Podcast
When We Wake with Andrew Shaver
Hosted by Andrew Shaver · EN
In-depth and intimate conversations with some of Canada’s finest songwriters, musicians, and other industry adjacent professionals.
Produced, edited and hosted by Andrew Shaver of Clever Hopes.
The full When We Wake weekly broadcast is syndicated across Canada. Each week, the show offers a thoughtfully curated mix of emerging and essential voices, weaving together the threads between melody and meaning. Alongside standout tracks, When We Wake features in-depth conversations with the artists themselves—uncovering the stories, questions, and creative sparks behind the songs.
23episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
53. When We Wake with Kelly McMichael
Apr 1000:46:29Tap to summarizeYou could say that Kelly McMichael took the long way round to using her own name. Born in Peterborough, Ontario and now based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, she spent years making music under different monikers and inside other people’s bands, touring with artists like Sarah Harmer, Gentleman Reg, The Hidden Cameras and The Burning Hell.Along the way she made her own music as Rouge and then Renders, before eventually stepping forward using her name with her Polaris Prize shortlisted debut album Waves, and its Music NL award winning (and Polaris Prize longlisted) follow-up After the Sting of It.In today's episode, we chat about those different musical lives, the process of finding her own voice, the winding path that led her to the front of the stage, and about sharing vocals on one of my new Clever Hopes songs, Long Way Round...which she absolutely, positively, knocks out of the ballpark.KellyMcMichael.comWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver of Clever Hopes. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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52. When We Wake with Christine Bougie
Mar 2300:44:35Tap to summarizeMy guest today is one of those musicians other musicians talk about. Christine Bougie is widely considered one of Canada’s finest guitarists. She's a sought-after collaborator who’s spent years helping shape the sound of other artists’ songs on stages and records across the country. We’re talking Bahamas, Sarah Harmer, Jenn Grant, Amy Millan, Matt Anderson…and, trust me, the list goes on.But she’s also an artist with a singular voice of her own, and her new album, How to Care for Introverts, brings that voice front and centre. The record is built around the expressive sound of solo lap steel guitar and was recorded with Chris Stringer at Union Sound in Toronto. It is beautiful, spacious, atmospheric music.In our conversation, Christine talks about discovering jazz as a teenager, the encouragement she once received from guitar legend Bill Frisell, about how she continues to try to pay that one forward, and why stepping out front as a solo artist can feel both exciting and a little uncomfortable for someone who’s made a career as a side player.We also talk about embracing imperfection in the studio and the creative power of making space.@christinebougieWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver of Clever Hopes. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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51. When We Wake with Dave Gunning
Mar 1600:43:25Tap to summarizeMy guest today is one of Nova Scotia’s finest songwriters, and one-time touring bass player for Stompin Tom Connors, Pictou County’s Dave Gunning.His new album Field Notes wasn’t recorded in a traditional studio at all. It was captured outdoors in Australia, under a gumtree, with one microphone on Dave and two more pointed at the birds (kookaburras?). No isolation booths. No endless second-guessing. Just voice, guitar, and whatever the day decided to offer.On one track, Angels' Share, a bird chirps perfectly in key during the instrumental and stops as Dave starts to sing again. The kind of magic you can't recreate in a studio.We talk about the decision to record this way and the leap of faith he took by travelling to the other side of the world to do so with producer Mark Lang. We talk about co-writing Vincent Coleman with his dear friend, the late Bruce Guthro. And we get into the time Stompin’ Tom Connors hired him after what might be the most unconventional audition in Canadian music history. Wanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver of Clever Hopes. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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50. When We Wake with Rebekah Hawker
Mar 200:51:19Tap to summarizeI met Rebekah Hawker this past January at Folk Alliance in New Orleans and within minutes we were laughing like we’d known each other for years.What starts as a conversation about surviving conference adrenaline, and then inevitable crash that follows, turns into something much deeper. We talk about growing up in a church community, about the grief she felt after her mom passed away, moving back in with dad on the family farm, journaling and building an inner world as an artist. And Rebekah shares the story behind “Quit My Habit,” the song I first heard her she sing in a noisy room in New Orleans that somehow brought the whole place to a hush. That is, when they weren’t singing along.Also… we take a small but important detour into Linda Ronstadt.rebekahhawker.comWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver of Clever Hopes. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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49. When We Wake with The East Pointers
Feb 400:45:54Tap to summarizeMy guests today are Tim Chaisson and Jake Charron from the genre-bending, Juno Award-winning, musical trailblazers from Prince Edward Island, The East Pointers.Their new album, Schoonertown, is rooted friendships that stretch decades, small-town life, and the long road of making music together. It’s also shaped by loss. The record carries the presence of their late bandmate and friend Koady Chaisson, who was also Tim’s cousin, and whose spirit is felt all the way through these songs.What’s striking is that Schoonertown isn’t a quiet record. It’s joyful, rhythmic, and built for rooms full of people. It's music that celebrates connection, memory, and the act of showing up for one another. And that's entirely by design.Tim and Jake joined me for a generous, wide-ranging conversation about home, tradition, collaboration, and carrying someone with you as the music keeps moving forward.@theeastpointersWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver of Clever Hopes. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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48. When We Wake with Duke & Goldie
Jan 1400:44:49Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of When We Wake, I’m talking with Eric Duquette and Jena GoGo AKA Duke and Goldie - a duo whose entire story basically starts with a Craigslist ad in Toronto. Jena put out a call for a guitar player and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a whole host of guys answered, but it was Eric who fit the bill. So the two bonded over a shared love of Motown and Radiohead, played in a band together, fell in love, fell out of that earlier band and eventually spun all of it into Duke and Goldie. It’s been a journey that’s taken Jenna from the West Coast to Toronto, Eric from east to Toronto, and now both of them to Vancouver, where they’ve made their home. And, where they recorded their new album, Romance and Ramblin', in the basement bunker at CBC. We get into how this all unfolded, how they write, and how the partnership, musical and otherwise, keeps shaping the sound. @dukeandgoldieWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Bonne Bay to Prince George.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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47. When We Wake with Boy Golden
Jan 500:44:32Tap to summarizeBoy Golden is the oh-so-cool Rock’n'Roll alter ego of the Winnipeg-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/songwriter extraordinaire, Liam Duncan. In today’s chat, we get into the origin story of that alter ego, but before we do that, we chat about the music. We kick it off talking about Suffer, the lead single from his forthcoming album Best of Our Possible Lives (due in February 2026). The song went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts in Canada. But didja know, it hit #1 weeks before it was announced at #1? Naturally, we get into the strangeness of how that happened. We also talk about what radio success means in 2025 and why the song might be having a tougher time finding a foothold in the US.We chat about Liam’s unusual path into songwriting. He started out on the business side of music, as a teenager, and came to writing songs, as he puts it “a little late” in the game…at the ripe old age of 21.We talk about recording to tape, and about the time he literally carried those tapes through airports to get them mastered, refusing to let them through the X-Ray machines. We discuss why he chose to work with a producer (for the first time) on this new Boy Golden album and how he felt about the process. Spoiler, he loved it. And finally Liam tells me why he finds making music, well, a little embarrassing.Boy GoldenWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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46. When We Wake with Jill Barber
Nov 2800:57:09Tap to summarizeJill Barber is back with a brand-new holiday album, A Holly Jolly Jill Barber Christmas. An album that includes a handful of the classics you’d expect, some lesser known treasures and a couple of originals, all of it shaped alongside her Grammy-nominated producer and pal Drew Jurecka. Jill’s been living in a Christmas mindset, replete with its bittersweet mix of nostalgia and hope, since February. So it’s high time she hit the road to bring her special brand of holiday cheer to folks from Toronto, east. West of Toronto, sorry to say, you’ll be waiting til next year.In our chat we talk all about the album, the tour, her memories of Christmases past, her evolution as a songwriter and, of course, I can hardly chat with Jill Barber without talking about her brother, Matthew Barber, so, Jill tells about why she believes in a thing called blood harmony. @jillbarberWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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45. When We Wake with Daniel James McFadyen
Nov 300:43:48Tap to summarizeThree time Music Nova Scotia Award winner, Daniel James McFadyen grew up outside of Toronto chasing a ball, not a melody. But somewhere between the rec centre squash courts and the dark and dreary corners of the pubs filled with folk covers, music found him. His new album, Back to the Country, was written in a cabin on the east coast and recorded in a cabin cum recording studio on the west coast. It’s raw, nostalgic, and wide open. Like the places that shaped it. It's When We Wake with Daniel James McFadyen.Landmine Tour@danieljamesmcfadyenWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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44. When We Wake with Charlotte Cornfield
Oct 900:47:13Tap to summarizeCharlotte Cornfield is one of those songwriters who can make a small moment feel like a revelation. And speaking of revelations, while I’ve been a fan of Charlotte’s for almost a decade now, going all the way back to her 2106 debut Future Snowbird, in our chat, I learned that Charlotte knew of me years before that even. You can imagine my surprise.I guess, I used to be somebody, you know?Nah.Turns out, Charlotte and I have more than a couple handfuls of mutual friends form our shared time in Montreal, but this was our first real conversation. And it went in many directions. In today’s episode we talk about a magical week in September that Charlotte spent at a songwriter retreat in Cork, as well as the friendships and collaborations that have come out of it; her love of the Toronto music scene and, well, for the city itself; we talk a lot about family and what it means to keep creating while raising one. Charlotte’s daughter, Odette, is now two and a half, and that shift from all-hours songwriting to daycare-scheduled creativity has changed how Charlotte works. In fact, her new album, due in spring of 2026, was written in the 3 months between Odette starting daycare and Charlotte going into the studio (with an as yet unannounced “dream band”) to record live off the floor, with no headphones and no overdubs. We bookend our chat with some live dates she’s playing. Off the top, the Nowadays Festival in Dartmouth NS October 9, and on the tail end, a show she’s playing November 12th at Massey Hall in Toronto as part of an incredible lineup celebrating Neil Young’s 80th.charlottecornfield.comWanna get in touch?Send an email to whenwewakeradio@gmail.comOr find me on Instagram@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaverWhen We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.Theme song Got You by Noah Reid
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