In his vast career, Bill Welychka has interviewed musicians from Slash to Dwight Yoakam and everyone in between.

Welychka spent a good chunk of his career as a VJ, a term he hates, for the Canadian music entertainment channel, MuchMusic, later moving to MuchMoreMusic.

He spent weeks at music award shows, was surrounded by celebrities and lived a life that many coveted. These days, Welychka鈥檚 career has taken a turn away from journalism, landing him in sales.

After a conversation with a coworker where he was somewhat belittled for no longer being a nationwide journalist, his memoir was born. 

鈥楢 Happy Has-Been鈥� follows Welychka鈥檚 somewhat chaotic at times career, lifestyle and what happened off-camera. The idea of a book came to him slowly, and spawned out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the nostalgia that people had for MuchMusic.

鈥淚 never really planned on writing a book. During COVID-19, I kept getting all these offers to do podcasts as somehow MuchMusic was experiencing this resurgence,鈥� said Welychka. 鈥� All these stories started coming to fruition and I started writing them down and kept adding to it and organizing them. One day on my computer I thought, 鈥業 think this might be a book.鈥欌��

The writing overlapped with the MuchMusic documentary that toured Canada and Welychka felt the book just came at the right time. After the initial edition was published in 2023, he realized he still had so many more stories to tell. Despite not wanting to write another book, he published a second edition of his memoir in March 2025.

鈥淥ther stories started coming out while I was promoting [the first book], and I kept adding to the first one and thought 鈥極kay, maybe a second edition is warranted,鈥� and it just happened.鈥�

Welychka鈥檚 most well-known for his time at Canada鈥檚 version of MTV. That career path wasn鈥檛 what he originally set out to do. His first love was editing and he landed on MuchMusic straight out of college.

鈥淚 kind of fell into it. I went to school for radio and television and I wanted to be a camera person; I fell in love with editing. I got hired at MuchMusic the week I graduated from Seneca College here in Toronto and I sort of fell into the on-air stuff because I helped submit a proposal for a country show,鈥� recalled Welychka. 鈥淲e had all these country music videos coming into the station but no real avenue to play them.鈥�

Eventually, a dedicated country music channel was started up in Canada and the show Welychka had pitched was no longer necessary. This meant transitioning him to on-air talent, interviewing musicians and introducing music videos.

鈥淭hey moved me over to regular flow programming and started sending me around the world to interview all the biggest rock stars in the world, but all the while, and this is the cool thing, I never stepped away from the editing bay. I love editing. I love producing.鈥�

He was able to continue to combine his love of editing with interviewing the best talent in the music industry from across the world and bring it back to MuchMusic as a complete package. 

鈥淭hey鈥檇 send someone to go to New York to interview the Cranberries or go to Switzerland to interview Shania Twain and come back with these tapes. I would edit and produce those one-hour specials. They liked me because I would do it as if I was the one-man army.鈥�

Landing on MuchMusic/MuchMoreMusic ended up being a dream come true for Welychka as a lifelong music fan. He got to meet his idols and never ended up with a bad experience. Instead, he has great memories of all the bands that he got to interview. 

鈥淚 love music. I grew up with the classics like Led Zeppelin and I had an Ozzy Osbourne patch on my jean jacket in high school. I love Johnny Cash and old country. I鈥檝e managed to interview Johnny Cash and Led Zeppelin and Ozzy Osbourne to the Stones and Madonna and a lot of newer bands that I became a huge fan of like the Cure and Oasis, Rush and, of course, The Tragically Hip.鈥�

Music continues to be a powerful force in Welychka鈥檚 life, even if he isn鈥檛 in the business anymore. 

鈥淚 have listened to music every day; in high school, it was such a huge part of my life. And in my 20s, 30s and 40s. I can鈥檛 imagine a world without music. I can鈥檛 imagine a world without music. Sometimes that passion for music that turned you on when you were a teenager doesn鈥檛 register anymore as you get older. I鈥檓 lucky in that I鈥檝e never lost that passion for music.鈥� 

When it comes to talking about what makes a good interview and how to get the right energy to approach a musician for an interview, Welychka took an informed approach.

鈥淵ou wanted to be great for the artist, you wanted to be great for the fans that were watching. You鈥檙e constantly thinking about the big picture and you wanted to be good for the artist in that, in case they were interviewed three or four times that day. You didn鈥檛 want them to be on this interview treadmill where they were being asked the same questions all day.鈥�

These days, Welychka is semi-retired, but he will never forget the feelings that come with interviewing top-notch talent.

鈥淭here鈥檚 just an energy and an excitement 鈥� and it鈥檚 adrenaline. It鈥檚 joy. A 90-minute live presentation just flies by and I鈥檇 get home and I鈥檇 watch the repeat of it later that day and I鈥檇 be really critical of 鈥榦h, I didn鈥檛 like that question,鈥� but it was great and the artists loved it. The audience loved it.鈥�

Visit for more information on his memoir, 鈥楢 Happy Has-Been鈥�.