Doc Walker
Biography.

“Simplicity is the best hook sometimes,” says Doc Walker’s Chris Thorsteinson. Although he’s talking primarily about choosing songs for the band’s latest record, GO, that statement also goes a long way in explaining the band’s enduring success and lasting appeal. .

Over their decade-plus time together Doc Walker have earned the title of ‘the hardest working Country band in Canada’ the old fashioned way, through relentless perseverance – constantly honing their chops as a songwriting and a performing unit. Hitting every little speck on the map again and again and putting over a million miles behind them in Canada alone, in an effort to forge a lasting relationship with their audience. .

While that perseverance has netted them multiple top-10 and top-5 hits on Canadian Radio, and some of the Canadian Music Industry’s highest awards, including six CCMA’s in 2008 alone, as well as the 2009 Juno for Country Recording of the Year for their last record, Beautiful Life, the real payoff for Doc Walker isn’t the awards and accolades that come with their growing success. If anything, it’s more accurately measured in a mutual dedication to each other, and to their audience. .

“There’s so many acts out there that make records, put them in stores and expect them to sell themselves,” says Dave Wasyliw. “What you have to do is see your fans. It’s a relationship, you have to keep up your end of the bargain.” And that’s exactly what Wasyliw, Chris Thorsteinson, and Murray Pulver do on GO, their sixth record, and follow up to 2008’s smash country hit, Beautiful Life. .

Though it catalogues the endless comings and goings that are so much a part of a musician’s life, GO does so in a way that speaks, in plain, down home language, directly to the heart of anyone who has ever had to say goodbye to something, or someone, that they love, whether for a moment, or a lifetime. And while only one of the songs on the record will be instantly recognizable – Doc Walker’s slightly melancholy cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” – don’t be surprised if the rest feel almost as familiar, almost as immediately. .