Sometimes, Justin Hines’s performances leave audiences taken aback. The reaction doesn’t just come from his voice — but also from his appearance.
“Once, I was playing at an awards show, and you could actually hear a collective gasp,” says the wheelchair-bound singer-songwriter over the phone from his Newmarket, Ontario, home. “But, after a while, it turned into applause.”
The 25-year-old performer has had Larsen’s Syndrome, a rare disease that occurs in one out of every 100,000 people, since he was born.
“The major joints in my body dislocate regularly,” he explains. “It sounds intense, but it’s actually not so bad because it stabilizes as you get older.”
While his appearance is an attention-grabber, he says that his job as a musician is to maintain that attention.
Sides, his new album on the Orange Record Label, is filled with honest folk songs, soulful melodies and stories of hope.
Aside from his physical challenges, such as maneuvering on stages with inclines, he also realizes that the music industry hasn’t embraced his style of introspective songwriting since the heyday of James Taylor and Cat Stevens. Still, he maintains the same positive attitude in this interview that he conveys in his lyrics.
“I’m excited about getting it out there…it’s the album that I always wanted to make,” says Hines, who stresses the importance of songwriting over the onslaught of production found in modern pop music.
“It was important to me that the songs became the focus,” he adds, “like how it was years ago — when production was there to support the song, rather than be the identity of it.”
His two singles from Sides, “April on the Ground” and “Wish You Well,” have generated positive responses from across the country, and Wal-Mart used the latter song to promote its Walk For Miracles.
Hines updates his Myspace page frequently, where fans cheer him on and thank him for being their inspiration. This month, Hines and his band will travel across Canada for a week-and-a-half-long promotional tour to support the album.
Before embarking on the tour, he plans to visit his family’s cottage in Haliburton, Ontario. He tries to spend a lot of time there, and wrote the song “Window View” on an early cottage morning. He mentions that tubing (basically waterskiing with inner-tubes) is his family’s current obsession.
“The best is when you put two together,” he says with enthusiasm. “You create these waves, and when the tubes hit them, they collide. It’s good times.”