From a highly acclaimed Canadian hip hop artist to a guitar-playing surfer from Australia, LIVE at Squamish promises performances by musicians from a wide demographic.
From his humble beginnings in business school to his Juno award for hip hop album of the year, Shadrach Kabango, also known by his stage name Shad, has worked hard and has stayed true to his art.
Shad broke out onto the hip hop scene after winning a radio contest that financed his first album which was released in 2005.
Since then he's released two more albums, the latest of which earned him album of the year at this year's Juno Awards.
"It's really kind of like if anybody likes your music you appreciate it, so that's kind of what it is for me. Beyond that, it was just kind of a cool thing to celebrate with everyone I've been working with, we've been working together for a long time," said Kabango.
It was the hard work and dedication to his music that got Shad to the point where he is now and, according to him, are necessary for anyone's success in the music industry.
"It sounds clich, but if you love what you do you just get better and better at it because you just keep doing it. Don't get too caught up in the business of it, stay focused on having a great time and getting better there's no real ceiling as to how good you can get because you've just been doing it," said Kabango.
"Just keep your head down and keep working and it'll be 15 hours later, or it will be five years later, and you will have done things that you never thought were possible."
Shad will take his hard work and dedication that earned him a Juno to the stage at this year's LIVE at Squamish festival, but it's not all about the awards and the fame.
"Everything is fun and it's a reward in itself to just make music and put as much time and energy into it as I get to," he said.
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Australian Kim Churchill may be from Down Under but his unique sound and soulful voice are bringing him up in Canada.
At 20 years old, it may be hard to believe that Churchill already has 16 years of experience with the guitar, but that experience shows every time he picks it up.
"When I was about four, my mom had guitar lessons and when she would come back that evening she would give me the lesson she just received. I was only four years old so it must have been very frustrating for my mom," said Churchill. "I sort of took an interest to it as much as a four-year-old could."
His interest in music only grew from there when he started learning classical guitar at the age of six, but his style has changed completely since then.
"By the time I was 16, I ran out of grades for classical guitar. It was just a countdown until I finished high school as to what I was going to do, but when I finished high school I was so sick of classical guitar I sort of went away from it," said Churchill.
After moving on from classical guitar, he took a different approach to his music, an approach that would change his sound and his life.
"Certainly my guitar playing comes from classical guitar, but not in the sense that it's what classical guitar should do, more kind of in the sense that its exactly the opposite of what a classical guitar should do," Churchill said.
That's when he discovered a new way of playing the guitar, one that could exercise his creative side.
"I kind of embraced it in a big way and used it to kind of rebel against all the classical training I'd had and sort of I guess that's how it came about."
Four years later, Churchill finds himself ready to play for LIVE at Squamish alongside some of the biggest names in the music industry.
