Garrett Barbuto Celebrates Canadian Identity on Growing Wild & Old

There’s something refreshingly genuine about Garrett Barbuto’s debut album, Growing Wild & Old. Rather than chasing modern rock trends, the Ontario-born, Alberta-based singer-songwriter leans into timeless songwriting, blending classic rock, blues, and soul into a record rooted in place, perseverance, and personal growth.

Inspired by his journey from the mining town of South Porcupine, Ontario, to building a life through Calgary’s open mic scene, Growing Wild & Old unfolds like a musical road trip across Canada. Barbuto reflects on leaving home, discovering purpose, and ultimately realizing that sometimes distance is what gives us the clearest perspective on where we belong.

Musically, the album draws from the golden era of rock without feeling like a nostalgia act. Echoes of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, the Eagles, and Bob Seger can be heard throughout the project, but Barbuto brings enough of his own perspective to keep the songs feeling personal rather than imitative. Warm guitars, soulful melodies, and heartfelt vocal performances create an inviting sound that rewards attentive listening.

One of the album's standout moments, "Lasting On," perfectly captures its central message. Beginning with a relaxed acoustic foundation before expanding into a full-bodied rock anthem, the track reminds listeners that life moves in cycles and that resilience often comes from simply continuing forward. It's an uplifting sentiment that resonates throughout the entire record.

What ultimately sets Growing Wild & Old apart is its sense of identity. While many artists chase universal themes, Barbuto proudly embraces stories that feel distinctly Canadian, celebrating everything from regional culture to the experience of building a new life in the West. The result is an album that feels authentic, grounded, and deeply personal.

With Growing Wild & Old, Garrett Barbuto delivers a confident debut that honors classic rock traditions while carving out a voice entirely his own. It's a thoughtful introduction from a songwriter who understands that the best stories often come from the roads we've actually traveled.

Growing up in Northern Ontario before building a life in Alberta plays a major role in Growing Wild & Old. How did that journey shape both the stories you tell and the artist you've become?

Part of what drew me to rock 'n' roll was the contrast in how music was presented to me while I was growing up in South Porcupine, Ontario. As a kid, I would spend months and months with a vocal coach rehearsing for the local annual music festival. When the performances finally came, they were seemingly designed to test your resilience to anxiety. You would show up to a near-empty church at 10 AM, perform your songs, and be judged publicly - and sometimes quite harshly. Most of the time, anxiety would hold strong to the point where I would be physically ill leading up to performances, but still able to get through them and usually score well enough that I would want to continue to do it the following year. Eventually, I became tired of the whole pattern and quit around junior high. I'm thankful to my mother for this whole journey, though; it forced me to face the highest form of anxiety a young kid in a small Northern town could imagine. These days, it takes a lot more than show tunes to make me truly anxious. Plus, as I often forget, I did come away with a ton of vocal training that became embedded in how I sing today. 

When I got to Alberta in 2018, I was a 22-year-old and had never been to Calgary before. I also didn't know anyone who lived here. After a year or so of self-taught rhythm guitar under my belt, I started playing open mics around Calgary. It was the first time I'd returned to performing since I was a kid. I was happy to learn that music could also be played in bars and pubs on weekday evenings and weekend afternoons to a crowd of half- or fully drunk adults who have nothing but appreciation for what you're doing. "It's just rock 'n' roll" became a common saying among the musicians I was mingling with and in my own head to calm down the perfectionist in that very same head. This type of attitude about rock 'n' roll breathes its way into the vocal performance and theme behind a song like "Lasting On". Other songs like "Rouyn-Noranda", a story about three childhood friends who go from Ontario to Quebec when they turn 18 to drink legally for the first time, and "Next Time I'm Home", a song about the inevitable sadness of a life and town left behind, also come to mind when I reflect on my upbringing and my journey to Western Canada.  

Classic rock legends like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and the Eagles clearly influenced your sound. How did you honor those inspirations while making sure this album still felt uniquely yours?

Well, you're only as good as the heroes you choose is what I always say. The Eagles documentary, "History of The Eagles", inspired me to first pick up a guitar in Toronto around 2016 after seeing the way the girls looked up at them on stage (sorry!). The main way the Eagles' inspiration can be detected on the album is actually the way it's mixed from a production standpoint. Just as Eagles records were (almost) always about highlighting the vocals and particularly their group vocal arrangements, my debut album was mixed to showcase the vocal performances through and through. The only way, I suppose, I made this album feel uniquely mine compared to the Eagles is we only had one bar-band singer - not four world-class singers like the Eagles!

Bruce Springsteen's inspiration can be felt a little more directly with the emphasis on storytelling as well as exploring identity as it relates to one's country of origin. Whereas Springsteen sought to tell the stories of middle-class Americans, I'm seeking to tell stories of Canadians who have moved and lived in different areas of Canada - with a focus on the ones raised in Eastern Canada who settled in Western Canada. 

In the case of Tom Petty, I was inspired by his breadth of songwriting. Compared to Springsteen, I find Petty to be a lot more musically experimental in his writing. "Here Comes My Girl" by Petty can be called an inspiration for a song like "Lasting On" with its free-flowing vocal performances in the verse followed by a hook-driven, catchy chorus. Still, Petty has songs that are a lot more simple that run the same chords from beginning to end such as "Free Fallin'". We took the same approach as "Free Fallin'" for a song on this album called "Show Me The Door". Petty wasn't afraid to step outside his box of what worked for him previously when deciding what to do next. With this debut album of mine, while writing 25 demos before selecting 9 to record professionally, we wanted to test as many genres and styles as we could to drill down on what "my thing" could be, with the goal of originality always at the forefront. I think Petty followed a similar code. 

A recurring theme throughout the album is Canadian identity and finding home. Why was it important for you to celebrate those experiences instead of writing more universal or mainstream stories?

When I moved to Alberta, I heard way more lectures on Canadian and global politics, from qualified and unqualified voices, in the first week I arrived than I ever did in my 20 years in Ontario. It makes sense: Alberta contains Canada's oil sands and a large portion of where our revenue comes from. And with revenue comes strong opinions of what to do with it. Still, rather than trying to pick a side on every argument, I just listened. It made me reflective and eager to answer the question of what Canadian identity really is. Unable to answer the question still to this day, I chose the easier task of telling stories about uniquely Canadian experiences. I thought if I did that, maybe I could return with a better answer to the question of what makes Canada, Canada. That's where a song on this album like "Wheel Well", an ode to winters in Calgary, comes into existence. The song isn't making a statement; it's just a stupid rock 'n' roll song about winters in the North. It's meant to distract you from answering the big questions that likely can never truly be answered. But it's still somehow, hopefully, meaningful to Canadians who can relate to a lyric from that song, such as: "Cowtown covered up and down the Bow/Home is home but I ain't never going back to Ontario."

You spent years performing covers at open mics before releasing your own music. What lessons from those early performances had the biggest impact on the songwriting and production of Growing Wild & Old?

Mainly that rock 'n' roll is alive and well. It may not be what it was in its heyday, but that's ok. Most older folks that were, say, teenagers when the Eagles released "Hotel California" figure that "kids these days" don't have any rock 'n' roll education or appreciation. That's simply not true. I've gotten behind the wheel of many classic rock songs and have seen the lyrics sung word for word by young 20-year-olds in bars and at wedding receptions across Alberta. Maybe part of the reason that there's a perception that the youth of today don't like rock 'n' roll music is that no one's been making it. So that's what we set out to do with this album. From a production standpoint, this lesson about rock 'n' roll's staying power can be found in the loud, hard-hitting drums and wheeling electric guitars throughout. The songwriting for the album, as I'm sure is clear by now, was and will always be inspired by my rock 'n' roll heroes: new and old!

This debut album feels like both a personal memoir and a love letter to Western Canada. Now that it's out in the world, what do you hope listeners take away from your story, regardless of where they call home?

I hope that listeners who hear the album leave it with a clearer understanding of what Canada is about. I hope that can be the case for both Canadians who are new to our country and those who are less so. I hope non-Canadians who hear it perhaps learn something they didn't know before about Canada and our history.  All I've tried to do on this album is tell the stories that I care about or that I've been a part of, but it's up to the listeners to decide what it's about. 

I also hope listeners who hear it might join me in contributing to what the "Canadiana" genre can be. I don't feel it's been defined, at least not very clearly. To me, it's a lot like Americiana from a composition and production standpoint, but with a little more humor, self-deprecation, and self-questioning.