Life’s good for Langley’s Dallas Smith, these days. The former lead singer of the rock band Default has forged a wildly successful path as a country artist, and he’s in the running for a truckload of BC Country Music Association (BCCMA) awards.
Smith’s rise to the top of the Canadian country scene can best be described as meteoric.
He is the 2015 JUNO Award winner for Country Album of the Year, and was chosen by SiriusXM as Country Artist of the Year at the 2015 Indie Awards.
He’s the only male Canadian artist to spend multiple weeks at the top of the Country Airplay Chart in the Nielsen BDS era for his single Wastin’ Gas.
Additionally, the gold certified track broke the record for the highest one-week spin total at country radio in Canada ever.
Following a slew of sold-out tour dates with Florida Georgia Line and Bob Seger, Smith released 2013’s Tippin’ Point EP to critical acclaim.
His first single, Tippin’ Point, set the record as the fastest Canadian country single to go gold in history.
Tippin’ Point has since been certified platinum, and netted three 2014 CCMA Award nominations including Single, Album and Male Artist of the Year, and Smith is the first Canadian country artist to have 10 singles reach the Top 10 on radio in Canada.
His latest offering, Lifted, was followed by the sold out 2015 headline Tippin’ Point Tour.
When the Langley Advance caught up with Smith Aug. 25 at Redwoods Golf Course in Walnut Grove, he was focused on talking about the Boys of Fall charity golf tournament that he and his country music counterpart and friend Chad Brownlee organize each year to benefit JRfm’s Basics For Babies.
This year’s charity event raised just over $100,000 with 144 golfers taking part.
The tournament sold out a couple of months in advance.
LA: What is the tournament about?
DS: We team up with the Food Bank in the Lower Mainland, and it’s concentrating on the needs of babies, so we’re looking for diapers, food… everything like that for the first couple of years of life, so that’s who we’re raising funds for.
L.A.: How successful is the fundraiser?
DS: This is the third year, so we did $14,000 the first year, $75,000 last year, and we’re hoping to get to six figures this year.
L.A.: Did you golf?
DS: A little bit, just here and there, but I mainly just drove through and said ‘hi’ and thanked everybody for being here.
LA: Is the tournament country-music themed?
DS: There’s really no musical theme to it at all, it’s just the fact that Chad and I are both country musicians.
LA: How did the tournament come about?
DS: We did a tour about four years ago and after the tour we decided we wanted to team up with the radio station, here, locally. We had an opportunity because there really was no golf tournaments that were done through JRfm at that point, so we wanted to be the guys to do it.
For more on Smith, visit dallasmithmusic.com.