Who were your first musical influencers, and teachers?
I come from a musical family. I grew up in small town Newfoundland on the west coast, just across from where I live now, in West Bay Centre, and my family has always been a bunch of musicians and singers, sitting around at kitchen parties and family gatherings. That was my first real immersion into music. And my oldest brother, Miles, taught me how to play guitar when I was 14 and he was a big influence for me too, you always look up to your older brothers, I learned a lot from him. I wanted to be like hm and the rest of my family, so I started playing guitar and singing and then I started writing when I was 16, and doing local fundraisers and different events I was invited to perform for. The community pushed me up from there, gave me such great encouragement, it was enough to light a fire under any young aspiring artist. I went from there and just kept pushing at it.

Do you remember the first song that you wrote?
It was a song called Newfoundland Shores, it was about how people in smaller communities in Newfoundland at that time, in the mid-90s, had to go away to work and always wanted to come back.

I started making videos, putting them up on youtube and Facebook, and my cousin who lived in Halifax went to school with my first manager. My cousin introduced him to my songs, he saw potential and he reached out when I was 28 and we started working together. He created the record label, JV Records, which was an imprint of Sony Music Canada; we worked with them on my first songs and they’re the ones who pushed all my music to radio. From there I went to Nashville, traveling back and forth to writing and meetings.

When I first heard your new release, I Wanna Hear That Song – you could have told me it was a rock song and I would have believed you. What makes a country song? Is it the theme, the instruments, the musical palette?
This day and age a lot it is how it’s sung, and a lot of it is instrumentation. There’s banjo in that song. But this project is definitely a little more pop-focused. My Time Traveller album was definitely country; Deadwood was folk-country. Since 2020 I’ve been producing my own music and co-writing with a friend of mine, Gerry Foote, from PEI. With the whole pandemic I knew I had to try something different. And I’ve just been producing or co-producing by myself ever since. Now I’m working with John Hynes, who actually has roots here Fox Island River; he’s in Ontario right now. We’re making music we feel good about, and some songs that we felt good about in the past that never got cut, we’re having fun. Radio is its own beast. We didn’t set out to write for radio. But it’s always nice when you set out to write something that you love and radio plays it as well. Country music is a chameleon right now. [I Wanna Hear That Song], specifically, we wanted an anthem, a little more pop- and rock-driven. thinking more along the lines of the live shows and how we can improve those and make them more fun for the audience.

You consistently speak with a lot of consideration for the audience – you were the 2024 MusicNL Award Winner for Fans Choice Entertainer of the Year. You want them to have fun, you know they maybe had to pay a babysitter to attend the show and yu want it to be worth it for them.
It’s important. These people are buying tickets for your shows and you want them to leave feeling like they had a good experience. A lot of the shows I do are festivals, and everyone goes out to have a good time, and I want to have that kind of music, have everyone walk away feeling great about. A ton of it is about the fans.

What are you listening to?
I listen to a lot of ‘80s. I’ve got a CD player in my car still, and I’ve got a Def Leppard CD that I haven’t taken out since I got it. (laughs)

What’s next for you?

If I was living in Nashville you go all in on country and that country sound but where I live and the new direction I’m going in now feels good for me as an artist. The music is always changing. Like your own music you listen to, it’s never just one type. I gravitate towards different genres. For the next year I’m working with John Hynes, we’re going to be releasing a song every month, towards releasing an album – a compilation or an EP – coming up in March. And we’ll do another EP after that. I’m working on a bunch of new music, writing with Gerry, and working on getting a bunch of shows for 2025.  Constantly working on music is different than working on one project and then promoting that project. Because I think the whole ecosystem of how music is consumed is totally changing.

Benoit has been nominated for numerous CCMA, ECMA, MusicNL, and SiriusXM Awards, and his many wins include 2023 MusicNL Indigenous Artist of the Year and 2024 ECMA Country Recording of the Year. NQ spoke with Benoit as he walked along the beach in Fix Island River: “I live right next to it so I usually take a walk a couple of times a day.” This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.