BC Business
MUSIC THERAPY | Jamie Garratt (middle) and members of his band Exit This Side practise music from their upcoming album
I’ve always been a big music fan. I started playing instruments, guitar specifically, as a teenager and continue to play in bands, record CDs, tour and all of that type of stuff. It creatively allows me to do something completely different than what I do nine-to-five running the business. It honestly feels like I’m in a totally different world. Work isn’t even part of the conversation, so that’s why I like to do it. I also have a passion for it—to succeed in it, to learn, to progress in it. Some people do yoga, some people meditate or read. My passion is music.
My band, Exit This Side, celebrates its 20th anniversary this spring. We actually had a Top 40 hit in 2009 called “One Night Stand.” We do all the preproduction on our own because we have our own studio, but otherwise we use the Farm Studios, with Garth Richardson as producer. His dad is Jack Richardson, who did the Guess Who and all those people. We haven’t launched anything new on radio in three or four years, but we’re just about to do another album. We’re still writing it now, but have a few songs that we want to release, hopefully in the next few months.
Usually the music is always going on but I also need to be active physically. I started skateboarding as a kid, then I started snowboarding, and then when wakeboarding came out I started wake-boarding. And I surf. So anything to do with a board sport—wherever I am in the world in whatever season it is—I try to take advantage.