SOCAN

Like really.

served on the boards of SOCAN and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, authored the memoir Miscellaneous Female, and hosts CBC Music's national morning show, Mornings, while we're continuing her recording journey with her 2026 EP, Bird in Flames.

Oh, and she's a good mom.

My name is Glen Erickson.

on CBC.

A, it's a great tariff rate for songwriters.

If you write that song, you're gonna make a nice chunk of money from SOCAN, because I was on the board, I do all these things, right? And it's a great opportunity, like being on CBC for an artist can get you from 100 seat venues to 500 seat venues.

Like if you're if you if your show is great when you show up to that hundred people, you know, it really has the capacity to help build an audience.

I think in Canada there wasn't the same appetite for that as there is in the States, and the situation's a bit different.

But yeah, I know, I believe SOCAN is suing SUNO, but I don't know what the result of that will be, and it doesn't involve any money.

So what I would say, though, for artists, I think the best thing we can do is really focus on what we choose to create now and to make things that are more difficult to be replicated.

And when I say that, I think of things that are organic, raw, unpredictable, and nonlinear.

There's – in Canada, and I just looked at this.

So there's SOCAN, and on the SOCAN website, they actually have – I'm just looking at it now.

If you're not – if you have an internet radio station or a podcast, it says if you're – If music is less than 20% of the content and you're not earning revenue, right now I can pay just $33.48 for an entire annual SoCan music license.

That's great.

The number's 1-888-741-9192.

This podcast is licensed by SOCAN because we believe that artists should be paid for their work.

Hey, friends.

I kinda miss getting those messages on my answering machine like we used to back in the day.

... yeah, so little things like that they, uh, they train you on to really improve your, uh, performances and, yeah, it was, it was a great time.

They, they even teach you about, uh, you know, the boring admin kind of things about being a musician like, uh, SOCAN, like registering your songs-

Oh, good

... and getting, you know, that kind of stuff.

and even the, you know, I think if you're like a folk musician in Canada or a singer songwriter in Canada, you can see a pathway to imagining that, you know, if you get enough CBC radio play and you're so cans up and you got a good like soft cedar tour and you get kind of a hit like the song of the summer and people come up to see you and you get booked at folk festivals across the country, like you can see a pathway to a living wage maybe.

In a way that if you're a young kid playing punk, you're not like, I can see how I'm going to get a lot of SoCan money in a few years.

There is still some SoCan money, but nothing would be ever really livable unless you're touring all the time and you become a touring musician for other bands as well, kind of in that scene.

Even a lot of the bigger bands, all these guys will have their day jobs as well.

It's like being in the CFL.

So I'm in my, I'm in my house one, house here, a- and my buddy, Kiras- Kira Pain, who really got me into writing, we're standing here yakking, and the mail comes.

So there's a SOCAN check, or, you know, or CAPAC check at the time, and I open it up, and there's $8,000 in there.

I went, "Oh, man, maybe I should just go out and blow it all, gamble it away, right? You know, just, just do something..." But I went, "No, I don't do stuff like that."

[laughs]

Drake and Jesse

Reyes will be toasted with special achievement honors at this year's SoCan Awards.

The two Toronto musicians are among the artists being celebrated at the annual gala for Canadian songwriters, composers, and music publishers.

Reyes will get the International Achievement Award for representing Canada on the global stage, while Drake will claim his fifth consecutive award for Songwriter of the Year in the Performer category.

I'm just looking it up.

The SOCAN, which is like the Society Composure Music...

Yeah, it's

like ASCAP or something.