A winding musical road
James Bryan has had a long and varied career as a singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer, mentor, and concert producer who has worked with huge names in music in a variety of genres, and fronted two successful Canadian bands. His animated pop duo Prozzak will play FirstOntario Concert Hall in Bryan’s adopted hometown of Hamilton on Oct. 16.
Two highlights of the long and internationally successful career of James Bryan have taken place here in Hamilton, at the JUNO awards, 30 years apart and on the same stage.
Back in 1995, his first band, Toronto pop-soul group The Philosopher Kings, won the JUNO for Best New Group. Bryan tells HAMILTON CITY Magazine that it was the first time any of the band members had even been to an awards show, but in an unfortunate case of bad timing, Bryan and fellow guitarist Brian West were chatting at the back of Copps Coliseum when the award was announced and they missed out on joining their bandmates on the stage.
A far better JUNOs in Hamilton came on the same stage more than three decades later. Back in March, at TD Coliseum (formerly Copps) Bryan and West performed in the all-star tribute to Nelly Furtado to celebrate her induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Both played major roles in Furtado’s career, and Bryan called it “an awesome occasion, a great night.”
Bryan’s long history with Furtado includes contributing guitar to her first two albums, playing guitar on the blockbuster international tour for her 2006 album Loose, and writing and producing some of the songs on her Latin Grammy-winning album Mi Plan, including international chart-topper “Manos al Aire.”
In the past three decades between JUNO events, Bryan (full name James Bryan McCollum) has established himself as a major musical force. A proud Hamiltonian for the past nine years, he is a genuine musical renaissance man, a highly talented singer, songwriter, guitarist (he has released four solo guitar records), producer, mentor, and concert producer who has worked in a wide range of genres, from pop to soul/R&B, Latin pop, dance music, roots, jazz, hip-hop, and even classical.
“It is all music. That is the best way I move through the world and it’s the best way I can communicate. It is the thing I love to do the most, and I love doing that in different genres and different ways, whether it is writing with or producing a new artist or an established artist, like Nelly or Drake.”
Over coffee at Relay on King William recently, the amiable Bryan reflected upon his fascinating career as well as an upcoming major Hamilton concert. On Oct. 16 at FirstOntario Concert Hall, Bryan and longtime bandmate Jay Levine (a former fellow Philosopher King) bring their hit animated pop duo Prozzak to Hamilton for the first time, sharing the bill with popular Euro-pop outfit Vengaboys.
In terms of his long and varied career, the greatest individual commercial success for Bryan has come via his role as one half of Prozzak. In one of the unlikeliest Canadian music success stories of the 1990s, Bryan and his creative partner Levine broke big in 1998 with their debut album Hot Show, one that notched triple-platinum sales in Canada.
The combination of catchy hit singles like “Sucks To Be You” and “Strange Disease” and the interesting concept of a cartoon duo of characters Simon (Levine) and Milo (Bryan) proved a winning, if unorthodox, one. Bryan tells HCM that “I think people could resonate with the music as they could hear the emotion in it, besides the songs being catchy.”
The narrative of many Prozzak songs followed the romantic adventures of the English-accented Simon, with Milo playing the sympathetic sidekick.
“Prozzak was definitely pop but also unusual at the time. No one was thinking of an animated band back then. We were definitely ahead of the curve, coming out a year before Gorillaz [the star-studded English animated band headed by Damon Albarn of Blur].’’
Bryan adds that “the cool thing about Prozzak is that nothing about the project has been conventional, right from how it started. That came from a fight Jay and I had outside a restaurant in Montreal while we were playing in Philosopher Kings.”
To patch things up, the pair pledged to write songs together, and the first Prozzak song, “Europa,” was the result. It didn’t suit the Philosopher Kings’ sound, but the group’s record label, Sony Canada, encouraged the pair, and Prozzak was formed in 1998.
Bryan notes that selling the concept wasn’t easy. “At our record label, we had to be in there every day fighting to convince every department, giving them our vision and making sure they actually got on board. I’m super thankful now that they did.”
They clearly got the message. The debut Prozzak album Hot Show came out in late 1998 and it quickly eclipsed the sales figures of Philosopher Kings, paving the way for the dissolution of that outfit. Alongside triple platinum sales came four JUNO nominations in 2000, for Best Album, Best New Group, Best Single (‘’Sucks To Be You’’) and Best Video (‘’Strange Disease’’).
A second album, 2000’s Saturday People, went gold in Canada and also grabbed a JUNO nomination, but when a third album, 2005’s Cruel Cruel World, did not sell well, it seemed the group had run its course.
“We didn’t tour that third album as by then we were in different cities working with other people,” recalls Bryan. “Prozzak was then dormant for 10 years, 15 in terms of playing live. In 2015, we got asked to play a cosplay rave at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto. It was so bizarre we had to agree.”
“The show was packed with people dressed up as characters and it got us back on the road and writing again. We put out a new album in 2017, Forever 1999, then played arenas across Canada with Aqua. Jay thought it’d be the last tour we’d ever do, but in the middle of COVID, he calls me up, saying ‘I miss playing, let’s do more.’”
Successful festival appearances encouraged Prozzak to tour properly in 2026. Spring dates out west were well-received, and fall touring is set for the East Coast and Ontario alongside Vengaboys.
Expect the group’s now signature mix of animated visuals and a live band.
“Jay and I are the creators, but Simon and Milo are the focus on the big screen. I play guitar and do my Milo bits and Jay sings and plays bass and does Simon. We have a female singer hype-person who often is his wife, Katie, and she’ll do the Ontario shows,” says Bryan.
“Most people coming to the show know and love the songs and they love Simon and Milo. It is more of a singalong than a concert, so the atmosphere is amazing. We absolutely love it! I don’t think we fully appreciated the impact of our success until we came back for these reunion shows and we’re so grateful.’’
There were earlier attempts at translating Prozzak into a TV series, Bryan recalls. “We tried as a TV show three different times, once with Disney in the U.S. and twice in Canada. We’re still working on the idea, though, and have found a great writer to work with us.’’
Bryan is excited to debut Prozzak in his adopted hometown. Born in Ottawa, he moved to St. Catharines with his family when he was four, remaining there until 18, when he started studying music at the University of Toronto.
He confesses to rather overlooking Hamilton in his youth.
“At that time it had a reputation as a tough town and people were afraid to go. Mostly, it was just about driving on the QEW past the industrial side, going to see shows in Toronto every weekend. One key Hamilton moment was my first ever major concert, Rush at Copps Coliseum when I was 10. Plus, Teenage Head was the first band I ever saw in St. Catharines.”
After quitting his studies to join The Philosopher Kings and then form Prozzak, Bryan remained in Toronto. “I then dragged my family [his wife and two young sons] to London for five years, around 2009 to 2014. I had reached a peak here from working with Nelly Furtado, cowriting and producing Mi Plan, which won a Latin Grammy. I had always wanted to work in England.”
After a successful sojourn there, writing for and producing a wide range of artists, Bryan relocated back to Toronto for family reasons. ‘’I realized that Toronto had got very expensive, so we started searching around. My wife Stella was and is a realtor [now with Sotheby’s in Hamilton] and she said, ‘Let’s check out Hamilton.’ We knew we loved cities and it needed to be multicultural and close to Toronto,” he says.
“When we found Hamilton we were blown away. We came in 2017, taking a drive along Highway 5 to Dundas, looking at gorgeous views of the valley, with hawks circling. Very picturesque, so I’m like, ‘This is also Hamilton?’”
The couple found a house on the west Mountain brow overlooking the city’s downtown, a home Bryan notes ‘’we could never have afforded in Toronto. We’ve raised two boys here through great high schools. The eldest is finishing up at York University and our 18-year-old is doing finance at McMaster, an awesome campus.’’
Bryan has also laid down solid roots in the Hamilton music community, playing and producing guitar concerts (both solo and with such artists as Emma Rush), working with emerging local artists, contributing to Supercrawl as a member of the board, and hosting workshops with Astrid Hepner’s An Instrument for Every Child program.
He’s also found new collaborators.
“Through the Fresh Up Festival here, I met a talented Nigerian-Canadian artist I ended up working with, Whitness. He is on the R&B/Afrobeat side. We had a track out last year, with another one coming soon, recorded at my home. I’m passionate about collaborating with and helping developing artists.”
Bryan continues to be in demand as a producer and songwriter for a range of international artists. He has recently written songs with Naomi Sharon, a rising Caribbean-Dutch R&B meets jazz vocalist, and the first female artist signed to Drake’s label OVO.
In another Drake connection, Bryan wrote the track “Overdrive,” recorded by Drake on his 2022 album, Honestly, Nevermind. Bryan says, “this link came via Drake’s right-hand man Noah ‘40’ Shebib. He’d worked on a session when I was producing ‘Old Skool Love’ [a hit song for R&B star Divine Brown]. Much later, he responded to some guitar pieces I’d posted on Instagram and we began writing together and that tune caught Drake’s ear.’’
The formidable list of other artists Bryan has worked with as a songwriter, producer, or guitarist is long and diverse. It includes Canadian pop acts Sugar Jones, b4-4, Shawn Mendes, Fefe Dobson, Nikki Yanofsky, and Sunshine State (a duo of Bryan and vocalist Aleza that has released two albums, with another in the works), jazz stars Molly Johnson and Matt Dusk, R&B artists Ivana Santilli, Kreesha Turner, and Shakura S’Aida, and hip-hop stars Maestro and K’naan.
On the international front, the list includes Backstreet Boys, James Blunt, Olly Murs, Latino star Luis Fonsi, and Lisa Marie Presley. Working with the latter pop culture icon was a memorable experience, Bryan says.
“I was working in London in 2012 with producer/songwriter Sacha Skarbek and
we wrote two songs with Lisa Marie for her third [and acclaimed] album Storm & Grace.
I certainly never imagined I’d be working with Elvis’ daughter and Michael Jackson’s ex-wife on her music.”
When asked if The Philosopher Kings could reunite, he says “we had a classic band break up fight after our last gig in 2018, at Jackson-Triggs Winery in Niagara.”
He does, however, remind us of the two guiding principles of his career: “Anything is possible” and “Never say never!”
