Meet Nolan Hubbard
Nolan Hubbard is an enchantingly passionate multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer from the small-town of Gananoque, Ontario currently based in Kingston. He has captured the Canadian club scene since 2015 with his distinctive style of soothing soul filled vocals, prodigal guitar playing, vastly dynamic live looping arrangements, sincere story telling/lyrics & ability to bend genres masterfully.
His talent and hard work over the last 10+ years of pursuing music full time have resulted in a series of mounting successes including cutting his debut album (Luminosity 2017) between Nashville, TN & Noble Street Studios (Toronto, ON) with veteran songwriter, producer & former CCMA Music Director Douglas Romanow, releasing to CBC Radio play. He’s also had synchronization on the 2022 indie film So I Married Myself and over 12 Million streams as an accredited songwriter (largely from his collaborations with up and coming Canadian star Devon Cole on her debut album).
Nolan was featured in Exclaim! magazine for his 2025 single “Pollen” with collaborator Sit Still. He has played over 1350 shows played at age 29 including slots like Ottawa Bluesfest in 2025 and has supported large touring acts like Tim Baker of Hey Rosetta! and blues guitar legend Sue Foley, all fuelled by a rapidly growing discography of songwriting, production & mixing credits. His upcoming self produced sophomore album “Emanate” is a culmination of these efforts and is scheduled for release March 4th 2026.
The story of Nolan Hubbard is a story of travel and motion. It’s about a years-long, continent-spanning adventure of self-discovery and self-improvement that he continues on to this day in pursuit of his dreams.
It’s about the unstoppable compulsion he has to learn and experiment artistically.
Above all, it’s about taking souvenirs from the people and places he has visited and integrating them into the stylistic core he developed back home.
“Home is the small Ontario town of Gananoque, where Hubbard got his first guitar at the age of 11 and spent the following years teaching himself to play the guitar. It started with learning a lot of the music he grew up listening to with his dad which may come as a surprise to some; a melting pot of classic rock/metal bands like Metallica, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Guns N Roses and more. After graduating high school in 2015, he made the first move that would turn out to be part of the pattern that would define his career to this point: he packed up everything and moved to the GTA. This is where he really came into his own, starting to write his own songs and developing a distinctive style of soul-pop with raw, honest lyrics, influenced by such personal favourites as John Mayer, Jack Johnson, and Jason Mraz.
Hubbard’s hard work at developing a presence in the eastern Ontario scene and creating a unique sound soon paid off. By the age of 20, he had put out his debut album, in collaboration with veteran producer Doug Romanow and a talented group of Nashville-based session players. The record, Luminosity, received radio play on the CBC, college stations, and on a variety of local stations in towns where Hubbard is a club staple. By 2017, Hubbard was playing 200+ shows a year. Between 2017 and the present day, he has toured across Canada four times. In 2018, he began diving heavily into production and session work, starting a conscious effort to explore new styles and genres both alone and with a myriad of collaborators.
He has continued becoming a formidable guitar player & singer in his own right, spending countless hours honing his craft on stage alone and accompanying others, studying theory in real time alongside peers from backgrounds like Queens University, Humber College and York University while breaking into the Toronto session/gigging scene. He’s also spent time over the years teaching lessons privately and through a number of companies/schools.
This, however, is just the beginning for Nolan Hubbard.
He says, “Early on, I had it in my head that I was just supposed to emulate some of my all-time heroes like Jack Johnson. I think I’ve been realizing the artists I grew up with will always show up in my songwriting through the impact they’ve had on me, but that it’s okay for me to explore sounds from music and artists that I love to jam to in the car; spanning alternative, reggae, jazz, indie rock, pop, country, hip-hop etc.
A bunch of artists I love produce and record their own music. I’m not so worried anymore about fitting in a genre-defined box. I want to take what I do with my guitar and mix it with all the different kinds of music that I enjoy. I’m excited to see where that takes me”.
Equally, 2019 was a time of learning and reinvention for Nolan Hubbard the lyricist. Luminosity is a project infused with a sunny optimism, as the name implies. While that undoubtedly remains an important part of Hubbard’s personal energy and outlook on life, he is also eager to explore other emotional registers with his coming releases.
"I’m generally a pretty positive person. That’s probably always going to shine through somewhere in my music, but I don’t want to hide the other things that I sometimes feel anymore. I’ve never been huge for metaphors, I’m usually pretty honest and to the point. I think as I’m going through experiences and figuring out who I am though my music is changing too” he says.
Hubbard’s latest releases reflect that growth in direction. It is hard to imagine this man ever deciding that he’s finally reached his destination, but as long as he and his audiences continue to have this much fun with the journey, that should be more than enough to keep everyone along for the ride.” - Will Medeiros, 2021
Nolan has played over 1,350 shows, recorded as a session musician for many various artists including Devon Cole and Your Paris, had his songwriting used in the 2022 indie film “So I Married Myself”. He’s had his debut album Luminosity and subsequent releases streamed over 50,000 times worldwide, played on CBC Radio 1 as well local stations across the country.
2026 looks like an exciting year with a number of collaborative and solo releases on the horizon. In 2023 Nolan joined forces with 4 close friends/collaborators to create a supergroup of sorts named “a little place called Aspen”. The group has been gathering regularly since forming to write and produce new music that began releasing monthly in 2025 and is slated to continue through 2026 and beyond. His long anticipated sophomore LP “Emanate” also comes out March 4th 2026. Stay tuned for more!
