“I'm just a regular person, really, who fell in love with music and pursued it,” says David Laronde. He is from Lake Temagami in Northern Ontario where he grew up in a home with no running water on the lake. It’s also where he first heard music and became inspired by it. He is a member of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai people. In his spare time, he loves canoeing and spending time in nature. 

Laronde’s love of music started when he was just five when he heard music on the radio. His parents also sang and played guitar, creating special memories. His sister brought home Bob Dylan records in high school and he wanted to play just like him. His dad brought him home a guitar when he was 14 and he practiced for hours a day with his brother. 

After high school, Laronde studied Geology Engineering Technology and he worked in the field  for a few years until he decided to hit the road to Vancouver and try to make a living as a musician. Playing in clubs and taking lessons, he did his best but nothing materialized so he returned to his work in geology engineering technology, working as a consultant for years until he tried music again. 

The next time, he really started to write and record, releasing three albums that have been embraced by fans. “Gifts are meant to be shared, so it’s a good way for me to share my gifts,” he reflects. He considers himself a folk rock musician but his work spans multiple genres so his songs don’t sound alike. 

While Laronde’s no longer involved with geology engineering technology regularly, he misses being in the bush so he takes a few weeks a year of that work. He had the chance to travel across Canada as part of that work before and enjoyed making connections with other Indigenous people in other territories. He’s not sure what got him to make the change to music, he just got hooked on it. “Just the sound of it does something that resonates with me, and it makes my spirit alive, you might say. I just started dreaming, dreaming to be a rock star, a folk star…and that's always been with me,” he recalls. 

“It's important it's important to have a dream, and it really helps you when you when you don't know where you're going, when you can't see the road ahead of you, all the twists and turns, you don't know where it's going, but you know it feels good along the way. If you work hard and keep going, you'll eventually get to where you want to go. Sometimes it gets really hard. There are many, many things that make you want to quit…. If you've really got your dream and focus your sights on what you want, you’re going to go for it, no matter what,” he encourages.

His advice for aspiring musicians is to practice to get good at an instrument. He recommends the guitar for its versatility. While he practiced four hours a day at first, now he’s down to half an hour and he’s mostly writing music. “You gotta put the time in and just keep on playing when your friends are doing something else, you gotta be in there on your instrument and doing the things that you want to be doing that are more important to you. So that's it takes a bit of a sacrifice that way,” Laronde confides. 

“I'd say that keep your dream alive and dream big. I had no idea that music would do so much for me, it was just one little step at a time,” he continues, reminiscing on the incremental progress he made over the years. 

When it came to obstacles, Laronde faced people who didn’t think he could be successful in music. Seeing the effect his music had on others kept him going. Continuing to meet new people was helpful. 

“If you have your vision and you're on the horizon where you want to go, I think you'll work towards that, and you won't even notice all the hard work you're doing,” he offers. 

To keep his mental health in check, Laronde stays active. “When you move your body, you create the right kind of hormones for your well being and that's really something,” he shares. He recommends thinking about music while exercising or working out to music. He finds meditative time valuable and discourages things that are harmful to the body. His mother taught him the importance of clean living and it’s a value he’s hung onto. 

When it comes to inspiration, Laronde has been inspired by Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and other masters. He loves to dissect their music. He also gets inspired by the sound of instruments. The music he creates when inspired can be found on Amazon, Spotify, Apple and SoundCloud and he’s hoping to put out another album within a year. 

In closing, Laronde believes if he can do it, youth can, too. He encourages working hard even when you can’t see where you will end up and reinforces the importance of having a dream. “That's important to have that dream that keeps you going through bad times and good times and the rewards along the way,” he explains. He recommends learning music theory to get a headstart, something he wishes he did. 

He was just a regular person who fell in love with music and pursued it and now David Laronde’s a folk rock musician with three albums and one more on the way. He went from studying rocks to making folk rock music because he believed in his dream and was willing to work hard. Inspired by the musicians he admired on the radio and in his home, he practiced and sacrificed to become his big dreams.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.