Misha Gellman was sitting cross legged on Galiano island meditating as part of a retreat, when he came face to face with the voices in his head. This first terrifying experience of schizophrenia kicked off a decades long struggle with the disease and led to time spent living on the streets, struggles with drugs, and the experience of losing friends to suicide. But all along Misha’s music was a sustaining force that would pull him out of the darkness and show him the way forward even in the most desperate of circumstances. 

Misha is a prolific songwriter, based out of Ottawa, who has created his own unique vision of folk metal: music of street-worn spirituality. Misha has experienced a tough life of mental illness and living on the streets, but his music is beautiful, cathartic, and spiritual. 

Growing up in Ottawa, Canada with hippy parents who were both artists in their own right and were Buddhist and obsessed with the Beatles, Misha absorbed a lot of classic rock at an early age. “I started playing guitar when I was 13 and got right into metal. Although I am influenced by rock, grunge and folk,” says Gellman. Gellman’s first foray into the music scene was as the founding member of Exit Freedom. Exit Freedom started off playing the popular grunge covers of the day (STP, Soul Asylum, Rage Against the Machine), but also covered classic metal songs like early Anthrax and Metallica. When Misha was in his early teens he dropped out of school and spent most of his time hanging out with his bandmates in local parks and on the rooftops of shopping malls impressing everyone with his songs on acoustic guitar. You can still hear this in Misha’s music today and the effect is startlingly original: the nostalgic yearning of the acoustic guitar sessions of yesteryear mashed up with the psychological intensity and volume of classic metal and thrash. Somehow this is also filtered through a spiritual outlook that adds a world music flavour to the mix. This is most likely attributable to Misha’s years as a practising Buddhist, during which time he travelled extensively in India and spent time in monasteries practising his mantras. Imagine an outsider artist like Jay Reatard on a spiritual quest in Marrakech with Led Zeppelin and you still don’t really get close to what Misha is all about.

Along the way Misha picked up many supporters including comedian Norm Macdonald (who Misha met through his brother Leslie Macdonald), and who helped to try to get Misha signed to a record label in L.A. In the end, however, the label deal fell through and Misha teamed up with his old Exit Freedom bandmate Andrew Johnston to create Enabler Records.

Misha sees his music as a therapeutic source for healing: “It is therapeutic for me to write, and there is no better feeling than when I have written one. I hope my songs are also therapeutic for others as well. ​​I hope to continue to release my music, because I must have hundreds already written all stored on memory cards. Music is my favourite thing in this life of ours, and one of my only true passions.”