Back in 2012 Sean Hogan was just getting back on his proverbial feet again after hitting a speed bump in life with an illness in 2011. Hogan was planning on promoting and releasing his 6th studio album when after fighting several health troubles of throat adjacent respiratory illnesses, in August 2011 he was diagnosed with cancer of his tonsil which started right tonsil as revealed in subsequent biopsy. Sean under some great doctored care, began extensive treatment through the fall of 2011. By March 2012 Hogan was told upon follow-up scans that his treatment had been successful; he was pronounced cancer free N.O.D (no evidence of disease)and received the news from Long Beach California where he was taking time with his family to rest and recover while he waited on that news. Though Hogan played a couple festivals in summer of 2012 including Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose Alberta, he was really just getting back on his feet and as he was terribly under weight, he was rediscovering his footing and residual energy and reflecting on how he’d hit his stride again one day. Hogan picked up his touring with charitable Canadian Country Christmas concert tour in the fall of 2012 but spent the next few years mainly writing songs and performing solo shows across Canada mainly in Western Canada.
In 2014 Hogan thought he might finally expand his creative resourcefulness further, after writing and producing successful radio commercials as side fun thing to do while waiting on the road to shows at night, in addition to writing songs. Sean sang and voiced for several major car manufacturer dealerships in Western Canada. A voice talent agent heard Hogan’s work and asked him to put together a voice reel for Characters, (a major voice talent agency in Vancouver B.C.) With the voice reel Hogan began a new off-shoot career as a tv and radio voice talent for Union and Non-union commercials. When Sean wasn’t on the road performing and writing or back home recording he dabbled further in voice work. That said it was still his music that won the day, and kept him moving forward and them old wolves at bay. Sean stayed focused by touring to perform constantly, through 2014-2018. While touring in the summer of 2017 he was firming up what would become his new collection of songs for his 7th studio album, when was after a fan at a show said “some of your earlier songs remind me of a place I’ve just been to called Huatulco in Mexico”.
Hogan decided to research and explore writing a song about the place once he saw how amazing it looked on line, but never having been to Mexico even it was fun challenge; a tropical place he’d never been to. The universe has a crazy way of connecting the dots says Hogan. Friends of friends, heard the song “Huatulco” and the end result was a trip to Huatulco in Oaxaca in Southern Mexico when a couple from Bayside realty in Mexico heard the track and asked Sean if they could do a fun video to promote the locale. A video was made for the song Hogan had written and produced for his next album release.
In 2018 Hogan returned to Huatulco a couple more times to perform in Mexico and then back to finish recording his 7th studio album. It was on his 15th annual Christmas tour in 2018 that Hogan received word from a Washington D.C. based music royalty collection organization called Sound Exchange that Hogan was one of the Top 20 recipients of the Breakout Artist of the Year award for 2018, for having had so much airplay with his music on satelite radio in the previous 13 months. Hogan was oblivious to this major surge in his songs being played mainly on Sirius XM. In the spring of 2019 Hogan flew down to receive the Breakout Artist of the year award from Sound Exchange he the 18th most played new artist on satelite radio out of 20 in 2018. The only Canadian Country artist to date to ever receive the accolade. Hogan returned to tour his Christmas tour in the fall of 2019, all while shoring up the final details of releasing his 7th studio album. However, while in Manhattan, New York working on a video for the ballad “She Makes Me Feel”, with his long time friend and director actor Colin Cunningham in February 2020 the stirrings of the global pandemic were taking root and the world was about to change for long while, for some it would never be quite the same.
Once things shut down for live performances early in 2020, Hogan resolved to keep writing, and to keep producing, but it wasn’t until the fall of 2020, that Sean decided to produce other artists who were known more as singers and not writers, per se, but to record those singers singing to he’d written if the artist liked the song enough to wish to sing it. Hogan had a gut feeling his high quality awarding winning songs that were calibre wise already proven to appeal in Canada and beyond what with Hogan’s industry award nominations and wins in Canada and of course North America with Sound Exchange over the previous near 2 and half decades of songwriting. Now at the time of this writing in January of 2025 Sean has produced since the fall of 2020 dozens of charting, high rotational spinning music for the likes of Teagan Littlechief, Nathan Cunningham, Tracy Bone, Gil Grand, Joey Pringle, Colin Amey, Terri Anne Strongarm, and of course Seneca Shaganappi to name just several of the singers who have recorded songs of Sean Hogan.
In 2007 Sean had produced the debut album for Chris Henderson, but he always tended to record and write for himself. There were other artists who had recorded his songs such as the award winning Beverley Mahood, and Chris Taylor, but until 2020 Hogan hadn’t really considered or put much energy into producing others. As the pandemic wound down in it’s intensity, by 2022 commercial voice over for Hogan picked up, he was requested to be the voice for several commercials on U.S. and Canadian television and radio, (both singing and speaking) as the voice talent. In late 2024 Hogan and his label Barnstorm Productions were prepping to release the 11th single of the year of which more than 80% were getting great traction.
At the same time a new vehicle for Sean’s voice was eliciting interest, that was as a main character in a major video game. At the time of this writing the game Hogan is voicing cannot be divulged due to a NDA signed, but by January of 2025 a followup request came in for Hogan to voice more of the game’s character into 2025.
Hogan is excited and very grateful for his indie label’s artists gaining even greater traction with their releases in mid January 2025 Tracy Bone’s version of Sean’s song, “The Takeaway” was being met with great radio response being #1 Download on it’s first day of release, and being told it was yet another add (with kudos for the great tune) from Sirius Xm’s The Indigiverse on channel 165. This single release marking the 5th Tracy has done with Sean.
Meanwhile Hogan was already finishing up what would be the 10th single with Teagan Littlechief with Sean’s recently penned song “Shine On”. Hogan is stoked grateful and optimistic for his continued efforts and no doubt trips and fun and revolving around his love for the work he does with his musician and engineer friends and all that entails moving into the year ahead