Chad VanGaalen Contemplates Starting Up 'Sesame Street'-Type Show

Posted on Jul 4th 2011 4:30PM by Melody Lau
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Jeff Thorburn

Chad VanGaalen is the first to tell you that being both a musician and family man is a pretty tough act to balance.

"I have smaller windows of time to work on stuff," the Calgary, AB, singer-songwriter tells Spinner. "Before, I could've gone into the studio for 20 hours at a time but now it's different."

Touring doesn't work out so well either for the father of two.

"I didn't like playing before, and I definitely like it less now," he says. "I have a one-year-old and a three-year-old so they're both kind of changing so quickly; it feels like my heart is breaking when I'm on the road and I don't get to see it."

Complaints aside, VanGaalen admits to being happy with how his life is now. With his latest record, 'Diaper Island,' racking up accolades and only a handful of tour dates on his calendar, VanGaalen could be in worse situations. "My life is kind of good right now," he says. "I don't really tour that much anyway so I probably spend way more time with my kids than most parents with real jobs get to."

VanGaalen, who also illustrates and creates music videos for himself and others (including J Mascis), hopes to use his creative skills to create something for his children one day.

"I've got tight dreams about making some sort of 'Sesame Street'-type thing with live-action puppets," VanGaalen says. "But, as one person, I'm just totally getting overwhelmed with life and I'm getting less and less excited about doing absolutely everything myself these days, so this would probably have to be a crew of at least five or six if I was going to work on a bigger project like a kids show."

Watch Chad VanGaalen's 'Peace on the Rise' Video
VanGaalen doesn't need the kids show to intrigue his daughters, though. It seems his girls are already pretty captivated with their daddy's profession. His eldest daughter may even follow in his footsteps. "She likes to play drums," says VanGaalen. "She's pretty used to it; she was born when the first Women record was being recorded in the basement, and she was literally sleeping in the same room as five dudes playing as loud as they could and sleeping through it so she's been exposed to quite a lot of sonic sanity.

"She tells me to be quiet a lot of the time, though, she likes silence. I don't think she thinks I'm that good at it, like, 'Oh yeah, there's daddy singing and playing guitar all the time ... kind of irritates me when I'm trying to make PLAY-DOH cookies. It's like, 'Dad, how many times do you have to play that song before you get it right?' I'm sure that's going through her mind."

So maybe we won't be seeing the tiny tot jamming in the future.

"She's way more into drawing," says VanGaalen. "I don't want to be one of those parents that pushes his daughter towards anything, because that just feels weird."

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