“I remember turning 30 and thinking I blew it, I’m not going to be anything,” says Daniel Blomme, a mental health and addictions professor at Durham College (DC).
It was just over two decades ago and he had just returned from living in Japan.
He was out of money and not sure what to do next so he went back to school at DC to take the program he now teaches in.
Today, he is a psychotherapist, professor, musician and dad.
“It was stressful. But once it works out I’m like, oh, those were great years.”
As a psychotherapist and professor specializing in mental health and addictions, creative outlets and self-expression are important.
He says music is “one of the deeper expressions of my spirit or my soul.”
Blomme is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who sometimes takes a strong emotion from his profession to inspire his music.
“There are stories and ideas from being a therapist and from the world of addictions and mental health that leak into the songs.”
But the most important part of music for him is the connection with his family.
He started with the piano but he didn’t feel a connection with music until he started singing.
“The magic for me, [was when I] started playing with other people.”
Blomme says music has brought him close to the people who mean the most to him.
“It’s also my magnet for ... all of the most important people in my life.”
On Nov. 22, Blomme is performing at the Skydiggers concert at the Biltmore Theatre, and this opportunity has come full circle.
“It’s a big part of my wife and I’s story. One of our first dates was going to see the Skydiggers.”
For one of their wedding favours, they even recorded a CD together where one of the songs was from the band.
This band showed Blomme that you didn’t have to have big, fancy gear or “rock hard.”
“You can be, not cool looking, and a little nerdy and just sort of soft and that can work.”
Blomme back in university the Skydiggers were among the “golden age of all these great Canadian bands” that included The Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo and others.
The love of music has brought him close to his kids as well.
“It’s one of many things that connects us, I think it’s baked into all of us,” Blomme says.
He didn’t know the exact steps to take throughout his life, but he did always know what he wanted.
“I always knew I needed to do something meaningful to me, and that impacted other people.”
When he returned to music in 2020 after a break, he released his first solo album called Soft.
“When I write I am looking for something outside of myself to inspire me, then sort of wrapping my internal world around it.”
Soft was created around mental health and focused on his personal experience of feeling shame over being “soft.”
He sung about men’s mental health and how there is often shame around being softer and emotional.
“A lot of songs on there were about owning that softness.”
He learned that being soft is a superpower.
He also learned that enjoying the process is a crucial part of growth.
Forming bonds with other bands, enjoying new music and the ups and downs of performing is what it is all about – not what happens at the end or how big the audience is for his shows.
For him, it’s the journey that matters, something that has taken thirty years to learn.