Musicians from Langley

In March 2025 CBC sat down with two of that year’s five Juno nominees for country album of the year and found they were neighbours, more or less. Dallas Smith and Tyler Joe Miller both live in Langley. Smith put it down to “something in the water,” and to the old Langley line about being where city meets country.

He has a point. Go back through the Langley Advance Times coverage of the BC Country Music Association awards and the same headline keeps turning up: in 2014, “several Langleyites” took home trophies; in 2016 the paper said Langley “dominates” the shortlist; in 2019 Langley artists led the nominations again. Country music is the big story here, so it gets most of this page. But it isn’t the only one.

The pages

• 
  CountryDallas Smith

  Default's old frontman turned Canada's most-decorated male country act. Lives in Langley.

  Read the bio →
• 
  CountryTyler Joe Miller

  A Surrey carpenter whose first single went to No. 1. Now keeps chickens in Langley.

  Read the bio →
• 
  CountryChad Brownlee

  Canucks draft pick, then a BCCMA entertainer of the year. A Langley resident in the paper's lists.

  Read the bio →
• 
  CountryKaren Lee Batten

  Eight-time BCCMA female artist of the year, and one of the people behind Gone Country.

  Read the bio →
• 
  CountryBrock Phillips

  Langley Fine Arts alumnus, now a Nashville songwriter with a Dallas Smith duet.

  Read the bio →
• 
  Since 1993Gob

  The pop punk band Tom Thacker and Theo Goutzinakis started in Langley.

  Read the story →
• 
  OperaBen Heppner

  The Grammy-winning tenor was born in Murrayville in 1956.

  Read the bio →
• 
  Since 1981Langley Ukulele Ensemble

  Langley's most-travelled musicians are teenagers with ukuleles.

  Meet the ukes →

Country: the long list

The headliners have their own pages above. Behind them is a deep bench of working musicians the local paper has called Langley’s own over the years. These are the ones with a Langley tie in print:

• Aaron Pritchett. The Advance Times listed him as a Langley winner at the 2014 BCCMAs (fans’ choice and video of the year for Boat on the Water) and, by 2019, as a “former Langley resident” with seven nominations, including entertainer of the year. He played the first Gone Country in 2013 with Dallas Smith and Karen Lee Batten.
• Shawn Meehan. A Walnut Grove musician who fronts the country band Me and Mae, which won the BCCMA’s Ray McAuley Horizon Award for new talent in 2014. In 2021 the Aldergrove Star reported he had also started a Langley-based rock band, Trigger Mafia.
• Mitch Merrett. Producer, songwriter and frontman of Black Mountain Whiskey Rebellion. He shared the 2014 BCCMA songwriter award with Chad Brownlee for “Just Because,” and the 2019 Advance Times story calls him a Langley resident.
• Robyn & Ryleigh. The Langley-based Gillespie sisters, up for group or duo of the year and album of the year (By Heart) at the 2016 BCCMAs.
• Shylo Sharity. A Fort Langley singer-songwriter, nominated for the 2016 Horizon Award.
• Emily Taylor Adams. Nominated for female artist and video of the year in 2019; she thanked “her home, Langley” in the paper’s coverage.
• Laurie Thain. Toured Western Canada and New Zealand for 23 years, made four albums, hosted the Timmy’s Christmas Telethon for two decades, and was inducted into the BCCMA Hall of Fame in 2016. The Advance Times said she had lived in Langley for almost twenty years by then, mostly unrecognised as a musician because she’d moved on to teaching.

Behind the stage, Langley shows up too: the 2016 shortlist included Langley video directors and the Ruscheinski twins, whose Gone Country concert was named country event of the year in 2023.

Rock, punk and pop

Gob is the big one: formed in Langley in 1993, two gold albums, and lead singer Tom Thacker went on to spend years in Sum 41. Wikipedia also lists two Langley-born or Langley-raised musicians we could only source there, so take these as leads rather than settled fact: Tommy Mac, born in Langley in 1971 and Hedley’s bass player from 2005 to 2017; and Kevin James Maher of Fake Shark, who it says grew up in Langley, went to Langley Fine Arts and Walnut Grove Secondary, and later co-wrote and produced songs on Carly Rae Jepsen’s Kiss.

Classical and community music

Ben Heppner was born in Murrayville before his family moved north, and became one of the great Wagner tenors of his era. The other classical thread runs through the Langley Community Music School, which Wikipedia says was co-founded in 1969 by sculptor and composer Leonard Woods.

And then there are the ukes. The Langley Ukulele Ensemble has been around since 1981, and has been taking Langley kids to play in Waikiki most summers since 1985. We already have a full page on them, so we won’t repeat it here.

Hearing it live

The best single night for Langley country is Gone Country, now held at Jamestown each July; the 2027 date is already set. For bluegrass, folk and community concerts through the year, start with the Valley Bluegrass Music Society, the Fort Langley Ceilidh and our arts in Langley guide.

Know a Langley musician we’ve missed, with something in print that says they’re from here? Tell us.