Prior to finding his place in the indie-pop scene, Brandon Howard Roy spent years working as a professional stage actor in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. It was not the glamorous career it had been talked up to be; on the contrary, it proved to be demanding, cut-throat, exclusionary and abusive.
In early 2020, when the theatre industry was pushed to its limits due to the pandemic, like many other industries, it provided an opportunity for light to shine through its cracks. Roy’s new single, “Proud,” is an arpeggiated address to these shortcomings.
“The theatre is a tricky workplace because good acting demands so much vulnerability, which can, in turn, invite abuses of power,” says Roy. “The pandemic revealed those systemic abuses of power as it did in so many parts of our society, and I want ‘Proud’ to serve as a reminder to those in authority that the people below them aren’t infinite resources.”
Released ahead of Roy’s upcoming album Tough Stuff, “Proud” is the earliest track that will appear on the album. It was written while Roy was still attending school and experiencing the accumulated weight of the problems in his personal and educational lives, heavily impacting his mental health.
“There was an expectation in school and the industry for years that you could only come by success with a superhuman drive and militant discipline. If you did slip up, no matter the reason, your job would be given to someone else and your reputation would be tarnished for a lifetime. It was hard not to feel expendable. […]
“After the entire industry collapsed in March, every theatre professional found themselves unemployed and able to have open and honest conversations with each other. We realized abuse, exploitation and injustice were everywhere, and it’s because of those conversations that I’m able to release a song as raw as ‘Proud.’
“I wrote it as a cry for help at a dark time, but now, I see it as a call to action. I met the most amazing people in the world during my time as an actor, so I know a more inclusive and humane theatre industry will emerge from the ashes of the old one”
With this track, Roy hopes his message of needing to abolish the unhealthy expectations present in the theatre industry sticks. Many lessons were learned in 2020; hopefully, this one will stick in the years to come.
Brandon Howard Roy’s upcoming debut EP, Tough Stuff, is set to be released on February 12th, 2021.