The 2023 edition of Boots and Hearts began with the kind of lineup the country music festival had never staged before.
Every act performing on the Front Porch Stage Thursday night was either competing in the Sirus XM Emerging Artist Showcase or was an alumnus of the event, including headliner Tim Hicks.
As Hicks can attest, just being in the contest could be enough to help kick-start your career.
“I didn’t win,” he said with a laugh as he recalled his first time at Boots and Heart, at the inaugural festival held in 2012. As part of the Emerging Artist Showcase, he placed second behind Tebey, who has also gone on to great success in Canadian country music. But Tebey hasn’t headlined an evening at Boots and Hearts.
In his sixth appearance at the festival – more than any other performer – Hicks was the final act before the revellers went back to the campsites to keep the party going.
In many ways, few artists personify the festival the way Hicks does. Boots and Hearts is a party and Hicks’ job has been to soundtrack that party, which he’s done on the five records he’s released in the past decade.
“I don’t know how that happened, but it just did,” he said. “This kind of vibe really suits what we do. I became the party country guy and that came out playing bars for so long.”
Cutting his teeth in the southern Ontario bar circuit certainly helped. If the joint had a stage, he and his band tried to get on it. They could be playing Top 40 in one night and country the next, before closing out the weekend with a rock show.
There could even be a night of Irish music if needed; just change the wardrobe and keep playing. However, as Hicks leaned into country full-time, the gimmicks were dropped.
The cowboy boots and denim jeans are standard fare, but he’s more likely to wear a ball cap on stage than a Stetson. If he is inauthentic, the crowd will see right through it, he said. After all, he grew up in St. Catharines, not Saskatchewan.
Hicks wants to be natural on stage and while it's his name on the marquee, he’s aided by a backing band who has been with him since the beginning, playing those dive bars throughout the province for years before seeing a sniff of success. He likened his band to the hockey team that can pass the puck without looking because they know exactly where each other will be.
“The same guys you’re going to see play tonight, we played every chicken wing bar from Niagara Falls to Windsor and Ottawa and back for 18 years before I ever got a song on the radio,” Hicks said. “And I love saying that because I kind of wear it like a badge of honour. We actually went out and did it.”
Hicks was far from an overnight success. He was pushing 30 before he realized he should be focused on country music full-time.
Part of that was not knowing where he was as an artist, bouncing around from one cover gig to another. Another was building up a catalogue of songs strong enough to stand up to the covers he was playing every night. A song has to be good, he said, to be snuck in between the likes of Save A Horse Ride A Cowboy or Chicken Fried.
But Hicks — who turns 44 in two weeks — also needed to build up the confidence to strike out with his own name and not as part of a band. He credits a friend for putting the thought in his head to perform under his real name, even if his last name might cause some eyes to roll in Nashville, where he splits his time these days.
“It took me a long time to have the confidence to be Tim Hicks the artist. It took me a long time to figure out where I fit in,” he said. “I think it had to do with self-esteem. Like, I didn’t want to go down with the ship. If the band broke up, oh well, I’ll just start a new band. But, Tim Hicks is my name. If it fails, that means I fail.”
Failing isn’t something Hicks has to worry that much about these days. Following his appearance at Boots and Hearts, he continues on the road with a couple of sporadic stops ahead of a fall tour through western Canada, with the promise of more dates to come.
He’s celebrating the 10th anniversary of Throw Down, his debut record, this year, which was released following his second-place showing in the first Emerging Artist Showcase.
If Hicks could talk to the man about to hit the stage in 2012, his advice would be simple.
“Just buckle up and enjoy every second of it. It’s a ride,” he said. “Watching this thing build was akin to winning the lottery.”
Boots and Hearts continues through Sunday at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte. Friday’s festivities include JJ Wilde and Big Wreck on the Front Porch Stage and Hardy and headliner Nickelback on the main stage.
