Rex Goudie Tries To Move Beyond Canadian Idol On New Album

Last year's Canadian Idol runner-up, Rex Goudie, is set to release Look Closer, the follow-up to his platinum-selling 2005 debut, Under The Lights. Despite his rapid rise to fame, Goudie was down to earth during a recent phone interview with ChartAttack, slipping in and out of his native Newfoundland brogue.

ChartAttack: Is it time to cut the strings and leave Canadian Idol behind, or is that a relationship that you see continuing?
Rex Goudie:It's totally time to cut the strings, but not really leave it behind. Obviously there's fond memories of it, and the whole last year of my life has been based on what happened on that show. I'm pretty much done with the whole riding the Idol wave. Now it's my own thing. I gotta make do myself 'cause, as you know, there's another season of Idol that came up this year and there's winners and runners-up and all that sort of thing, so I guess it's time for me to do my own thing and hopefully this album is what's gonna help me do it.

"You Got To Me," the first single from your upcoming CD, was written by Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk. Did you get a chance to work with either of them, or did they pen the tune, send it off to Sony BMG and that was it for their involvement?
I think it was penned and sent in. I was a bit of a fan. I pretty much knew every song that Our Lady Peace had. And I was always a big fan of Raine Maida's style, you know what I mean, especially with Jeremy Taggart to back him up and Mike Turner in those early records. Like, everything sounded so different, right? It wasn't like anything else that was on the radio. And to have a song penned by Raine Maida on my album, you know, and if you can get that little bit of influence in there. It was pretty big for me, I must say.

Does small town life become an element in your songwriting?
Oh totally, especially on this album. In rural Newfoundland right now, there's definitely like a little bit of a depression on the go, 'cause there's no work, right? And in that same respect, there's a couple of my buddies that moves up to Fort McMurray and has a few songs, like, influenced by them, influenced by what they tell me. Working 16 hours a day, I get no time to come home. And you hear people say sometimes too, fellas that moved away, that Burlington is not home anymore. Whereas in my mind, and I don't mind saying it, this is bullshit. To me, Burlington, Newfoundland is always going to be my home. I don't care who says what or who says where, where I'm living or whatever like that, it's always home. So, I mean, it's had a lot of influence on the way I went about this record.

Do you play guitar on the new disc?
Yes, I do. Jeremy Kelly, who plays with Edwin, is actually an amazing guitar player, and Jeff Dalziel played a little bit himself and Ian Thornley showed up on it and played some stuff. You know, being surrounded by guitar players like that, Jeff kept pushing me, pushing me, pushing me to do more and more and more, and like don't be afraid to explore, and I'm lucky enough that I was allowed to do that and had a lot of fun with it.