Jason Popow (pōˈ-pō), professional truck driver and founder of Waste Of Time Productions, is redefining the narrative of the open road. Beyond the myths of long-haul trucking lies a world of mystery and beauty, which Popow captures in his music and visuals.
We discovered Popow through TikiKiti, a production company showcasing indie music videos, where he documented his life on the road with striking videos set to popular music. Now, he's writing and producing his own music, offering a glimpse into the life of a modern troubadour.
As Popow traverses North America, he's crafting songs that haunt and transport, a reflection of his experiences behind the wheel and his life. His lyrics, born from endless hours on the road, he weaves tales of miles passed, memories accumulated, and stories unfolding.
Popow's music and videos are a testament to his unique perspective, shaped by nearly 30 years on the road. He sees the US with fresh eyes, aware of cultural nuances and contradictions. His art is fueled by individualism: "I stay in my lane... it's my life."
Through his work, Popow invites us to join him on a journey of self-discovery, exploring the highways and byways of America. His music raises questions, sparks curiosity, and leaves us wanting more.
Contact:
Mark Dixon, TikiKiti Productions, General Manager, tel: 1-541-517-9447, tikikitivideos@gmail.com
Jason Popow, Waste Of Time Productions
When we first talked about The Myth of Sisyphus, Jason laughed and said, “That’s my life.”
And in many ways, it is. The life of a truck driver can feel like purgatory—an endless cycle of motion, repetition, and miles that measure progress not in achievements, but in distance. Yet where Sisyphus pushed a stone, Jason carries something far more powerful: music. He is a mystery in motion. It is this mystery we are working to solve.
For hours, sometimes days, he drives across the continent. In that solitude between stops, he writes his best poetry. Those poems become lyrics. Those lyrics become songs. He hears the music fully formed in his head long before it exists anywhere else. His truck is his writing room. Suno™ is his recording studio. The highway is his stage.
(Note: Jason wants everyone to understand that he using AI programs to create his music. The program he uses allows him to choose the instruments he wants as well as the vocals. He understands that he will never be performing live and this is all right with him. He has no desire to get up in front of an audience.)
This is where we find Jason: crossing borders, crossing states, chasing the places that “fit,” just like the troubadours of old. Only now, he uses iPhone and an 18-wheeler. He is the trucker troubadour.
Listening to Jason’s music is like opening a journal written in motion. The more you hear, the more you learn—and the more mysterious he becomes. His songs haunt and transport. In the reflected glow of oncoming headlights, we sense his demons, though we never quite understand them. He is troubled, but we don’t know why. And that uncertainty is what keeps us listening. We’re not just hearing music; we’re searching for answers.
His music videos are not just visuals. They are documentation. They are his life, recorded in passing landscapes and fleeting moments. The highway is a metaphor for existence itself: always moving, rarely understood, endlessly demanding. For nearly 30 years, Jason has navigated a lifestyle most people find strange or unknowable. People prefer not to think about it. They shop, they consume, and rarely consider the sacrifice on how anything arrived on those shelves.
From Alberta, Jason sees the United States differently. He sees the fractures. He sees the stereotypes. He lives inside them. Watching his videos on YouTube it is as if we are a passenger sitting next to him. While other truckers sing about their trucks Jason sings about the countryside he sees through his windshield. Being from Canada has not hindered him from writing his music about the United States. He often says how much he loves this country. Although his music is labeled country it is more like Americana, and, in some songs folk music comes to mind.
Once he told me, “I don’t like talking about politics. I don’t follow it. It doesn’t affect me. Everybody says it does, but it doesn’t. My head is in the clouds. It’s my life. I stay in my lane.” This philosophy defines him. It’s pure individualism. It’s what makes Jason extraordinary—not only as a truck driver, but as a storyteller, a music video creator, and an artist with a point of view that can’t be borrowed or copied.
His video “Outlaws Like Us” (warning—contains explicit lyrics) explains everything. Truckers use the term "outlaw" to mean things such as not filling out their logs correctly or something minor. That is what this song is about. To really understand him listen to the song "Outlaw." In this haunting song we hear a man who is coming to terms with his past.
On the road, Jason knows danger intimately. To him, the real threat often isn’t other trucks—it’s the “four-wheelers,” the rest of us in our small, boxy cars who underestimate the physics and responsibility of sharing space with 18 wheels and 80,000 pounds of momentum. His videos show the truth of trucking in America. They document one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, not with statistics, but with lived experience. In the above linked video "Outlaws Like Us" you can see examples of what he has had to deal with — up close and right outside his windshield.
And yet, his camera also finds beauty everywhere he travels: See these videos:
Jason doesn’t stand still. He can’t. Movement is his nature. When I first met him in spring of 2024, it was through one of his videos. It felt different—more cinematic, more honest, more human than anything I’d seen from independent music videos before. Shot entirely on his iPhone, they carried a quiet power. It was when learning he is professional long-haul driver, and that all of this art was being made between deliveries, the comparison to a troubadour was made.
His secret wasn’t where he was from. His secret was where he was going—and how deeply he paid attention along the way.
Jason shows us that the places we think are “far away” are often just next door. His videos don’t make the world look distant. They make it feel reachable. They quietly challenge our refusal to explore our comfort in staying still.
Jason says he always written poetry, but now he was turning it into song. When he discovered Suno™, something opened inside him. A lifetime of motion, memory, isolation, and observation poured out as melody and verse. If you want to understand what modern trucking feels like in North America, listen to his music. It’s not a documentary. It’s a confession.
That’s when I realized: Jason wasn’t just documenting his life; he was transforming it. One day I called him a troubadour. He had never heard the term before. When I explained it, he went quiet. The next day he sent me a song: “Trucker Troubadour.” It was haunting. Honest. Heavy with unspoken history. It explained his life better than any interview ever could.
This is what Jason Popow has become:
—not just a driver,
—not just a filmmaker,
—not just a musician,
—but a folk figure of the highway.
A man who turned repetition into poetry; solution into art; and the endless road into a song.
