Joel Plaskett Canadian Singer From Lunenburg

Early life

Joel Plaskett was born on 18 April 1975 in Lunenburg, a small town on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. His father, Bill Plaskett, is also a musician and was a cofounder of the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival. Plaskett taught himself guitar and songwriting while listening to a wide mix of artists, from Joni Mitchell and Neil Young to the Sex Pistols and the Pixies. When he was twelve his family moved to Halifax, and within a year he had formed his first band with friends Rob Benvie and Ian McGettigan.

Career

That teenage group eventually became Thrush Hermit, a Halifax alternative rock band in which Plaskett sang and played guitar. The band signed with Murderecords in 1994, released the full-length Sweet Homewrecker on Elektra in 1997, and recorded Clayton Park for Sonic Unyon before breaking up in 1999. In 1998 he also played drums in Neuseiland, a short-lived project assembled from several Halifax bands.

His solo debut, In Need of Medical Attention, arrived in 1999. The records that followed were made largely with his band Joel Plaskett Emergency, whose lineup in the early years included drummer Dave Marsh and bassist Tim Brennan. Down at the Khyber (2001) brought him a Juno Award nomination for alternative album of the year, and Truthfully Truthfully (2003) became his first big commercial success and his first release for MapleMusic Recordings. For La De Da (2005) he played most of the instruments himself, recording in Mesa, Arizona with Bob Hoag. That album led to two East Coast Music Awards in 2006, for male artist and songwriter of the year, and a Juno nomination for songwriter of the year.

The band released the concert DVD Make a Little Noise in 2006, and in April 2007 came Ashtray Rock, a concept album about high-school love produced by Gordie Johnson. It reached the shortlist for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize. That December he played six consecutive nights at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, performing a different album in full each evening.

Three, released on 24 March 2009, was a triple album of 27 songs spread across three discs. It was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize and won the Juno Award for adult alternative album of the year in 2010; Plaskett was also nominated for songwriter of the year that year. During the tour he headlined Toronto's Massey Hall for the first time, and Paul McCartney chose him as an opening act for a Halifax concert. In May 2011 he became the first artist to reach one million plays on the streaming site of CBC Radio 3.

Scrappy Happiness (2012) used an unusual schedule: the band recorded and released one song a week for ten weeks, then issued the complete album. The Park Avenue Sobriety Test followed in 2015, and in 2017 he released Solidarity, a collaboration with his father. In April 2020 he put out 44, a four-part album of 44 songs recorded in Dartmouth, Memphis, Nashville and Toronto with 33 other musicians over four years, and in September 2024 he released One Real Reveal.

Plaskett has also worked as a producer for other Canadian artists, among them Two Hours Traffic, Steve Poltz, David Myles, Sarah Slean, Mo Kenney and Meredith Shaw. In 2004 he made his television debut as a rock coach on the CBC documentary series Rock Camp. In 2013 he opened a recording studio and creative space in Halifax at 45 Portland Street.

Recognition

Plaskett's record shows one Juno Award win and five nominations. The win came in 2010 for Three, in the adult alternative album category. The nominations cover alternative album of the year (2002, for Down at the Khyber), adult alternative album of the year (2010, for Three), and songwriter of the year in 2006, 2008 and 2010. Beyond the Junos he has collected many East Coast Music Awards and Music Nova Scotia Awards, and in 2025 he was named to the Order of Nova Scotia.