18] SPEAKER_03: So music was always part of your life since a young age?
[01:23] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:24] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, my father was actually the director of the orchestra at our church,
[01:28] SPEAKER_03: and he was an amazing trumpet player.
[01:31] SPEAKER_03: And my mother was a mandolin player, and they both sang as well.
[01:35] SPEAKER_03: They sang to us, so very musical family.
[01:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. When was it, you know, when you're growing up,
[01:42] SPEAKER_01: like when was it then you kind of thought this is kind of what you want to do, right?
[01:48] SPEAKER_01: Or do more of?
[01:50] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I guess it began in high school.
[01:54] SPEAKER_03: I took a music course just for the sake of getting better marks.
[02:00] SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I had this, I was thinking of being like a lawyer or something like that when I started high school.
[02:08] SPEAKER_03: And I took this music course and it was the first unit was a choir.
[02:12] SPEAKER_03: And so the teacher would have us all sing and unison because he was trying to match our voices.
[02:18] SPEAKER_03: And then he said, okay, everyone stopped except for Paul.
[02:22] SPEAKER_03: And back then my outer ear wasn't developed, so I had no idea it was coming out of me.
[02:26] SPEAKER_03: So he'd give me a scale and I'd be like, oh, people like Paul, do you know what's coming out of you?
[02:33] SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I have no idea.
[02:34] SPEAKER_03: And then so he was the one whose name was Mr. Heggenhorn, awesome music teacher.
[02:39] SPEAKER_03: He was the one who really pushed me.
[02:41] SPEAKER_03: And I guess it began in the eleventh grade for me.
[02:45] SPEAKER_03: There was a production of William Isarabler that was being done in town, the fame Broadway musical.
[02:51] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[02:52] SPEAKER_03: And there's been done by by Gordon Davis, his very well-known director and actually his son had done a lot of work on Broadway in New York.
[02:59] SPEAKER_03: And so my teacher pushed me to go to the audition.
[03:04] SPEAKER_03: And it was, I think it was at the audition that they really instilled into me that I was meant to do this because they ended up not calling one of the persons they had in mind for the lead role of chef there.
[03:18] SPEAKER_03: And it gave the role on the spot at 17.
[03:22] SPEAKER_03: So that was when I think that was the moment.
[03:26] SPEAKER_01: So, so, you know, when did you start like looking at this as a career?
[03:36] SPEAKER_03: I have to say it was the fall in year in grade, grade 12.
[03:41] SPEAKER_03: The director, one of the artistic directors of that company back in Kitchener, Ontario. That's where I was born.
[03:48] SPEAKER_03: I'm offered to give me training and really thought that my voice was meant for opera.
[03:56] SPEAKER_03: And so I began the, the, the, the, the, the, theational training of opera in grade 12.
[04:07] SPEAKER_03: Discovered that part of my voice.
[04:09] SPEAKER_03: And I began to discover the world of opera. I realized, okay, this is definitely something I think I could do as a career.
[04:15] SPEAKER_03: And it was definitely reinforced by professionals that I'd meet tell me you, you have an opera voice.
[04:23] SPEAKER_03: So it's really, I guess I was 18 years old in grade 12 when I really decided I want to do this for a career.
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[04:40] SPEAKER_01: And so what happened after that after after high school with your music?
[04:46] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, I, it was, it was an interesting story, Mario, because like I went to college, I went to a school.
[04:53] SPEAKER_03: I began training. But the technique that was taught, it actually, it didn't work. It caused issues.
[04:59] SPEAKER_03: I actually had a lot of vocal problems that came from it.
[05:04] SPEAKER_03: And then I tried probably over the next 10 years trying to find a teacher who could teach me properly.
[05:14] SPEAKER_03: And unfortunately, the progression of me losing my voice just continued. It went on for years and years and so on.
[05:22] SPEAKER_03: Back then I could say I had a very small, faint sound.
[05:28] SPEAKER_02: Definitely the sound I had in high school.
[05:33] SPEAKER_03: And I'm a pretty, very different, who heard me sing in a bathroom at a church.
[05:42] SPEAKER_03: He was just like outside in the corridor and he said, listen, you know, you told me you tried all this training.
[05:48] SPEAKER_03: You know, I had applied to so many programs that I was rejected for.
[05:53] SPEAKER_03: And he said, why don't you try applying worldwide?
[05:57] SPEAKER_03: He's like, you haven't been able to find the right training here.
[06:01] SPEAKER_03: What if it's just the people around you just don't see it.
[06:05] SPEAKER_03: And he gave me this saying. He said, Paul, you're not going to find the right people until you're willing to leave the wrong people.
[06:14] SPEAKER_03: And so I listened to him and I put out about 300 applications worldwide, like everywhere, Europe, you know, the US.
[06:24] SPEAKER_03: And I ended up getting a call from a company in Italy who they heard my recording and then said, we think there's great potential here.
[06:35] SPEAKER_03: We'd like to audition you.
[06:37] SPEAKER_03: And so I scrapped up my, you know, my last $2,000 that had my savings account.
[06:43] SPEAKER_03: And I went to Italy on probably probably the most economic trip ever known to man.
[06:50] SPEAKER_03: It was America was able to make a there and back on $2,000.
[06:54] SPEAKER_03: But when I auditioned, you know, it was this beautiful villa they had and you know, they had, we're amazing, amazing.
[07:00] SPEAKER_03: And opera singers there and the one, the one owner of the company said, you know, we're really sorry to the work out for you.
[07:10] SPEAKER_03: That you didn't get the right training you needed, but we see great potential.
[07:14] SPEAKER_03: We're going to help you. We're going to train you.
[07:16] SPEAKER_03: And that, that is really where the voice that you hear today when I performed that's where it was birthed in Italy.
[07:24] SPEAKER_03: And my teacher's name is Francesco Fatticini.
[07:27] SPEAKER_03: I was in Luka, Italy just about an hour west of Fidenza, Florence.
[07:35] SPEAKER_03: And so I lived there for a time as well.
[07:37] SPEAKER_03: Six months was there and that's when I discovered this voice.
[07:42] SPEAKER_03: And so I really, and there's also his partner Paula Abid.
[07:46] SPEAKER_03: They own the company called Opera Stage.
[07:50] SPEAKER_03: And I can say, till the day I die, it began there, you know.
[07:56] SPEAKER_01: Well, so, yes.
[07:59] SPEAKER_01: So if you fast forward in some sense and we'll get into what you sing now, but like what happened after that?
[08:08] SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, and the transitions they from opera to more modern music, if you want to say.
[08:17] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's, yeah. So that brought on a host of opportunities.
[08:22] SPEAKER_02: One.
[08:26] SPEAKER_02: And it was, it was a rich Michael Trinck.
[08:31] SPEAKER_03: And so I, to progress, he realized I was in a larger vocal category known as the dramatic or held in class.
[08:40] SPEAKER_03: And so there's a specialist in the US that he knew.
[08:43] SPEAKER_03: And Michael Trimble was probably one of most renowned teachers in US history for opera.
[08:49] SPEAKER_03: And so he accepted me into a studio.
[08:52] SPEAKER_03: And so I trained with Michael in the US for two years.
[08:57] SPEAKER_03: And he had a wonderful respect for all kinds of singers.
[09:03] SPEAKER_03: Be it, you know, Ray Charles, be it, you know.
[09:07] SPEAKER_03: Any, any country singer.
[09:10] SPEAKER_03: And so he really introduced me to the concept of, you know, being able to sing any, any genre with a solid technique.
[09:19] SPEAKER_03: And there's only a few things you have to change.
[09:21] SPEAKER_03: And so that opportunity led to me to train in Berlin.
[09:25] SPEAKER_03: I did an audition afterwards.
[09:28] SPEAKER_03: And I, I went to Berlin and I got to work with a Maestro.
[09:34] SPEAKER_02: And we can, you know, Tiger.
[09:41] SPEAKER_03: I came back to Canada.
[09:43] SPEAKER_03: But I worked with his Maestro.
[09:44] SPEAKER_03: His name was Brian Byron Knewtsden.
[09:47] SPEAKER_03: He was a, I used to be a director of the Young Artist Program at the Komi Shilpa in Berlin.
[09:54] SPEAKER_03: And so I, I guess that was the key transition because there's an opportunity that came.
[10:00] SPEAKER_03: That he highly like encouraged me to do it in France.
[10:05] SPEAKER_03: And it was a program in the South of France called Liddy Komprovance.
[10:10] SPEAKER_03: And it was held by a renowned opera singer from Paris.
[10:16] SPEAKER_03: And she also sings regularly at the Vienna State Opera.
[10:20] SPEAKER_03: And also the, the, the, the, the Chef de Shaw of the Paris Opera.
[10:25] SPEAKER_03: So he was like the head coach of the, the Paris Opera.
[10:29] SPEAKER_03: So I got accepted into this program.
[10:31] SPEAKER_03: I went and did it.
[10:33] SPEAKER_03: And it was really Sophie that introduced me to a whole other world of singing because she also sang jazz.
[10:44] SPEAKER_03: And it was a really interesting program because it was a really intense program.
[10:49] SPEAKER_03: And we were there 12, see, see an hours a day.
[10:51] SPEAKER_03: They covered everything from acting to presence to, you know, all the, all.
[10:56] SPEAKER_03: Everything we had to know about the technique.
[10:58] SPEAKER_03: And so it was a fusion show that we were actually gearing up to.
[11:03] SPEAKER_03: It was a jazz pop and opera fusion show.
[11:08] SPEAKER_03: And when you hear it, you think that's crazy.
[11:10] SPEAKER_03: Who's ever done that?
[11:11] SPEAKER_03: But it was actually an amazing show.
[11:12] SPEAKER_03: It just, it flowed together so well.
[11:16] SPEAKER_03: And so when I saw my colleagues in France, how they, they embraced jazz.
[11:22] SPEAKER_03: They embraced pop while also being opera singers.
[11:26] SPEAKER_03: I've just said this was, this was a foreign concept to me.
[11:30] SPEAKER_03: And it was, it was in, you know, the months afterwards that I really dug into the work I did in high school,
[11:39] SPEAKER_03: where I actually did sing some jazz in high school.
[11:43] SPEAKER_03: We had a jazz band.
[11:45] SPEAKER_03: And even in my undergrad, I had done a little bit of work with the mini big band.
[11:51] SPEAKER_03: And so all that was put to sleep for like 20 years, because I was just so focused on opera, right?
[11:58] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[11:58] SPEAKER_03: Yeah. And it was, it was really in the aftermath of that shown in, in France that I said, you know what?
[12:05] SPEAKER_03: I don't have to just limit myself to opera.
[12:09] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[12:09] SPEAKER_03: I can explore all the repertoire I love.
[12:12] SPEAKER_03: And then just the synatra swing style, it just suited my voice so much.
[12:17] SPEAKER_03: And so that's, I just made the decision for a time to explore that.
[12:22] SPEAKER_03: All right. So when did you, when did you come to Calgary?
[12:26] SPEAKER_03: I came to Calgary, it's before years ago in 2021.
[12:31] SPEAKER_03: And what was the reason for coming to Calgary?
[12:33] SPEAKER_03: So I worked, I mean considering, you know, I started my real technique when I was like 33, takes a lot, it takes a, I'm 39 now.
[12:43] SPEAKER_03: So, you know, in seven, seven, eight years, it's, you know, it takes a while to train the voice.
[12:50] SPEAKER_03: So I needed what they call a day job.
[12:53] SPEAKER_03: And so I actually, I went to seminary, Intra on on my late 20s.
[13:00] SPEAKER_03: And I began a career focusing more on not as like a full time like a pastor that preaches all the time.
[13:08] SPEAKER_03: I, I focused more on my masters on the pastoral counseling side of things.
[13:15] SPEAKER_03: So I offered a lot of mentorship, a lot of pastoral counseling.
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[13:19] SPEAKER_03: And so one of my colleagues saw that there was an opportunity for me here in Calgary.
[13:26] SPEAKER_03: And I ended up getting hired by a church in the Northwest.
[13:29] SPEAKER_03: And so I did, I did a lot of work in multiple areas of ministry,
[13:36] SPEAKER_03: be it in hospital ministry, one-on-one mentorship, one-on-one, you know, pastoral counseling.
[13:43] SPEAKER_03: And so that was my day job.
[13:45] SPEAKER_03: And so that's, that's what actually took me to Calgary.
[13:49] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[13:49] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. And that was your day job.
[13:51] SPEAKER_01: And then your night job was, was belt, belt, belt, not the tunes.
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't, I, I didn't ask before.
[14:00] SPEAKER_01: But are you Italian?
[14:03] SPEAKER_03: No, I'm, my family background is Romanian.
[14:07] SPEAKER_03: I'm German.
[14:09] SPEAKER_03: But in, in, in the, in the lineage, there are people from Italy for sure.
[14:14] SPEAKER_03: Like if you look back, we definitely have Italian blood.
[14:18] SPEAKER_03: And I'm, you know, my, my, my oldest brother is just as big as me,
[14:22] SPEAKER_03: but he's like seven inches taller.
[14:24] SPEAKER_03: And so probably some sort of Roman soldier blood in there.
[14:30] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[14:31] SPEAKER_01: So the reason I asked is obviously because one of the things you're known about town, so to speak for,
[14:38] SPEAKER_01: is bringing a Frank Sinatra.
[14:40] SPEAKER_01: Tell me how that came about like, you know, what was it, you know, about Frank that you wanted to pursue this?
[14:51] SPEAKER_03: Yeah. So it began with my father.
[14:53] SPEAKER_03: My father had such a huge love for Frank Sinatra.
[14:56] SPEAKER_03: And Pavarotti, those were his two favorite singers.
[15:00] SPEAKER_03: So like whenever he'd have a CD or anything playing in the, in the car,
[15:03] SPEAKER_03: it either be Pavarotti or Frank Sinatra.
[15:07] SPEAKER_03: And so I think for me, when I really tuned in to listening to Sinatra,
[15:14] SPEAKER_03: it happened.
[15:15] SPEAKER_03: It was the Christmas of 1998.
[15:18] SPEAKER_03: My father bought a cassette of the original Sinatra and Bing Crosby Christmas album they did.
[15:26] SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I loved Christmas tunes.
[15:28] SPEAKER_03: And I just began to sing along with that cassette whenever we would be doing deliveries.
[15:34] SPEAKER_03: And he worked as a, he delivered in father clocks.
[15:40] SPEAKER_03: He made grants and kitchen cabinets.
[15:43] SPEAKER_03: So I'd always help him, you know, with delivering things like that.
[15:46] SPEAKER_03: And so one of those rides we were delivering,
[15:49] SPEAKER_03: a grand father clock.
[15:51] SPEAKER_03: And I just started to sing along.
[15:53] SPEAKER_03: Now it's trying to like mimic Sinatra.
[15:55] SPEAKER_03: I think it was, um, have yourself a merry little Christmas.
[15:59] SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
[16:00] SPEAKER_03: And my dad was like, you, well, you sound a lot like Sinatra.
[16:05] SPEAKER_03: You know, and so that was, I can say that.
[16:08] SPEAKER_03: That was, that was definitely the first time I was ever exposed to Sinatra.
[16:12] SPEAKER_03: But it was nothing I ever thought I'd make a career of, probably until high school,
[16:18] SPEAKER_03: where I, I dabbed around with it a few times.
[16:21] SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah. So that was, it was definitely my father's love for Sinatra.
[16:26] SPEAKER_01: Now besides in Calgary here and in, in, in, in local places,
[16:30] SPEAKER_01: where have you sung Sinatra?
[16:36] SPEAKER_03: Well, in high school, we, I had a lot of opportunities.
[16:40] SPEAKER_03: We had actually a small jazz band.
[16:42] SPEAKER_03: Actually, I shouldn't say small.
[16:43] SPEAKER_03: It was like, it was about 20 to 25 players.
[16:47] SPEAKER_03: And we had a wonderful music teacher who just had,
[16:50] SPEAKER_03: an immense love for jazz.
[16:52] SPEAKER_03: And that was his specialty.
[16:54] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[16:55] SPEAKER_03: And so there was a few times that I was able to sing for them.
[16:58] SPEAKER_03: So there's a few jazz standards.
[17:00] SPEAKER_03: I remember we, we did a version of Tuxedo Junction, um,
[17:04] SPEAKER_03: that had a male vocal line to it.
[17:06] SPEAKER_03: That was just, just wonderful.
[17:08] SPEAKER_03: So that was, uh, probably my first experience.
[17:11] SPEAKER_03: And then there's a couple of recitals there where I throw in a couple Sinatra tunes,
[17:16] SPEAKER_03: while also doing some of my musical theater stuff and my opera stuff.
[17:22] SPEAKER_03: And it always take people all back because they're like,
[17:24] SPEAKER_03: when you sing that crooning style, you, it suits you.
[17:28] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[17:28] SPEAKER_03: But my vocal teachers at the time were saying, no, no, no, no,
[17:31] SPEAKER_03: you're meant to be an opera singer and kind of put me in this box.
[17:34] SPEAKER_03: You know, I got to be an opera singer.
[17:36] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[17:37] SPEAKER_03: Um, so I can say that it was definitely, I definitely tried it.
[17:42] SPEAKER_03: I, I, I mean, I learned a bunch of the tunes.
[17:44] SPEAKER_03: I probably spend, you know, a few hundred hours, you know,
[17:49] SPEAKER_03: learning all the songs in high school.
[17:51] SPEAKER_03: Well, uh, but the, the opera was, was dominant in, in my mind.
[17:56] SPEAKER_03: And also the, the narrative that people were trying to push on me, you know.
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[18:11] SPEAKER_01: So, uh, though, in the last little while, uh, or, you know,
[18:17] SPEAKER_01: in the past year, you, you've sung Sinatra beyond Calgary, right?
[18:22] SPEAKER_01: And maybe describe where you've been and what, you know, where you've done that.
[18:28] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[18:29] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[18:30] SPEAKER_03: So after friends, you know, I really began to develop that.
[18:37] SPEAKER_03: Um, and, um, I don't, I also did a recital.
[18:40] SPEAKER_03: It was actually a cold quarter recital I did in, in university, um, way back when.
[18:46] SPEAKER_03: So I, I dust up some of those, some of that music that I had.
[18:50] SPEAKER_03: And it's interesting.
[18:51] SPEAKER_03: My wife is a remarkable pianist.
[18:54] SPEAKER_03: And she actually studied with, um,
[18:59] SPEAKER_03: uh, the former partner of Derek Stahl, who's a renowned jazz pianist here in town.
[19:05] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[19:05] SPEAKER_03: And she knew Derek and she said, you know, why don't you meet up with Derek?
[19:08] SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, if, if opera's not going to happen right now, I know the side story, you know,
[19:14] SPEAKER_03: the opera world has experienced a lot of hits since COVID.
[19:17] SPEAKER_03: You know, a lot of companies have gone down.
[19:19] SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
[19:20] SPEAKER_03: There's so a lot of people who are fulfilling contracts from like, you know, the time, time of COVID.
[19:27] SPEAKER_03: So, um, so I just decided I've got to do something in between.
[19:32] SPEAKER_03: And so I contacted Derek Stahl.
[19:35] SPEAKER_03: Uh, and we met up a few times and he just, we just ended up, you know, working together in this repertoire.
[19:43] SPEAKER_03: And I remember the first time I sang my way for him at his place.
[19:47] SPEAKER_03: He literally had tears in his eyes.
[19:48] SPEAKER_03: Like Paul, he's like, Paul, you gotta do this.
[19:51] SPEAKER_03: Like I've never heard someone do my way like that.
[19:54] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, or ever.
[19:55] SPEAKER_03: And so I began performing with him in town.
[19:58] SPEAKER_03: And, um, and then eventually we decided to do like a full-out show.
[20:03] SPEAKER_03: You know, we did like a synod-retro-tribute show.
[20:06] SPEAKER_03: And it took us months to put together and, you know, a lot of music, assembling a band and all that.
[20:11] SPEAKER_03: And so we made our debut at the Polaris Center in the far north.
[20:18] SPEAKER_03: It's a small theater.
[20:19] SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you've ever been there.
[20:20] SPEAKER_03: Yes, we did a small show there.
[20:24] SPEAKER_03: And the great thing about the Polaris is that they have an amazing, um,
[20:30] SPEAKER_03: system of computers and sound and, and they have amazing cameras.
[20:37] SPEAKER_03: And so I got to, for the first time ever, I got a very high quality recording of me singing,
[20:42] SPEAKER_03: flying into the moon.
[20:43] SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
[20:44] SPEAKER_03: And so I just did a blitz of applications.
[20:47] SPEAKER_03: Like I, I listened all these podcasts on how to formulate, you know, your pitch and an email.
[20:54] SPEAKER_03: And I basically, um, used all the tools I had in a previous sales job when I lived in Vancouver.
[21:01] SPEAKER_03: I had a sales job and like, you know, going through every single target in the market,
[21:06] SPEAKER_03: I literally would contact everything.
[21:09] SPEAKER_03: Like I, I, for example, retirement homes.
[21:12] SPEAKER_03: There's 91 retirement homes.
[21:14] SPEAKER_03: I contacted every single one of them.
[21:17] SPEAKER_03: And 30 of them hired me.
[21:18] SPEAKER_03: So that was, that was my start.
[21:20] SPEAKER_03: And then same thing with venues.
[21:23] SPEAKER_03: I found a great website called Indian on a move.
[21:25] SPEAKER_03: And they basically have almost every, uh, talent buyer in North America.
[21:32] SPEAKER_03: So I just did a blitz and I applied everything in Canada, the US.
[21:37] SPEAKER_03: And I ended up getting an offer and a call from the Catalina Jazz Club in, in Hollywood.
[21:43] SPEAKER_03: And so I got to make my debut there.
[21:46] SPEAKER_03: And Derek actually is long time friends with the renowned trumpeter Yens Lindemann.
[21:56] SPEAKER_03: And so he contacted Yens.
[21:59] SPEAKER_03: And Yens ended up recommending for me an amazing Grammy award-winning pianist named Quinn Johnson,
[22:06] SPEAKER_03: who backed me at the Catalina.
[22:08] SPEAKER_03: And had a few other great players.
[22:11] SPEAKER_03: Another Grammy were winner named Alex Budman, who, who backed me at the Catalina Jazz Club.
[22:17] SPEAKER_03: And then that just opened up more doors here in Calgary.
[22:21] SPEAKER_03: And I got an offer to begin these tributes at the King Addie.
[22:26] SPEAKER_03: And our first show, which is totally sold out, is, is, they've just been wonderful.
[22:32] SPEAKER_03: And it's just, it's growing and growing.
[22:35] SPEAKER_03: And I don't know if you know I made my debut in Las Vegas about a month ago.
[22:40] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[22:40] SPEAKER_01: And so Vegas as well.
[22:42] SPEAKER_01: So Paul, I understand and full disclosure for our viewers out there.
[22:50] SPEAKER_01: I was at one of your shows.
[22:53] SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned how that this is now a full-time career, right?
[23:00] SPEAKER_01: It is, yeah.
[23:01] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[23:02] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[23:03] SPEAKER_01: You know, how to make, turn it into a little bit of a business thing here.
[23:10] SPEAKER_01: Let me ask, like, what is that like now, you know, for you that, okay, this is a business for you now, right?
[23:18] SPEAKER_01: So you've got your art, art, art, art, talent, you're singing on one side, but then on the other side, you've got to do the business, do the marketing, all that type of stuff.
[23:29] SPEAKER_01: How do you, how do you combine?
[23:32] SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm really lucky because my, my amazing wife made, I met her here in Calgary.
[23:38] SPEAKER_03: Shortly after I moved here and we got married in 2022, she is, she works for some pretty big companies over the years.
[23:48] SPEAKER_03: And there's a lot of legal writing and business writing for, you know, big projects.
[23:53] SPEAKER_03: And so she has that background.
[23:56] SPEAKER_03: And so she, she helps them with all the writing on my website.
[24:00] SPEAKER_03: Even even if I sent out an email to a big jazz company or something like that, I always, you know, get her to prove it.
[24:07] SPEAKER_03: And same thing with like, even simple things like invoicing and, you know, how to structure coal calls, pitches, all that.
[24:18] SPEAKER_03: It took a lot of research.
[24:19] SPEAKER_03: You know, I never owned my own business before, other than my, my vocal studio.
[24:24] SPEAKER_03: I was a vocal teacher for about five years.
[24:28] SPEAKER_03: So it's interesting because, you know, I did have to quit my J job to do this.
[24:34] SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I, I still keep in contact with a lot of my friends from, from all the churches I've worked with, love them to death.
[24:42] SPEAKER_03: But it's, it's very different from going and getting like a steady paycheck every two weeks to, you know, you, you get a contract, you go get a single gig.
[24:51] SPEAKER_03: And then you got to track down someone seven weeks later to get your pay.
[24:56] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[24:56] SPEAKER_03: It's, it's a very different world.
[24:58] SPEAKER_03: It's a very different world to being a self-proper, having a self-proper ridership.
[25:03] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, exactly.
[25:04] SPEAKER_01: Well, though, that was wonderful.
[25:06] SPEAKER_01: Paul, I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today.
[25:10] SPEAKER_01: Awesome. Awesome.
[25:11] SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
[25:12] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[25:13] SPEAKER_01: That was Paul Storia, singer in Calgary.
[25:15] SPEAKER_01: I'm Mario Tonoguzzi, managing editor of Canada's podcast.
[25:19] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today.
