A bartender downtown, Brandon Copp usually comes home in the early morning hours to little more than a peep from his roommates.
That they were awake and visibly upset when he got home from work last summer was a sign something was amiss. One of their roommates, “Billy,” had died of a fentanyl overdose just hours earlier.
“It was a shock,” Copp said. “I’ve heard about fentanyl in the papers and in the media. I didn’t think it could happen to your average person who dabbled in cocaine every once in a while.”
A musician who performs under the moniker “Tramp,” Copp put pen to paper immediately after Billy’s death. The song “Fentanyl” was finished within days and serves two purposes: to pay tribute to Billy’s life and to shine light on those living with addiction in the Downtown Eastside.
The video for Copp’s tribute was filmed near Main and Hastings. He asked homeless people and others battling addiction to be in the video, and roughly half of those he approached agreed. They’re shown holding cardboard placards detailing the song’s lyrics: “I ask you for some change. For food or a place to stay. But we both know where I'm going. Down to waste away.”
Since its release in mid-September, the track has been viewed more than 11,000 times on Copp’s Facebook page.
The topic of death and addiction is a deeply personal one for the 27-year-old. He said he went through rehab three years ago for cocaine and alcohol dependency.
“A lot of the people I went to treatment with have died,” he said. “There’s been at least a half of dozen of them who have died in the last two to three years.”
Outside of being an outlet for catharsis, the song is all about paying it forward. Copp is donating partial proceeds from song’s sale to charity: the Greater Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Food Bank Society, Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre of BC and other organizations.
“For the homeless and the addicted, I wanted to give them this song,” he said.
