Peguis First Nation singer-songwriter William Prince Credit: Joey Senft

Joy, for William Prince, has never been accidental. “I try to walk through life as an ambassador for good things,” Prince tells Orlando Weekly.

But joy, he admits, has also been difficult. “It was a tough practice for me,” he says. “It still is.”

That practice, however, allowed the Canadian singer-songwriter to arrive at his latest rootsy release, Further From the Country. Produced by Liam Duncan and recorded in Winnipeg with a hometown ensemble, the country-tinged album reflects on Prince’s upbringing in Peguis First Nation, Manitoba, and the darker chapters of his life revisited now from a place of peace.

“After doing [my last album], it led me to this new one where it was easier to go back to those old times and revisit them from a safer distance,” Prince explains. “It’s OK to talk about how broke I was, how much I struggled.” 

For Prince, acknowledging those troubled times isn’t about dwelling on pain, but recognizing their importance. “They may not sound joyful,” he says, “but they were incredibly important in leading me down the road of what joy and a good life are now.”

When Prince first pursued music, those hardships followed him. “Homelessness was really on the line,” he says, recalling nights spent sleeping in cars or crashing at friends’ homes. Now, years later, he can look back without being consumed by those hardships. “It didn’t feel like I was living in it anymore,” he says. “That distance mattered.”

“If I believe good things, good things might happen to me just yet.” 

That same distance defines the emotional orbit of Further From the Country, connecting where Prince came from, where he is now and where he hopes to go. “There was a time when I didn’t have any awards, I didn’t have any records made,” he says. “I still believed, with this hope, that I was going to be someone in music.” 

Today, that belief has been validated through Juno Awards, Grand Ole Opry performances and stints of international touring. Still, Prince is careful not to frame this success as final.

“There’s still a ways to go,” he says, naming artists like Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile and Tyler Childers as inspirations. “They’re just in a different galaxy.” 

Rather than discouraging him, that gap fuels his ambition. “Every lesson along the way prepares you for bigger moments,” Prince says. “The story stays the same. I am hopeful, I am joyful and I do acknowledge the hurt in my past.”

Touring continues to shape that balance. Life on the road has brought Prince to places he once couldn’t imagine,  including standing in the Grand Canyon with a guitar in hand. “As a young man living on the reserve, to think that practicing guitar would lead me there is huge,” he says. “It’s really surreal.” 

Still, touring comes with sacrifice. “There’s a loss of time with my son, with my family, my wife,” Prince says. “That’s one of the modern aches.”

Recording Further From the Country at home helped ground the project. “This is my band,” Prince says of the musicians he tours with regularly. Making the album at Winnipeg’s No Fun Club Studio allowed him to sleep in his own bed and create alongside close friends and neighbors. “It was making a record with people I trust,” he says. “We’d take lunch breaks and talk about our actual lives.”

Further From the Country has been nominated for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year at the upcoming Juno Awards, where Prince will also perform as part of the March 29 broadcast. He is currently opening for Vincent Neil Emerson, both on a recently completed West Coast run and now a string of Southern dates, before launching a Canadian headline tour running from February through April.

When listeners finish the album, Prince hopes they leave with belief. “There’s always a touch of hope,” he says. “If I believe good things, good things might happen to me just yet.” 

For William Prince, that belief isn’t naïve optimism but hard-earned truth, carried forward one song at a time.

Catch Prince and Vincent Neil Emerson live Friday at Tuffy’s Music Box in Sanford.

8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13, Tuffy’s Music Box, 200 Myrtle Ave., Sanford, tuffysmusicbox.com, $29.51-$244.17.

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This article appears in Feb. 11-17, 2026.