Vancouver Filmmaker Releases 'No Regrets,' a Song Born From a Radical Experiment in Confronting Anxiety

The track marks the first public artifact to emerge from a long-running documentary experiment exploring fear, exposure, and parenthood.

VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA, January 19, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- No Regrets is not the launch of a music career. It is the sound of fear being faced.

Written and recorded by Vancouver-based filmmaker Patrick Stark, the single “No Regrets” emerged during the filming of a deeply personal documentary experiment that began more than a decade ago. While the documentary remains in post-production, the song serves as the first public expression of the project, introducing a story that will later be expanded in both memoir and film.

At the center of the experiment was Stark’s decision to confront lifelong, severe anxiety by moving directly toward one defining fear — singing in public.

Rather than managing anxiety privately, Stark chose what he describes as “extreme exposure,” documenting himself on camera as he gradually approached the thing he feared most. The process followed his progression from his first vocal lesson to increasingly public acts of vulnerability.

After multiple attempts between 2009 and 2017 to sing with U2, Stark finally summoned the courage to approach the band directly while they were rehearsing in Vancouver ahead of the launch of their Innocence and Experience Tour in 2015. Bono agreed on the spot — though unforeseen events beyond anyone’s control ultimately prevented the performance from taking place. The moment nonetheless marked a critical turning point in Stark’s experiment, reinforcing the value of confrontation over outcome.

Two years into filming the project, Stark intensified the exposure by documenting the writing and recording of an original song. No Regrets was co-created with prolific producer Sean Hosein (Kelly Rowland’s Stole, 98 Degrees’ Invisible Man), guided by a simple psychological belief: if the words were his own, the vulnerability might feel less borrowed — and the fear might loosen its grip.

The song features a raw, vulnerable vocal performance — capturing the emotional honesty of the moment — set against a track produced by Hosein in 2011. Rather than functioning as a traditional single, No Regrets operates as a document, preserving discomfort, persistence, and the uneasy space between wanting to hide and choosing to step forward anyway.

Over the course of the decade-long journey behind No Regrets, Stark’s documented experiment intersected with an unexpected constellation of cultural figures — including Andrew Loog Oldham (The Rolling Stones), producers Steve Lillywhite and Daniel Lanois, spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, author William Gibson, rock pioneer Wanda Jackson, and Peter Hook of Joy Division/New Order — each appearing within the broader documentary and memoir context as
the story unfolded.

The motivation behind the documentary — and ultimately the creation of the song — is deeply personal. As a father, Stark became acutely aware of the possibility of passing anxiety on to his children. Rather than offering advice or abstract coping strategies, he chose to model confrontation through action — publicly, imperfectly, and honestly.

“No Regrets” now serves as the entry point into a larger story that will be explored further in Stark’s upcoming memoir, One Life No Regrets, slated for release in Fall 2026. The book precedes the eventual release of the documentary film and expands on the experiment behind the song, examining fear, visibility, creativity, and what can happen when avoidance is replaced with deliberate exposure.

For Stark, No Regrets stands not as proof of fearlessness — but as evidence of persistence.

Patrick Stark
Media Relations
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