About Patrick Watson
Patrick Watson is an American-born Canadian singer-songwriter from Montreal, Quebec. It also refers to the eponymous band formed by Watson, whose blend of cabaret pop and classical music influences with indie rock has been compared to Rufus Wainwright, Andrew Bird, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley and Pink Floyd for its experimental musicianship. Patrick Watson's album Close to Paradise was awarded the Polaris Music Prize in 2007.
Born in Lancaster, California, to Canadian parents and raised in Hudson, Quebec, Watson attended Lower Canada College. While living in Hudson, Watson worked as a pool and hot tub water analyst at Piscines et Spas Hudson. Patrick Watson studied music at Vanier College in Montreal.
Watson co-wrote and performed on several songs on the Cinematic Orchestra's 2007 album Ma Fleur including the opening track, "To Build a Home". His "Missing Home" remix of Champion's "Guy Doune", from Champion's 2006 album The Remix Album, reached Number 1 on CBC Radio 3's R3-30 chart in early 2007.
Watson has toured with several artists, including John Cale, the Cinematic Orchestra, Cold War Kids, Amon Tobin, the Dears, Feist and James Brown. He was Starbucks "Pick of the week" free download in September 2009 and again in June 2015.
After creating music and releasing albums in various styles, Watson formed a group with guitarist Simon Angell, percussionist Robbie Kuster, and bassist Mishka Stein. The band has performed with artists like James Brown, the Dears, Philip Glass and the Stills.
In an interview, Watson said regarding his band:
So we as a band are called Patrick Watson. How it started was that originally, some years ago, we were asked to do some music to accompany a book of photography. Having built a CD to go with all these images we thought it would be fun to do it live and it worked really well and people freaked. We didn't really think we were gonna be a band at that point but over a period of five or six years we got to a point where it became very difficult to change the name. It was difficult to find a name that suited us especially as we had such an eclectic music style. The second album was a kind of middle point, and now here we are at this third album which is much more song orientated.
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