Dream Dump with Grant Lawrence

Hey readers!

This week on Dream Dump I had Grant Lawrence on the podcast.

Grant and I go way back—we’ve known each other for more than two decades. We cover our entire history together, including a very funny story about him skipping the line at a Vancouver Tegan and Sara show just to get a photo with us. (Here’s video evidence.)

Grant is the lead singer of The Smugglers. We talk about how he played music with David Carswell. David, alongside John Collins, produced and engineered If It Was You and So Jealous with Sara and me. John also plays in The Evaporators with Canadian legend Nardwuar. Most of them went to high school together! Grant talks about how Nardwuar encouraged him to start a band in high school, transforming Grant from nerd (his words) to the confident leading man he is today.

Grant is also married to the incredible Jill Barber, one of Canada’s most celebrated singer-songwriters. Jill’s music spans folk, pop, and jazz, and she’s built a remarkable career over the past two decades while earning multiple Juno nominations and awards.

Grant is also a beloved writer. He is currently hard at work on his next book, Whale Tale, which tells the true story of the Pedder Bay 5—a group of orcas captured off the coast of British Columbia during the controversial whale capture era, including the only white orca ever caught alive. Their capture became an international sensation and sparked a chain of events that helped change the course of marine conservation, while leaving behind a mystery that remains unsolved.

Grant and I are also friends! We reconnected a few years ago at the Junos and have since become regular lunch buddies. In fact, we recently went for sushi, where Grant confessed he’d never eaten raw fish before. SHOCKING! Here’s photographic evidence that he finally took the plunge. It’s this kind of risky, exciting, novel behaviour that adult friendships are built on.

I enjoyed this conversation immensely. Grant interviews people for a living and is a born frontman, so I did have to wrestle the mic away from him a few times. In fact, after we stopped filming, we talked for another 45 minutes. Eventually I just hung up on him because it became clear he was never going to stop talking.

That said, $6 is still $6, so if you decide not to subscribe, you’ll be in good company—Grant admitted he only watches the first ten minutes of all my Dream Dumps and is not a paid subscriber. So there you go. I still enjoy making them, even if you don’t think they’re worth watching all the way through. Seriously.

Enjoy this week’s episode. I have to say, there are some genuinely hilarious—and occasionally spicy—moments in this conversation.

Also, after I hung up on him, he kept texting me. And this one felt worth sharing. Get yourself a man friend who also loves the Taylor Sheridan universe!

Have a great week!

Tegan