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As it turns out, though, that wandering spirit has brought Lyon the kind of success he probably never would have realized if he'd stayed home -- like moving to Europe, making an actual living as a musician there and being the first Canadian artist signed to V2 Records.
"I'd busted up with my manager and label and was just spinning my wheels when an opportunity came to go to Holland," Lyon says. "My friend Rob Lamothe had a booking agent and a backing band there, and we put a four-week tour together. Then I ended up getting on this travelling festival that took me to 10 cities in Holland, and all of a sudden I had a record deal on a small label there. I thought I'd come back in a few months, but I just kept playing and touring, then the record came out and got great press, I got an apartment and started to learn the language, and it was great."
Like other Canadians, Lyon found his music embraced more enthusiastically by European audiences than hometown crowds.
"I don't have the answer to that, but I do know that I couldn't sustain myself here," he says. "There are too few places to play, and too many miles between them. Over there it's densely populated -- every half hour there's a place to play and 200 people who pay to see you because you're from North America, and they sit and listen and buy your record. There's a certain appreciation for North American roots music -- it's the real ticket to Europeans, and they really love it."
It's easy to see why the songs on Lyon's new album, Wandered -- which he'll officially debut at the Rivoli tonight -- have gone over so well. They're moody, thoughtful, beautifully crafted folky songs about heartache and loss, sung in Lyon's deep soulful voice and embellished by Dutch musicians like guitarist Robin Berlijn and Harrie Brekelmans, whom Lyon calls the only pedal steel guitarist in Holland.
Currently, though, Lyon is playing with his old friends Jeff Cowell and Jason Schneider, a.k.a. The World Record Holders.
"I've been playing with them off and on for years," he says. "They've been here, patiently waiting for me to return."
He's now based in Toronto, but that probably won't last. "I don't know where I'm going next, but I'll be touring Australia in August and Europe in the fall," he says. "I'm kind of restless sometimes, so it's great to keep moving."