Nori Wentworth on Music, Identity, and The Proper Man Conversations

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Welcome to Heat Cast, the official podcast of He Changed

It. As always, I am Mike Chisholm as

always. I am so excited to be here and

to talk about the world of men's mental Wellness in all of the

facets and pathways that we explore in that topic.

Obviously, we are the official podcast of He Changed It.

If you haven't downloaded the He Changed It app, what are you

Waiting for? It has never looked better.

Things are happening behind the scenes.

It's, I know I'm a broken record when it comes to that, but it's

just really exciting to watch this thing grow.

And at the end of the day, you know he changed.

It is the first men's mental Wellness platform that has been

created and we're incredibly proud of of what's been

happening and what is going to happen now.

We have been in partnership for some special episodes of he cast

with a company called Telus for the Canadians.

You know what Telus is for other people around the world, you

might not necessarily know who they are.

Telus is a massive, massive communications company in

Canada. Cell phone provider, broadcast

television provider, massive Internet provider.

And we went into and did a very cool program with Telus and in

it the result was 5 amazing episodes of he cast, which we

are now going to put out on our platform here.

The episodes are with a band, The band is called Proper Man

and a proper man is a local band from Kelowna, BC and all five

members have a story. The entire band has a story.

And so as a narrative, all five episodes tie in together kind of

like Voltron, you know a whole bunch of robots coming together

to make one super robot, kind of like that.

Each episode is amazing and I'm so proud of the work that we

have done. I'm so proud to be friends with

these guys and it's a pretty special story.

So without further ado he cast the official podcast of He

Changed it would like to present a proper man the he cast

conversations. Welcome to he cast the official

podcast of He Changed It. As always I am Mike Chisholm as

always. I'm excited to be here.

I'm extra excited to introduce this episode.

Nori Wentworth is a member of proper man and but but way way

way more than that he is. He's a husband.

He's a business owner. He's a guy that I've looked up

to. You know, we've grown up in the

same city and and and Nori was always one of those guys where I

would just look at him and go, that guy is cool.

I wish I could be cool like Nori and he is.

He's just an awesome guy. But he has an awesome heart.

He's not just cool because he's a great musician, but he's got

an awesome heart. He loves building into people

and helping people. We've got an episode that's

going to be coming out. We haven't shot it yet, but it's

going to be coming out with somebody that he forwarded to me

and the story is unbelievable. The thing I love about Nori is

that he recognizes these stories and people.

He wants to help people. He's been through stuff and he

wants to take the stuff that he's been through and use that

to help others. This episode of he cast focusing

on proper Man is a is a very good example of that and Nori

really opens up and and talks about what makes him tick, where

he's come from, what he's learned and these messages all

this entire group of episodes are going to do that for guys

and and and be a shining example where iron sharpens iron we can

all sharpen each other. So without further ado, he cast

the proper man conversations excited to present Nori

Wentworth. Who Nori Wentworth is to me and

who he is to the band. Nori Wentworth is a very

slender, beautiful man. He probably weighs 145 lbs but I

well, he cut his beard off 140 lbs.

I don't know. I'm probably incorrect on that.

I met Nori, he was filming, he filmed Glasshead doing a video

shoot for some management company with his brother like 22

years ago. That's where I first met him and

ever since he he he works in a music store.

He doesn't like me going on about that because we all have

these alter egos where we're not the guy from the music store.

I'm not a wine making guy. Like we all have different pet

names in the band for each other.

But yeah obviously he works in at Wentworth music.

I've known him through the years been always got to know him as a

as a friend, always wanted to play music with him and I think

for some stupid reason he wanted to play music with me.

So I always had it in my mind that that's somebody I wanted to

play with the great bass player. Lots of experience but also just

a good good person and bands are complicated like you got to any

band guy will know it's it's like having you know four wives

and then the bands guys have wives.

So now you got 8 or 10 of the sensitive humans that you have

to love, take care of and respect.

And he's just an easy you got to do that with.

He's a great guy. Welcome to this special edition

of he cast. We are so excited to be

presenting our expose our highlight of the band Proper

Man. Today we've got Nori Wentworth

here. I'm very excited about this

particular guest today because I'm born and raised here in

Kelowna and and and and growing up in this city there has always

been as far back as I can remember all the way back to

band and elementary school when I was playing the trombone.

I remember Wentworth Music and and we got a guy here who is

inherited the family business by by way of his name is on the on

the mast but also is full force in with with Wentworth Wentworth

Music doing his thing teaching as well do you do the?

Teaching. I don't teach.

No, you don't do the teach. No, I've got terrible technique

and I don't, I don't want to pass that on to anybody else,

so. Business owner, musician, been

around here for a long time, has a great story.

And and the other part of the rhythm section of proper man.

Nori Wentworth, thank you for taking time to come out and be

part of this project, this focus that we're doing on Proper Man,

yeah. Totally thanks for having me.

This is this is good. This is gonna be, it's gonna be.

Good. It is gonna be good.

The beard is coming back and we'll talk about how where it

was as we go through the interview here.

We told you a little bit about he changed it when we sat down.

We talked about the app that's being built, all of that men's

mental Wellness and how it needs to be a focus and and and Jason

kind of put it around well, is this something that we want to

do. And all of you gave a resounding

Yes, yes. I think that speaks a lot to who

proper man is. You've been a part of a lot of

bands growing up. You've been a musician, I I

would assume since, I mean the family business.

Yeah, Yeah, you kind of started. Did you start right away?

Like, are there pictures of you as a three-year old with a

guitar or a bass in your hand? I my first instrument was the

accordion actually, which was super popular apparently back in

the 70s, and my dad played it and it just really intrigued me

how it functions. So unfortunately my accordion

career never really took off. But I switched from there to

keyboard to guitar. And then as far as bass, I very

quickly realized that there's a great need for bass players.

There's a ton of guitar players out there, so I switched over to

bass and ever since then I've been in many, many different

bands. But.

You have, I can remember in my 20s growing up to I would go to

almost every Sunday night. I would go to a place called

Roses, which no longer exists and I would go watch Blunt play

and that was, I love that band you were.

It's local. There's something about local

rock and local bands that there's a there's a synergy

that's just different. It's it's similar to indie, but

you still get the connection and a deeper connection.

I think when you get local, you took to it right away.

Have you Have you always been in a band?

Pretty much, yeah. I think.

I think it was in grade six or seven and I was playing at my

brother's talent shows in in high school and then there used

to be a a teenage nightclub called Heartbreakers back back

in the early 90s. And yeah, I think I was 12 or 13

and went and played a show there.

And yeah, just once you're up on stage you you get hooked pretty

quick, so. I was going to say like, I mean,

you know, you got a music store, part of that family business,

you're part of that culture your whole life.

You never really turned away from that.

Was that something you always embraced?

It's it's always, definitely been part of everything that

I've done. At one point I did go to to film

school and I tried to start up a my own production company, but

as you probably realize, it's very expensive.

Equipment is very costly and very time consuming as well.

So it was I started having to play in a couple of different

bands in order to afford the equipment but then I didn't have

the time to film and then it was a it was about a five or six

year venture. But I, I, I still some of the

proper mad music videos. I'll I'll edit those and you.

Still got a finger in it? A little bit, yeah.

Yeah. You know, I I still really enjoy

editing. It's it's kind of a passion of

mine, but. What does Wentworth Music do?

Talk a little bit about the and then how has it changed as as

you've grown and grown into different roles within the

company? It's obviously grown

significantly even since I was a kid.

I I mean the footprint you guys have is, is, is, is tremendous.

It's we never stop changing and growing, doing different things.

It was started my my grandpa used to be in the Air Force and

one of his last projects was the Avro Arrow.

And then when that got scrapped, everybody got dispersed.

A lot of the guys went down to work for NASA.

He decided to retire at that point.

So he was an electrical engineer, retired to Kelowna,

started working at the Capri House of Lights, which most

people probably won't remember that.

I remember that it's in the 60s, so I don't, I don't know why you

don't remember that. Yeah.

No, no, no. OK.

My parents might, though. Yeah, my dad at the time was a

organ player and guitar player, and he started teaching guitar

out of the back of the the electrical store.

And then he started getting more and more students.

And then he sold one of his guitars to students, took that

money, bought two more guitars, sold those off, bought 4

guitars. No kidding.

And that's how Warner's music started.

It was my dad teaching under the back of this place and.

And flipping guitars, Yeah, and the way the kids flip sneakers

these. Days.

Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And turn into a store.

So my grandparents thought, hey, this is a venture we might want

to get behind. So they came out of retirement

and started Capri House of Music, which very quickly

changed to Wentworth House of Music.

And this is all a matter of a few months.

And then from there, it was like, you know, you'd see lights

in the washing machine and a guitar and some records.

And so it slowly changed from this electrical store over to a

music store. And then eventually they

expanded. They needed to hire another

teacher as a piano instructor. And they hired what turned out

to be my mom. So my dad ended up marrying her.

And then it just kept evolving from there.

And, you know, add another employee, add another employee.

And then eventually myself and my two brothers got involved

with the business and we've grown it to where it's at today.

So it's it's been since 1966 so. Wow.

So third generation, third generation and and it's and it

has grown significantly. So what are the types of stuff

that you guys do? My side of thing is sales.

So we now have three locations, one in Vernon, Penticton and

Kelowna, but we sell pretty much any type of musical instrument

you can imagine. The other part of our store,

which my wife now runs, is the Education Center.

We currently have about 1000 students.

We had peaked at about 1400 students, but then COVID kind of

came along and ran. Back up to 1000 since.

We're back up to 1000. Yeah, we dropped down quite a

bit, but it's been been growing quite a bit in the last couple

of years. Wow.

Yeah, Gramp would be proud. He would be, Absolutely, yeah.

That's super, super cool. And yet the the passion for

music hasn't died in you at all. You just this is a way to be in

the music business, but at the same time you're able to perform

and do all these. Things yeah.

It's very lucky because it's. I was actually just telling

somebody this the other day that it's.

I think it's important everybody's life that everybody

has three aspects of their life. You need your your work life.

You need your your home life and then you need some form of

getaway, whether it's golf or the gym or or whatever.

Everybody needs that and everybody's decent at something,

right? The thing for me is all three of

those intertwine. So it's a good thing and a bad

thing. Oh yeah.

When it works, it works, yeah, but if it's crappy, then it also

is impeding that crappiness moves into the other.

Two, right? You know, you have a frustrating

day at work. It's like, well, I can't go and

work out at the gym, you know, that's what most people will do

to, to mentally change things over.

But for me, it's like they're all all intertwined, so yeah.

Talk about some of the bands you've been in.

What kind of, what kind of music have you played?

Have you played all sorts of music?

Like, I mean, you know I watched your The even proper man is so

eclectic. The different styles that that

intertwine just within your band right now.

Clearly, you know, you've got some guys who've lived some life

and they're able to bring all these different elements of

music and styles into into what you're doing now.

You've been in punk, you've been in rock like all sorts of ever

been in country. I have been in a country band.

Yeah, yeah, it's. And that's the thing with with

music, if you pigeonhole yourself into one genre of

music, you're you're going to get stuck there and you're going

to get frustrated. And for for any instrument,

you're your own worst enemy. And you know, I I will never sit

down and listen to current pop country music.

It's just like, it's not my thing.

Some people will say you're you're crazy, but it's just it's

not my thing. But I'd love to play it, but

it's yeah, it it's just so cool that I can be like, hey, today

I'm going to be a reggae bass player and you have to think

like a reggae bass player, like, you know, likewise for for every

instrument it's you have to think like that specific genre

and it's it, it puts your brain in a totally different spot and

it makes you much better musician in the end.

Yeah, so how many bands before proper man?

I was probably in about 30 or 40 bands.

The my main thing for a really, really long time was just

playing covers because that allowed me to play every

weekend. And the cool thing with covers

is it forces you to learn every different genre.

So you know, if you play at a wedding and it's like, hey, play

that country song and you're like, we only play rock, you're

not going to get booked quite a bit.

So, so yeah, I've. 30 or 40 bands, yeah.

Around the block. So OK, now I think we've painted

done a good job of painting the picture of what your life looks

like. When does proper man come into

your life and how does it come into your life?

Well, I'm sure you'll probably hear from the other guys of of

how they they got into the band. I've known Jason and Petrie and

Justin and Travis. They've.

I've known them. All in different ways, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I love that about this.

You know, being Kelowna in the music industry for over 40

years, it's just like. You know a lot of The Who play.

Yeah, exactly. So proper man started with

Petrie was going through a hard time relationship wise and and

Jason really stepped up and said hey let's get playing again

together because they'd played in a a punk band prior to that.

And then yeah, I got a text from from Jason just saying hey do

you want to lay down some bass tracks And over the years I I

would get that message from Jason.

You know 10 years prior to that was the same thing.

So I used to go over to his house and yeah just lay down

bass tracks and we were just having fun.

You know it was bringing a six pack of beer over and just just

record. And then this band started the

same way and there's no ambitions to ever start a band.

It was just we were just recording and having a good time

and that was our getaway. You know, it was the the weekend

golf for some people who were, yeah, working out at the gym.

It was just, it was a good release.

Get your mind away from a relationship.

Get your mind away from work. How important is that for a guy

to to to have that in in this modern world You think about

middle age now. I mean we we go through we try

and be kids at heart as much as we possibly can but we have to

do a fair amount of adulting and Lord knows you've had to had to

do that. How important is it having a a

release like that? It is.

It is mandatory there. There's no question of it's not

being even slightly important. It is.

It has to happen in everybody's life.

And the people that I see struggling in life through

through different things, they typically don't have that.

It's like work, go home, crack a beer, sit on the couch, watch

TV. And it's just like you gotta

work out, you gotta and and by workout, I mean just have

something either physical or mental, you know, it's it's so

important. And music is AI mean I think.

I think music is almost universal.

The idea where if, if, if, if, if you play it great.

A lot of people don't play it but you can experience it

anywhere. Like music is one of those

things that in my opinion can be a shortcut to some of those

things is man, if I'm angry, I listen to some 9 inch nails, I

listen to some stuff from when I was at the stuff that I

identified with that emotion and it helps.

It's almost like you have a tool to help you deal with that kind

of stuff, and then playing it has another appeal to it.

Playing in front of a live crowd.

There's nothing like it. Yeah, yeah.

It's if if you've never been up on stage with an audience

cheering for you, there's this certain energy that that gets

directed towards you and you can't explain it, there's

probably something physical there that you can't.

Or metaphysical? Well, and it's true, like when

you get positive energy sent your way, you become, you absorb

that and you become more positive because of it.

And it's it's euphoric. It's, it's.

It's. Yeah, I I, I've experienced it,

public speaking as well. And I and I've tried to, I've

tried to explain it to people as well.

Is, is, is and and certainly proper man is a phenomenal

example of this. I I've watched you do it.

I've seen, I mean, a dozen shows over the last little while as

we've started this process of of of me getting to know you and

the idea of you receive this amazing energy, but then you

take it and you kind of transform it and you throw it

right back out in the audience then receives it.

Back, that's the hope. And it's like, if you've ever

seen any band play, we're like, man, that was such an incredible

show and you could see that same band play a week later and

you're like, man, something was weird.

There was this weird vibe in the room and that's that's what it

is. It's like, if something's not

jiving there, it's we could have had the best performance as a

band that we've ever had, but if the audience isn't reciprocating

that back and forth, it just doesn't work.

Out. Yeah.

And yeah, I wish, I wish that we had the scientific instruments

to be able to measure these things and explain how it works.

But it is, it's, it's this amazing gift that's given to you

guys who play, but also to the audience who sees it.

I mean, going through COVID, I don't know how many times I said

I just, I need a concert. I need, you know, I need that

experience where there's a communal thing about it, even

though it's a room full of strangers, and then that energy

thing, it's so cool. Yeah.

What? So that being said, you're

laying bass tracks with Jay, you know, having fun getting these,

these, these, you know, releases like that, where you're hanging

out with your buddies, you're doing something that you enjoy.

That's great. I look around at this room here,

I look at this. Was that when was that ever an

ambition that you like? Did that come out of nowhere or

or was it a Jason, like, no, I got a vision for this thing.

Yeah, we're going to have a house that we can go.

And like, how crazy is this that you have this right?

Now, I mean, it was, it was always stuff that we had talked

about dreams. Yeah, exactly.

And it's just without dreams and ambitions.

Like you always have to have some form of a goal.

You don't have to have that. You know, here's what I'm going

to do, here's the end game and then that's it.

Like a lot of people say, you know, what's, what's your 1010

year goal? It's just like, it's great to

have these little master goals. But I've always lived my life of

let's set mini goals and just get on the path.

And I don't know if you've ever gone hiking in the woods where

it's just like, I'm just going to get on this path and go for a

hike for two hours and you might go, hey, well, I'm just going to

walk that way. Well, there's another path this

way. I've.

I've never even considered that. Like, what could you possibly be

missing out? Because you were so set on this

one end goal where this quick little path over here might be

the most beautiful waterfall and you wouldn't have seen it

because you were just so focused and fixated on that.

So that's that's why I try to instill on my kids as well.

It's just like have a goal. But the main thing is just

getting on that path. Yeah, just start walking.

Yeah, who cares where it ends up?

And you'll you'll never know what you see.

Yeah. And and and be open to the idea

that you might see things that. Exactly.

Transform these ideas or whatever.

Don't be so rigid. It's just it's that just start,

just go. If you sit there and you're

you're idle, you're you're moving backwards.

It's as far as I'm concerned. So, OK, the idea that this place

that that that that Jason would build something where you guys

have this home field advantage and all that, yeah, as it came

to pass, you've been in, you know, dozens of bands.

Clearly, this is a unique experience.

Absolutely. It's so I like to grandpa rant

and I started on a story and I go off.

No, no. No, this is this is good.

This is jazz. We do whatever we want.

It's all good. It's yeah, as I said when we

started this out it was just a fun just get together and record

and there was no ambitions to be like here's where we want to end

up and we've been doing this since I think 2016.

So, you know, this has been going for six or seven years now

and the hardest thing in any band, it's it's a lot like a

marriage. There's a lot of work that goes

into it. There's a lot of emotions,

there's a lot of give and take and I think that's why our most

bands will fail very quickly. We have gone through a handful

of of drummers and and other musicians.

But the difficulty it's, you know, finding like minded

people. It's especially at our age when

you're young, it's just like, hey, you want to be in a band,

cool. Do you want to get girls and go

over, go out on tour and be a rock star?

Like, yeah, like, who doesn't want to do that?

But you know, when you're in your 40s, it's like, hey, you

want to be in a band. It's like, is it going to take

away from my home life? Is it going to take away from my

kids or my wife or or that kind of thing?

So it's it's been pretty pretty awesome working with all these

guys because we're all very similar mindset where it's just

like proper man comes first from a a family unit.

So there's nothing that proper man does that will take away

from anybody's vacation time from their kids, hockey game

from from their their day jobs. It's always like.

And you all have this understanding that priorities.

Yeah, yeah. And whereas a lot of other bands

that I've been in, it's always been like, no, the band comes

first. Like I don't care that your your

wife's in labor. The.

Sacrifices everything. Yeah, right.

And and I was guilty of that as well where it was just like you

know I've I've been married before and I know that that that

was taxing on the relationship playing in a band every weekend.

And likewise with my my current marriage it's gotten many many

arguments with my wife over over the years about how much I was

away because you know it's not just work home go gig and then

I'm back home. There's a lot of times when I'd

be out on tour like it's I'd be gone for weeks at a time.

Never mind the rehearsals or studio stuff.

Or whatever. You know, people see, oh you you

only play for two hours every every weekend.

It's like, yes, but there's also two to three hours every night

practicing and you know, there there's a lot that goes into it.

So finding Understanding wives is it's it's amazing that it's

all working as well as it is in this group but it's it's very

important and we always reiterate that to the wives.

If you look around the the club at the the pictures if you ever

get into Crown of Thieves in West Kelowna have a have a look

at the the walls you'll you'll see pictures up and all the

pictures are our wives so you'll see and including our sound man.

Right beside the sound booth is the sound man's wife.

And it's, you know, we're we're just trying to make it a family

unit first. And music comes along with it.

And we've been very lucky because everyone in this band

I've looked up to for so many years long before playing in in

in the band with them, like they're just all, they're

amazing guys and super talented. Yeah, what you just talked about

in theory sounds great. You know, OK, we're all around

the same age other than Justin, maybe we're all around the same

age and and and and we've got these priorities in life.

They're going to they're going to be the priorities in life.

I talked a little bit about the adulting you've had to you've

had to do sometimes the when life gives us you know waves

that might capsize the boat. You've had that happen you know

your girl had had a had a health a major major health scare.

I I talk about the beard coming back.

You know we'll we'll PS the story in the sense that one of

the shows I watched you play, you had a beard down to here and

it was coming down. It was coming off the next day

because you had incredibly good. So let's talk about that a

little bit. When you have a wife who goes

through something like that. Yeah.

What's what? What?

What? What's that like?

It's So what happened was my wife, avid runner, very fit.

We thought she had bronchitis. Just really bad, chest cold and

really gurgly lungs and just wasn't getting better.

We played a show in Penticton and the green room was upstairs

and she was walking like 2 steps up and then stopping me like I

can't breathe and I'm like, what is going on?

I'm like and get it together like we're not complaining.

And next day I somehow convinced her to go to the the Walk in

clinic and they did all sorts of tests and like, no, it's just a

just a chest cold and I'm like, she's downplaying it.

Can you do some more tests here? Like we've we've waited an hour.

Good for you for doing that, by the way.

And I'm the type of guy that never goes to the doctor for

anything. So it's like, you know, if

anybody tells me you need to go to the doctor, forget it, I'm

not going. But.

And she's the same way. But they took her blood pressure

and they're like, something's not right here.

And then they started doing more and more tests, and they're

like, you need to go to the emergency room now.

You're about to have a heart attack.

And she's like, what? And they're like, we can call

you an ambulance or it'll be faster If you just go there and

just go in. They'll admit you right away.

And so we admitted her and they basically said, go have a seat.

If you don't hear from us in the next two minutes, you'll

probably be about 3-4 hours. So I'm like, OK, I've got my van

full of gear because we'd played the night before.

And I'm like, I don't want to leave my van downtown.

I'm going to rip home and empty it.

And then I'll I'll come back. And in the time that I went,

dropped off the gear and got back, she had been admitted

basically right away. And test after test turned out

that her kidneys had just shut down through what's called IGA

nephropathy. And it's basically an autoimmune

system where her body just said kidneys are the problem, shut

them down. We're going to attack the

kidneys. Yeah.

So attack the kidneys. And at that point, I think she

was at 15% function and then very quickly over the next few

weeks lost all function. So she ended up on dialysis,

which you know, at 39, I don't know anything about dialysis

like most. Why would you?

Right. Unless you've got a family

member that's gone through it. So that was a big life,

lifestyle change. And then she ended up getting a

transplant and then got an infection in it in the hospital,

which is the one thing The biggest fear was like, is

somebody going to die on the operating table?

It's obviously the huge, huge fear.

But the other fear is like, are you going to get an infection?

Because your body's open and there's nothing to protect

anything there. So unfortunately, they had to.

Well, actually what had happened was to backtrack.

She got a blood clot and they went in to examine what's going

in on and at that point she got the infection.

Oh. Man, so where they attached the

kidney, the the main artery that leads into it basically just

never resealed. This was in Vancouver because

they don't do it locally. So I was with her the whole

time. I came back to play two shows in

in Kelowna and then brought our daughter back to Vancouver to

pick Kristen up and we're going to bring her back home and she

wasn't feeling 100%. And then right before we left,

me and and Brynn went out for dinner, her daughter and we're

just finishing eating and we got a phone call from the hospital.

You need to get back here now. And I'm like, what's going on?

They're like, we can't tell you. So we were with a friend of

ours. Our friend took Brent home and

then to her place. And then I went to the hospital

and I walked into the room. And it's your biggest fear.

The room that she was in, there's no bed.

There's no Kristen, there's none of her stuff.

It's all stuffed into a bag and shoved in the corner.

What's going on? No answers from anybody.

And eventually I found one of the nurses that we had

befriended, and she said she sat up, started screaming, We don't

know what happened. They took her down for emergency

operation. So it's a whole lot of sitting

and not knowing and having a a 15 year old along with me who's

got extreme anxiety at the best of times trying to keep her calm

and it's just like it's scary, you know, you've got no control,

you're getting no answers from anybody.

The the person that you're there, you know, and the worst

thing was I said to her right before we left was don't go

anywhere. And that was the last thing I

said to her and then to then the next finally got to see her many

hours later and she was absolutely massive.

She was quadruple the size because that artery, no, the

artery let go and all of the blood in her body was just

pumping into her her peritoneal cavity.

And Oh my goodness, you know, we see her.

She looks fantastic. We go for dinner and then we

finally get in to see her again and her arms and feet are

strapped to the bed because they don't want her moving and

pulling anything out. And it was, I've never seen it.

It it looked like the Borg from Star Trek.

It was just tubes and wires. And it was just see your loved

one like that and, you know, on life support and it was just

like, wow, we were about to leave.

And she was like, I'm not feeling that good and I'm like,

OK, we'll wait till tomorrow. And have we left?

That would mean if that happened in the car, she would have been

gone. Like it was literally 10 seconds

away from from her being dead. So.

So that was scary. And then she ended up on

dialysis again, this time on hemodialysis, which eventually

she trained to do it at home, which was awesome because having

to go to the hospital to do dialysis, it's a full time gig.

Like it's it's fine if you don't have anything else going in your

life, but you know, as a a middle-aged.

Anything like work or parenting or anything like that, Yeah.

But you're still having to run a household.

I mean, run a business as well, like all of these things.

Yeah, That's so. She was going to the hospital

and it's, you know, an hour prep to get there and then do

dialysis for four hours and then tear down.

And by the time you get home and then you're just exhausted.

It's so she was doing that three days a week.

So luckily the the hospital agreed to let her do it at home.

So she trained to to do it at home, which is awesome.

But she's still tethered to a machine.

So I still I had to step up and and do way more at the house,

which which was good for me because it really it slowed me

down because I was very work focused and very band focused.

And you know you just, you shift your priorities with with what's

going on in your life at the time and you know we've we've

got three kids together. So it was making sure that

they're all looked after, make sure business is all looked

after. Anyway.

So to the beard at when she was getting her last transplant, I

had a beard very similar to my my length right now and I put it

on Facebook, you know by by vote what should I do?

And I had some like crazy handlebar mustaches and like all

sorts of ridiculousness. And then I ended up the the main

boat was for the giant mustache that came down like that.

So I shaved it off and then Kristen's like, no, that's

that's got to go. And it was that was March of

2020 and then it was like boom, Co it happened and I'm like, OK,

this is what do I do. I'm in Vancouver.

My business is now shut down. In Kelowna it was a scramble.

Luckily, the 2nd transplant took, I was able to get back to

Kelowna at that point because everybody, everybody's wearing

masks. I just started growing my beard

and I was like, whatever, just it's a beard.

I'll shave it off at some point. And I just let it kept going and

kept going. And then eventually I was like,

you know what I'm going to see? I'm going to grow it.

As long as Kristen was on dialysis.

That's all. I'm going to let my beard go

too. And then as I got closer to it,

I was joking with a a friend of mine and he's just like you

should do a fundraiser and see what you can raise to, you know,

get that thing gone. Because he hated it.

Like it was. It was.

It was long. It was real long.

And yeah, so I put it out there onto Facebook and I started a

fundraiser for, I think it was like two or three weeks and the

goal was 5 grand. And I was going to do it either

way. Yeah, of course.

But you know, I just put it out there because the the awesome

thing with friends and family and the community is most people

want to help and support. Most people aren't really

typically willing to put dollars where their mouth is.

But you know some people are some people that's, hey, I don't

have the time, but here's 50 bucks, here's 20 bucks.

But through it, we ended up raising 8300 bucks.

And I said to Kristen, where do you want this money to go?

And she was like, it'd be awesome to help, something to do

with with dialysis or kidneys or something.

And we just had that discussion of what's the, what's the worst

thing about dialysis. And she's just like going to the

hospital, being there for so long, being uncomfortable.

You're you're in a bed just sitting there.

There's a a big chair that everybody would fight over.

It's this chair that heated up. And it was so comfortable.

And I loved it. And it was, she's like, I would

show up an hour early just so I can get this chair because they

run in shifts at the hospital. Right.

So it's not like you just show up whenever.

And I'm like, there's only one. And she's like, yeah.

And I'm like, why don't they have more?

Like, is there not room for them?

She's like, no, there's there's room for them.

So I reached out to a friend of mine at the KGH Foundation and I

said, can we do this? Can I raise money not just for

the renal department locally, but can they buy more chairs?

And they're like, well, we can put in the requisition and see

what happens. And I'm like, OK, well, worst

case scenario, just it's going to the hospital if it goes to

the renal ward, Cool. And about two weeks ago, I got

an e-mail from her saying I just thought, you should know, we

were able to secure 2 new chairs.

And I'm like, wow, like little dumb thing like that was

actually able to make a difference.

So at some point we're going to pop by the the renal renal unit

just to to see the chairs and we'll probably take some

pictures while we're there. But yeah, it's just there's a

certain joy that comes out of helping people, right?

And it's just like you don't have to get a tax receipt or

something back. It's just unsolicited, just

helping people. Well lights that certain thing

inside your soul where you're like I did a good job pat

yourself on the back for at least a day and.

Well, any time that you can take a negative and turn it into a

positive and I think that's very, very much what that's what

he changed. It's all about actually, it's

the idea that that that guys can go in and they can help each

other through their stories. And and your story here, I

guarantee you your story is helping somebody out there right

now. It's giving them insights.

It's letting them, at bare minimum, know that they're not

alone. Yeah, yeah.

And it's it's through this. It's really reiterated that

everybody has a story. Everybody's fighting something.

You know it it might be your your, your dog died that you've

had for 20 years. And it's just like how

devastating that is to lose your best friend.

But you know there's you. You can't really equate what one

person's problem is is not worthwhile to them.

You know, if that makes any sense of you know, one person's

worst day is the next person's best day.

You know, it's just you. You never know.

And it's just like just have some compassion for that person

and it's just know that you're not alone and everybody has that

and having people to talk to was was a huge thing and that's that

it really solidified things in in this band right here.

Because you know like we talked about earlier that I've been in

lots of bands but they were just musicians that I got together

with and played music with Like there.

Yeah, there's that spiritual connection through music.

But with this group it's different because they all, you

know, they'll they'll all go to the ends of of the earth for for

any of us in the band. And it's it's it, it literally

is a brotherhood more more than anything else.

So it's it's a special band. Definitely.

It's a special band for all sorts of reasons.

One of the things that I love as you are specifically moving

forward as a band and I mean I've heard some of the new

material. I want to ask you a couple

questions about that in a minute here.

But the idea that when you go to and see the website of the band

and it shows all the members and shows what you're there is a

persona, there's costumes, there's you know, there's a

there's a real. You guys are going deep when it

comes to the personalities that you have within the band,

including the the role. If I could say it like that,

that you're playing on stage as well.

Yeah, you're not just Nori up there.

No. So it's and that's done for

multiple reasons. Jason is the singer of Proper

Man. If that's all he was, that's

amazing. But Jason also owns this winery

and also owns multiple wineries and the brewery and and and and

and and and like. He's.

He's an amazing person and he's got a lot going for him.

But when he's up on the stage, he doesn't care about any of

that. And you know, same thing for me

with my business. I've gone over the years.

Well, of course, you're in so many bands because your family

owns this and you get all the gear for free and you do this

and you do this. Glad.

We're talking about this. This is.

Good. You know I was raised of I get 0

special treatment because what is that going to get me in the

long run. You know it's no you.

You work for everything that you have and it it pays off in the

end. And that was, that was my

upbringing. And for everybody in the band,

it was that way like we were. None of us were placed going,

you know, here's your your golden spoon, off you go.

In fact, sometimes it's the opposite, yeah.

Being as part of the family, you're actually held to a higher

standard. It is true.

It is true. So yeah, over the years of

playing in bands, as soon as people started finding out who I

was or what my background was, they would look at me

differently and it was just like, no, I'm, I'm nighttime

Nori, I'm not daytime Nori. So that was always my joke.

It's just like nighttime Nori is a complete goof.

He gets up on stage and has has a blast and parties and you

know, daytime Nori is like no smiles work nose to the

grindstone. Just get her done and it's we.

We all have our own stage personas like My Name's Slim

Pickens in this band and Jason's is Norm Schooling and Justin is

Killer and. Travis is Ashley Bannister and

Petrie's 29. So it's just like, no, we we

want to be proper men. We don't want to be the other

people. And what that allows you to do

is you you are no longer doing that intertwining of, you know,

I'm, I'm a business person and I have this going on and I've got

this emotional problem at home with my relationship and my wife

just left me. It's like when we're up on stage

it's leave it at the door and we are a totally different,

different thing and it's it's been difficult to develop that

over time. I.

Was gonna say, have you done that in any of your other 30

bands? Have you ever done anything like

that or? Is it new?

I have and I I didn't recognize it until recently that I was

doing it. Oh, that's interesting because

it as soon as I start playing, it's like your eyes roll in the

back of your head and roll back is a different view in a

different perspective. But not so focused with a name

and a specific no awareness. So that awareness is showing.

So it's I've had conversations with Jason about that as well

where it's just like his difficulty is he lives so close

and he works so close. I don't know if he has that time

to transition in between that. So when we start those first

songs, you know if you're head still in home life, you're going

to have an off night because now you're just you wrote a place,

you're like, am I going to remember the words like am I

going to sing on key? Do I like what are the what are

the notes. So it's it's super important and

it's yeah, it's a weird, weird phenomenon.

You just twist your brain into going I'm a different person.

I'm Slim Pickens. Yeah, right.

And you see it with with other bands as well that like KISS or

Slipknot, you know, like all those guys.

It's just like, why are they doing that?

Is this just a gimmicky thing or is this them becoming that

persona? So their persona is that

Rockstar. Maybe they weren't able to do it

without that that mask there. Oh.

Man, that's I love that element of this.

As we close out, I want to talk about a little bit about the new

material specifically, I love, I love what you guys are doing.

It's it sounded really, really good.

I want to talk about the song Bloodless.

What does that song mean to you? That song has a whole lot of

emotion. It's you can hear it in in the

lyrics more than anything else. When I first heard what was

being brought to the table because our our recording

process is a lot different than a lot of other bands because we

are middle-aged, we all have daytime jobs and and

relationships. We don't just go into the studio

for weeks on end. It's usually e-mail circles just

going around and around and around and I'll add in this part

and then he'll add that. Then I'll take and it goes

around and around for months, so it's a very time consuming.

That's kind of fun, though, too. Like, what's going to like, OK,

I got this. What's going to come back, you

know? Like it's like that story where

everybody adds one word and then at the end of it you got this

whole story right. So this bloodless I think was

mostly Travis had had almost everything done already and then

he showed it to Jason. Jason added in the vocals and

the demo that they sent to me, immediately the hair on my arms

is standing up. I'm like, wow, there's musically

there's an emotion there that's so dark and raw.

And then the the lyrics and the vocals, it's just incredible.

So at that point I'm like because I talk a lot with

Justin, the drummer, because he he works with me at the store

and it's it's always a lot of like, which direction do you

want to go with this? Like we're we're trying to be an

80s new wave sounding band but Justin's a a really hard hitting

drummer and my like I love you know early to mid 90s

alternative music. That's what I grew up on and I'd

love to play that music but so we all had our own own flavor.

But with this, it was Justin. I didn't really talk about much.

It was just like, no, just I did the song, he did his thing and

usually all of us have ideas that we we say why don't you try

that, why don't you try that? But with that song it was

everybody just did their own thing.

Nobody gave any input outside of that.

I went into a really low tuning on my bass and I I picked up a

bass that I don't record with that much because it's a really

edgy sound which doesn't work with most proper man song.

But yeah, so from my part it was just like I wanted to be low and

raw and simple and just going into it and it was pretty much

one take. Just went to the studio,

recorded it and it just came together really quick.

And those are the best songs, the ones that come together

really quick. I'm very grateful that you've

taken time to do this today. You've taken time out of your

thank you out of your your business's work day to do this

today I just I guess, want to close a little bit is what does

proper man mean to you. Oh it's it's it's it's very

important. Like I I don't don't even know I

I mean I don't want to say it's everything because you know

there's lots going in my life that are that are positive.

But if if I didn't have that, you know, I would definitely try

to play. I always play music.

I try to find other people, but to find the the same mindset

that we've got with these guys, it's it is something special and

it's being developed over a really long time and it's it's

something that will last all of our lives.

It's it it it really is a special band.

It's, you know. The title is perfect as far as

I'm concerned. The band's name is just.

That's one of the reasons why you know this.

This project felt so synergenic to To Mary, the idea of men's

mental Wellness and this band named Proper Man.

It just seemed so. It seemed so perfect and it is

so. Perfect.

I just appreciate you doing this.

We'll finish off by Kristen as well.

Now she's, we saw her at Costco the other day.

She's she's doing great. She's doing amazing.

She's three years into her, her latest transplant and they were

both live donors, which is another cool thing.

And these people don't get any money, they don't get anything.

They don't get any special accolades.

They they both stepped up and donated one of their kidneys to

her. That's that's amazing.

Oh yeah, she's doing amazing. And you know, knock on wood that

that kidneys going to last for the rest of her life.

Yeah, thank you so much for taking time to do this.

He changed. It.

Is is better because we have material like this and stories

like this and guys who are willing to share their story.

And when it comes to, I've learned a lot in the idea of of

of technology and and and social media apps and things like that,

which is he changed. It is sort of in that category.

It's kind of not really in any category.

It's kind of an amalgamation of different ones.

Yeah. But there's a lot of guys when

it comes, especially men who sit back, but they will observe,

especially when they're in a place of vulnerability.

Yeah. And vulnerability is one of

those things. It's it's it's 100%.

You know guys are we're known for not being vulnerable unless

we've gone through something or we we know how to do something

and then we're willing to share that with other guys because

we've gone through it. You've certainly been an example

of that today. Any last little words of guys

who are going through something right now that may be watching

this and may think that they're alone?

I think we've done a good job that they're not.

That is a thing to know, yeah. Everybody has a story, and you

are never alone. And you know, if you're not

willing to talk to anybody about it, just listen to other

people's stories. And you know, when you

approached me about this, I was like, so cool because I I love

talking about my story, but I don't talk to anybody about it

because who am I going to talk? To No, I haven't even do it,

Yeah. With my band, they all knew it

because I do talk to them, but not everybody has that that

option. You know, especially in in our

age growing up, you've got that dad where it's just like, man

up, you know, quit complaining, Just get it done, you know, stop

being a baby about things. Or it's just like, no, like we

are all humans. We all have emotions and it's

it's what you you take from that that develops you into the

person that you are. And you know, if you're

struggling with anything, just just know that you're not alone.

That's amazing. Yeah.

Nori Wentworth wentworthmusic.com We want

people to go to. Music.com There you go.

That's. Good.

Not just selling musical instruments, but 1000 students.

That's amazing. You're you're inflicting and

injecting music into our local community, Which, by the way, Oh

my goodness, thank you for doing that.

But then also Slim Pickens proper man.

Thank you very much for taking time, my man.

Appreciate it so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.