Getting to Know… Dead Defined | Interview 🎤

Craig Ewan, the brainchild behind the Canadian solo project Dead Defined, provides awesome answers to our burning questions on our 183^rd Q&A. 

Sometimes, it’s best to go SOLO.  That is exactly what 🎙 Dead Defined do…does… something like that! “It’s more or less an amalgamation of all my favourite styles of music focused into one place,” says Canadian brainchild 🎙 Craig Ewan, who is basically the do-it-all guy.  Pretty cool, right? According to the talented pop/rock/industrial singer/songwriter, “It gives me the opportunity to experiment with different genres and styles all under one band name.” Makes perfect sense! Throughout the course of the 183^rd interview to grace our site, Ewan provides awesome, insightful answers regarding his craft, influences, and both present and future endeavors.  So, without any more summarization of the awesomeness you can totally read for yourself, here is 🎤 Getting to Know… Dead Defined: Interview No. 183!

Starting things off, for those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes you distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?  

🎤 Well, Dead Defined was formed in 2018 and is a solo pop/rock/Industrial project. It’s instrumentally written and sang by me, Craig Ewan. It is produced and engineered by my good buddy 🎛 Mike Dmitrovic of Voodoo Records Canada. It’s more or less an amalgamation of all my favourite styles of music focused into one place. It gives me the opportunity to experiment with different genres and styles all under one band name. It’s much harder as a team/band to get everyone onboard with one of these types of projects as we would all have different ideas of how the band should sound or look. These days a lot of singer/songwriters I know venture solo in this industry, as it’s kind of a no holds bar attitude when needing to try something new without anyone holding them back and being fully independent.

To answer your second question, as COVID numbers in Canada have just now seemed to stall out there isn’t any set plans for live music for Dead Defined in 2021 as of yet. My main focus is to try and write/record/video a killer new single every 2-3 months to stay consistent and relevant when the time comes to open the venues back up. But when they do I assure you there’s always a high-octane performance coming off that stage!

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Dead Defined get started and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a ‘band’ early on?  

🎤 To be honest, it formed out of my previous numerous failing attempts at getting a band off the ground haha. As much as I loved my previous bandmates and all the effort that was put into launching a band from nothing into something, it really takes a toll mentally, creatively and spiritually over time. Sadly, my previous attempts were always hindered as everyone is on their own life path (including me) of where they want to be in life and what they want to do with it. This always caused inner turmoil to where the band would ultimately be put on hiatus then to never reform again. So, by choosing to create something by myself on my own schedule I found it more appeasing to be able to go ‘all in’ or ‘step back’ and take time for myself when needed, but always working on promoting the band every step of the time without having to ultimately disband.

Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?  

🎤 They have changed drastically within the last year or so do to COVID. As of now with COVID still controlling and postponing our music industries ‘live’ side of things in Canada, I’ve had to learn to pivot to Social Media daily to keep up with content creation and new music. Instead of the normal weekend show routine that bands become accustomed to, it’s all now about online content and fan interaction through social media. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing at all as every musician should be using social media to help promote themselves and others, but it’s a learning curve for many who never had to focus solely on online development and online marketing. As for music releases, my goal is to try and release a new single every 2-3 months with follow up promotion. Being fully independent means I do all my own online promotion, contacting, merch and blogging. It’s fun but keeps me busy!

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?  

🎤 I have way too many influencers to list and most come out subconsciously through writing music, but I’ll name a few of my favourites! I grew up listening to the late 90’s, early 2000’s commercial Hard Rock scene. American hard rock/nu-metal was a huge part of my musical influence even if that doesn’t transpose to my own style of writing. I do take a few things here and there idea wise but try to compose music that’s more relevant for today’s listener. Growing up it was bands like P.O.D., Sevendust, Staind, Korn, Creed, Alter Bridge, Nirvana etc.

These days I’m all over the map when it comes to new music and ideas as it’s so easily accessible and easy to find daily. I listen to anything from Top 40, Country, Rap, to Chill Lo-fi and Instrumentals.

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative. 

🎤 Is this a Rated R interview or? Haha. I’ll keep it clean for professional sake! As far as anything happening during a live performance from the past it’s all been pretty uneventful. I think the craziest thing that’s ever happened was to lose power during a performance a few years ago mid-set. I think the first thing I did was to make sure that my bandmates weren’t being electrocuted on stage as to be the cause of the blackout, haha.

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 Up to this point it has to be 🎵 “Lifeline.” I wrote ‘Lifeline’ about 5 years ago with one of my past bands, but that rough draft never made it to the studio as a recording that was cut. I’ve always known the meaning behind it would relate with others when I wrote it and thought many people would be able to relate to the lyrics, and they do. It’s based around addiction and mental health and now, more than ever, with society at wits end with COVID (among other things), it seems that a lot of people are still battling their own demons in private. I wanted to portray this through the music video for this song and it came out incredible in my opinion. If you haven’t watched it, please do, as it’s a harsh look into many people’s daily reality in 2021.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?  

🎤 I’m an amateur Storm Chaser. You read that correctly, haha. One of my many other passions in life is extreme weather. I’m CANWARN certified in Ontario, Canada as a storm spotter for the Government of Canada. Our storm season is usually from May-August every year. I like to take little road trips across the province to intercept incoming storms in my free time. A bucket list goal of mine is to travel to ‘Tornado Alley’ in America during their peak storm season and ‘holiday’ for a couple months to track storms!

Closing this thing out, what are you currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure.

🎤 Currently I’m still promoting my latest single entitled 🎵 “Ignite” that was released on March.12.2021. I’d love for your fanbase and viewers to check it out. It’s available worldwide on all digital streaming platforms with a coinciding music video on YouTube. I’ve also just launched my first ever ‘Dead Defined’ merch store on my website. I’ll be updating it with new stylish Merch & Swag monthly from here on out. Check that out at www.deaddefined.com/store Shipping Worldwide!

Thank you so much for sharing taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward.   

Thanks for this opportunity! Much Love.

Craig Ewan (Dead Defined)

Follow Dead Defined: Website • FB • IG • YouTube • Spotify

Getting to Know… Dead Defined: Interview No. 183 [📷: Dead Defined, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype]