Paul Myers (musician) - Biography

Biography

Paul Myers is a songwriter, musician, journalist and author from Toronto, Canada, currently living and working in the San Francisco area. Myers was the front man and songwriter for the band The Gravelberrys, who had a Canadian alternative hit with "Wonder Where You Are Tonight", in the early 1990s. The Gravelberrys disbanded, after several complete lineup changes, in 1995 and while Myers continues to write, record and play sporadic shows, most of his time has been devoted to journalism, which he began in 1995 in Toronto. Since this time, he has written for a wide variety of periodicals and newspapers, including Canadian outlets The Globe & Mail, The Vancouver Sun, The Vancouver Province and Canadian Musician, and American publications including Mix Magazine, Electronic Musician, Crawdaddy and The San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Myers' first long form book was the authorized biography of the Barenaked Ladies, Public Stunts Private Stories, published in Canada by Madrigal press and in the U.S.A by Simon & Schuster's Fireside Books imprint.

His second rock biography, It Ain't Easy: Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues, was published by Greystone Books, a division of Vancouver based, Douglas & McIntyre (D&M) in the Fall of 2007).

While researching the Baldry book, Myers met Vancouver filmmaker Nick Orchard who enlisted him to write the script and appear in his documentary Long John Baldry: In The Shadow Of The Blues. The film has received repeated airing on both the Canadian Bravo network and BBC 4 in the UK. In 2008, Myers was personally nominated for a Gemini Award (the Canadian Emmy) for Best Writing In A Documentary Program or Series, for his work on Orchard's film.

In 2010, Jawbone Press published his third book, A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio, a detailed history of the record production career of the legendary Philadelphia born guitarist and producer. The book, which featured first hand interviews with Rundgren and most of his famous and infamous clients (including Patti Smith, XTC, Meat Loaf, New York Dolls, Cheap Trick, Psychedelic Furs, Grand Funk and Hall & Oates) was critically acclaimed and received four stars from MOJO Magazine and Record Collector.

He is the brother of Canadian comic actor Mike Myers and Peter Myers.

Between 2001 and 2006, Myers was omnipresent in the Vancouver, British Columbia media scene, holding a variety of titles during this time. Myers was the musician judge on the Canwest Global reality TV series, Popstars: The One, and blogged about his experience for the Vancouver Province.

Myers, and Patrick Maliha, were known to viewers of Shaw TV's Urban Rush as The Movie Guys, in a popular weekly segment which ran from 2003 until 2006, when he left Vancouver for the San Francisco area. Myers was also briefly a regular cultural pundit on CTV's The Vicki Gabereau Show, a national daytime program which taped out of Vancouver.

For exactly one year, from 2003 to 2004, Paul Myers hosted a talk radio show on MOJO Radio, CHMJ in Vancouver, British Columbia. The show was first known as "One, Two, Three With Paul Myers" (after its 1-3 time slot), before being rechristened The Paul Myers Show. The show has attained legendary cult status, and Myers played host to diverse guests such as They Might Be Giants, Matthew Sweet, Seth McFarlane, Errol Morris, Randy Bachman, and Rick Neilsen from Cheap Trick, as well as local musicians and touring authors. Mojo, a Corus radio station, abandoned broader talk radio in 2004 in favour of an All Sports format. Despite Mr. Myers' acquisition of a Vancouver Canucks jersey, his culture and music based topics no longer fit on the sports channel.