Heath McNease & Free Daps “Trans Canada Highway”

Heath McNease is releasing a folk/hip hop mashup EP that features Isaac Knox and Heir Jordan from Free Daps after Thanksgiving, and this is the first track off of that project. “American Snake Oil Salesmen Visit the Great White North” is an impromptu collaboration that the guys decided to embark on after their October tour through Canada.

“The tour was rough,” says Heath. “We traveled so much. We were treated terribly at customs, some of the shows were a tad bit disappointing, we met amazing people, we lost a ton of money…Canada basically kicked us in the teeth. It felt like living inside of the “To Build A Fire” short story by Jack London. We got a crash course into how beautiful and dangerous Canada can be. It can just swallow you whole when you’re out there on a wing and a prayer. So we very quickly wrote these songs to share with people. Its just a little EP right from the heart. Nothing more and nothing less.” Here’s what Heath has to say about the first track being released.

This song is called “Trans Canada Highway”. We were traveling from Montreal to Moncton, New Brunswick. It was a gray, rainy day that turned into a frozen, windy night. During a 15 hour drive your thoughts will wonder. We talked to each other about everything. We freestyled, listened to “Daddy’s Lambo” by Yelawolf 100 times for no reason, played “would you rather”, and alternated sleep schedules. It is in those moments of drifting to sleep in the backseat and those moments when you’re the only person awake behind the wheel when your mind will play incredible tricks on you. That’s what this song really is. Its just being out there on this huge highway we know nothing about. Its about leaving a place where the signs were in French and driving to a place where you hope things are more familiar (and they’re not). Its about the epic scale of Canada. This place is just so wide open, and that 3 am darkness just felt like it was going to swallow us whole. That’s when doubt creeps in. That’s when you start telling yourself you’re a failure. That’s when you start thinking that God is either setting you up for failure, or he has just decided that you’re not going to amount to anymore than you are in that moment…cold, hungry, confused, and exhausted. As an artist…the best part about being left to your own devices is that you’re mind might be plaguing you, but you’ve got all the time in the world to put it into perspective. This song is just that. Its us figuring out what that drive really was all about.