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Bullying theme of country artist’s performance

December 3, 2014   ·   1 Comments

Over the last several years there has been a push to raise awareness about bullying in schools and help find ways to prevent it. Some of the most powerful campaigns for the anti-bullying movements haven’t come from parents and concerned teachers, but from students who are currently being bullied and individuals who are speaking out about their experiences of being bullied when they were students.

Former Fergus resident and current County Artist Ryan Laird is one of those many individuals who is using his experiences combined with his musical talent to help spread awareness and talk about ways to prevent bullying.

“I had a lot of experience with being bullied myself as a child, so I know about it first-hand and how it affected my life and whatnot,” he explained.

When Mr. Laird was in public school, he found himself the target of bullying from a girl he liked named Ashley. She and her friends spent a lot of time making fun of him, especially regarding his musical talent, often telling him he couldn’t sing and wasn’t a good musician.

Despite the bullying, immediately after high school Mr. Laird packed his car and drove to Nashville to pursue his dreams of becoming a country music singer. He took his life savings and put it into a billboard with a picture of himself and a message to Taylor Swift.

The billboard, which was located on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee, read “Hey Taylor – I love your music. Will you produce my album?”

While Taylor Swift didn’t take him up on the request, she did publicly acknowledge it, which helped spark enough publicity to launch his country career. She did take the opportunity to meet with him, which led to a Nashville publishing deal and songwriting sessions with established artists Nick Carter (of the Backstreet Boys), Dierks Bentley, George Canyon and Jason McCoy.

The idea to launch the anti-bullying campaign, Bigger than That, began a few years ago when Ryan ‘ s sister-in-law, a local teacher, approached him to perform at her school and share his story about being bullied. The response was so positive that he set to work with a team to create the campaign.

“It went really well, the kids reaction inspired me with my team members here to start the Bigger Than That,” said Mr. Laird. “The main part of the program is the concerts that we are doing, so we’ve been going all over the place to schools performing, especially this last week with it being Bullying Prevention Week. We also launched a website to give kids somewhere to go and get help, whether it’s from being bullied in their schools or anywhere else.”

Last Friday afternoon, Mr. Laird performed for students at Mono Amaranth Public School, with a one-hour presentation that included musical performances, as well as some interactive components.

“We try to keep it really fun oriented; we want to keep it fun for the kids and have a lot of audience interaction and banter mixed in,” said Mr. Laird. “I tell them my story on being bullied, share messages about anti-bullying and provide them with some tips they can use if they ever come across bullying in their own lives.”

Parts of his story are shared through two of the songs he performs, ‘Hey Ashley’ and ‘Bigger Than That’. And while they don’t always see high levels of response at the schools themselves, they often get a lot of messages back from kids through social media following the show.

“It’s been amazing and it’s been really cool to see,” he said. “I got one story from a boy the other day saying that he went through similar experiences to me with a bully in his school. Hearing my stories from when I was his age made him want to stand up for himself and not put up with the bullying anymore. We get a lot of really neat little inspirational stories like that from the kids.”

Another important aspect of the campaign, in Mr. Laird’s eyes, is helping kids to understand the importance of having a dream in their lives and pursuing that dream.

“I tell them about my dream of becoming a musician and how I moved from Fergus to Nashville,” he explained. “I talk to them about some of the barriers I had to overcome to make my dreams come true, so it’s really a motivational tool.”

Mr. Laird and the rest of the Bigger Than That team have been completely thrilled with the response, and are hoping to take the campaign from a local one to a national one.

He also hopes that those who have issues with bullying, or are in need of finding a program that helps offer inspiration and feels they could benefit from something like Bigger Than That will be interested in having them come and perform.

“This has all definitely been a really big win, not just for us, but for the kids, to see an impact in their lives and offer them encouragement that they can be bigger than the bullying they may be facing or be a part of,” said Mr. Laird.

Anyone interested in having the Bigger Than That is encouraged to contact them through  www.biggerthanthat.org.

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