Canadian music star Dean Brody dropped his impressive sixth album “Beautiful Freakshow” on October 21 and took a detour from producing country centric tunes to mixing genres like hip-hop and reggae in with his musical roots.

The new album also features a well-balanced combination of fresh Canadian talent and recognizable voices like Great Big Sea’s Alan Doyle, who appears on the track “Soggy Bottom Summer.”

“The first time that I met Alan was when we did ‘It’s Friday’ with Great Big Sea,” Brody told The Gracie Note. “He’s a really cool guy. I think that is why everybody loves him. He’s really down-to-earth and he’s so talented in so many areas. He didn’t have to appear on [the song.] He could have said, ‘No,’ to me and it would be fine.”

He also said, “I called him and said, ‘Hey, man! You’d make a really good policeman in this song that I wrote.’ It’s a song about people floating the river and drinking beer and Alan’s the one who busts them. He’s a good sport … in the song he tries busting them but he ends up [joining the party.]”

Halifax rapper Shevy Price appears on the record’s title track and Brody says that trying out the hip-hop music style was something that was “as far away from his genre as you probably could get.”

“I appreciate really good rap,” the songwriter explained. “I wanted the complete opposite on ‘Beautiful Freakshow’ in the music because the song is talking about two complete opposite people coming together.”

He also said, “I think that the two actually work really well together and Shevy was awesome. We wrote a little bit on it and she did her thing and it was amazing watching her do what she does. She’s really authentic. She’s singing what she wants to sing and not necessarily what other people might want her to sing. She’s definitely her own woman.”

It seems like working on “Beautiful Freakshow” has helped the musician to further shape himself as an artist. As more time passes since his early albums like his self-titled debut record and “Trail In Life,” Brody picks up new ways of interpreting the old tunes.

“The unfortunate thing about being a new artist is you have to brand yourself,” he revealed. “It took a while to brand myself as a songwriter and as soon as people would see me as a songwriter, I think that I got more liberties into what I was recording.”

He continued, “I sing with more angst now. In the beginning, I was a very soft, traditional singer. I love pushing it a little bit more.”

Catch Dean Brody on his “Beautiful Freakshow Tour” starting in April 2017. Head here for tickets to see him and supporting acts like Madeline Merlo, High Valley and James Barker Band.

Listen to “Beautiful Freakshow” on Spotify now!