Chuck Copenace: Transcript

Episode Podcast and Video with shownotes

Chuck Copenace:

I look back definitely with more clarity. At one point in the last year as I was just like, oh yeah, look, music was definitely the only thing that was kind of normal at times in my life. And just thinking about that whole story and how it changes without music, I don't think would've been a very long story. The way that I thought of myself, the way I viewed the world, all these things just weren't working very well. But then when I played music, I didn't have to worry about any of that stuff.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman. This podcast strives to inspire you through the personal stories of a diversity of musicians worldwide with in-depth conversations and great music that reveal the depth and breadth to a life in music. Chuck Copenace is a Winnipeg based Ojibwe musician from Animakee Wazhing 37. In this episode, we talk about Chuck's excellent album Oshki Manitou, which expands his work as a trumpet player, arranger and composer. He's woven together ceremonial sweat lodge melodies with jazz, funk, dance, and electronica. And this episode features tracks from that album. Chuck is such a powerfully lyrical trumpet player and also has a really inspiring story of moving through trauma and addiction to helping others through counseling and music. You'll find Chuck's website linked in the show notes where you can go buy his albums and see what his current projects are. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast, and I've also linked the transcript to my website, LeahRoseman.com. Please do share this episode with your friends and consider supporting this series by buying me a coffee. The link is in the description. Now to the episode.

Hi, Chuck, thanks so much for joining me here today. I thought it would be great to start with some music early in episode as I like to do, and you released the single Creator before you released your last album, so maybe if you could talk to that track and we could play some of that and then turn into some more of your history.

Chuck Copenace:

This song Creator, I was actually just listening to it last night for the first time in a while, and this song is based on a melody and that's called Creator's Helpers song. And I think the first time that I heard this would've been in my first sweat lodge was in 2014, the end of 14, and I would've heard this song somewhere in the next few months after that because once I went to that first lodge in the fall of that year, I went on this huge sweat lodge binge that was about two years. And I was going to lodges and different other ceremonies almost every weekend, sometimes multiple times a week. And what I'm finding now is I think people will go once a month if they're lucky, and sometimes a little bit longer. Sometimes if people are more involved in ceremony, they'll go once a week or whatever like that. So I was super, once I got to that first lodge, I was just like something pretty - I just knew I was onto something that I really needed to do, and I guess I had the time. I didn't have kids and I was just kept my own. So I would've heard this melody somewhere in that period of time. I think it was the next spring after I'd been going to lodges all winter. That's where I was kind of writing at home and I'd been on a long hiatus from really performing. I've done the odd show here and there, and I wasn't really, there were periods there where I totally thought I wasn't going to be anymore. I thought, you know what? I'm a good social worker. I'm good with people and I enjoy that, and maybe that's what I was supposed to be all along. And so I was having those thoughts, but then I was having also this rebellion inside, and I had people always encouraging me that just thought it was kind of weird whenever I'd say, oh, I don't play trumpet, or I haven't been playing, they'd just be like, well, you should play trumpet.

It was never admonishing. It was always just like, well, that's just not right, or that's, whatever. And I would be like, yeah. So this tune, I remember writing at home and I had just started understanding ceremonial melody. I had never really heard the form before and I never really understood the connection between the drum and the vocal and all that kind of stuff. It's an art form in itself. Yeah, I never connected with it until I went to the sweat lodge and it was almost like that was opened a door. So I was writing in my apartment at the time, just kind of putting grooves together, just kind of, and I remember this melody was in my mind and I started writing chords and just kind of saying, oh, I wonder what it would sound like if I sang this melody. And I started putting chords there and making a groove around it. And then that kind of just started this, I guess just a burst of creativity or whatever centered around that melody. So that's where the song came from for myself.

Leah Roseman:

You're about to hear Chuck's composition Creator from his album Oshki Manitou. (music)

You are such a lyrical trumpet player, so singing in your style, but you actually do sing.

Chuck Copenace:

Yeah, I couldn't have done that at that time. So that was in 2015, so it's now 20, geez, that record came out in 2022. That's where I started just kind of singing in the sweat lodge, which is what everybody does. It gives you that time where you really want to participate in all the singing that's going on, if that's what you enjoy. I started learning the songs as I was in lodges and I started practicing singing kind of outside of lodges. I was like, oh, I remember that song. And that was just kind. And I really began to start enjoying using my voice in the lodges and participating in the songs. So over the next year, I'm still a work in progress and learning melodies, and in the last year or two I've started feeling more confident. I think my voice is a bit more controlled or if I have to, I can sing songs or if I feel like I have to, but I'm not breaking out my hand drum and just wherever - there's singers that I admire in the community and I feel like I'm just not there with those guys.

And these are some guys that have grown up with that in their lives. And I wasn't really there either. I didn't have, there were people that I knew that were ceremonial, but it wasn't kind of entrenched in my home life. The way that I see some people in ceremonies, they've been exposed for a really long time and I wasn't really there. I've just been around a few years. For this recording, That was kind of a big thing. Am I going to sing was a huge question or am I going to ask a friend of mine to sing? And it was such, the recording year in 2022 was a whirlwind. I booked the time, I got the funding through my management at the time, got me a bunch of money and booked the studio time, and I was just like, I just started recording. I had a week, and I was just like, okay, we're doing this in this week.

I was like, well, yeah, I guess I'm going to sing. I was thinking maybe I wouldn't even have singing on it, but this song I wanted to have my friend Scott play percussionist, and I performed with him pretty regularly when I have a gig where they're like, oh, we want you to play, but we don't want a full band. We don't want the drummer. So then I've been playing for Scott for a while, so he played on this recording and we recorded it live in the studio for this part. So the drums, guitar, and percussion and bass. We just did a few takes and just kind of worked out the arrangement that we wanted and we're like, okay, that's what we're doing. And then we just recorded it and it turned out really well. My, recording (engineer) Paul Yee, he played bass as well as hearing on this and setting up all this stuff. He was sitting in there, he is like, and he did all the bass off the floor. So I thought that was pretty amazing. When I look back at some of the footage.

Leah Roseman:

I really love the whole album and I'm hoping we can feature maybe even clips of a few tracks, a lot of different sounds in it. But before we get into more of the music, sweat lodges weren't legal in Canada because of the Indian Act before, so I think that was 1951. So things in your community really changed, your grandparents wouldn't have been able to?

Chuck Copenace:

Yeah, I don't think that they would've been able to, and I'm not really sure in a community how the knowledge came through. There was some kind of ceremonial leadership or medicine men I guess you would say, but there was a ceremonial community that I think probably all across Canada that were like, okay, this is something that we have to hide. So they just went into hiding and then carried it through. So I do remember someone saying that at points like sweat log were happening, but they were totally top secret and it was a dangerous thing to do for sure, because we've never really had the whole equality in the system. So if we're doing something illegal, it's not the same as an indigenous person doing something illegal Canada, it's not treated the same. And that's still actually happening now where if we do something illegal, the consequences are going to be harsher in a general way, generalizing, but it does happen a lot.

Leah Roseman:

In terms of music we could share. I wanted to ask you, because your tune, Nothing Simple, you have a clip of you performing it live with your ensemble on YouTube. Could we share some of that? Because some people watch the video version of this and it'd be cool to have people see you play?

Chuck Copenace:

Sure, we could do that. That's at Revelstoke. That was the first performance with my new effects set up going forward. That's something I'm really excited about is building on that because the technology is there where it wasn't there when I was young and I really wanted to play with effects. There was trumpet player like Randy Kerr and there's trumpet player known named Cuong Vu, who I thought was super cool, but I think he's based in Vancouver, but he was really an awesome trumpet player.

Leah Roseman:

This is the live version of Nothing Simple taken from a performance in Revelstoke, and you'll also find this composition on the album Oshki Manitou. This is Brendan Kinley on drums on guitar, Victor Lopez, saxophone, Kyle Wedlake, Bass Henry Onwuchekwa and Trumpet Chuck Copenace. I've linked the video on Chuck's YouTube in the show notes for those of you listening to the audio podcast, who want to check it out. (music)

So Chuck you're Anishnabe from Kenora, which is close to the Manitoba border, and you live in Winnipeg. Winnipeg has a large Indigenous population, but I'm just curious, are people mostly Anishnabe or are there Inuit that have come down from up north?

Chuck Copenace:

Well in Winnipeg, I would say Cree people and Ojibwe people, and there's Sioux which I think is more Dakota or Lakota, and then there's Dene people from the north and Inuit people from the north. But I would say most people in Winnipeg are, when I ask are usually Ojibwe or Cree. And then there's Oji-Cree, which is also very, a lot of people from the middle of, there's Island Lakes, there's some lakes there where there's a huge population of Oji-Cree people. So yeah, this area, it's I would say half and half Cree and Ojibwe. I have relatives who are Cree.

Leah Roseman:

So the name of your album.

Chuck Copenace:

So Oshki Manitou, it means basically New Spirit. At the time that I started writing this song, the title song, I was taking care of my mom around the year before, I think she had a fall or she had a mini stroke and she was living in Northwest Angle where I'm registered. She was working back in near Kenora and I guess when she had that little stroke that kind of triggered her memory loss, accelerated it, I was taking care of my mom for a couple of years before she had passed away and I remember that I guess it would've been 2017, I was going to lodge and all that stuff and she really liked that. But she lived in Ontario and I lived here. And so when I started working on this album, my son, he wasn't born yet. It was a really interesting time because my of her memory of her life was kind of going and she was having these health problems.

There were periods of time where we told me about stuff that happened that she had never told me before. Memories were coming forward, I'm sure this happens for a lot of people that go through this. So I was able to, the first kind of sounds to this song kind of really using synthesizers and I really like using sounds that kind of create soundscape and then trying to work on my music from there. And I think that's my electronic background, my electronic music background. You remember just thinking that this sounds kind underwater. My son was still in the womb at the time and we were waiting for him. I figured I was on the cusp of doing something, some kind of project, and I wasn't even close, being ready to be recorded or anything, but I was just thinking, yes, my mom, I'll dedicate this set of music, whatever it's going to turn out to be, I'll dedicate it all to my son who's coming and that'll be my first present to him.

So yeah, that's when I asked my mom, how would I say New Spirit, the name of the song before? And my mom said, oh, you say Oshki Manitou. Yeah. So I really enjoy that she is kind of a participant and just having, to me it just kind of makes the whole prompt, gives it a little bit more life to have a lot of meaning behind it and to have that intention. I think that's what comes through as well in that title song. When I do my trumpet solo in there, I'm really trying to picture calling him, how would I play if I calling my son or introducing him to the world or whatever. So I try to just kind of introduce these phrases that would be, that I think went to a little kid.

Leah Roseman:

This is the title track on the album, Oshki Manitou.(music)

Chuck Copenace:

And so now he's here and he's five I I'm really hoping he gets into the music stuff. So I bought a piano and I, he can make a sound on the trumpet, which I think is pretty, I was just like this (buzz sound). He's just like,(buzz sound) oh, okay. And he had a C going and if he blows harder, you can get the next partial. And I was like, okay, you're doing what 90% of the population can't do as a five-year-old. So anyways, I'm really hoping there, but we'll see what happens.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, just a short break from the episode, which I hope you're enjoying so far. If you want to check out over a hundred episodes you may have missed in addition to your podcast player or YouTube, I have an extensive website, leah roseman.com with show notes, transcripts, the complete catalog of episodes, and you can sign up there for my weekly newsletter to get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests. Please do share your favorite episodes with your friends, follow me on social media and share my posts. And if you can spare a few dollars to help support the series, that would be amazing. And you can find that link in the show notes. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. Now, back to the episode.

Yeah, speaking about this, so you got your start in a school music program and from what I understand, that school you went to no longer has a music program like many schools?

Chuck Copenace:

Yeah. I don't think it's actually- Lakewood, the school is actually gone, it's called Seven Generations and it's an Indigenous school in Kenora. So the public school system, I think they might've moved grade 7, 8, 9 over to the high school that I went to. I'm not really sure what's happening there, but all I know is that the Catholic School Board now has the music program and they have a music teacher there that's his name's Darcy Yura, and he's doing a really amazing job. He had me back there to speak, and so I'm really happy and there's Indigenous, he had me back there to talk to the students and stuff, and yeah, it's cool to see guy to a Music School Iadded them on Facebook so that I could kind of follow these dudes. And not many people went to music school from Kenora. I think I could kind of safely say that and I would have to do a little bit of research to find out, but it just wasn't a path as much as it would be in Winnipeg to have a group of music students that go to high school and then I'll go to music school and there's just kind of more of a path. Kenora definitely doesn't have the path.

Leah Roseman:

But a lot of major, I mean this is a small place, but big cities, it's not every school that has, if they have a music program, they wouldn't necessarily have a band program. They might learn a little guitar, you know what I mean? It's just not as robust as it used to be.

Chuck Copenace:

Yeah. Or in the States, I'd imagine the States is when I talk to the musicians, if I can talk to somebody and talk about their path, it just seems like there's these, and even just looking on the internet, I like watching the marching bands from different schools and those trumpet players, high bands and stuff they're doing. There's just huge people all supporting this music activity. I'm like, man, I don't know if there's any Canadian universities that be able to, well, the whole sporting just everything's bigger down there, just lots more people and ever, so.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, it is different. I did talk about marching band culture at historically black colleges with EmmoLei Sankofa recently, and quite a few of the Americans I've spoken to, they definitely got the start in school in various instruments. And in Canada it's not, I think we could use some more support anyway. I just imagine how your life would've been different if you hadn't had the trumpet.

Chuck Copenace:

Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. And as the year has kind of gone and I look back definitely with more clarity at one point in the last years I was just like, oh yeah, music was definitely the only thing that was kind of normal at times in my life. And just thinking about that whole story and how it changes without music, I don't think would've been a very long story. My behaviors and any addiction issues that I've had and since coming to ceremony and realize I still have huge amount of trauma that I had to work through, but that was almost 20 years sober, so I'm like 20 and just looking at the whatever amount of trauma and I can't really explain why or how that just transfers through from one generation to the next and then transfers through to the next generation. And sometimes I just don't think the amount of intention, I don't think it's something that really works with your intention, I don't think, well, obviously it doesn't, you know what I mean?

If anyone could choose to not transfer their trauma to the next generation, I'm sure every person would choose that and it wouldn't be such a longstanding issue. So I think when I look back the way that I was behaving when I was growing up from enduring some abuse when I was from outside of my family when I was very small, that kind of stuff just kind of was already trying to take over and I was trying to take over my life and the way that I thought of myself, the way viewed the world, all these things just weren't working very well. But then when I played music, I didn't have to worry about any of that stuff. And so when I was creating music with somebody or the period of time where periods where I'm just working on some piece with the piano player and we're going to do a performance that period of time where I'm practicing with her, I didn't even know anything about her or her life or anything, but we were digging in on this time where I go and practice with her and we're just creating this piece of music that I have to go perform or I have to go for a recital.

And this was in working on Royal Conservatory of Music pieces and then other performances that would come up. So I would get this period of time where it doesn't matter if everything is abnormal or if it doesn't matter what happened, that's causing me trouble because I really ever really remember thinking about conflicts or anything when I'm working on a Bach song or whatever, I'm just like, okay, I'm working on this tune now. And when I look back, I think that those things were probably immensely valuable to me as somebody who might be severely - As it turned out, I was severely conflicted with the world and I didn't feel that I was struggling, but I didn't know that either. I actually had to get sober, and this was after high school after, and I had to come back to or come back to Winnipeg, or I basically just had to get out of Vancouver and go for treatment. That's all that was in my head. And the period of getting sober, that's when I was like, holy man, I really don't know how to live in this world. So the places that I did know how to live in the world was when I was playing music with my friends or using drugs and alcohol and the rest of the time was - so, yeah, it takes a long time to iron all that stuff out to get sober and to-

Leah Roseman:

Well, Chuck, from previous interviews, I understand that you had tried different therapies to deal with these problems, but going to the sweat lodges was really what you needed in terms of the spiritual connection and everything.

Chuck Copenace:

Yeah, I think it's a journey and I think there's lots of different analogies that are used, and I always like the, well, there's a definitely obvious one. You're peeling an onion, you get the first layer or your next layer, you get the next layer. And I like that one too, because you end up crying every time you're peeling through a new layer. There's these layers of motion or these layers of release at self-realization or realization that you've been kind of looking at things wrong and you're like, holy man. The whole idea of forgiveness, when I first sobered out, I was just like, I didn't know that. I didn't believe in that concept. And it's hard to imagine that I just didn't believe in forgiveness.

How did I get through the world? Or I believe that forgiveness had to be earned through a space amount of something that it had to be earned. And I didn't know that you can actually live as a forgiving person. I was like, oh, I'm not that kind of person. And for whatever those reasons you think you're too weak. And I would never admit that I was weak enough to be a forgiving person. So when I think about these, these are just concepts that have to change. So as I was sobering up, I started just reeling these things and unraveling these things and a gift to be able to forgive.

But yeah, so the sweat lodge, when I think about getting there, it was after a long period of therapies, it was AA, and to me, AA was mentorship by people that are trying the spiritual path. And it took a while of being kind of fanatical. And that to me, I think everyone starts fanatical a little bit in AA, which might be a statement that if someone's AA, they might go, oh, I'm never a fanatical, but when I look back, being really scared of getting, using and drinking and clinging to something for support and then learning. But I remember I was frantically in my mind thinking, I have to learn this or else my life is over. And that was just a reality for me because it kind of was, I was losing my apartment, I couldn't pay rent, it was all directly related to using drugs and alcohol. I went through this and that was in 2001 when I sobered up. And so yeah, it was a fanatical period where I just did nothing but meetings and it almost reminds me of when I did nothing but sweat lodges 15 years later or whatever.

So yeah, the sweat lodges, it felt like all of that was just kind of preparing me for that. And so the sweat lodges, I was a person who had been sober a long time. I had a job I could pay my rent. I didn't have kids yet, but I still didn't think that I could have kids at that time or that I kind of thought that that window was over. The first sweat lodge is really, they're really painful. But because I'd been through so much already, I knew that that was kind of a positive, painful experience because the songs I was starting to understand and I was like, that's a huge positive. And so something was kind of opening up to where it was about self-acceptance and there was a lot of feelings about not belonging. And sometimes those feelings will come back nowadays where I'm like, oh, I, I'm not as spiritual or I'm not as cultural, or whatever.

These kind of thoughts will come. I have to just keep working on letting those go because it's not helpful and I wouldn't want anyone else to think that, that you're not Indian enough. I wouldn't want to go into somebody, oh, you know what? You could be more Indian or you could be more Indigenous, or whatever. And so when I do see that, I see it sometimes that's how you'll treat each other in order to be in this ceremony or in order that you have to, they'll put limits on each other in ceremony or we'll put limits on each other. And it probably happens in a lot of places where humans kind of start viewing some activity is more of a competition rather than as a spiritual, a place to spiritually grow maybe in churches, people compete for positions maybe or stuff like that where you kind of lose sight of the actual goal.

Leah Roseman:

When you were growing up in Kenora, was it kind of a segregated society?

Chuck Copenace:

I think it was segregated in my view. There were people lived on the reserves, it seemed like there was not as many other nationalities or other cultures. Kenora had kind of settlers and then indigenous people. When I look at old footage, that was always a problem where it was always something that had a lot of conflict around it, the way that there was people who had a lot of privilege or a lot of resources, and then there's people that didn't. And there was usually, when you look at, I was looking at old CBC footage recently and the disparity between Indigenous, what Indigenous people had and what the settlers had was very different, but everything was kind of under the carpet when I was growing, and I mentioned this a lot when I look at the school now and how they're kind of educating the students and bringing in guys that are going to share story and all this kind of stuff.

That didn't happen when I was in school. And when I was taught about Indigenous people, we were learning about southern Ontario, people from Southern Ontario, and I don't really remember learning about Ojibwe people of the area, which is a huge population or that was more from my family and stuff and not really acknowledged. And nowadays a lot of schools are acknowledging just kind of the existence of indigenous people wording, using the word miigwech or telling people about that. Just kind of like, yeah, I'm really liking where things are in that way and thinking about my kid. He's going to be going through the system and he's going to learn a lot more from me. But I think also that that's going to be heard from the schools that he goes to, or I'm going to try to make sure that, anyways,

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I'm happy to see how things are changing now, but when I was,I am in my mid fifties and growing up in Ottawa, the kind of education we were taught in schools about Indigenous people, the impression I remember having was there used to be these people here and they lived this way, but there was no sense of the present.

Chuck Copenace:

Yeah, totally! Hunter-gatherer people. And that's what I remember. That's all I remember basically.

Leah Roseman:

And in terms of the trauma of the residential schools, now, to keep in mind that this podcast, there's listeners in last month it was 88 countries, so a lot of people have no idea about the history of Indigenous people here. So if you could speak to that, I know your family was touched by it and certainly some of what you were talking about before relates to that story.

Chuck Copenace:

So when I talk about the trauma or trauma being passed on intergenerationally, intergenerationally, that's what I'm talking about is I think residential school was a part of that. Maybe I'm not a history buff or whatever, but maybe a part too, I dunno. There's this additional, okay, we see this huge continent and there's people here, but we want control of that and I need to get that control somehow. So there's this whole, there's people that have explored all the history, but residential schools, I think we're a real, to me, we're real researched thing by certain people in the Canadian government, I think researched boarding schools and then came up with a formula to put in place in Canada, and it was basically divide the population into really small sections so that there can't be a real, everyone's one small section is going to be against the other small section, it be all this competition and for resources that aren't there.

But then the other part of that at residential schools, mine was taken from Onigaming Reserve with her sisters and her brothers. So there was nine of them, and I think they would come back in the summers. My grandma on my mom's side, and the grandfather when they were kids, were taken, it, it was ridiculous. It was, kids literally were like, okay, you gotta come live here and if you try not to live, you're going to jail. That kind of stuff. And I can't even imagine how painful that would be. And I do, if I can, I'll think about it and I'll think, okay, I have my son here. If the government was like, oh, you know what we think we'll put in residential schools again, I'll have imagination. I actually think this is why my mom wouldn't share the culture to an extent or didn't teach us the language.

They're all fluent. My mom and my aunties are all fluent. And I really think that idea, what if the government does this again, could have been like, well, you can't trust the government, so I want my kids to be safe. And that might've not even been a decision for her because the residential schools were a place I think of mind washing and they're a place that was meant to, yeah, there's lots of quotes, beat the Indian, I think beat the Indian from the child. And so my mom and my sisters, my mom and her sisters and brothers endured everything that you hear that is bad about residential schools. And some people have less experiences and some people have more. And that's something that's coming through right now with unmarked was in Canada where they're finding unmarked graves or mass graves around residential schools. And when I think about that, that would be the more what my mom and her family had to endure.

And then the next step up is people that don't survive, that didn't survive residential schools for whatever reason. So anyways, yeah. So to me, that's the trauma that I talk about that I think my mom unintentionally cast through. And I think it's still, when I think about what I've learned in and social services stories that I've heard and just observing people through that kind of lens, like these people that have shared teachings from school with me or shared spiritual growth stories with me and what I've seen with people that get sober and then still have other areas to work on that I think that residential schools sent shockwaves that are intergenerational, and I still Indigenous people nowadays. It shows itself in different ways. And I think as we're growing as a nation, as we're growing as Indigenous people right now, there's people winning international awards, there's people that are going to the Olympics.

I think as time goes on and as generations going on, that shockwave is kind of dissipating, so that intergenerational trauma is just getting weaker. And I've seen it in high school, I've seen it in the high school that I was speaking at TA in Kenora, Thomas Aquinas, and I look at native kids that I was speaking with and I was just like, what was really clear is these aren't having the same experience that I had. It's just obvious in the way that they're presenting, in the way that they're speaking and communicating and just not like everyone's the same or whatever, but I'm looking for, there was nobody that was just against me for no reason, which I was like, I was definitely, when I was in school, I just remember being very conflicted and very argumentative and very, yeah, I just had a lot of stuff going on that was antisocial or whatever, just kind of little things. And when I was at these students, I was thinking, oh man, that's so good. It just helped me feel really good. It's not the same, and that's good. I'm pretty sure, and I could probably go across Canada and to different places and I would see that things are different right now compared to when I was 20 years ago when I was going through,

Leah Roseman:

You're about to hear an excerpt from Chuck Copenace's composition, Little Sunflower from his album, Oshki Manitou, I encourage you to buy his albums. His website is linked in the show notes.(music)

So in terms of Indigenous mentorship and music, Chuck, it would be interesting to talk about the project you did with Julia Keefe, and I believe you guys also went to a reserve and did a clinic too, part of that big band.

Chuck Copenace:

Oh man. So we had our first gig, Julia got this band together and we played our first show. We played in Olympia, Olympia, Washington. And so that's the area that Julia is from. I can't remember the name of her people, but we played that show and we all got together and got together for this huge concert, but we ended up going to a community where she was from, and we went to an all Indigenous school, and I wish I could remember the name of it, but that was an amazing experience for me because it was all Indigenous teachers, all Indigenous little kids, and they had such spirit.

And I was just thinking, man, it was a really beautiful experience. And so we went in and played for them and we went and I did a workshop and then we played our concert. And for me, that was, I'd always kind grown up since I started playing music. I'd always, I king of got used to being the only Indigenous person, and especially with classical music, I didn't see many Indigenous people. And I might've been actually around a lot come to think about it because a lot of Metis people out there that I think that don't see that as a really important, or they wouldn't want to talk about that or whatever. So I might've been playing with Metis people that I didn't know about, maybe they didn't know, but I remember being in this band and I was sitting next to the trumpet player, I think, who probably brought me into the band.

His name's Delbert Anderson, and he totally looks like my cousin. He looks like someone that could be from a different family at my res or from in Kenora. And his sax player, I think he's a Comanche. And yeah, again, he just looks like one of my relatives. He's from, I think he lives down in the Dallas area right now, and all these other musicians, we all got together and were performing works with the bass player, her name is Mali Obamsawin, and she's from the East coast. And there's that same last name as in Canada as well. But there's someone from Montreal with the name Obonsawin, I forget her first name, but I actually think that might be the same last name or it's a related last name. So that's the border between Montreal and the New York area. All this stuff take away all those borders and those people, I'm slowly starting to learn the history of that area from members of that band as we're sharing, as we're playing more gigs together, I'm starting to talk and there's a sax player named Asa Peters, who to me, he's a really young guy, but he is part of the Mashpee tribe, and he lives around Boston, but they kind of have their teachers and powwows and stuff, but they don't have any land.

They didn't their land. And I'm just saying, oh man, and I've always hated the reserve system or I've always talked to reserve system, but at least it's just a place where my family is from and it's a town isn't going to be built on it, and the system might be flawed, but he lives in a place where the community was there, but it had zero protection. A town just kind of went on top of it. And so all the people that are lived there are in just absorbed into the town and gone, or not gone, but just kind of like there's no, and I always thought, oh man, well that's strange. It's strange that I would be thinking, it's too bad you don't have a reserve. But anyways, yeah, it's a crazy situation. But that band is starting to, it's bringing all these jazz musicians from all around North America, and we're all getting to share these stories with each other and kind of share our knowledge.

We did that concert, I was like, man, I wish there was a singer here that could sing an honor song for their first concert or whatever. And then I was like, damn, well, I guess there's nobody that's going to sing a song. So I asked, I could sing a song. I was just like, I think it sounded okay, but I was like, man, it felt like that event of us playing together and starting with something that might be, or continuing something like big bands, Indigenous big bands have been around for a while, which I also learned. But there's been Indigenous people in the military has been military jazz bands with Indigenous players, or in Julia Keefe's area, I guess there was big bands that were part of the Indigenous community that I think they were part of schools or something. And they were like, there's old pictures of a bunch of native kids all playing jazz music. And I thought that was pretty amazing. And thinking, man, that would never have happened in Canada. So there is this history that we're continuing, and I'm really hoping that that band just keeps growing or just kind of becomes an established, established thing and then hopefully something that can carry forward into different areas. And just kind looking into the, is there going to be an Indigenous jazz festival somewhere in New Orleans or maybe gathering of nations, the huge pow might have the jazz festival area or whatever. I dunno.

Actually, one of the things I remember thinking when I first played with that band is I didn't think I would see something like this. I was like, this would happen. Of course, this is going to happen. It's probably going to be after I'd gone that there's going to be enough Indigenous and all of a sudden it's happening while I'm alive. And I'm like, yeah, I made it. And I'm one of the old guys, which is something in itself that I'm getting used to being the old guy.

Leah Roseman:

So Chuck, if we could go back to your music education a bit. So you had some early jazz experience, like in the community swing band you were able to play in and it's classical. And then at a certain point you gone into electronic music. How did that work it's way in?

Chuck Copenace:

I guess my path has been pretty kind of zigzaggy or whatever, but I had a really fast start with music training and then basically it's kind a really fast start and then just kind went and kind of got fragmented or whatever. But when I was in grade seven, that's when I started playing it. And then my family, once I was good at it, I enjoyed it. I never thought about it, but I realize now that maybe my stepdad maybe and my mom maybe were just saying, Chuck is good at something and he's interested in something, so this needs to be supported. And so then my stepdad, Peter at the time, he's still in contact with us, even though he wasn't with my mom, he just started, he was paying for my sister's swimming lessons and he was still supporting me and my sisters in doing stuff.

And incidentally, my oldest sister, Serena, was on her way to the Seoul Olympics. That was the goal with her. She was one of the faster, she was hanging at the top swimmers in the world at the time. And that was when Canada was at the, so there was Bauman, there was Victor Davis, there was this crew of Canadian swimmers that were at the top, and my sister was kind of, anyways, so my stepdad was supporting her where she was at, and then all of a sudden I became good at music or I became good at the trumpet or was discovered. And then in grade eight, Kenora had a community, big band, and we basically played two big gigs a year. One at the harbor front for the community, and then one at a hotel for the seniors. And all the seniors in Kenora would show up and we'd play.

So they really liked the Polkas and the Polkas would just pack the dance floor. That was basically my first exposure to jazz music. And then I would do solos in the band. And Barry Easton, who was the conductor of the band, I was second trumpet, so I'd always get all the solos and I would just plan to play the written solos so they'd be playing in the mood. There'd be a written trumpet. So I'd play that, there'd be, and I would never actually improvise because I was really scared of that. And I thought it was just too complex of a thing to do. I didn't know that that experience of playing in that big band from grade grade eight to 9, 10, 11, 12. When I got to university, I was a great reader. When I got into the big band at university or the band, the concert band, all that kind of stuff, when it came to new pieces, I remember I can't do it now, but I remember how far ahead I could read when I was playing.

I was like, oh, I was looking. And right now when I try to read, because I don't read a lot, I have to stay on the bar that I'm reading. And with bifocals, it's actually trickier now. But I remember at that time I could read and I got to university in the big band there. I ended up being in the senior big band, usually the first years, couldn't go into the senior big band. There was a big band for the first years, but I was the only first year that was into the senior big band. I guess I had all this experience when I was going through high school, I was taking theory and I was taking trumpet through Royal Conservatory of Music, but when I finished high school, I had a grade 10 trumpet, and then I had a grade eight piano and a grade six, I think it was grade four or grade five, something harmony.

And all of that I thought was not enough. When I got to university music, I thought, because my music teacher was like, oh, these guys are going to have everything. They're going to have way more than you have for training or whatever. So you to just keep going. And then when I got to university, when I finally got in, I was ahead of everybody. It seemed everything that I was like all the harmony and all the theory, it was second year harmony in theory. The only thing that I didn't know about was music history, the actual trumpet instruction I had never had. When I got to university, I never really had anybody teach me the trumpet and I didn't think I needed it, which I think it was a little cocky. But when I actually got to the trumpet teacher, he spent the whole first year in, his name was Alan Ehnes.

And I remember every time we went for a lesson, all he would do is just stand beside my trumpet and he would just watch my lips and watch my position. And he would just be sitting there going, as I was playing these songs, because I had so many bad habits, I would shift around this. I would move. I had this big growth on my wrist from holding the trumpet wrong, from grade seven to all through high school. He'd always just be like, I just sitting there adjusting me and my air. He kind of showed me how to blow and play the trumpet without using so much muscles, so much compression kind of strength, which is kind of what I was doing at the time. Yeah, so when I got to Brandon, I, music was definitely just a really easy experience. Everything I really never found playing very hard at playing the music that we were doing. It was fun. And like I said before, it was my, I kind of thought I had things reversed, but I really enjoyed the whole music experience going up. I think it gave me those breaks.

Leah Roseman:

I just realized, Chuck, so you were at Brandon, so was it James Ehnes's dad, who was teaching you trumpet?

Chuck Copenace:

His name is Alan Ehnes. Yep.

Leah Roseman:

What a cool connection. James was one of my first guests on this podcast, and he talked about his dad being the trumpet teacher there, and I hadn't heard that connection.

Chuck Copenace:

Yeah. Totally, totally. Yeah. I really liked him. I really liked him, and he really chose pieces for me to play that were really cool. I wish I still had them. I lost all my music when I was in Vancouver and I moved back. I left this giant box. I had all my university music, all my books, everything in there, but it had all my Royal conservatory stuff with the markings, just kind of everything that I wish I had still. But yeah, I remember the song that he chose. I wish I could pull it out and just read over it again. He chose, I remember I could play Bach or I could play whatever, but he chose a 20th century music piece for me to play. And I remember really thinking that it was a, I liked it because it wasn't strictly with the piano at times, and I guess he probably recognized that I was more of a lyrical player. You had more just kind a unique way of looking at things, and he was totally supportive of that. But yeah, I ended, I only did the two years in Brandon and I left.

Leah Roseman:

So at a certain point you decided to go get a degree in social work to work in the community.

Chuck Copenace:

Well, what ended up happening is, so I went to treatment coming back from Vancouver. Yeah, I was 19, so that would've been 99. And so it took me a couple of years to get sober after getting to Winnipeg. And I only came here because my mom and my family came here, otherwise I would've went to Thunder Bay. I went to treatment at a place called A FM in Winnipeg. It's called the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba. And AFM was closely tied to Alcoholics Anonymous in Manitoba, and I think AFM, actually, it was called the Alcoholism Foundation of Manitoba. And it was kind of born of AA or they came about around the same time that AA started forming and getting popular. And so that's where I went to treatment. When I got to Manitoba, I went there twice and I completed once and I failed once, and then I went to another treatment. So I went to treatment three times, and then I got up, and that was in 2001.

And then in 2004, one of my close sobriety buddies named Allan, he got a job at the A FM. And at that time, they were still hiring residential care workers from the recovery community. So to hire people based on their kind of sharing experience and sharing their story and just kind of having a history of sobriety obviously. And so that's how I ended up getting a job at the A FM. And then AFM will, they also have an education portion of AFM, so people can come and take addictions courses, and some of them can qualify towards their degrees, but basically AFM would just give those to all the people that worked there for free. So I ended up going and taking counseling courses and different addictions courses there, but I actually never got an actual certificate in social work.

Leah Roseman:

So I was just curious, because you're working these long hours in the community, it must take an emotional toll. Would you go and play music to kind of balance that out emotionally?

Chuck Copenace:

I think so.I think when I started working at AFM, that was the first job that I took that was not physical labor, or not just kind of security work or just work that I wasn't related to. And I'd always thought, eventually I'm going to play music. I just dunno what that's going to look like. And went to Winnipeg. I was playing with a band called Moses Mayes, and then when I sobered up, I was still playing with them and I was working at AFM, and then I started working homeless shelter called Main Street Project. And when I look back those first few years, it was all just learning. I was kind of learning about myself as a helper. I didn't really know that I enjoyed helping people up until someone just said, oh, do you want to try the AFM? And yeah, I guess I started exploring myself as a counselor or as a crisis worker or a crisis counselor or whatever you want to call it, to helping people get through rough periods in the treatment center.

But I was also helping, when they're working at Main Street Project, there were a lot of different kind of situations that would arise there. And I started getting more skills at helping people through really people that have become homeless. And they're like, okay, what do I do? Or going through huge loss or all these kinds of things that happened and I started finding that I really enjoyed that, and I really enjoyed connecting, hearing, encouraging people to share so they can get things off their chest and all this kind of stuff. And I found that I really good at that. And I didn't know that it was taking a toll on me actually until I was for quite a while. And then I started learning about trauma and learning about vicarious trauma and I was actually taking on a lot of stuff, and it was starting to affect me, started learning about that.

And I guess it's a next level. What do you work in the social services go through, helping people get through all these different, this wide array of crisis that they can experience, and how do you connect with people and how do you disconnect from somebody so that you connect with yourself? All these kind of things that I think is the next part of learning. Either you do or you don't do and either do it or you burn out and people can burn out pretty hard from social service work, which I started, people that just become so hard to work with. I'll see people now that I'm like, you know what? I can tell that you need to stop working for a while.

I can tell that somebody has just been putting themselves out there for so long that they forget why they're doing it in the first place because they're not treating people well or treating themselves well or whatever. Something's off the balance is off there. Yeah. And then I was doing music just for the first while of that, and then I just started doing that work for quite a while up until, I think about 2012, I think it was about a five to seven year period where I wasn't really playing trumpet at all, and I wasn't really working on music, and it was just kind of really at the peripheral outside of working in social services. So I had kind of been doing that for so long that I remember there, just nobody knew I was a musician that I was working with. The only people that knew were my family, and I was those people that would remind me, I would see them or run into them at the mall, and they'd be like, oh, so how's the trumpet going? I'd be like, damn, I haven't played in a while, or I haven't thought myself as a musician in a while.

Leah Roseman:

So Chuck, your first album, it came out a couple years after that?

Chuck Copenace:

Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Was your motivation just to get your music out there to get gigs, or?

Chuck Copenace:

Well, when that album came out, I knew that I needed, I had something recorded, so that was in 2016, I do believe, or 2015. And I started going to sweat lodges in 2014. So that was one of the things that happened from the lodges is I was working on music and I was, but it would just go by the wayside, so easily doing social work and doing my jobs. And as I continued to gain experience in social service field and get different jobs, I guess I started getting more intense jobs with more responsibility. And so they'd be way more consuming and consuming over the whole day, working at nighttime, communicating with people at nighttime, all that stuff.

So I would have these little bursts where I would just be like, oh, I wrote a couple tunes and then I wouldn't play for a long time, or I'd have a little burst where a buddy asked me to play with their band for a gig. So I'd go do that and find that I could barely play, but I could play enough to play the song and play the concert or whatever. But I remember there was one period where I couldn't even play Mary Had a Little Lamb, I hadn't been playing at all, and I had just rebuild. And yeah, so in 2014, went to that sweat lodge, and that was one big thing that happened.

I remember sitting there just kind of being down in the dumps at the apartment that I had and just kind yearning, I think I might've saw in social media, somebody that I know, which guy it was, but they were super successful at doing music stuff. And it was somebody that I would've considered my peer a while back and they were doing this thing that I want to do, and I was just like, damn, I could be doing that. And maybe I was. And I'm just thinking, yeah, that's what I really want to do. And I'd been to my lodges and for whatever reason there, I wouldn't just put those thoughts aside. I ended up phoning the people that are in my band, the drummer, specifically Brendan Kinley. I remember phoning him and phoning the bass player Ashley who played on that first recording and I asked them if they wanted to be in my band and they said, yeah. Then I went, I booked a gig and I phoned a place in and just told them that I had a band and I already had music and all this just to get the gig.

Then that's kind of what started doing that recording is I played that and then I started putting the music together and just kind of choosing stuff from my past grooves that I'd been working on when I did work on music and I basically just had this mindset that I'm going to do this no matter what. I don't care what it looks like. I don't care what it sounds like. I don't care. I don't care anymore. I was just like, and I don't know where that mindset came from and why it came all of a sudden that I'd probably been depressed like that before. I'd probably been there a bunch of times just kind of yearning and hoping or wishing or whatever, but it never went in next step, which was I am going to make this happen and I'm not going to take no for an answer from myself anymore.

You know what I mean? And that's where I feel like where I am right now, where I'm just kind of like, I don't have a manager anymore and I'm not the greatest at the funding, the grant writing and all this stuff, but I don't feel like I'm going to give up. You know what I mean? I could go get another job. I probably could, but in my mind, if something's changed where I'm just like, well, I don't want to do anything else, so I quit my job and it's either do or I dunno what I'm going to do, I just feel like I don't have a choice anymore. And I used to, and I think that's what happened with the sweat lodges and stuff. It was just removed that block and maybe even shifted it the other way or turned it around where while you're doing music and are you nervous about speaking or are you nervous about failing or having a fear of failure or whatever. And that used to stop me and now it's like, well, we're doing it anyways, so you as well, just not when I think in my mind it's like the dialogues change. It's like you better get over it because we're going to do it anyway.

I dunno why. Maybe there's just some another, and maybe there's another power there. Maybe there's another, maybe that's what happens if you engage into your spirit in something is it gives you a little entity or that a little thing that's just kind of creating a different situation internally. I dunno, rearrangement. But yeah, that's where at I am right now, just kind of trying to say yes to opportunities and I haven't been working since May. I got some money from my reserve and I'm, my reserve is called Northwest Angler Animakee Wazhing and they did a flood claim and they paid out all the members of the reserve, a certain amount of money for having their territories flooded out crazy back in the early part of the century. And once I got that money, I remember going, oh, it's going to be nice because I'll be working, plus I'll have this money in the bank. But what I did, I ended up just quitting my job right away. And I was like, okay, well here's an opportunity and I'll get a job if I have to, but right now I'm not going to worry about it. And actually, when I played my gig in Manitoulin Island, an elder there, actually two elders saw me right away. I was playing on the Wikwemikong Reserve.

They had a little ceremony for me there, and one gave me some medicine for my knees, which really helped actually. But what they identified, or what this woman identified, Michelle, is that I was really sad anways we started talking. She identified, helped me identify, totally counseled me. And I guess I was just right there wanting that, although I didn't think that was going to happen when it's happening. I was like, oh man, what's going on? All of a sudden I'm counseling, I'm getting counseled. But she helped me identify that I missed my clients from my old jobs. So this was in November and I quit in May and now it's like January. But I think from May until now has been the only time that I haven't been working this job where I'm consumed by the people that I work for.

And I didn't know. Anyhow. Sometimes you, for me, maybe for other people, you have to actually do something before you find out why you have to do it. You don't get to find out before. Maybe that's one of the hardest things about being human maybe, is that sometimes you don't get everything laid out for you. You know what I mean? You just have to find out later. So I think getting the money, it is just kind of opening me up to do all these things that I'd been putting off because I've work and trying to work and do music. And now I think I would really like to work on doing workshops, speaking with Paul and sharing my story, also sharing some recovery and just kind of see if I can help people connect to music or connect to themselves or connect to what they want to do through just sharing things that I've gone through.

Especially with going to sweats. I do think there's a lot of guys like me out there. A lot of women and men are people that don't go to ceremony because they don't think that they belong there or something like that. And maybe I can help a little bit. Maybe somebody really wants to go to the lodge, but they don't think they have to because they've gone to counseling or whatever. They don't think they're going to get what they need there, which I didn't think I needed to go to the sweat lodge, but it turned out I really did.

Leah Roseman:

So Chuck, in these workshops, would you incorporate your music with talking about your story?

Chuck Copenace:

I think I would play and I would talk. It's kind of what I do at live performances anyways, and it works really well. I'm finding I get a lot of really positive response from concerts where people really like the stories, they like the things that I talk about or that worry of the sweat lodge. I do like to share a lot. And then also just kind of picking little, trying to share a bit of that spiritual growth thing. So I think if I were to do a workshop and I'd like to do one with younger people is I would definitely do music and speak. So try to flip things so that it's not just listening to me talk and it's also watching my band play. And this year I really want to start doing collaborations. So I've recorded my album, I've released it, and I'm trying to my album to grow.

But I'm also thinking about the next, I'd like to a lot more collaborating with maybe some younger people, especially guys that are just getting into doing music stuff or whatever. So I'd to learn the business with them and just try to keep growing my own profile so that I can definitely would like to help other young guys get into music or be able to build path. And I know there's organizations in Canada that I think they go to different communities in the north or bring music, bring instruments into the north. I'd like to do stuff like that can really build that connection.

Leah Roseman:

Well thanks so much for sharing your personal stories and how you overcame a lot through music. It's really amazing.

Chuck Copenace:

No problems.

Leah Roseman:

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Pleased to share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at LeahRoseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. The link is in the description. Have a wonderful week.