Canadian Musician - September/October 2020 | Page 39

wise for my family.”
For Kelly Bado – an acclaimed Manitoba-
based singer-songwriter currently nominated
for Francophone Artist of the Year at
the 2020 Western Canadian Music Awards
– she and her husband found out they were
expecting their son, who’s now one, just
before Bado was about to begin a year of recording
and promoting her debut LP. At the
time, she had just received a grant to make
the album and didn’t know what to do.
“I got the grant and I got pregnant and,
you know, it’s hard to get grants sometimes,
especially at a level where it’s going to
be my first full album. So, I felt like, ‘If I say
I’m taking a year off, then I’m losing the
opportunity; what am I going to present
for people next year to give me the grant?’
Like, I am going to be off the radar and all
that. I felt I had no choice but to find a way
to continue the music with the baby, so
then my fear was, am I going to get hired
once people know I’m pregnant? Once they
know I have a baby, is that going to require
that they give me extra because I need care
for the baby? How am I going to manage?”
she reveals.
Learning the balancing act
“They were kind of like, ‘OK. Shit. What are
we going to do? What are you going to
need? Can you play shows? What are the
cut-off dates and what are the times when
you’re not going to be around?’ and all that,”
Blackwood recalls about bringing the news
of her first pregnancy to the rest of the
band and Walk Off the Earth’s management,
agent, and label.
Blackwood found out she was pregnant
soon after WOTE’s cover of “Somebody That I
Used to Know” went viral and they dropped
their first original single, the doubleplatinum-selling
“Red Hands.” Given that,
there were a lot of shows and other promotional
commitments in the works, including
shows planned for right around her due date.
“They were like, ‘Well, what if we found
someone to replace you for a few months
until you come back?’ I know how important
it is to be the face of something or to
maintain that and I was like, ‘Are you fucking
kidding me? No. Who are you going to
replace me with? Beyoncé? Who are you
going to get that is going to work an audience
the way that I can? That is an insanely
stupid idea and will hurt the band,’” she
recalls, laughing about it now, but no less
sincere in her conviction. “Our fans want to
know who we are. They don’t want to see
a replacement. They’d probably rather wait
a month and come see us when I can be
there. So, we obviously steered away from
that [laughs]. I just said, ‘Look, I am going
to need a little bit of time, probably around
three weeks to a month depending on what
kind of birth I have. I’ve done the research
and asked a ton of questions and I know I
can bring a baby on tour with me.”
And so they did. Walk Off the Earth have
toured regularly with Blackwood and Nicassio’s
kids in tow. When their second and
third sons were added to the entourage,
Blackwood says it was, well, “easier” isn’t the
right word, but at least more routine. “After
the first [child], though, that was the biggest
adjustment because that’s when your life
takes a huge 180. I think it was the hardest
at that point,” says Blackwood. “Like, when
we would go on tour or when we would
have to go to work, everybody still got to do
their regular schedule and get their regular
sleep, but my sleep was taken out. Honestly,
it’s the sleep thing. Lack of sleep is the hardest
thing to deal with.”
Nonetheless, Blackwood acknowledges
that WOTE are lucky to have the resources at
their disposal to make touring with children
doable, such as having a nanny on tour and
a second tour bus for the family. She often
thinks about what would’ve happened if
she had gotten pregnant earlier. “Gianni and
I both played in bands before WOTE, and
Adrian Sutherland (far right)
& his family
PHOTO: JUDY SUTHERLAND
even WOTE’s early years were all about touring
in a van and sleeping on people’s floors
and playing shows for seven people. You
know, just the grind of the road and I think,
absolutely, if we were at that point and I had
gotten pregnant, there is no way I would’ve
been able to do tours.”
It being early in her professional career,
Bado did not have the luxury of a travelling
nanny or private tour bus. For her, the first
six months of her son’s life were a major adjustment.
She took off the first few months
after giving birth, but then jumped right
back into recording and performing.
“There already were opportunities for
me to showcase and there were showcases
happening that I really didn’t want to miss,”
she says. “Definitely it was hard when I was
travelling with him before COVID. It was
an adjustment. The hard part is that I was
alone. I had to carry the baby all through
the airport, I had to find his things, I had to
feed him, and then I had to go perform and
then talk to the musicians, etc. It was a lot
because my husband couldn’t come with
me, nobody could come with me, it was
just me.”
At that time, organizations like FACTOR
and Musicaction did not include childcare
as an eligible allocation for grant money.
Such grants could be used to pay touring
musicians or sound technicians, but not
someone to look after your kid while you’re
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