Sully Burrows, Noeline Hofmann and Jake Vaadeland rock Canadian country music scene

Article content

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Sully Burrows, Noeline Hofmann and Jake Vaadeland are one step closer to becoming the next big name on Canada’s country music scene after a nationwide vote in SiriusXM’s Top of the Country contest.

The singing competition saw the trio beat out hundreds of hopefuls in a bid to land the $25,000 grand prize and the title of Top of the Country champion. The winner will be crowned at next month’s Canadian Country Music Awards in Kelowna, B.C. The two runners-up will each take home $10,000.

All three couldn’t be more different musically — Burrows graduated high school in Parry Sound, Ont., last June before landing his first hit song Youth last October; Hofmann was a rancher in Alberta who caught the ear of country superstar Zach Bryan; and Juno-winning Vaadeland puts his own unique spin on country and bluegrass — but the trio are all united in wanting to have their voices heard.

Since she was a little girl, Hofmann, 22, always dreamed of playing music for a living. “But I grew up in a town of 1,500 people … I never saw an example of how pursuing a career in music could be possible,” she told Postmedia in an interview at Nashville’s CMA Fest earlier this summer. “Still, I always felt in my heart that was something I wanted to do.”

After recording her plaintive track Purple Gas, the Bow Island, Alta. native saw her career take off when Bryan asked if she would sing it with him on his 2024 album The Great American Bar Scene.

The song’s title is a reference to a type of fuel farmers and ranchers use in Alberta.

“I never could have imagined that it would end up on his album,” the Country Music Alberta Award winner says. “It’s hard to measure the impact Zach has had on my journey … he’s such an advocate for artists and writers and I’m so grateful to him for giving me a chance to take the ball and run with it.”

Hofmann built on that momentum by releasing a haunting cover version of the late Luke Bell’s ballad The Bullfighter and inking a partnership with Kentucky-based label La Honda Records in 2024.

She’s spent most of the summer on the road, with a show booked alongside Bryan, Kings Of Leon and Turnpike Troubadours at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park set for Aug. 15 and opening dates on The Crooner & The Cowboy Tour with Leon Bridges and Charley Crockett.

Hofmann is also up for two CCMAs — Breakthrough Artist and Alternative Country Album of the Year.

“It took me 18, 19 years to step off that ledge … I didn’t have anything to lose,” she says of deciding to ditch the farm to chase after her musical ambitions. “There was no excuse not to.”

Burrows, 18, wrote his debut single Youth about growing up in a small town. “I wrote it with a buddy of mine, Owen Riegling, whose also from a small town,” he said. He penned his second single, Think of Me, after graduating high school a year ago.

The Parry Sound, Ont.-native who started writing songs when he was 14 years old said the decision to pursue his musical dreams was “an impulse thing.”

“I was thinking of going into sports management. I had accepted my offer to Brock University and it was August, right when I was supposed to be getting ready to go away and I thought, ‘I’m not going to go to school. I’m going to try and go all-in on music,'” he said.

He has since signed a deal with Partners Record Label out of Toronto.

For 22-year-old Vaadeland, music was something that had been a part of his life since his childhood growing up in Cut Knife, Sask. “I could sing from when I was about three years old,” he said. “I learned the banjo and we had all those acoustic bluegrass instruments and I picked up on all that in my little country church.”

When a friend of his moved to Oklahoma, the CCMA-nominated singer-songwriter decided he didn’t want to pursue cattle farming like the rest of his family, he wanted to try making music.

“A lot of my friends were about to go off to university for a good amount of years, and I support whoever wants to do that, but I really didn’t want to do it,” Vaadeland said. “I just wanted to play music.”

Friends and teachers tried to dissuade him. “‘Nobody likes bluegrass music,'” he recalled hearing them say. “‘You’re never going to make it.'”

When his high school classes shifted online because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vaadeland found himself distracted by songwriting. “I’m very set in my ways. I’m stubborn,” he says with a grin. “When other songwriters ask me for advice, I tell them, ‘Stick to what you want to do and take criticism very lightly.’ Everything anyone told me to do, I did the opposite of and here I am.”

He started playing during the pandemic with his bandmates, The Sturgeon River Boys (Joel Rohs on guitar, Jaxon Lalonde on banjo, Stephen Williams on upright bass and Andy Beisel on steel drums), and released his debut album, the bluegrass-infused Everybody But Me in 2022.

Earlier this year, Vaadeland won his first Juno for Traditional Roots Album of the Year for his LP Retro Man … More and More.

“That was pretty big,” he says of the award. “I was so nervous … But really, I’m most happy with the fans and people on the road because those are the people who support you and are rooting for you and enjoy what you’re doing.”

Music fans will get to hear the trio when they perform at LASSO Montreal on Aug. 15 and 16.

No matter who is crowned Sirius’ next Top of the Country star, the threesome have become fast friends and are now travelling a path where there’s only one outcome: Making music they love.

“I had a lot of pressure to not do this,” Vaadeland said. “But I just wanted to play music. Some of my friends put me down and told me I wouldn’t make it … But I followed the way I wanted to do it.”

“You’re never going to feel ready,” Hofmann conceded. “When I was on the farm having a rough day, my fantasy was to play the Grand Ole Opry … You never stop feeling fear, but your fear can’t be bigger than your determination … A lot of people ask me, ‘Weren’t you scared to go after this?’ I was scared s***less the whole time.”

“I started playing at local restaurants,” Burrows added. “I enjoyed what I did, but it was a running joke, ‘Oh, he’s playing at Boston Pizza.’ But when I signed my deal and things started to pick up, it wasn’t a hobby. I was all-in.”

The 2025 CCMA Awards will be broadcast live on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app on Saturday, Sept. 13.

mdaniell@postmedia.com

Love concerts, but can't make it to the venue? Stream live shows and events from your couch with VEEPS, a music-first streaming service now operating in Canada. Click here for an introductory offer of 30% off. Explore upcoming concerts and the extensive archive of past performances.