Instruments: Guitar, Voice and Theremin

Genres: Folk, Adult Contemporary

I had the amazing opportunity to meet with Keri Latimer from Leaf Rapids, a Juno-award winning singer and I am very proud to say I didn’t completely freak out. Keri is a kind and extremely talented musician and I had so much fun listening to her talk about her experiences and life filled with music. We talked about songwriting and the Theremin and just had a great time. 

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Ashley: How long have you been playing music?

Keri: Well I started playing piano when I was really young, I was about seven or eight but it was just for fun. I wrote my first song when I was 10, we moved from Calgary and I was really say about leaving all my friends and I Was looking at the back window as we were driving and I was just reflecting on how sad I was so it was something like losing your happiness and how it would always be behind me, something like that. I can’t really remember but that’s how it started?

Ashley: And how long have you been playing in leaf rapids?

Keri: It’s a new one actually; it’s only been a couple years for Leaf Rapids. We got offered a record deal and couldn’t really pass that up.

Ashley: So where does the name Leaf Rapids come from?

Keri: Leaf Rapids is a place my husband grew up in northern Manitoba and we would go there visiting and I always thought it was such a beautiful names. I think because the town is so small and isolated up north; it’s almost the end of the road and I just always loved that name. When we were thinking about band names I asked what my husband thought about it, he was a bit a torn about it because he grew up there.

Ashley: How did you get a record deal? Did they approach you specifically?

Keri: I was doing a solo album before that, Nathan is really hard on the road and I just needed a project to keep working on. So I played a showcase as a solo artist and one of the musicians in the showcase who was backing up Jill Barber and I knew him and I knew he was an amazing guitar player. I said “ Well since you’re sitting beside me, you might as well join in on my songs and of course he plays like he’d known the songs for years. He’s just one of those people and it was amazing. Afterwards we were talking and it turned out he had a record label and he was a producer and he offered us a project. We were looking for something because we love traveling.

Ashley: Why did you decide to learn to play the Theremin. 

Keri: We were making a Nathan record and we had four days until it was going to get mastered so the mixes were done and there was this one song that for the solo part we just thought that sci-fi instrument that was in all of the science fiction movies would be great but what the hell was it? We did some research and for some reason I found one at Mother’s Music in the corner gathering dust for half price. It just got left there because no one knew what it was, I think. It was a stroke of luck because they were hard to find so I bought it and I practiced and practiced it and now I’m completely obsessed with it.

Ashley: How do you learn an instrument like that? Is there a book?

Keri: It comes with a little book with a few suggestions on finger movements because I think the main thing about the Theremin is when you are figuring out a melody the tiniest knuckle movement is like a semi tone so you just need to get used to the tiny little increments takes a lot of work and shaking your hand to get vibrato. There isn’t really a way to play it, it’s very intuitive; it’s basically a leap of faith and trusting you’re muscle memory. In fact you have to turn your brain off, I find, it’s like meditation. You’d like it!

Ashley: What is a practice to jam session like?

Keri: For Leaf Rapids it’s basically me writing the songs and then Devin and I coming together and figuring out the bass parts.  I guess it’s primarily my song writing; with Nathan Shelley wrote a lot of the songs and now Mike who is apart of the band is a great writer and musician. IT’s more collaborative for Nathan but for [Leaf Rapids] it’s just mostly myself.

Ashley: So then what is your songwriting process?

Keri: It’s kind of embarrassing; this is lately. Sometimes I’ll get into a writing flurry and I’ll just put music to that. But more often than not it’s just melody and some gibberish which I record into my album and I’ll go through them and see if some imagery comes up and I’ll start piecing it together. But Mainly I’ll get struck with a melody but if anyone gets ahold of my iPhone, it just has the most embarrassing stuff.

Ashley: So who inspires your music? Or when you first started how did you find your voice and style?

Keri: Well I actually went to art school thinking I would be a visual artist and I took graphic design. It was so intense that I think on the side as a release of some tension I would just start songwriting. Ani Difranco at the time was just getting big and she was just an explosion that went off. When I heard of her, it was my first introduction to a really raw singer-songwriter and a guitar. She plays very percussively and she’s very poetic. You have to check her out. That idea of just be a songwriter with a guitar and have a message, that sparked me to just play a little bit. Then unfortunately my studies suffered because I was hooked by songwriting by full force.

Ashley: How do you go on tour when you have kids?

Keri: IT’s funny because Devin plays bass in the band with me so that’s handy. We bring them with us. In April we spent two weeks in western Canada and took our kids with us and toured with Slow Leaves. We practiced together and I learned a lot of backups for him, then he played guitar and sung backups for us too so it was a really feasible way. Part of the reason we paly music is because we both we love to travel so this is a way to subsidize our travel.

Ashley: Do they come with you to the show or do they stay in the apartment?

Keri: It depends, one of the festivals we did was 16 and over so we couldn’t bring them so we hired a sitter or nanny for those. But they’re starting to sell merchandise because they’ve started learning math.

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Keri: Right now I’m really excited to play Theremin for the WSO for the new music festival this January and that’s completely terrifying which is the sign that you should do because you should do what terrifies you so I’ve already started practicing for it.

Ashley: So what advice would you give to beginners who are starting to perform and get their music out there?

Keri: I would say always keep an iPhone or some kind of recording device and write whatever comes to your mind even if you think it’s stupid. Don’t censor yourself. IF you start censoring yourself you’re going to accidentally filter out a lot of really good ideas. And you have to get through all the stuff because you can start getting to the new stuff. Then you start editing things and take away. And practice, practice, practice; which everyone knows. It’s hard because you get so sick of yourself. My husband is really good at making us practice a lot. I’m always fighting him but I’m always so thankful when we play live.

Ashley: You mentioned this before but how do you balance your music with you other obligations?

Keri: I think it’s just a natural thing. Other than having to just turn out the music, which is a hard one but the consequences are not worth it. Also bring the kids on tour is a lot. I know a lot of musicians who don’t bring their families on tour with them and it’s really hard on them so I’m very grateful.

Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you’ve started in the music?

Keri: I think, it’s to not censor yourself too much. Not to worry about whom you think you’re writing for. The songs that have affected me the much in a real emotional way, hadn’t written for a mass. There’s something particular in the details in a really profound way. Don’t’ be afraid to put those ideas out there that terrify you. 

Support Winnipeg Band Leaf Rapids

Genres: Everything (Grungy, Folky, Funky, Rock stuff)

Eli’s Instruments: Voice, Guitar

Evan’s Instruments: Bass, Voice

I met with Eli and Evan in their jam session this summer and we had an awesome chat about None The Wiser and their experience performing and song-writing. I can honestly say I learned a lot from these guys and am super thankful for them letting me interview them! Read it now~!

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Ashley: So you play everything, how do you decide what to play at a show?

Eli: For shows we have been keeping it to out up-tempo dance-y songs. It depends on the venue. I was even reading in this David Burn book that people write songs for venues.  They have a venue in mind as a musician and you write a song that’s geared toward that. It’s a different given or take with the audience. It’s more intimate when you are playing those quieter show but when you see people dancing and having fun, that’s what really does it for me. I guess that’s how we decide on what we play at shows, it’ where we are playing.

Evan: We often also don’t know ahead of time. We’ll have a general idea of what we’re doing and depending on what the crowd likes and we’ll change what we are playing. We play the crowd.

Ashley: So you have brass instruments in the band, how do you incorporate that when you’re playing rock music?

Eli: It’s just another layer or texture that you can add. Like I said, we don’t like to pigeonhole ourselves. We like to put together a good song with a catchy hook on the horns; they can do things [others can’t]. They can do melodies and add so many different things. It’s just nice to have them there.

Evan: I think it’s a great throwback to some of the funkier Motown that we are all kind of into. We are a band that for all intensive purposes rock band but a big brass section behind it adds this entire new layer of music.

Ashley: Where does the band name come from?

Eli: I’ll give my brother Zach credit for that one [back in 1999 or 2000], we just hadn’t come up with anything new since. It’s been so long that I haven’t really thought about changing it. I tried once, I did a solo op and just ended up being another None the Wiser [project].

Evan: I think too few bands are honest about how arbitrary their name is. Some bands have really cool or awesome history about their name but I think most bands are just “we need a band name and this sounds cool.” 

Ashley: So how often are you guys practicing together?

Eli: We practice at least once a week. We do Wednesdays at the jam space, leading up to bigger shows we will squeeze in a couple more. We also break it down into sectionals so I’ll go jam with the horn players so they can work out their harmonies to not waster everyone else’s time. Sometimes we’ll have practices where we just work out vocal harmonies, break it down into sections.

Ashley: What do you listen to for inspiration for music?

Eli: Oh lots of fun stuff! I like everything from the Spice girls to the Beatles.

Evan: We actually do a couple covers of Spice girls at shows.

Eli: I want to say the Beatles, Dave Matthews band, Sublime, KT Tunstall. I’ve been really into Max Martens’ writing lately, he wrote all pop songs on the 2000s. I’m into pretty much everything. I’m wearing a Fela Kuti shirt right now. I love afro beats stuff. That really helps bringing in the horns actually.

Evan: I think one of the nice things about sitting down and jam is that we come from different backgrounds with some overlap. I come from a really big metal background. I listen to metal bands and played in a lot of Winnipeg death metal bands and stuff that is very different from what we play; it also a slightly different perspective. It brings things that only once person would necessarily think of. Josh plays a lot of country, Jordan is really into weird art rock kind of stuff.

Eli: Cary is really into blues and funk and soul, so it’s a really cool mash up . Really the inspirations are infinite.

Ashley: How do you think death metal helped none the wiser?

Evan: I think if anything, I might occasionally play things a bit more aggressively than maybe other people might have thought of. I think we have a few songs where things have dropped a bit lower and a bit heavier.

Eli: I love a good solo with a gritty bass that probably comes from some metal stuff.

Evan: Cool things happen when you put a different perspective on something that’s relatively normal.

Ashley: So what is the overall songwriting process?

Eli: Up to now, we are starting to write more because we are jamming more often, but usually it always starts with a guitar and the sounds come before the words. We fill in the words to the sounds. To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know where it comes from, it’s kind of that I just lucked out and something cool popped into my head. I think that’s really common with all songwriters. They don’t really know where it comes from; every now and then they tap into the cloud of songs and just get lucky every now and then. For the most part, up until now that we are starting to write stuff together, I would come up with a song and more often than not we would have a solid first verse and chorus and whoever didn’t come up with that would help finish the words and the story and the idea and concept.

Evan: I feel with this these fairly frequent lineup changes, like any good musician would listen to the songs and learn the notes and once they start jamming without really thinking about it, they starting playing things a little differently with different inflections. The arrangements are just different.

Ashley: How do you go deciding your set list for a show?

Eli: Again it’s really venue dependent. If we’re playing at a restaurant we usually start quieter and gradually get louder and more energetic. If it’s a theatre thing even like the Pyramid where everyone is paying attention, you really want to hit them hard with your two favorite songs then pull back and draw people back in by building it back up. I feel that’s what set lists are usually like, two really high energy songs off the bat, and then a chill song to draw people in, not lull them but bring them down so it has more effect when you bring the high energy songs back.

Evan: You aren’t going to throw in the songs you’ve only jammed a couple times and don’t sound the greatest.

Ashley: With None the Wiser, what accomplishments are you most proud of?

Eli: For me the albums are some good accomplishments because they are just a lot of our songs out there in the world for people to hear. Some of our festival shows like Shine On, the first year we played we did a John Lennon song and everyone sang alone; just the little things.

Evan: The whole reason we’re doing this is for us to have fun and express that fun and have the other people who are watching have fun. Everyone’s excited; everyone’s having a moment together. That’s more important.

Eli: That’s kind of the goal. Just to do that with as many people as possible.

Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who might be nervous about starting their bands?

Evan: Don’t be nervous. Just go out and play. You’re probably going to suck the first few times you play so just go out and suck and you’ll get better. Even if you suck you’re going to have fun.

Eli: You’re only going to get better the more you play.

Evan: Don’t be scared and don’t care about what other people thing about you. If you really believe that the music you are playing is good or you like it or you have fun and people can see that you are having fun and you believe it, then there is going to be a crowd for it. Maybe you aren’t playing the right places, don’t get discouraged if you have a bad show, or people hate you, or no one shows up or anything of those things. I wouldn’t worry about it because you can just play another show and maybe next time people are super into it. Play for free, play for fun; eventually you’ll start making money and that’s not what it’s about anyways. IT’s about having fun; ideally you want to be making money so you can work less and play more.

Ashley: So if people have gathered this courage but they are missing a band member?

Evan: Go to jam nights?

Ashley: Where do you find jam nights?

Eli: Wee Jonny’s and the cavern had one fore awhile.

Evan: Go to open mics

Eli: It’s also easy to just post ads online. I have friends who have found two hardcore band members that took their band to the next level by posting an ad online. They were in their 30s and they got this kid who was 18 who was ready to go.

Evan: I lived in Ottawa for a few years and I wanted to make sure I played music so I found any music forums online and posted “ I play bass and I want to play anything you want me to play.” And I found something in less that a month. It helps if you’ve had past experience that you can cite to people but even without that it’s not going to take that long. People are always looks for people to play with.

Eli: Another thing is just asking you best friend. Maybe they don’t play the bass or the drums together, but if you start together you’ll get better together. You don’t need to be the best musicians; you just need to be good as a group. If you’re already friends to begin with you’re going to be tight as a group.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?

Eli: My favorite song right now is probably Magic All the Time or Back Behind the Blue. Back Behind the Blue is kind song sexy song, pretty psychedelic and Cary does kickass guitar solos. It’s a like a jam. The live performance is many minutes longer than the recorded one. It’s really energetic and fun and it’s new.

Evan: Probably Beale Street Beer it’s just a very straightforward easygoing vibe that’s easy to play. It’s not hard to play at all and it just feels good.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Nov 9, 2015 at 6:58am PST

Support Winnipeg Band None The Wiser!

Genre: Indie Pop

Instruments: Voice and Guitar

I sat down with Chantal from French Press and we talked about her exciting upcoming tour with Micah Visser (For the Winnipeg Music Project interview with him, click here). She also gave some really great advice about starting as a solo musician or finding a band to play with; and shared her experiences with becoming versatile as a musician and finding ways to get or create what you feel is important to you (like a tour or a new album). I loved meeting Chantal, she was an absolute sweet heart, read it all here!

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Ashley: How long have you been playing in French Press?

Chantal: French Press is my own creation so it’s something that I started as soon as I finished music school in 2009. It was kind of in the scheming phases at that point because I hadn’t been seriously songwriting at that point. I took some time, I was over seas doing some cover band stuff, thinking and developing songs; starting to put the project together at that point. It really started getting serious in 2011 when I came back to Winnipeg and just worked on it everyday as much as I could.

Ashley: What did you go to school for?

Chantal: I went to Humber College in Toronto and I studied [jazz] music.

Ashley: When you first started working on [French Press], where you performing as French Press over seas?

Chantal: No, I guess it was only incubating at that point, it was kind of an idea and I had to decide what I was doing. Was I playing jazz, I didn’t know if I was staying with the band [I had been currently working with] or if I was going to branch out. IT was a lot of push and pull. You just have to settle before the work could really begin, in terms of songwriting.

I played my first show in the summer of 2012 so I guess at that point I had accumulated enough songs to play a set. So I had given myself a song a week challenge, and it didn’t last forever maybe five or six weeks, but pretty much 90% ended up on the record that I’m going now. It took a lot of focus and dedication, but it paid off.

Ashley: Where did you get project name “French Press”?

Chantal: I‘m French Canadian so I wanted to come up with French name but I was worried about people mispronouncing it or sometime people are awkward about saying a word they don’t say. I thought [that wouldn’t be good] if people were hesitating to mention my band name so I just came up with “French”. It came from a little brainstorm session when I was in Thailand. I also liked the marriage of French and Press. The imagery, the crunch and the tension I think that those are themes that arise in my music so I think it worked it. And people seem to like it.

Ashley: So you went to school for Jazz but now you are doing pop, how does you jazz background influence your music?

Chantal: I think the act of being constantly on the spot. We had to take improvisational classes so you’d get used to finding your flow really fast because you kind of have to. I think that really free me up melodically so coming up with melodies because I was doing that in class, and I had to so and lock into that moment, I go better at that which I’m really grateful for.  I love playing music, listening to music, I love everything so I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going in that program but I got complete absorbed by it. I don’t think you can still hear Jazz in what I’m doing other than maybe my chords are not always super standard. I think that I allow myself by being exposed to those jazz options let me get outside of the common pop chord form.

Ashley: What’s your songwriting process?

Chantal: I find that melodies come pretty easily to me and I’m happy that one part comes really easily. Usually, if I’m faced with some kind of strife or some kind of conflict I like to be able to work through it by exploring it through music. Unless there is a good conflict going on in my life or in my morals or something like that, it’s kind of hard for me to come up with a song that I’m going to stick with that I will want to continue to play. If I have a topic to talk about, if I’m feeling a rush or a strong emotional response to something, then I can take that and have it guide the music or the sound. I’ll basically just improvise and riff and try to always make my music as hooky as possible, something that I would get about and I hope that people get excited about.

Ashley: How do you decide if this topic you’re picking isn’t too personal or if it appropriate to write about?

Chantal: Unless you’re making yourself a little uncomfortable, it’s not exciting as the artist or it doesn’t feel worth it. You want to be pushing a little bit; for example, when I wrote the song Back on the Mattress (WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW) I had people saying,“ Wow, that it was really gusty of you to just be a woman and talk about that.” Maybe for reasons of worry of slut shaming or I’m not too sure what; but, it’s by no means controversial but it is pushing a little bit and it keeps me excited and I hope that it keeps others excited.

Ashley: What is it about?

Chantal: It’s about coming out of a break up or a place that you’re single or whatever and it’s about getting back on the mattress, getting back into something after you’ve been jerked around. 

Ashley: So how did you meet Micah?

Chantal: I stumbled upon him, I saw a performance he did on breakfast television and I Was like “Who is this guy?” I loved what he was doing so then with the beauty of Facebook I found him. I went to see him play and then we sort of built a relationship since that happened.

Ashley: And made you decide to go on tour together?

Chantal: I wanted to go on tour but I wanted to do it with someone to sort of share the costs and some of the organizing. Also we’re sharing a band so we’re bringing the same drummer, bass player. It’s of course, I sang on Micah’s last record (Ok Night). I love what he does and I’m excited to talk more about music with him and we connected right away musically and he kind of gets me excited about songwriting because I see how prolific he is; he’s just an inspiring guy.

Ashley: You are both solo performers, what are challenges about that other than having to book a band for performances you do?

Chantal: It ends up being that you’re the one running the show; you’re doing all the administration stuff and paying for everything that costs money. But also you have a good amount of control over what happens so having a solo project opposed to band, with a band you have to negotiate and get everyone the same page and convince people to do things. When you’re a solo artist you only have to convince yourself, and that’s hard too. I do have some great collaborators, and that always makes life easier but sometimes you kind of have to take sometime for yourself to figure out what you’re doing before bring in too many influences. I think at this point I’m more comfortable with collaborating like Micah and I have worked on a demo together and you just have to find the right people. If it’s not clicking or if you’re not excited about it; it’s not going to get finished.

Ashley: So for people who want to start their own project, whether it’s solo or in a band, they have their own music but they don’t know if they want to do it in a band or solo; would you say the easier option would be to start solo or if they are shy about it they should start in a band and then maybe one day go solo.

Chantal: Well, bringing on five people can be kind of intense like if you do feel intimidated and don’t really want to take things on it might be better to find one person that likes the same kind of bands as you and also has a similar work ethic and passion. Someone you have chemistry with. It’s almost as impossible as finding a boyfriend; sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you have to keep looking. I’d say bringing on too many people, too many cooks in the kitchen, when you’re starting to bloom as an artist is just overwhelming, or it was for me. I really had to close lock my door and close myself in my room. I like to say throw books around and have a hissy fit until I was able to figure out what I wanted to say because to say something important, you have to have you’re voice. You don’t have to everything figured out but you have to have an awareness of your voice or you may get pushed around or you may get pushed in a direction that is unsatisfying and unfulfilling.

Ashley: And if someone decides to become a solo artists and they want to have a fuller sound that just a guitar or keyboard. How would you recommend they, if they don’t know anyone, find people? You found Micah online, but what other way?

Chantal: I was having that problem not too long ago. I haven’t had a band for too long, maybe a year and a half or something and to get into a room when you are unsure of your vision with other people trying things out, for me I wasn’t comfortable. I’ve tried those things and it just wasn’t working out esthetically for me. You encounter a lot of what you like when you hear it but to conger up something and explain to someone when you’re not even clear yourself is near impossible. Miraculously I met a couple guys from collectors studio, Arthur just came to me one day was asked if I wanted to do a demo and I Was like “You know what, why not? Nothing is really working out for me so far but I’m going to give this a shot.” So we made our first demo and they really helped me define my esthetic, we were all into it and all excited about it. It ended up being kind of edgy but a little garage and grungy because that’s kind of what they did. But because my writing was so poppy, it just made a cool marriage of pop in the writing but a little more edgy of the arrangement.

Ashley: Which song that you’re performing on this tour is your favorite to perform live?

Chantal: I have a couple songs. I like Double Check, that’s kind of a two part song. It starts as a ballad and in the middle of the song it goes into a fast tempo and then it’s kind of our biggest rock out song because for the last 30 seconds we are just wailing away and we’re just singing and it’s really intense. Then it just drops and dissolves. It goes crazy crazy crazy then just falls. We end with that song in the set.

I also really like the song Under the Gun, it feels like so nineties to me. It has this simple mid-tempo groove but every time we jam the song the whole band looks at each other and we’re like “Wow we love playing that song.” It’s a simple song but it’s just about getting it in the pocket and that’s exciting.

Ashley: What was the most stressful thing about planning thing about planning this tour?

Chantal: It’s not really difficult. You just have to follow up. You send messages, you don’t get replies so then you send it again. It’s just a matter of staying on top of it. It’s easy, I think it is I don’t know maybe we got lucky; this is the first tour I’ve booked in like ten years. You ask, you set a date and you keep sending emails even if you’re not getting replies and if their not answering emails then you message them on Facebook or call them at the venue. It sounds a bit crazy but you just have to stay persistent.

Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you started working in the music business?

Chantal: I mean it probably has something to do with keeping at it and you’ll be rejected. In a way I feel like I was rejected quite a bit early on for things like grants and whatever but I cried on the floor and then just kept on going. That stuff toughens you up. It’s not good to be spoon fed and handed things because if things don’t work out, it’s going to it hit you hard. I think that getting a good balance of support and pushing through. If someone says no to you, you get smarter about how to get it done. For example, I financed my record that’s coming out hopefully early next year all by myself. I cried about it a little bit but I figured it out. I spent way less money if I would have been funded so [I had a] very DIY attitude about that. Rejection is good for you.

CHECK OUT THIS NEW VIDEO FOR THE FRENCH PRESS SONG "BACK ON THE MATTRESS"!

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Nov 1, 2015 at 1:49pm PST

Support Winnipeg Musician French Press!

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jul 9, 2015 at 6:00pm PDT

Support Winnipeg Musician Micah Visser!

Genres: Alterative Country

Instruments: Voice and Guitar

Kieran West is living the dream everyday by having the opportunity to play with his music with his favorite band. He talks about his strong connection with his band members and his go with the flow songwriting skills. He confides how lucky he is and how where is, it what he’s always dreamed of. Not playing for 80,000 people or playing for the queen. Playing to 150 people who are having fun and everybody it happy; that’s the dream for him. 

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Ashley: How long have you been playing?

Kieran: I’ve been playing music my whole life. I’ve been seriously playing for six or seven years. The buffalo band has been together for three and a half years.

Ashley: Why did you guys decide to start playing together?

Kieran: Well, I was working on writing a lot of songs and was just going to perform them by myself because I had had experience playing in bands that weren’t that great and kind of wanted to just do my own thing. But I started to really miss playing rock shows and having fun where people dance and single along. That doesn’t really happen when you’re playing mellow acoustic shows. Right at that time I met this band “Little House”, a girl that I was dating at that time introduced to me their music and I totally fell in love with their music and they became my favorite band in the entire world. I wanted really badly to just be in that band because I admired them all so much. It was a four-piece band and they all wrote songs together and I loved that. They really reminded me of the Beatles.  We would hang out and I would show them all my songs and they all really liked the songs and stuff. They wanted to help me out so we started talking about doing a couple shows together called “Kieran West and Little House” or something else. It just turned into this whole thing and we decided that we wanted to be our own band. The line-up has changed, it’s not just little house, but that’s where it started. I wanted to play rock shows and they came in there.

Ashley: What is a practice or jam session like with the rest of the band?

Kieran: We are very informal. As Roger Miller once said, he’s a country singer, “We play a highly informal set. The higher we get, the more informal we are.” That kind of perfectly describes our practices. We practice in our basement, drinking and having fun really. There is such a cohesive bond between the guys and the band because they had been playing for four years before we started so they have been playing together for seven years so there is such tightness. The songs aren’t really that complicated so we just get together and have fun; that’s what we do when we play shows anyways to it just makes sense to practice how you play.

Ashley: So you primarily write the songs so how do you bring those to the band?

Kieran: I write the songs, the verses and the choruses and whatever else; but it comes back to the way that we started. Just hanging out and me showing them these songs that are completed but, like I said I’m just a huge fan of them as a band, and I just tell them to do what they want. It’s never the way I that I hear it in my head when I write it but it’s always better. They always have so many ideas. They are all so musically inclined and these musical brains and they’ll come up with these ideas that make the song more interesting or exciting. They’re always working to improve the song.

Ashley: So what is your songwriting process like, then?

Kieran: Well it’s always kind of different but most often I’ll come up with a line in my head like maybe it’s start with some words, or something I want to say. From that, I’ll put a melody to those words and those will become my chorus. I usually start with the chorus and the hook of the song. We have the song “Big black bug”:

“Big black bug living inside my brain, and the thoughts inside are horribly arranged.” That’s all one complete thought that will happen in my thought and I’ll have that chorus and then start from the stop down and write the verses. I’ll use rhyming dictionaries a lot too. Yeah, usually start with the chorus then work the verses around it.

Ashley: So you’re music is more lyrically driven?

Kieran: Yeah, the whole reason I play music is because it’s so emotional for me and my songs are all about stuff that I have experienced or things that I feel. It is lyrically driven but it’s also with the band; they make it so musical that it’s a nice mix of both.

Ashley: Who inspires your music? Who do you listen to that inspires your songwriting?

Kieran: That’s a big question for me. As a band we have many obvious country influences like “The Band” “Steve Earle”  “Hayes Carll” “Hank Williams III” , bands like that that are not necessarily Nashville country bands or classic country bands; country music in their own style. As a songwriter and as a human being I have so many other influences that are all very apparent in my songwriting. Like when I’m at home I don’t listen country music, I listen to hardcore punk like “Minor Threat” “Bad Brains” “Comeback kid” I was just to this morning. Stuff like that. Or Nirvana. It’s such a wide range of stuff; I love rap, I love learning from rap because there are things that rappers use lyrically like devices that rappers use that are just totally brilliant and don’t really exist anywhere else in music and there are things that I’ve learned and used. It’s really all over the place for me.

Ashley: So what is the most stressful part about being in a band?

Kieran: For me I would say: keeping everyone happy. That’s not to say we’re divas or anything; but as a leader I find it really important that everyone feels heard and feels respected and honored and all that. There are five of us which is tough to make sure everyone feels heard because there are five different personalities and five different musical personalities that are coming together and sometimes they don’t always match. That’s really important, if we’re not having fun then there is no point.

Ashley: With you’re band what accomplishments are you most proud of?

Kieran: We’ve been really lucky. We’ve gotten a lot of really great opportunities. It’s tough to just pick out one. I would say if I had to pick one, it would be to be asked to do the Minstrels program for the Winnipeg Folk Festival. That was a huge honor. We were asked to do it by the festival, I got a call while I was at work and asked if I wanted to play with my band; that it something that I dreamed about. It was really cool. It’s just really nice to be recognized and to even be on the track to play a stage one day soon. That was really huge. I’ve been going to the folk festival since I Was 16 and the first second I saw that stage and heard music coming from it I was like “That’s what I want to do, that’s where I want to play.” It was amazing to hang out back stage, ten feet away from Dan Mangan. It was cool.

Ashley: What advice would you give to musicians who are nervous about starting out?

Kieran: I would say, two major things:

Play with your friends, don’t try to start a band with stranger, because you’re not going to have as much fun and the whole point of music is to have fun.

And, make friends with bar owners and managers. It’s really good to have people like that on your side. It’s not just a phony thing, most of the people who run bars in the city are really down to earth, awesome people who are really really interesting in fostering young talent. Put yourself out there, next time you’re at the bar try to figure out who the manager is and introduce yourself. It never hurts to put your name out there. You want to get good shows, it’s not a secret if the bar owner likes you personally they are going to pay you better than if they don’t like you. That’s just the way it is. Music is like any other business; it’s all about who you know. We’re met some really amazing people through bar owners just hanging out.

Ashley: Before a performance what do you do to deal with nerves?

Kieran: That’s a funny question for me because performing and pre-performance are the only times I don’t have trouble with anxiety. Anxiety is a huge problem in my life and performing is the one time that I am never anxious. I feel great. I feel on top of the world. I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and it just feels right.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?

Kieran: This song Coming to Terms; It was one of the first songs that we ever learned, and we still play it. It’s a song I wrote about a conversation I had with Ben Figler, who was the singer of Little House who is now the singer for Somebody Language. It was just a conversation we had and I wrote the song Coming to Terms about that conversation. It’s a very simple song with two chords the whole way through, basically.  At the end we have this end where we going into this jam section where everybody lets loose and it’s the same chords this song called “At least that’s what you said” by Wilco which also ends in a jam session so we ripped a lot of stuff from that but it’s cool because Wilco is one of our favorite songs in the world so it’s like we’re playing a Wilco song; but it’s also the same chords as “Don’t let me down” by the Beatles so a couple bars into the jam session, I go into the chorus of that song and sing it. But I can’t really hit the notes so I’m just screaming it. It works and it’s a lot of fun. We just totally rip at it; it’s awesome.

Ashley: How do you balance music with other obligation like work?

Kieran: It’s not easy. When you’re really serious about music and working full-time and recording yourself, you don’t find yourself with a lot of free time. Especially when you manage yourself. We do our own artwork for posters for promotions and talking with college radio sessions and publications. There is a lot of time that you put into it and that can get really stressful. People need free time. That’s just kind of a fact; people need time to relax. When I’m working, [we aren’t working as hard] with the music thing. When I’m working on music, I really feel like I’m working towards something and I love the work that I do in the schools. So, it’s really just a matter of focusing on the fact that I might be tired, I might be exhausted but I’m doing what I’ve always dreamed about doing. So that makes it okay. Luckily working in a school, I have good hours and I have summers off so I can focus on doing festivals and promotions and all that over the summer. I have my evenings and weekends off, which is very good. Other guys in the band, our bassist Corey works at the Handsome Daughter and they are quite accommodating for him with getting nights off. One way or another we make it work. It’s just so important to all of us that we just have to make it work.

Ashley: So when you finally get that time to songwriting, how to do get into the zone or find that inspiration?

Kieran: I only write when there is inspiration. Inspiration comes from everything. All my songs are about my own experiences. We have a song called “Kill myself today” and I was just walking and feeling depressed and thought about jumping in front of a car, no seriously of course. But that melody started to come into my head. It was this bouncy, blue grassy thing. I was like “I could kill myself OR I could write a song a turn this pain into something happy.” It takes away the power from that feeling and we play it at shows are people are dancing around and singing along and all of that. Its just things like that. I like to write about my family a lot. I have a really serious interest in family history and stuff like that. I like to write about stories from my family. I love hockey, I’ll write about hockey. It just comes from everything. I was thinking Red Green the other day, and was thinking about his catch phrase “Keep your stick on the ice.” So I wrote a song called “Keep your stick of the ice.” You get ideas from listening to music, that’s where I get a lot of my ideas. 

Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you started working in the music business?

Kieran: That’s another tough one because we really have been very fortunate to meet really successful people who have given us a lot of really helpful advice. I would say the best advice I’ve ever gotten from a musician from Bobby Desjarlais from Attica Riots. He has been a mentor of mine every since I was fifteen years old. He was working as an EA at Kelvin high school when I was there and he saw my band perform and he found me the next day at lunch and took me to this little office where he had been writing songs on his breaks, I guess. In that room, I Would go everyday, I was in the process of dropping out of school at this time so slowly and slowly I stopped going to class and just be in that little room with Bobby and his students and I would be hiding out from my classes but I’d be learning the things I Really wanted to be learning. The most important I learned from him while I was there was: When you’re writing a song, no matter what you’re writing about, even if it’s a meaningless pop song, always know what you’re writing about. Always have a point and always writes about something real. Even if it comes out as gibberish, just always have a point and always know why you’re writing the song and what it means to you. That’s something I’ve always carried with me.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Oct 25, 2015 at 5:50pm PDT

Support Winnipeg Musician Kieran West and His Buffalo Band!

Genres: Noise Rock/Punk

David Dobbs’ Instrument: Guitar

Matthew Powers’ Instrument: Drums

I met with David and Matthew earlier this summer before a show they had at the Park Theatre. I was interested in meeting them because I was really new to the genre of “Noise Rock.” To be 100% honest, I was really new to the genre. The loud atmosphere was really exciting and really let me experience a little dose of how loud and how much David and Matthew had when performing on stage. They are currently on tour doing really cool stuff. Follow them on their instagram to see all their exciting adventures. 

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Ashley: How long have you been playing together?

David: Matt and I have been playing together for coming up to 2 years and vampires has been a conception for about 4 or 5.

Ashley: And how long have you been playing your instruments?

David: I started playing piano when I was 8 maybe and that moved to guitar when I was 13. I can play everything though; drums, keyboard, bass guitar and whatever.

Matthew: Yeah I started in piano, my dad tried to get me into it. I never really cared for it, drums was what I really wanted to do. I guess I have been playing drums since I was 12 years old so a long time. More than half my life which is weird to think about. Drums is my main thing but like David we are both multi-disciplinary, we can both jump to guitar and bass and dabble around on piano and all that kind of stuff.

Ashley: Where does the band name come from?

David: It comes from a deeply routed childhood love of vampires. I myself dressed up as a vampire every Halloween for like eight years in a row until my friends started calling me a loser. It’s also an emotional and spiritual reference to how as humans we feed all the time. Whether its actual practical raw matter like food or it’s like emotionally or spiritually feeding off other people. We’re drawing attention to that dynamic of not being ashamed to admit that we all feed off each other and it’s not in an angry or cynical thing it’s just something to acknowledge that we all need each other.

Matthew: We both really like vampires as an idea of a monster. They are kind of the most human-like. They have feelings and emotions and they are even relatable in a way. 

David: It’s the stresses we put on ourselves. Dracula always felt at odds. He was only proud when he was comfortable otherwise he was angry all the time. It just showed that he was like everyone else. 

Matthew: We don’t have any imagery associated with fangs or capes; it’s all a very artistic reference point, I guess.

Ashley: So why did you decide to start playing together?

Matthew: We kind of found each other. [David] had something I was working on on the internet and we started talking and realized that we were looking for each other.

David: I was looking for a drummer and he was looking for another project to be apart of.

Matthew: In that shared time we both kind of realized that my thing was just a in the basement having fun and he already had a project with legs and had momentum and he had a show coming up with Big Fun a couple years back and was just looking for someone to fill in the dates because he had to place it. We got together for that originally and just when on from there.

David: Yeah, we put out a four song EP together and we kind of liked the EP. It was just a showcase of what we were going through at the time. It’s really raw, its four songs that we wrote together and helped established the band in its new direction and it’s new legs so to speak. We just recorded a full-length album and it’s pretty exciting.

Matthew: It’s our first big studio album. Before [the music] was done low-fi, on the down low kind of thing. It’s our first step into a big studio with a cleaner sound. You can hopefully hear more of what we’re doing opposed to the low-fi feeling of the EP album. The songs are going to come through more in this new way.

Ashley: What is a jam or practice session like for you two?

David: Our rehearsals are usually during the week, Tuesdays and Fridays. They start around 7:00 pm typically. They’ll be me getting home from work and I’ll tidy up the space a bit and we’ll go over the lyrics and most of the time we are either writing songs or rehearsing towards a show, those two modes. We’ll play through songs a couple times and play through the songs we suck at a couple more times. Otherwise we are writing songs there is a little more relaxation and experimentation. I guess a jam is just an idea or a very small part of an idea. I’ll have a riff, let’s say, a single riff of 5 or 10 notes, some will be good and some will be bad. Matt will come along and stitch riff 2 and riff 5 together and I’ll be like “wow, it’s a line now.” Other times though they’ll just write themselves. After like four hours we will have a song.

Ashley: Would you say your songwriting is more lyrically or melodically driven?

David: Oh definitely melodically. Music writes itself and usually you find places to put vocals on top so it’s never me humming to myself trying to write guitar to my vocals it’s me matching a vocal line to my guitar I’ve already written.

Ashley: And how do you choose your lyrics? What’s your inspiration?

David: It seems to always be a commentary on social relationships and social dynamics. Personal experiences that I’m watching happen. Some songs are really personal and I wonder how I sing them all the time in front of strangers. Sometimes they’re a way to get people involved.

Ashley: How do you sing about personal things? How do you decide if something is okay to share?

David:  It’s something that happens while playing music. It’s never “oh I’ll just go sit down and write music” they just start to happen. The music makes me feels a certain way so whatever I’m feeling that month or that day or that year and it just comes out. It’s usually reflective stuff, I’m commenting on something and then I decide to make it personal. How it might happen to me. I don’t really know how I let it become about personal stuff, it just happens because it makes sense. It’s okay in that way.

Ashley: Why don’t you [Matthew] write lyrics? Have you thought about it?

Matt: I guess with my own music I do, but I guess I never stepped into that role with vampires. Not to say that it’s not in the cards that if I have some lyrics that I felt passionate about. I’m still getting into singing with vampires, they used to have a pretty big back and forth vocal dynamic between the Dobbs and the drummer and that’s something we’re trying to bring back in my own way so there may be a time when I’ll have something to say but until then I’m just hitting stuff in the background.

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?

David: Still being band. A lot of bands, I think, find the internal dynamics to be too much pressure. It requires patience and hard work. We used to play at Sled Island Music Festival and that’s a huge accomplishment for this band. We’re putting out a record with a big name recording studio and that’s another huge accomplishments. We’ve gone on a couple fun little tours so far together and haven’t broken up. At the end of day it’s a band about social reflection so that interactive connection of getting other people’s take on the music so it’s always a cool moment.

Matthew: it’s nice to have people after show and say “oh I haven’t seen people do that or have that much fun on stage since I was a kid, or in years, or since this band.” People are looking at our music and what we are doing and there is a nostalgic feeling or energy that is brought back to them. I think it’s an amazing accomplishment to have that connection with people.

David: We talked about why it’s special. For us it’s just us doing what we’re doing, It’s the matter of that generational gap of the old rockers and the new kids. There is also this feeling of tolerance and inclusion, of just being seen somewhere. Part of going to a show now is just having certain people see you and tweet about you. I’m just interested in a good time.

Ashley: So you mentioned that you’re going on tour, what’s the most stressful part about going on tour?

David: The most stressful part was finding ways to keep going. We all work 8 hours a day and you’re one activity is playing then you sleep and you drink a lot.

Matthew: The days off or feeling like you’re not just wasting your time out there.

David: Learning how to maximize your time. We don’t have an agent of a publicist so we are in full control of our time and there are some points of it where we should be doing more. That’s just hard shit though; it’s not really stressful.

Matthew: It’s a breeze being out there when you’re driving to a gig and it’s going to be a new show in a new city with new people and there is always something to look forward to. Maybe it’s stressful that you’ll always needing to be “on”. You don’t want to drink yourself on the road, we want to network and meet know people and remember them.

David: That’s the most stressful part; always making you’re sure you’re at your best. Finding ways to recover to clean slate. US we’re doing the same thing everything everyday but for those people who are just seeing us for that one day.  On a personal level to meet people and say I’m a stranger and you’re a stranger and at some point you might even want some space but it’s not fair to others. It’s not out of our control

Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who are nervous about starting out?

David: Don’t be nervous.

Matt: Yeah, just get out there and do it. You’ll find that once you’re on stage that nothing else matters all those things you were worried about don’t matter.

David: Be bad. Be the worst, you can only get better if you start out bad.

Matthew: Let yourself to be that too. Don’t expect you’re going to be a rock star right from the get go. My first show I got heckled with my first band. The first show we did outside of the basement. That experience was enough to be like “stop, I’m done.” But no, you want to get better and you want to prove those people wrong.

David: I’m so impressed when I see a bad who suck but they did it. They tried. I find that’s way more exhilarating than [a band] who has practiced for 10 years before finally taking the stage. Don’t perfect it. Work it out if it shows and really reflect at rehearsals. Try it out, if it doesn’t work out for a show and you’re cheeks burn red scrap it but if it works, you’re a better man.

Ashley: So what do you guys do to deal with nerves before a performance?

Matt: I don’t really get nervous anymore, I’ve been doing this for so long that it’s more the anxiety of wanting to play. It’s not that I’m scared of anything happening it’s that I just want to be on stage now; I want to be on stage where I feel comfortable.

David: I still get nervous on bigger shows. To be closer to the gear, to the stage, to the bartender or the sound guy, to feel the room that’s how I work through it. For the bigger show I’ll get nervous, it won’t be a crappy nervous where I’m sweating, it’s a nauseous nervous. I feel that’s a real strong energy that I can use to my advantage.

Matt: Yeah use it like adrenaline in a way and ride off it.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?

Matt: I really like the newer stuff. The foot we are stepping forward with, the new songs are really fun. Because we wrote them so quickly before getting into the studio just to get them out kind of the thing, I feel the songs are still evolving. What you hear of the album is just the first conception of them, us playing them live they are evolving and parts are becoming longer and things are getting cut, so things are really coming to life.

David: That’s the best to say, we’re always pumped to play the new material.

Ashley: How do you balance your music with your other obligations?

Matthew: Carefully

David: Yeah very carefully. You don’t have a social life. Your band and your art will make you very social. If you are partying all the time, you’re losing a lot of time. I have a radio show, I record that, I work at a restaurant and I do [music]. I do so fucking much. So managing your obligations, you knowing what you’re doing is important.  Continue to say, it’s important that I work toward this so you find the time. If you care about it you’ll find the time.

Matt: Music has always been a big priority of my life, as much as I tried to balance it with other things, the bands I’m in have kind of taken precedence in my life in a way. There is always for them. The jobs we have to do from 9 to 5 is more to fund the things I want to do after work. I work so I that I can be in a band, otherwise I’d be a starving musician that couldn’t afford to go on tour and wouldn’t have a vehicle. It’s impossible otherwise, I’ve tried working with musicians like that and it just doesn’t work.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Oct 19, 2015 at 5:49pm PDT

Support Winnipeg Band VAMPIRES!

Instruments: Voice, Piano and Guitar

Genres: Jazz and Folk

I met with Erin back in July shortly after the birth of her beautiful second daughter. We met in a Joe Black coffee shop and enjoyed some yummy lattes while she chatted about her musical experiences. Quickly into the interview I realized how much Erin and I were alike. Her honest and intimate answers were so revealing about how much in common our musical goals are. She talked about patience and making the right decisions when you’re ready (something that constantly frustrates me) and about and much more. I feel we really connected (I hope Erin feels the same way) after that afternoon together. I later listened to her music again on Soundcloud (link at the end of the article) and after hearing about where her inspiration came from, everything just clicked. I absolutely love her voice with its folk and jazz influences and the guitar accompaniment perfectly compliments her voice. Definitely super talented. 

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Ashley: Whenever you have a show? Are you contacting and hiring other musicians?

Erin:   I hire other people. For the most part I work with a guitarist and producer named Larry Roy. The music is ours, we write together so we are a duo. We go together. As much as I can when I’m out [working], I’ll work with Larry. Sometimes other people will hire me as a singer for their ensemble or group for whatever they are doing. I have occasionally, but not often because I focus so much of my time with Larry, I have done duo gigs with other people just to stretch myself and work with someone else and we’ll both contribute 50/50 to the music. Whether they are playing and I’m singing and who is choosing or writing the music.

Ashley: So, how long have you been singings?

Erin: My whole life, I’ve always loved to sing since I was little. I started taking lessons when I was twelve until I finished university when I was 27. I took piano lessons from age 6 to high school.

Ashley: So why did you make the decision to perform?

Erin: I have a lot of ‘youngest child’ qualities. There are four girls in my family and I am the third of four but I was the youngest child for nine years before my little sister was born so I always want to tell the funniest story at the family gathering. I want to do the funniest dance and everyone is going to watch me. I just want to be in front of people, it’s not because it doesn’t scare me because it always has and I get nervous all the time, but it was something I just felt I had to do. I felt I owed somebody and that I needed to be in front of people. I just liked it.

Ashley: How often are you practicing singing?

Erin: Right now, none at all except for when I’m singing the odd lullaby, usually just silly songs that my kids like. Otherwise before any gig I’m learning the music, I’ll practice a lot. I practice a lot because I’m a teacher as well. I teach voice lessons so I practice what I give my students that I assign them. That becomes practice time and then before a gig, any music I’m working on; I’ll spend sometime really going through that stuff. It depends how much time I’m working. If you see me working, you know I’m practicing. Right now I’m not working so I’m not practicing. I’m breastfeeding my brains out right now. That’s what I’m doing. [laughs]

Ashley: Who inspires your music both lyrically and melodically?

Erin: Lyrically, my own experience’s from life. I’m finding my music is becoming, when I get a chance to write, is very domestic sounding and which makes sense because that’s where I am. I’m at home, I’m in our yard, I go grocery shopping, I feed children and I wipe bums. The things I’m doing, I don’t write about wiping bums, but stories that revolved around home and around those small things that happen. Those subtle moments between couples that tell a lot more than what it would appear to be on the outside.  Hopes that I have for my children, looking at years to come. The things that I’ve written for our first album, in a way were 15 years in the making for me. A lot of things I wrote for it were written years ago in my life that just needed to come out at some point. They finally came out on my first album; they were older stories.

Lyrically my music comes from personal experience but I also find that I don’t have enough personal stories or experiences to make that many songs very interesting. So I borrow from other people’s stories as well. One of my songs is a little bit about me but is a lot about a friend of mine too. I combined our two life stories into it.

One of the songs on my album is about my sister, my parents and my grandparents; I put them all together in one song. One song is about Larry, I try to include his feelings lyrically when we work together.

A few years ago, I wrote a song for a friend who had experience a great lost and that was the first time that I wrote for someone who was new in my life. A story that was a little bit at arms length, I didn’t know them as well [as the members of my family]. That was a step away for me.

Musically; chords, harmony and rhythm, that one is always really hard. I do that so much with Larry. I will write a lot of harmony for our songs. Probably the more and more my songs are being influenced now by songs from my childhood. Those are the songs that are coming back to me as I sing to my kids when I’m staying at home. Irish folk songs are coming back to me. A lot of my melodies sound pretty folky, but I try to make the harmony more interesting that just G, C and D because that’s really boring to me. When I’m writing harmony for something I ‘ll look at jazz standards that I learned in university and ones that I didn’t learn that I’m just learning now and I’ll copy something that they do. I’ll look at their chord progressions or I’ll just forget about my lyrics and put them to a jazz standard or I’ll take a jazz standard and put lyrics based to that. I’ll take a 4-measure section of a tune that I like and I’ll take that out and I’ll try to write something over it or maybe I’ll change one chord in the configuration to make it original and try to come up with a new melody over that. 

Ashley: So what accomplishments are you most proud of?

Erin: I was really proud of graduating from university. That was a big deal for me. It was a big deal for me to go back, I was 24 when I started the degree. A lot of my friends that I grew up with got married young and had kids. I got married young but we weren’t thinking of having kids yet at the time so choosing to do a four-year degree was putting it off until I was almost 30. But I honestly wasn’t thinking about that at the time.

I think part of me thought I could never do it. I had quit a couple things in years previous. I started projects and quit them and I was starting to feel that maybe that’s what I was, that I was a quitter. So starting to that degree and committing to four years was something I thought I would never be able to do. It was very scary. I deal with fears that have nothing to with music, I have some general anxiety problems and just some other stuff going that go around in life that make it hard to be around people are finish something. So I’m really really proud of that accomplishment.

Doing the album with Larry, when I started my degree and I met him, I never would have guess that I work with anyone on faculty. It’s a big accomplishment that he chose me as a friend and as someone to work with and since I was a kid, dreaming of being able to put my music on something tactile and giving to people. People had been asking since I was 15 for a recording. It took until I was 28 or 29 to put it out there.  That was a really big deal. It was a long time coming. 

Ashley: So you took some time before you put something out there. What advice do you have for people who want to do music that don’t feel like they’re ready to get their music out or are too afraid?

Erin: For not being ready, I would say its okay to not be ready. Most of the world is not ready and you want to feel ready. It’s an expensive thing to do if you want to do it well and you want to do it right and it’s a lasting thing to do. You want to feel like you’re in a project, whether is a band or solo act or working with a certain producer, you want to feel like you’re putting your time and effort, your gift, your talent and your studies, and your money behind something that is worth your while. It is okay to not be ready. You make yourself ready. I had opportunities before this album with Larry, and there was always something that felt a little funny. I just wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted to put my name behind first. And I don’t regret those decisions. It felt frustrating at the time; I would think, ”maybe I should just do it.” Maybe it’s different for other people but that’s how it was for me. I wanted it to be really really good. Some people in my life have told me I take things too seriously and maybe that’s true. Maybe I take myself too seriously but it’s worked for me. To be a serious person and wait for good timing, I think that there is a lot of value in delayed gratification. Take your time, it’s okay.

As for being afraid, well that’s just something that a some point that you just need to choose that its what you want to do and get out there and do it. I’ve chosen not to do something that I didn’t want to do and I’m let myself down in different areas where I just decided, “nope I’m too scared to do it.” You don’t want to have those big regrets at the end. Or maybe you don’t care, maybe you don’t mind living with a little regret. I do. I have a few regrets in my life that I wish they weren’t there, that’s why they are regrets. At some point you just need to chose it, and if you need to go to counseling it’s totally find, [I’ve] been there and probably will be there again, or you just need to start small, like talking to people about it. Doing a small coffee house show and only inviting people you feel comfortable with. That’s fine! Do what you need to do. Or you need to jump in and do something crazy to get you started. Maybe something crazy to you is getting up a jam session, maybe crazy to you is signing up for a noon hour recital or something. Yeah! That’s pretty scary, but maybe you need to do that one crazy thing, fail and fall on your face, that’s okay. Or maybe you’ll be awesome. At some point you need to choose. It might be something small, it might be something crazy. 

Ashley: What do you do when dealing with nerves before a performance?

Erin: Well what I want to do just not talk to anybody. People want to be all chatty and gabby with you and I’m just like, “get away.” I want to think of my music, go through the lyrics and go through a couple trouble spots that I’m particularly nervous about. I’ll go through five-or-so spots in my set, “this is the place where I could totally screw up and the song would fall apart” so I got over that part mentally. I started to try to do this thing called “positive visualization” where you imagine yourself going through your whole set flawlessly. Get all the bad stuff out of there and imagine yourself doing it flawlessly. I don’t like to talk to people, I’ll just do that alone.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?

Erin: For the past two years or so in Larry and my set, my favorite song to do it Waters of March. It’s not even an original it a standard by Antonio Carlos Jobim. (Click here to hear what it sounds like!) It’s normally done in Portuguese but I haven’t tried to learn the Portuguese yet. There are so many words in it but we do based on an arrangement based on Cassandra Wilson. I love her band, she always has a great band. Her arrangements are almost always really cool. The groove that Larry plays with it is really cool and it’s intense at the same time and it’s beautiful and its fun.

Ashley: How to do you balance music with other obligations?

Erin: I’m learning. Right now I’m in phase where I have a newborn at home so it’s all about her. That’s all. It’s more of a mental balance that I have to remind myself every couple of days that this is what I’m meant to do right now. These are the choices I have made, I love her and it needs to be done. There is just nothing else. So that’s where I’m at [right now]. What we are planning is, she’s getting used to using a bottle now and now I can get out for a few hours in the evening and my husband can help out. I have never been someone whose want to gig multiple times a week just because I love to be at home and I love my kids and I love my husband and I want to be there. It takes a lot of planning. My obligations are my family so it’s just planning to make sure a kid is comfortable, breastfeeding and on the bottle so I can do rehearsals a couple times a week, do some studio time, finding really great babysitters and I have really great family to help out with that; and emotionally tearing myself away from my family once or twice a week to write and practice. I’m going to have to do that. I’m not there yet because she’s so young, but I’ll have to get there in the next couple of months. Making the choice to keep writing and sacrificing a few hours a week with my babies. I have to do that.  

Ashley: Do you feel that songwriters should have some sort of structured education for singing or do you think that as long as they are practicing everyday it’s okay?

Erin: I would really prefer to hear a voice that at least as the training over a voice that hasn’t.

Ashley: What do you hear when you listen to an untrained voice?

Erin: You can pick this stuff up when you have a good ear and listening to trained singers and figuring it out for yourself. You’ll hear a nasal tone, weird vowels and not that I don’t do weird vowels sometimes but there are some really weird vowels out there. You’ll hear people who really aren’t singing with their real voice yet because they don’t know how to breathe properly and it kills me. Not because that’s what I have to hear but that’s what they have to work with. They could be doing so much more. Just taking a couple lessons with somebody. I’ve had students that once they learn how to breathe properly, they sound completely different. Those kinds of things kind of drive me nuts. I think you can be a great singer without any formal training if you just have a good ear and are willing to get the best for yourself, then you’re going to reach out somehow. You’re going to figure it out somehow and that’s fine.

Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you’ve started working in the music business?

Erin: The first thing that came to mind is not what you want to hear so let me thinking of something else

Ashley: No I want to hear!

Erin: Okay, I was at a music conference and Steve Bell was asked to play there. He’s a very well known Christian artist and he’s a great singer and guitar player. Every year he does a show with the WSO and it sells out. He’s won lots of awards and he’s from Winnipeg. This high school student stood up and asked “Mr. Bell, what would you say if I said I was interested in going into music, what advice would you give me?” And Steve said, “If there is anything else that you can do, you should do that.” He’s [meaning] instead of music. He’s talking as a person who is in his second half of life who has worked hard, I don’t know him personally but I imagine he works hard, to raise and support a family and he probably had things and lost things and had things and lost things and there is so much more stability in another career. You’d have to ask him specially why he said that but I found it very interesting and very honest. It makes you honestly look at yourself and what you want out of life. Do you want to buy a new blouse every week and go on a snowboard trip every winter and have a new car every 10 years or have a car? Do you want to not share an apartment with somebody? Do you want to not rely on sharing a rental space with someone? Then [music might not be] the route for you; you have to look at what kind of lifestyle you want and what expectations you have for your life.

The other best bit of advice or just statement that I heard was probably back in university and Steve Kirby said to someone in our class, “You don’t even know what your don’t know.” That has meant to a lot me. It’s meant a lot to me about humility, of not going into a situation assuming I know where everyone is coming from or that I know much about music at all. I have to assume that I can get something in any situation from other people that are positive things. That other people have wisdom to share from me. Instead of going and assuming that I’m the one who has the wisdom and that works everywhere in life. 

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Oct 4, 2015 at 3:06pm PDT

Support Winnipeg Musician Erin Propp!

Instruments: Drums, Bass, Guitar, Keyboard, Voice (and some flute)

Genres: Danceable Lap Pop, LoFi Silly Songs, New Wave, Acid Jazz, Grunge and More

Joel Klaverkamp is the mastermind behind the varying styles of beefdonut. After a short and sweet introduction and interview, I could immediately tell he is a relaxed and laid back dude. His musical CV is all across the map when it comes to genres and musical styles so the best thing you can do it check out his soundcloud and hear them for yourself. I promise you won’t be disappointed! 

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Ashley: Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

Joel: I’ve played for a long time in the Winnipeg music scene. I played bass in Skingerbreadman and bass in The Hummers. I also played keyboard in Drums and Wires and I played guitar and everything with beefdonut which is sort of just me and my songwriting. I also play drums for people like A La Mode and Boats.

Ashley: So where did the name come from?

Joel: I worked at HMV a long time ago and I worked with a friend of mine who brought donuts from sears and they tasted like they were deep fried in oil that had deep fried beef so it had this disgusting flavor to it. We started calling them ‘beef donuts’ and later on I thought it would be a pretty good name so I took it.

Ashley: How often are you practicing your instruments? 

Joel: The correct answer is not often enough, but it also ebbs and flows. Lately I’ve been practicing drums a lot more because A La Mode was preparing for Real Love summer fest and a show at the Handsome Daughter. It all depends on which gig is coming on. I am mostly practicing for shows three times a week.

Ashley: What is a practice or jam session like with the band?

Joel: It depends on the project, if its very collaborative it’s very magical. I try to respect that magic and allow it to happen and that’s one of the main reasons I play. If it’s not collaborative, if it’s someone else saying theses are the parts or if I’m saying these are the parts it tends to be not as magical and a bit more technical. You have to actually figure out their vision or you have to try to communicate your vision [to others] so it’s less just “letting it happen.”

Ashley: And with beefdonut, how do you perform your music? Do you do it solo or do you book musicians?

Joel: It depends, we played at Graffiti Gallery and it was a whole new line up. I got flute synth parts, electric guitar, backing vocals and percussion, synth and drums and it’s got a bigger band and dance focus. The last record I did was very grunge rock themed where there are very little dynamics. It was a four piece [set-up]. Before that I have done performances alone with laptops but I don’t really like that; I’ve also had guitar loops solo shows where I’ve had a guitar loop pedal and play. It can be whatever. I’ve also done a lot of recording for sound track work mostly for modern dance shows so a lot of the times I’ll be live mixing that while the show is going so the sections all match up with each other. It really depends.

Ashley: What is the most stressful part about being a musician?

Joel: I’m really easy going and relaxed in general so there really isn’t anything that stresses me out about music that I can think of. For me, that’s the fun part.

Ashley: Then who inspires your music?

Joel: That changes a lot. Currently I’m really inspired by Goat and Thee Oh Sees although if I had to pick, in the past I would have said Bjork or Prince. But now I would have to say James Murphy. The stuff he makes is just perfect in my mind. If you were to break it down into actual quantifiable metrics, thearrangement of the song, the tones of the instruments, the lyrics, the melodies and everything about what he does is matched in my DNA for music.

Ashley: So then what is your songwriting process?

Joel: I don’t have one. Nope, I just sit down and let them come out. I don’t think of them as coming from me.

Ashley: Is it what’s in the your head and you put it out there? 

Joel: Yes the music will usually come to me, usually on the bus, and I’ll write down the words I’ll hear. I’ll try to keep the melody in my head until I’m near an instrument and try to figure it out. Usually by then it’s somewhat changed or I don’t get it exactly right.

Ashley: Would you say your music is more lyrically or melody based?

Joel: Oh definitely not lyrically based. Although a lot of times the music will start with one lyric or one phrase that comes into my head and it will have a melody attached to it already and I’ll just build on that.

Ashley: What accomplishments with beefdonut are you most proud of?

Joel: I recently won an award for ‘Best Music for a Short Film’ that was in a film festival. The film is called Alice and Kevin; it’s a really touching movie, really well done. It’s about a mom and her son and the son has I believe its cerebral palsy; basically he has special needs and she lives on a reserve with him and she’s not getting the same level of health care that she would get if she lived in the city. She’s filed a human rights claim and she’s just found out she has cancer and has a limited amount of time to live. She feels that if she’s gone then he’s not going to get the proper care to live without her. It’s a very powerful story and it’s true. It’s a documentary. I didn’t even know it was in festivals and I got a check in the mail and it said ‘Best Music’ from the Nanaimo Arts Council.

Although that said, that would be for beefdonut. For other projects I’ve been in, I’ve been doing [music] for a long time but playing at Folk Fest with The Hummers in 2007 was probably the highlights. We went on we were supposed to play for maybe an hour long set but we ended up playing from 3:00am to sunrise. There were just thousands and thousands of people, it was a lot of fun.

Ashley: What’s your favorite song to perform?

Joel: My favorite song to perform is Signs of Seasons. I also really like performing with Robo Jam; which is a band I play drums in. We have a lead vocalist/dancer and a keyboard player and we use prerecorded loops and a software that generates music and it’s a lot of fun. It’s very theatrical and we all dress up like robots. It’s a high-energy band and the crowd reaction is pretty good.

Ashley: How do you balance with your other obligations?

Joel: I don’t do anything else. I work and I have a family and I have music. I’ve never seen an episode of Breaking Bad and I miss out on all those pop culture references. I work with a lot of people who reference shows that I’ll never get around to watching. I probably won’t see anything until I’m 70 and I’m in my hospital bed and I have nothing else to do but watch them. Hopefully I’ll be mentally fit to understand them.

Ashley: Since you’ve started working with people, what’s the best advice you’ve heard since you started as a musician that has stuck with you and helped you with your music career?

Joel: [I would say] I try to be, as much as I can, a person in the music scene. The music community in Winnipeg is pretty wonderful and pretty open. Anyone can get in there, just start going to shows and you can start being [one of those people] that are part of the community. For me, I try to go to as many local shows as I can, listen to their stuff in the car and the Internet radio. For me everything it gears towards that. What I’m talk about is just support. I try to support the music scene as much as I can in confidence that it will be reciprocated. The people who come out to see me play are the people I go out and see play.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Sep 24, 2015 at 11:15am PDT

Support Winnipeg Musician beefdonut!

Instruments: Guitar and Voice

Genres: Pop, R&B

Infusing soul into vocals with jazzy chords into a pop song structure, Maxine has a ton of feelings to share and uses music as a way to express herself and connect with other people. Her honesty in her music leaves a relatable feeling that tells you she’s singing her message from the heart. Maxine and I hung out on her balcony and chatted as she did her makeup for work later that night. It was a lot of fun spending a relaxing afternoon with her in the warm summer air. She talked about all her hard work on her upcoming single and experience as a songwriter and performer.

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Ashley: How long have you been playing?

Maxine: Well [I’ve been] singing always. When I was really little, like four or five years old, my parents would have me sing in church all the time. I would go up [on stage] and do solos in my little church dress and hats with no fear. As I grew a little bit older and grew very shy. I was very academically focused and did really good in high school. [Music] was this secret love of mine. I only started playing guitar when I was 18, a friend of mine got me a guitar because he believed in me and knew I had this secret love for singing. From then on I started writing with a guitar and then I went to college I finally admitted to myself that [music] is what I wanted to do with my life and have been pursuing it ever since then.

Ashley: How often are you playing or practicing at home?

Maxine: Practicing? I find that at this point I am so busy gigging, I have a lot of things that just keep me up to practice. I find that I’m not practicing as much as I used to when I was in college or when I was taking voice lessons. These house gigs I have are great places to try out new songs and make sure I stay in practice, as long as I’m doing it in a weekly or biweekly basis. That keeps me up to speed on a lot of things. Otherwise, I don’t have a lot of time. If I’m at home, I’m songwriting.

Ashley: What are house performances?

Maxine: By house gig I mean I have a regular gig there.

Ashley: Have you toured before?

Maxine: I went to a music school in Nashville and when I was there we went on a tour collectively; but I haven’t done a solo tour. I’ve traveled around to Toronto and some places in the states but I haven’t done a full-fledged tour.

Ashley: What would be the most stressful thing about planning or getting ready to tour?

Maxine: Booking is tough in outside markets, especially when you are doing it alone and trying to sell somebody on yourself. It’s definitely easier when you have somebody else booking for you. Being an unknown and reaching out to a market that doesn’t know you is the toughest part. In Winnipeg, I feel like I have decent handle the regular big gigs I want to book. Everybody is connected here so I find that if I want to get in touch with somebody I can. They won’t necessarily book me but I find it easier in touch with people rather than going to Toronto who would prefer your agency to book you and you don’t have an agency.

Ashley: What you recommend for people who want to book shows in Winnipeg?

Maxine: It depends what kind of shows you want to book. Once I have new music to market myself, I want to push for playing bigger gigs and festivals. Right now I’m playing smaller patios and such. For that, I just found contacts with managers at different bars, etc. For festivals, I’d say the more musicians you know the better. Even getting booked as an opening act at the park theatre or West End. The more friends you make, the better. Go to Manitoba music events, work your ass off, follow people online and connect with them. Try to write with them and things like that. If you have that rapport and your genres work together, why wouldn’t you want to work together?

I’d say try having someone vouch for you for festivals, unless you know the organizers yourself. Sometimes it just looks better to have someone else; if you have an agent that is awesome or a manager, or if you have somebody who can play that role for you.

Ashley: Who inspires your music when you are writing or performing?

Maxine: There is this girl I’m currently obsessed with lately, everybody knows it, her name is Tori Kelly, she is the love of my life. She is doing something very similar to what I want to be doing. She writes from the heart, which I love. I also love Lauren Hill she’s amazing! I love Top 40 too. People knock on pop music all the time, but I love pop song structure. Styles like Katy Perry and Taylor swift; I love taking that and infusing it with jazz and soul.

Ashley: What is your songwriting process?

Maxine: I’m not going to lie I need to do more co-writing; I don’t do a lot of it. I usually write by myself. I like to start by writing before I go to bed if I have some thoughts in my head. I have to feel like I have something to say. I’ll usually write the lyrics separately and a lot of the time I’ll just let go of whatever is inside me. When you are writing you have to turn off your editor at first. You can turn it on later to make the song the best it can be but at the beginning during the creative process you just need to let yourself be as free as possible. I like to just write and write and never let myself think something is too wrong to write. I’ll usually take a section or a line or two lines and later when I’m playing guitar I’ll come up with a riff and whatever that riff is I’ll find some sort of melody to go with it. I’ll try to infuse the two together and build other lyrics around that. I’d say my music is very rhythmic based. 

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Maxine: In 2013 I won a songwriting contest for a single of mine called Shame On Me with the Manitoba Songfest. It was really nice as a writer because I’m primarily a singer and it was great to be acknowledged that way.

What’s really cool and recent is that I opened Nick Carter and the Pyramid. That was a lot of fun! The demographic was exactly what I want to be playing for.

Also, I was with a bunch of artists about a year and half ago playing a fundraising show at the Burton Cummings Theatre. It was with all these other local artists. On that stage I did a song solo and did two songs with a beat boxing friend of mine. Being alone on that giant stage, it’s such an iconic stage, it was such a big moment for me.

Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who are nervous about starting out?

Maxine: I would say when it comes to being on stage and getting over nerves you have to throw yourself into it and know that it’s going to get better. I find with nerves that often half way through the first song you’ll find that you’re going to be okay. It’s going to be all right and you are going to get less nervous as you do it.

Also when songwriting, don’t be afraid to suck and know that you’re going to write a lot of shit. Most people write a lot and take what’s good and you edit that to make it the best version of itself. Not everything you’re going to write is going to be gold and you have to be okay with that. I know people that have told me that they have tried to write and they say, “everything I write is just so cheesy.” You don’t need to worry about that right now and just keep writing. The greatest songwriters are not writing hits every single moment. They are writing a lot and they take from that lot and edit it down.

[You also need] to network. The better your know yourself as an artist and a band the easier it is to stay true to yourself, to market yourself and sell yourself when you are in the world.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?

Maxine: I have two songs, one that I open every show with and one that I close every show with. One is called Better that’s the one I’m recording it right now and I’ll close every show with it. I open with I just want to love you. They are both really upbeat jams with pop chorus. I feel like they optimize what I do so those are my favorite. You have to have your opening and closing songs down pat for sure, they have to be killer.

Ashley: What is the process to get started to record a single? Did you have to apply for funding?

Maxine: I’ve applied for grants in the past and did not get accepted for them. The current producer I work with, he is fantastic, has been helping me out. I got connected through a DJ friend of mine, so we sat down and I played him a bunch of songs and he was really into what I do and he wanted to help me out.

Ashley: How did you decide which song to pick for your single? How did you know the song was ready to be set in stone through recording?

Maxine: I’d say the latest song you’ve written is always your favorite one but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best one. Sometimes you have to let them sit for a month and play it for people that you trust too. Have them tell you if you need to tweak some things. For a single it has to be a very specific type of song and I just had that feeling for this one song of mine. I feel like it could have a good mainstream feel and I love what I’m saying in it. As long as it’s got the marketability along with heart connection, I think that’s a good balance.

Ashley: What’s the best advice since you’ve started working in the music business that has just stuck with you?

Maxine: One of my Profs in Nashville said ‘the audience isn’t always right but they never lie.’ The audience is going to react the way they are going to react, they may not be right but they are always telling you their truth. I think that’s something to keep in mind. Think about that when you are out online or at shows, you don’t have to take everybody’s advice but they are going to tell you what they think is true. 

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Sep 17, 2015 at 7:46pm PDT

Support Local Singer-Songwriter Maxine Peters!

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Canada Day 2015 in front of Music Trader on Osborne. Photo Credit: Kelly Hughes

Beth's Instruments: Bass and Lead Vocals

Trevor's Instruments: Guitar and Lead Vocals

Grant's Instruments: Synthesizer, Piano, Guitar and Vocals

Roger's Instruments: Drums and Vocals

Genres: Alternative Pop Rock

I first heard the name Autumn Still when I attended a Music Works workshop through Manitoba Music. Beth and Roger were both attending and the band name stuck in the back of my mind. A few months later when I started the #WinnipegMusicProject and started contacting Winnipeg Bands, I still remembered the name Autumn Still. I was delighted when I got a response from Trevor and we set up a time to meet after a band's jam session. Trevor, Grant, Roger and Beth are such incredible people. Not only are they confident (and rightly so) in their sound and instruments, but they are genuinely the nicest people. They gave me so much wonderful advice that I can't wait to apply to my own musical career. I tried really hard to include the humour in this interview obvious and remain honest with portraying everyone's personalities. These people are so closely knit and a perfect match, I really wanted to express the relationship they all share together.

I'm excited to announce Autumn Still will be releasing their highly anticipated full-length album later this year in early November! They are going to be having their release part at The Good Will Social Club so follow them on social media accounts (links at the end of the interview) to stay tuned to when the exact date with be announced! Afterwards they will have plans for a Ontario and Quebec Tour! Check these guys out! 

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Ashley: How long have you been playing your instruments?

Trevor: For me, forever I guess. I have been playing guitar since I was 10 or 11, so a long time.

Beth: I had actually just picked up the bass 4 or 5 years ago. Maybe even less actually, when this project started to become an idea. Actually, probably more like 2 to 3 years ago; before that I played guitar. The bass really connected with me, it feels like comfort food. It’s nice to have this instrument close to your belly with these nice low vibrations [laughs]. It’s the first instrument that felt natural to me.

Grant: I’ve been always been fooling around. I’ve been playing piano since I was 6 but very badly, and I started to playing guitar at 14 but very badly. I played synthesizer for a couple years but only since I started [playing in] bands have I taken it seriously.

Roger: I’ve always been able to kind of played drums for a long time but I never actually played played drums until a year and a half ago.  Beth and Trevor were trying to find a drummer and I just said “Hey, I can kind of play drums for the EP” so music can get pushed out there and I just stuck. My style of new drumming fits really well, I think. I haven’t been playing drums for very long but music I have been playing for a long time.

Ashley: How long have you guys been playing together?

Beth: Well Trevor and I had been tossing ideas back and forth 2 and a half years ago and then eventually we were like “we should start a band.” It was a slow progression and things slowly fell into place. We had been playing live shows since last august and that’s when we started putting ourselves out there.

Trevor: Yeah, I think it was a definite marking point. Our first show was a three piece, Beth, Roger and [myself], at the Fringe festival last year (2014). That was about a year ago now…

Beth: Aw it’s our one-year anniversary!

Ashley: So where does the band name come from?

Beth: That came from an intensive brainstorming session between Trevor and I. We were struggling and thought a band name would just magically come up. We did this stream of consciousness, throwing out different things and ideas that pertained to our music. Autumn and Still just came together that way, I guess. It has several different meaning but for both of us. Autumn is our favorite season; it’s when we feel most creatively alive and we can sit down and write.

Ashley: So how often are you practicing together and being a band?

Beth: Well we get together twice a week typically to jam but now a days we are getting into recording our album (now scheduled to release this November 2015! =D) so things are getting really intensive. I guess we have to see each other so much now [laughs].

Grant: [Rolls eyes] make a note that I rolled my eyes at that!

Trevor: We are essentially recording our first full-length album over the course of the summer. We’re going to be stepping it up.

Ashley: So what is a practice or jam session like? Like what is happening?

Beth: Well usually it depends on the practice. We try to be sort of strategic with selecting two or three things that we want to hone in on per practice and that’s what we do. [Before a show] we play through the set and clean things up a bit and things like that. It’s structured yet loose.

Trevor: It depends what stage a song is in. In our last practice we devoted a lot on our last song.

Beth: Yeah, and that’s all we will do for that night.

Ashley: Do you bring a finished song in? Or do you figure it out together on the spot?

June 18, 2015 @ The West End Cultural Centre with The Wooden Sky. Photo Credit: KJ Photography

Beth: Typically Trevor and I toss ideas back and forth first. We have done more things where we co-write. Trevor will have this guitar riff with a melody idea and I put some lyrics on it or something like [that]. I might have a song and Trevor creates some beautiful guitar overtop. It’s really different from song to song. Once we feel like an idea has come to then we bring it into the band and ask, “What do you want to do with this?” We try to let everyone put their own personal spin on things. It’s not like we are saying, “This is what we want exactly like this” we don’t prewrite the parts for people or something like that.

Ashley: So then are you saying your music is more lyrically or melodically driven?

Trevor: I can’t say that as a band we have discussed this a whole lot, but I feel my personal point of view is that the lyrics and the melody are just intertwined and you can’t really avoid that connection. I think that when it comes to songwriting we spend a lot of time on lyrics and we worry about lyrics a lot and try to make sure it sounds just right. I guess in that sense you could say you we have a strong lyrical focus but we spend a lot of time on melodies and vocal arrangement as well. As far as a concert answer, I don’t know.

Beth: Yeah I don’t know [either], I agree that lyrics often drive melody or melody drives lyrics. It’s hard to say which one comes before the other. When I write a song often, for me anyways, it is a set of lyrics. I write whatever dribbles out of my head and I’ll hear a melody in that or I’ll see something that can become a song. You could do a little tweaking to help it fit a melody.

Trevor: It’s cool that everyone involved, because of our own experiences, that we have a really good sense of melody and how the arrangement can support that. It’s definitely that the whole vocal thing is a primary consideration.

Grant: Beth and Trevor write the Autumn Still songs but all four of us are songwriters.

Ashley: Have you two ever brought something to work with?

Grant: We have not yet but sometimes a song from another project will make it’s way into the band. We were thinking about that for the album.

Beth: I don’t think we are thinking about that anymore though.

[Group Laughter]

Grant: Well okay. It was thought of.

Roger: I think my writing would be very different then what you guys are doing, what we are doing with Autumn Still.  Not by a lot but a little bit. To be honest, I really like that I’m playing drums and I don’t have to worry too much. I think that it’s the instrument that I’m focusing on and every time they bring a song I can go “Okay what can sound good with this song and with how can I play it” and it’s neat like that.

Beth: Yeah, and we never set it out to make it a dictator ship or something-

Roger: and it doesn’t feel like [that]

Beth: it has always been [Trevor and I’s] project and vision. Some people have had experiences where they are in this situation when there are too many cooks in the kitchen, the vision gets lost or gets crazy.

Grant: I think we are very fortunate to have a really good sense of what our roles are in the band and our hands are all full with what our roles are.

Roger: Exactly.

Ashley: So what is the most stressful part about being in a band?

[Group Laughter]

Trevor: You’re asking a band that just got back from tour not too long ago!

Roger: Honestly, the most stressful part is the business side of things, the logistics parts of things. Right now we are setting up to record and we need to figure out the funding-

Beth: the bureaucratic process.

Roger: Yeah. Rehearsing, that’s amazing. Playing shows is awesome. Going on tour is awesome because a lot of that [business] stuff just fades away into the background. You just go and play and it’s awesome. I don’t even do that much of it, I know these guys do it a lot more. I do more on the recording side of things but I find it stressful. It’s the part when I was fifteen I didn’t know about. I just loved playing music.

Trevor: It’s kind of funny. From my point of view this band is the band I’ve dreamed of being in for a long time. I’ve been in other projects in the past and you know the most stressful aspect is sometimes just getting into the same room together. We don’t have that problem. I agree the most stressful aspect isn’t the creative end, or the interpersonal end, it’s just hoping that this music that we are so proud of gets out there enough and people are hearing it. There are things you have to do to make that happen and it’s a lot of work.

Grant: As an introvert, it’s always a struggle to put yourself out there. Being on stage is one thing, but any other interpersonal stuff is a big drain. Finding that balance between doing what I need to and doing what I need to restore my selfhood is my biggest struggle.

June 18, 2015 @ The West End Cultural Centre with The Wooden Sky. Photo Credit: KJ Photography

Beth: I’m with you on that. I find that performing is not something that comes naturally to me. Depending on the day, I’d rather just curl up in a hole and hide under the covers. I feel like I’m growing as a performing and proud of that. I enjoy finding the enjoyment in it! With all the fear that leads up to it, it’s nice to get that “okay this is why people do this” [feeling]. It’s not totally frightening.

Grant: Once the worse thing that can possibly happen to you happens when you are on stage, you feel liberated.

Beth: I don’t know, I still haven’t been pantsed.

Grant: Well, all you had to do was ask, Bethany. 

[Group Laughter]

Ashley:  Who inspires your music? Who do you listen to that really listens your songwriting process?

Grant: Leonard Conan, right?

[Group Laughter]

Beth: Well I’m a big Leonard fan but I think this is always a tough question because we have so many diverse influences that are sort of all over the map. It’s always tough to say. We don’t really have this muse that we filter or emulate or something like that. I’m sure influences sneak into it, I’m always curious to hear what other people hear in our music or what they would compare it to.

Ashley: So far with Autumn Still, what accomplishments are you most proud of?

Beth: For me, [I always have wanted to tour] with a musical project of mine, so getting the first tour done felt like a great accomplishment to me.

Grant: [Touring has] been a dream of mine since I was 18.

Trevor: For me, it’s been awhile since this point, but putting out or first EP because there was this big process behind that when we worked [on it] for so long. We worked for quite awhile on those three songs, we got to a point that you’re [almost] terrified to put it out there [because] it’s so important and special to you. At that point, we finished recording it that summer and then started performing. It was great when it came out too; we got a lot of positives responses. You only thought about making it as good as possible and people were responding to it and that was really great.

Beth: It all feels likes baby steps leading up to this album. It’s going to feel so good I just can’t even conceive it right because there is so much to do.  Roger is a very talented recording technician so he works for us a lot of the time.

Trevor: He recorded our Ep.

Beth: Yeah and he’ll be a huge part in recording our album along with Jay Reilly who will be mixing it and stuff like that. That will feel really good to have that in our hands.

Ashley: About going on tour, who made that decision? Who planned it?

Roger: I think the decision was already made when we were doing the EP. Because honestly way earlier on there was talk of touring, it was really really early.

Trevor: We knew for sure that it was going to happen. I guess you could say I planned most of it and booked the shows. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t too difficult, because we had the amazing luck and got such a good response from the EP. Especially Ottawa and Toronto and Windsor. We had people actually playing the EP and giving us a lot of promo.

Ashley: And how did you start with that? Did you approach venues first? What was the process?

Trevor: I reached out to venues and to local bands in those cities [at the same time]. We had our general idea planned early on and it was just filling in the blanks. Essentially we are a band that was fairly new that put out our new EP fairly recently so we didn’t have that cache we can just walk into the city and get a great show. It was a bit of a mismatch; we got help from some bands and venues locally too. We actually got a lot of support from people on that tour.

Beth: Grant went on Reddit.com and found people in different cities to put up posters.

Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who are starting to record an EP who want to get their music out there?

Trevor: I would say personally that anybody that is trying to start out should just focus on the music first and foremost. It’s the most important thing and then worry about the whole business side that we talked about being so stressful. Make sure you are actually making music you actually love.

Grant: Another part is the recording of it, which is a super important element that allowed us to propel ourselves without a lot of resources besides with that we had. If we couldn’t have recorded it ourselves we would pretty much have been dead in the water.

June 18, 2015 @ The West End Cultural Centre with The Wooden Sky. Photo Credit: KJ Photography

Roger: Well there are other ways, right? If people don’t have somebody that can record them, basically you start playing shows before you start recording.

Beth: Set little tiny goals for yourself. If you’re starting from scratch and you have your songs together, take the time to find the right people to work with. Once you have that together, which can take some juggling and thought, then actually lay out a little timeline. This is when we want to play our first show. Be kind to people and humble. Be willing to stretch yourself a little bit, and be curious and talk to different musicians in the city. You’ll find your way if you reach out to that community. I mean there are also assholes and you [just need to talk to someone else].

Ashley: What do you do to deal with nerves before a performance?

Beth: We have little band rituals that help like deep breathing sessions in the bathroom. We also do a little vocal warm up too which always feel good because it shakes out the weird tension and it sounds okay. It’s kind of like a band bonding experience.

Grant: It must look super hokey because we stand in a circle and our eyes are probably shut and, if anyone is like me, we are swaying gently back and forth. But it’s a good way to remind yourself that we all have something in common which is the ability to make beautiful music together. That’s what the vocal warm-up means to me.

Roger: I keep myself busy.

Grant: By hurting yourself?

[Group Laughter]

Ashley: What does that mean?

Roger: I’ve have the worst luck this past month. On tour I almost broke my toe. I got back and I split thumb open, four stitches.

Beth: It was right before a big show.

Roger: I had to drum with this thumb and the worse flu I had had in years. [Also] on my birthday I sprained my ankle. It’s just ridiculous. But actually before a show I literally keep myself busy and I normally don’t get nervous. Or I’ll nap.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?

Beth: I feel like if there was any song that I wasn’t excited to play, it wouldn’t be in our set.

Roger: Yeah, I like playing all of them.

Grant: I joined the band after these guys had recorded the debut EP and there is a song on the EP called Bartholomew and if I’m totally honest that’s the main reason I joined the band. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard and there are these beautiful harmonies at the end of it and I feel really privileged to be able to sing those parts. We just recorded a video for it a couple months ago and it’s the single off the EP. (CHECK OUT BARTHOLOMEW HERE)

Ashley: What was the inspiration for Bartholomew?

Beth: I guess it’s about my own struggles with communication and social anxiety and all of those things. At the time I wrote it, I was also going through a creative rut. The lyrics are a little stream of consciousness and dealing with my frustrations always having to speak within these binaries and blah blah blah and I felt like I couldn’t communicate the way I wanted to and wanting to connect with people in a meaningful way and how it’s always combative. It’s about vulnerability, being exposed and feeling vulnerable.

Grant: You mean it’s not about Bart Simpson?!

[Group Laughter]

Ashley: How are you balancing your music and the band with other obligation with working and paying bills?

Grant: Sleep less!

Beth: I really wanted to make music a center part of my life so I pursued a career that would help me do that. I’m a massage therapist and my schedule at work is pretty flexible. I tried to set up my life that it would be accommodating to making music and that I’m not working a soul killing 9-5 kind of deal. That was not working, I felt the least creative when I was doing stuff like that.

June 18, 2015 @ The West End Cultural Centre with The Wooden Sky. Photo Credit: KJ Photography

Roger: I’m kind of like Bethany in a way; I fix musical instruments so my hours are somewhat flexible as long as I put the hours in. You know, it’s a big struggle. You just do it. It comes down doing it and lots and lots of scheduling. Sticking to the schedule and actually having a plan ahead of time and making sacrifices.

Ashley: What is the best advice you have heard since you started working in the music business, something that has just stuck with you? 

Trevor: For me, it’s the advice that I earlier regurgitated that you have to play what you love. I think its super important. That’s where it starts and ends.

Roger: I don’t remember who, but I just remember someone at some point was like “Don’t be a dick.” Go to shows and don’t be an ass. I think that with the four of us, it’s kind of nice being in a band that you walk in and you know that none of your band members are going to be an asshole to everyone around you. It sucks [when that happens] and that’s one of the biggest things. People won’t want to deal with you, it doesn’t matter if your music is great, but if you are an asshole they aren’t going to invite you back.

Grant:  I heard it from James Mercy, if you are afraid of something that you have done or something you’re going to do; it’s something that you should follow or at least pay special attention to it. That fear means you’ve touched into something that is sensitive and that works in a couple ways. You’re either going to step outside your boundaries a bit which is going to lead you to a new wealth of experience or it’s something to share with others which is going to lead you to find some commonalities with the rest of the world. It’s liberating to smash through that boundary and to follow that sort of trepidation and turn it into a positive.

Beth: If you feel there isn’t a place for you then carve your own path, whatever way possible. Things don’t always have to look a certain way for you to have space in the world. By being your own awkward self, just keep being your own awkward self and deal with the crap that comes with it, you’ll have to anyway. If you want to be a performer, you just have to do it in a [louder] way. If you’re doing something you love to do, you’ll be doing it anyway so embrace the awkwardness.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Sep 11, 2015 at 6:28am PDT

Support Winnipeg Band Autumn Still!

If you want to hear the advice from Autumn Still on how to record your music or get funding, like this post! There was just so much to fit into this interview that I couldn't fit it all in; but if you want to hear some really great information about making the decision or record and apply for funding, show this post some love!

Click the like button down below!

Photo Credit: Janine Kropla

Genres: Folk, Roots inspired

Instruments: Guitar, Banjo, Harmonica Voice

Carly and I met in the Riding Mountain National Park earlier this summer and enjoyed the wonderful weather. She was incredibly sweet and kind and I was so excited to interview her. Carly’s beautifully crafted lyrics are excellently complimented with sweet melodies. I personally love her new album Ingrained,  which you should definitely check out if you want to have a wonderful true folk experience. 

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Ashley: How long have you been playing?

Carly: I have been playing for about 10 or 11 years now and I have been writing my songs for a few years less than that. I started writing my own songs when I was 16 or 17; it’s hard to remember [an exact date]. I have been playing in various bands for years but this is my first plunge into the solo stuff.

Ashley: Why did you decide to start making and performing music solo?

Carly:  It was kind of the situations where I just had to (laughs). I was playing in a band, a trio, for a couple years and we were quite serious; but it didn’t end up working out, we all went out separate ways. I had to keep playing music so I had a whole bank of songs that I wanted to get out into the world and I figured ‘I have to do this, so why not?’ It’s been really liberating in a way, it’s been a good push to explore that side of music.

Ashley: How often are you practicing your instruments?

Carly: It depends; I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a player at this point. I’m always aiming to get better at my instruments, I try to pick it up once a day and at least practice scales. It doesn’t always work out because other things get in the way but that’s one thing I’d really like to get better at: becoming a [better] player on the guitar, I feel more comfortable on the banjo. Sometimes the time isn’t there, especially when you’re songwriting as well. [Songwriting’s] my main focus, a lot of my time goes into that.

Photo Credit: Joey Senft

Ashley: What inspires your music?

Carly: A lot of my surroundings inspire my music. Whether it’s my natural surroundings or the people around me, things I’ve observed or stories I’ve heard from other people. I find the most common theme is the nature world; it seeps into most of my songwriting.  I live in the woods now and my whole life I’ve grown up admiring nature and being inspired by it so it’s kind of natural that that would happen.

Ashley: Is there anyone you listen to?

Carly: I think probably my main musical influences have been kind of along the Gillian Welch strain of really lyrically driven songwriters. Also I really love specifically Hunter Hunter by Amelia Curran, I haven’t really listen to any of her newer stuff but that album really drew me in. Just in Winnipeg alone, there are so many artists that inspire me and continue to. It’s just amazing. I really love Scott Nolan’s work. Richard Inman is kind of an emerging artist that is really good; he’s worth checking out. The Crooked Brothers, obviously, they co-produced [my] album. I really love the sounds they get on their albums and their ability to draw them out of certain spaces and instruments.

 Ashley: What is your songwriting process?

Carly:  It actually varies quite a bit. Sometimes I’ll sit with a batch of poems and start with words first and kind of play with the music [and melody] afterwards. Often I just sit down with my guitar and nothing in mind and work out a melody and chord structure first then words come later. Depending on the song, some just come out and they are done and it takes 5 minutes, while some need a lot of tweaking so it can take months to finish a song.

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Photo Credit: Janine Kropla

Carly: I’m really proud of this album. I’m really really grateful for the opportunity to play these songs and sing them and get them into people’s homes and hearts. It’s been a real challenge at times for me to take the reins as the leader of this project. I’m so used to having a collaborative situation where I’m in a band and a lot of other people are involved so I’m just really proud of myself how much I’ve grown creatively through the process. [I’m] proud all of the work that’s gone into it and how well it’s been doing and how well it’s been received. It’s really exciting. It’s kind of crazy.

Ashley: What is the most stressful part about going on tour?

Carly:  The admin side of all of it is quite time consuming and stressful at times. The booking, the tours, the PR, I’ve been doing it all independently at this point and it’s just a lot of work. It’s a lot of time on the computer and staring at the screen and on the phone. It’s all together not enjoyable but it’s all part of it and it’s put you in contact with the venue owners and you get to know people a little better that way. It all worked out really well considering I don’t have tons of experience with it.

Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who are nervous about starting out?

Carly: Just do it! Just do it. It’s daunting and there is a lot about it that can turn you off but you just have to go for it if that’s really what you want to do. There are a lot of things, like the costs and the time, that can be really scary at first but there are a lot of different ways to put music out into the world these days and if you are limited in finances you can find a way to just record a single or a record it digitally and put it out that way. There are lots of options. If you’re passionate about it, I think you should just go for it.

It takes a certain amount of drive to want to do it because it’s scary. For me, someone who has always had a full-time job and financial security, I can understand how it can be a little nerve wracking to just dive into this thing that is so uncertain and so variable. You can always go back to a job if you find that’s what you want to do in the end. It’s one of those things that if you have the opportunity you should take it.

Ashley: What do you do when dealing with nerves before a performance?

Photo Credit: Megan Steen

Carly: Often I don’t get too nervous anymore before shows but I actually experienced a really intense bout of nerves before my album launch party at the West End Cultural Centre [earlier this year]. That was one of the last times I had been that nervous. I don’t really have a method myself of dealing with it, I kind of just pace around and get really anxious before the show but once I’m on stage I feel completely comfortable and at home. I had a couple friends backstage with me who were just kind of hanging out and talking and distracting me, which helped a little bit. I just work through it and get on stage and it gets all better. A friend of mine used to puke every time before a performance because he was so nervous but he doesn’t do that anymore.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?

Carly: It changes depending on whether I’m playing by myself or with my partner Jesse or with a full band. It depends on the venue too. If I have the full band and the strings are set up, I really love performing Yours & Mine, that’s one on the album. Again with the full band I love performing Down This Road. It was the first single off the album. If I’m just by myself or with another person I love doing Not a Songbird with banjo. I really love how that one turned out on the album.

Ashley: How do you balance music with your other obligations (work, etc.)?

Carly:  I have a lot on the go. It’s always been a balancing act, juggling [everything]. I’ve always had a job because I’m passionate about a lot of things and I work for a land conservation organization and I have for about 6 years. I am fortunate because juggling that is quite easy because they let me go on tour. We have worked out a way where I work when I’m at home and then I can go when I need to on tours. Not a lot of people are that lucky so it’s not too bad. I really like being able to balance home life with tour life. I like being at home. I’ve got a gorgeous new place so it works out well; it gives me time to write and kind of compress and reflect. I don’t know, I’ve never really struggled with time management; I’m a relatively organized person so it’s not too difficult for me.

Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you started working in the music business?​

Carly: I’ve had a lot of different advice from good friends, from people who have been doing it a long time who might be a little jaded and people who are really implanted in the industry that have a lot of advice regarding the business end of it. I think the best advice I have been given, like I told you earlier, is just keep doing it. If it’s your passion and if it’s what you want to do no matter how hard it is and no matter how frustrating the music industry can be, especially as an independent artist, just keep doing it. Just keep writing. That’s one thing a couple people have told me; just keep writing. Even if you don’t have music in your life professionally, you’ll probably have it in your life in some regards. I think that is the best advice you can give someone.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Sep 3, 2015 at 7:48am PDT

Support Winnipeg Musician Carly Dow!

Marielle McLeod: Vocals, violin, Accordion, Bells

Benjamin Dueck: Bass, Vocals

Genres:  Indie Rock/Emo Band

Mabel's Flight is a 5-piece Indie Rock from the suburbs of Winnipeg. These quirky and talented kids are definitely taking the scene by storm! Since their debut performance in January at the United Fiver, these 5 have left a lasting impression on the Winnipeg community. I was very excited to meet Marielle and Ben and was really caught off guard by how eloquent and knowledgeable they were about their music. They know exactly what they want and how they're going to take it! 

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Ashley: How long have you been playing?

Ben: We all grew up in the same area, and we have been playing together in various bands for four years. We all met in high school but Mabel’s flight has been [together] for about two years. We had our performance debut and the Uniter Fiver in January and that was the first time we had a show, we had only been jamming for a few months before then. Since then we have just been playing and recording

Marielle: and working on our EP.

Ashley: Where does the band name come from?

Marielle: It’s actually a somewhat interesting [story]. There is this show that Cam and I had gotten into called Gravity Falls and the band name came from one of the episodes where the characters break into this store. The character Mabel found these old bags of candy, ate them and got kind of high from them. She then imagined this thing that turned into this bird and then she started riding it.

Ben: Also no one in the world has that name so it’s really Google friendly. When you search ‘Mabel’s flight” you actually get us. That was a main thing too.

Ashley: So why did you decide to start playing together?

Ben: We come from a quiet suburban area and we didn’t see a lot of music around us. I think I read somewhere [that the area where we are from] has the oldest average age in all off Winnipeg. So obviously there are not that many young bands are happening there. To combat that we got together and we tried to create what we wanted in the area, which was a music scene. We are pretty much the only band,that I know of, that’s all from [that same area].  We didn’t see music around us so we wanted to create it.

Marielle: Also,I guess growing up listening to music we were all just drawn to [it] and that was something that was unique in the suburb we live in so we ended up bringing us together.

Ashley: What is a practice or jam session like with the rest of the band?

Ben: Well usually Cam – the front man – or Marielle will come with a demo of a song. Cam writes his music on an acoustic guitar and he will have his lyrics and a rough melody [ready]. He’ll bring those to the practice and we’ll work together as a band in arranging and composing the songs. Cam will play the demo and we’ll jam out ideas for a long time. We find that songs come naturally, you can ‘t force it. Sometimes songs will come in an hour and sometimes it will take weeks. There are things that separate the skeleton of a song to a full-fledged, developed idea that are very subtle. It’s not something you can pinpoint but when it works you just get it. It’s pretty much just a matter of doing things over and over again and trying new ideas.

Ashley: What is the most stressful part about being in a band?

Marielle: For me it’s the fear that the music won’t come out in the best way possible.

Ben: It’s hard to get your band to sound, especially when you’re recording and you don’t know what you’re doing, you usually sound when you’re playing. It’s hard to convey that message. Especially in Winnipeg considering how many good bands we have. When you first get into the scene it’s almost disheartening because there are so many good bands. I think it’s pretty saturated market in Winnipeg and it’s hard to stand out. It’s just a cultured city so for me [the most stressful part is] standing out.

Ashley: So what do you try to do is stand out?

Ben: We have a pretty diverse array of influences, we all listen to different music. Obviously we are influenced by our city bands like Yes We Mystic, Royal Canoe andGreek Riots, those are some of our favorite bands. We are an indie rock band mainly but Marielle is trained in a lot of different instruments like accordion, bells and violin.

Marielle: We do have this sound that sounds like other bands that people have heard of but there is also this mesh of different genres in our music too. Our keyboard player, he was really into pop music and I was really into baroque music so there are a lot of different colors of every different genre.

Ben: We aren’t trying to sound like another band, it’s all of our personalities coming through. Marielle with her instruments, Cam has his R&B, and then we have more of an intense punk and rock influenced rhythm section.

Marielle: I think part of it is really we end up writing relatively heart-felt songs. I almost feel like we are really talking musically, if that makes any sense.

Ashley: So does Cam do all the songwriting?

Ben: Most of it, Marielle writes some songs as well.

Ashley: So what is your songwriting process like?

Marielle: I tend to like layering a ton of different sounds in my music. Usually I’ll end up coming up with a melody and record it on my phone; but my phone is really crappy so it will end up really distorted and if you listen through it, it will have these overtones and like I will start to imagine different things [coming from it].

Ben: Cam and Marielle’s songs are very different. Marielle definitely has a composer mind so she’ll usually come with an idea with how the songs would sound and it’s just a manner of translating it to us; where as Cam comes will just the skeletons. He has a more earnest style of songwriting.

Marielle: Yeah, he’s really lyrical.

Ben: If you can’t play a song on an acoustic guitar and have it sound good, it’s probably not that strong of a song. We try to make sure the melody and the chords are strong before we layer things out.

Ashley: That’ s really interesting! It’s cool that you have two very different styles to work with! So then with the band, what accomplishments are you most proud of?

Ben: Well we just released our first EP on Bandcamp called Bedroom Fire and we had been working on that pretty much since we started and we finally [released it]. It took a long time but we are very proud of how that turned out. And the songs go over really well live. Out keyboard player’s dad has his own studio so we were very lucky.  We are hoping to do an official release this summer, but for now it’s up on Bandcamp where you can name your price and download it. We are so very proud of it.

Ashley: I wish I could do that, I’m kind of a chicken when it comes to sharing my music. What is performing your music like as a band?

Ben: We have a very interesting dynamic because we all just pretend we are in different bands. Cam is not your traditional, flamboyant singer. He’s understated and likes the songs to speak for themselves while he is off to the side. Our drummer and I are very energetic people so we have this hyped up staged presence. So our shows are trying to balance our personalities. I find with a lot of bands their songs are melodically good or lyrically strong but they don’t have a sense of momentum. We try to make it sound like our music is going somewhere.

Marielle: Yeah and keep it interesting. You don’t want to come up with a song that’s going to repeat exactly the same. You want it to have [and keep] someone’s attention on it.

Ben: We try not to talk very much live, we try to play as much as we can. We try to keep it fast paced because no one really wants to hear your sad self-indulgence unless you’re brilliant.

Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who want to do the same thing as you and start a band?

Ben: Just focus on the music because that has to be the most important thing. You can only get so far on mediocre songs so practice as much as possible especially when you are in high school. When you get home at 3 o’clock and you have nothing to do for hours, practice as much as you can and make sure you play with as many people as possible. What sounds right will fall into place the more you play. So just put in the hours.

Marielle: and definitely keep an open mind. Accept ideas even if you come up with something that sounds like crap. Some of the simplest ideas I’ve come up with I find are the most successful.

Ben: Also there is this common misconception that success is a constant upward trajectory but it really ebbs and flows so working through the tough stuff and not breaking up too.

Marielle: Be interested in yourself. Don’t try to be interesting for other people because if you don’t love your work it’s going to be hard for others to love your work. 

Ashley: How do you find people so you can play as much as possible?

Ben: We were really lucky to have the United Fiver to kind of get us in the right scene especially when you are a new band. [In the beginning] your image of the music scene seems like a really exclusive club but Winnipeg has this super open [community]. I think the main thing is even if you don’t have people to play with, just going to shows and start getting your name out there, people will start recognizing your face and come up and start talking to you. That’s what we did, we just went to shows and we talked to the bands after they played and asked them where they started and where they practice. That’s the main thing; just supporting the scene and it will come back to you if you do that. Being visible.

Ashley: Before a performance, what do you do when dealing with nerves?

Marielle: I have a pretty ridiculous imagination so when I’m practicing I’ll imagine the show and it’s weird because sometimes if I screw up while I’m practicing I’ll actually feel embarrassed.  On the show you know you just want to forget there are actually people there and just enjoy yourself.

Ben: Once you get up there, if you practice enough, it should come back to you in muscle memory.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?

Ben: My favorite song is the title track from our EP Bedroom Fire; it’s my favorite song. It’s the song we close our shows with and it’s six and a half minutes long and has two time changes in it. It’s probably our more Arcade Fire sounding song. It has this really simple chorus that anyone can sing along with. It’s very important to write a song that’s easy to sing for everybody, I think.

Marielle: For me, it’s a bit hard to choose. My favorite might actually be Playground because I did write it so I have a slightly different interpretation of it. It has chunks of my life that have inspired it. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s years within 5 minutes and I experience it all in such a short amount of time.

Ben: Yeah, Marielle’s songs have a very strong sense of imagery.

Ashley: How is it balancing this commitment to your band with everything else?

Ben: It’s hard sometimes, it always seems that things line up on the same day like school and work or practices. Even when you can’t get all your band members together, just trying to have consistent practices. Even if it’s just running over stuff you already know just keeps your polished and motivated. It’s really just time management. We try to set up at least a day or two a week so whoever can make it shows up and we work on songs. We also send stuff over the Internet, that’s a big thing, emailing each other demos because we can’t always be in the same place at once. We need to rely on the Internet.

Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you started working in the music business?

Ben: Just remembering, music is at its heart is an emotional affair. I can’t remember who told me this but no matter how hard you practice, and I think this is something that music schools needs to teach you more, but you can be the best musician in the world and practice all day but it’s that emotion that connects people. You just need to focus on being conscious of what emotion your song is trying to convey because that is the universal part of the song that brings people together.  Just trusting your gut and that’s what makes it a great song.

Marielle: Definitely what Ben said, a huge part of the song is the meaning. You can have a song that’s well written and people want to buy and like it, but when you hear a song that really does have a meaning in it it is really a feeling within.

Ben: The thing that separates a good some from a great song is the emotion. We aren’t the best players in the world but we pour our hearts into it and I feel that really comes across.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Aug 14, 2015 at 10:57am PDT

Support Winnipeg Band Mabel's Flight!

Photo Credit: Janine Kropla

Instruments: Banjo, Guitar and Vocals

Genres: Bluegrass instrumentation with no boundaries (influences: Blues, Folk, Hip hop and Spoken word)                                                                             

Matt and I met and shared a delicious lunch and an ice cream sandwich at the Degrees restaurant in the University of Manitoba. While we ate, Matt shared his knowledge of the Winnipeg music business and some really great advice and stories that I know are really going to stick with me through my own musical career. I’m also really happy to share that The Crooked Brothers very recently released their album into Germany Austria and Switzerland with the record label The Instrument Village! Way to go guys! 

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Ashley: How long have you been playing your instruments?

Matt: I started taking guitar when I was in grade 4 and probably [only started to ] like playing the guitar in about grade 6. It took about 2 years to stick. Once I could start making noise in the basement with some buddies, it didn’t just feel like studying or working. It was like recess, I guess. The banjo, I don’t know, I think I started at the end of high school. I borrowed a banjo from my friend Devon and still haven’t returned the thing. I keep trying to give it back to him but it’s complicated. He just says “you just keep it” and I’m like “uh, okay” but it’s been years!

Ashley: I guess its okay then; he must not miss it?

Matt: Yeah, it’s like - is this mine? It doesn’t feel like mine so I treat it [well].

Ashley: In terms of practicing, how hard do you push yourself?

Matt: Lately it’s been happening without pushing. I’ve been teaching guitar lately and just getting into the mindset of constantly breaking down things that you do as a musician. Breaking down technique and dismantling things into their smaller pieces, then talking about practice, technique, goals and sharing all these things with students and conversing about them; it just has my mind in the place that’s got myself doing the same thing, in my spare time. Teaching has made me sharper as a player than ever trying to get some kind of rehearsal schedule for myself. I’m not very good with schedules; I’ve never been able to stick to one. It’s like a dream of mine to have a schedule but I don’t know how people do it. It’s nice that I created these conditions that invite [practicing] and it happens regularly.

Ashley: I guess if you can teach it, you must really know it.

Matt: I think everyone can be a teacher if they not only know what they’re teaching but how to teach it. I don’t feel like I’m an incredible guitar player, I feel like I have a million things that I would want to learn but I also feel like that I am very confident with what I do know and my ability to convey how I got there. Anybody that would like to do what I can do, I’m very happy to share and talk about how to achieve it, what makes the difference between a bad sound when you strum and a good sound when you strum. It’s fun talking about it. I think there are teachers at all levels, you do have to know what you’re doing but you don’t have to know everything. Knowing how to teach is just as important as knowing the instrument itself.

Ashley: Who inspires you and your songwriting? What do you listen to?

Matt: I really like honest people so when I say that, people who come to mind are Bill Callahan from Smog. He’s very eloquent and beautiful and sort of off center. Beautiful stark songs that are kind of about incredibly deep things that he paints from a strange angle. It’s really cool. I also really liked listening to Haden when I was really young. He’s sort of blazed the way for me that you can say sensitive things in a song and [still] have it be strong. A strong person, especially in terms of male figures, being so strongly sensitive like that; especially with incredibly heavy dark and angry music is really inspiring; so in terms of songwriting, things like that. I also like with both of those writers they linguistically put a lot of weight on the actual lyrics so the music fits to the words. If there is an extra line, or extra syllable, or an extra sentence the form of the music with shift to accommodate the language because there is an importance put on the lyrics and it has to be said this way. You get this sense that it has to be said this particular way because it might have the most truths, you can see it the most ways or something. It’s most beautiful like this and I’m not going to change the words to fit the song I’m going to change the song to fit the words. I really like that and I feel I’m drawn to the [importance of] lyrics over music idea.

Ashley: With the band, what accomplishments are you most proud of?

Matt: Seeing the world. Totally getting to bridge the gaps between friends and me I never knew I would make in places like Belgium, Germany and Poland. All over Canada, we have been to every providence and territory except for Labrador. We’re going to do it, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Photo Credit: Janine Kropla

Yeah, just the accumulative accomplishment of just continuing to do it over and over again. Watching it grow to this beautiful thing that I’m kind of just along for the ride in some ways. We work very hard and have worked very hard and now things kind of have their own wheels. We can feel things starts to pick up and just manifest in the form of knowing I’m going to be on tour in the fall next year. Being able to project that far into the future in my life. It’s the band that’s doing that for me and it’s my job. To be self-employed and to grow that ourselves, to have done so much work and to have been flexible to change and allow our relationships with each other to morph and to move along and be flexible enough for the band to carry through all that is incredible. The accomplishment really is treating each other like a family first and for most so when is comes down to it, it’s a long lasting never ending relationship that has just gotten richer and richer and richer.

Ashley: So when you’re traveling and doing your touring, what’s stressful or what are things that is a challenge for you when you are touring?

Matt: They are definitely there. It’s an interesting lifestyle that I think truck drivers know and traveling strippers know.

Ashley: That’s a thing? Traveling Strippers? I didn't know they needed to travel.

Matt: Absolutely, all kinds of performers travel. It’s a way to work every night. Any kind of act that benefits from having a new audience every night and space between shows to let excitement grow for coming back benefits from constantly being on the move. The entertainment business by its nature has to move to stay alive. Just the interesting routine you have to develop on the move to remain grounded and sane. Your life is basically traveling an average of 100 kilometers an hour. Let’s say you’re driving 6 hours a day, which is a lot, but that’s 25% of your time.  You spend your whole life 25 kilometers faster than someone who is just walking to work. You’re just moving and so trying to find the sense of home when the physical place is not part of your reality is always changing so it’s hard to keep grounded. You’re living in a tiny car with everybody and other people have their own quirks. You just live in very tight quarters for most of the time. Sleep together, eat together, work together, drive together, wake together, eat together, and share a shower. Everything is scheduled and you’re all tethered.

Photo Credit: Janine Kropla

You’re traveling, which is amazing! You feel like “Oh my god I’m in Paris, France!” But unless it’s a day off, which happens once a week, you can’t go see something. It’s an awesome way to travel but it’s also not as free as you might think. You’re tethered to the car, you need to get somewhere for sound check, you’ve got a few hours to eat, you play the show then you need to get to where you’re sleeping and when you get up in the morning you might have a little time but you’ll still need to get into the car because you’re driving hours to the next place to get to sound check and that’s kind of the routine. Finding a sense of balance on the go, if you can’t do that you won’t last. A lot of people burn out traveling or touring because you get homesick.

At first it’s all excitement, you aren’t even thinking about [being homesick]. That challenge starts to creep up you when you do it longer and longer and longer. It becomes an integral part of your lifestyle. You’ll tour for three months or even half of a year at a time and it becomes part of you. At first your screaming and having a good time out the window, and then it’s still so exciting but you relax into that fast pace-ness; then the issues kind of creeps on you.

Ashley: So, how do you deal with your nerves before a performance?

Matt: I used to throw up before the show and at the time that felt like dealing with it. It wouldn’t be this gross, disgusting, heaving, wretch or anything; it would just be that my stomach was upset and I would [need] to go gag in the toilet or in the bathroom or out back in the bush. Over time you relax and start to see it less about yourself. It dissolves a little bit and you aren’t so concerned about what people think about you. I think that’s really what the nerves are; it’s [the feeling of] being uncomfortable. You feel watched and you’re watching yourself and there is some kind of nervousness about doing [well] or doing badly. There is some kind of weight that you put on [yourself to make sure you are] doing it properly. But if you just relax about it, just doing it is doing it properly.  The less you draw attention to yourself and the more you draw attention to the song [the better]. By focusing on that instead of yourself, your nerves slip away. I think that’s a practice among itself.  Performing a song well, I think that means getting out of [the music’s] way so that you aren’t sitting there thinking to yourself while you’re singing the song. If you think about yourself while you’re singing, it shows. It’s really visible when someone is self-conscious on stage. It’s a sign that they’re watching themselves in the same way I’m watching them.

But someone who appears confident it’s not because they think so highly of themselves, I mean that exists I suppose, but people I’m drawn to are the people I think aren’t caught up with themselves. They’re singing about what they are singing about and there is no room for anything else. They are so fully engrossed in the song and sounds, the words, the meanings and maybe even the moments of the song leaving the stage and sharing it with that many people. Having a good conversation.

Rarely do I find myself in that state the entire night, but if you can get there even for a little bit that’s kind of the thing [as to why] I’m addicted to playing music. That feeling of nothing else matters.

Ashley: What does the name The Crooked Brothers come from?

Matt: There is a book by William Kennedy called Iron Weed and it’s a book about a man who kind of fucks everything up. In the opening scene he is traveling to a cemetery, he’s gotten some work there and nearby his mother and father are rolling around in their graves speaking with one another. They’ve been long ago buried. The Dad is picking the roots from the grass and the dandelions that have been growing above him, drying them out in his pocket and then smoking them in his little pipe underground. The mother is doing something similar like crocheting. There’s sort of this deep sadness, he has these dark ghosts follow him around and he’s of the world of the living and the dead, there is a thin gauze between the two for him. [At one point] he drops his young child, he basically drops his baby and the baby dies. The description of the baby is that, I think [the baby’s] name was Gerald, he says “Oh little Gerald’s all crooked, why is Gerald all crooked?” I’ve never heard the word ‘crooked’ used so darkly and I had just been walking around trying to name this band forever.

I love the idea of people who sing sweet melodies like siblings like Roger Roger. They are twins who sing like honey, their vocals are impeccable. In country music, families and siblings [singing together] is a common thing. I had it in my mind the idea of playing a family; the idea of making my own family. I kept thing “The something family” and when I read that book the word just slipped into that blank spot and I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Ashley: What is your songwriting process?

Matt: I wish I had one. [laughs] it would be so much easier [laughs again]. I’ve been thinking about this alot lately actually because I want one so bad. We had been talking earlier about how I’m bad with schedules. I’m just bad with structure, I don’t naturally create it for myself.

I really focus on words, so a sentence will get in my mouth and head and it will just tattoo itself there. Looping and looping and looping and kind of driving me crazy so I’ll say it out loud until a second line kind of spills out.

For the song Blackbird in the snow I had the words “I don’t know why I’ve though of you” for forever. I would just keep saying it over and over and it was driving me insane. There was something so true about it, it’s nice to say and it means something but what does it even mean? What the hell was I talking about?

Photo Credit: Janine Kropla

I think from there I can split off and investigate myself and interview that frame of mind and be like “who is you and why don’t I know why I wouldn’t think of you?” Just ask all these questions and pursue the idea or just keep repeating the line again until another idea came along that felt equally fit in that place and naturally spills out. Once I’ve got a few lines, I think the melody comes from me trying to say it the way it sounds the most true or the most honest. I [might say] the sentence “I don’t know why I thought of you.” instead of “I don’t know why I thought of you.” I think for me the melody is very much related to natural speech and wanting to have a conversation with an idea. I sing something honestly and then the melody develops there and later on I’ll put chords in.

It’s like the song is there and I’m just searching in the dark. The more practice I do as a player and by learning other people’s songs the more readily I can discover and sweep away all the unnecessary things. I can quickly discover the elements that have asked me to be brought out, to sweep the dust away.

Ashley: So when you’ve finished a song how do you bring it to the band, what is the process of introducing it? Do you sing the lyrics and melody and they make their own arrangements or are you very particular of what everyone should be playing?

Matt: If you have an idea, it’s really helpful to convey that to people. If you are hearing something, say so.  “I’m hearing a mandolin play here, can you make this happen?” Sometimes you’ll just be like “okay this is what I’ve got, everybody do something” and then you feel it out. It kind of just depends on each song. I love working with people that I love and trust and love their playing enough that I am not just directing everybody all the time. Which is one way to do it, it makes great music.

I think putting yourself in the situation where you are playing music with people who love what they’re doing and you love how they play for other things [is a great idea]. You learn the song in it’s skeleton form and play it and play it and play it until it gels and it becomes it’s own thing. And if you were to play it with someone else, it could take up some other life. If you take this thing you always do with the song and try to get different people to do the same thing, it’s going to fail every time because no one can recreate something. It’s nice to be able to relax about that, let the song breathe as it’s own with whoever is playing.

Ashley: What is a practice session with the entire band?

Matt: Specifically a rehearsal would be when we have some kind of goal in mind.  That might be a big show or doing a small show but we haven’t played together in a little bit, or like a tour or we are going into the studio. There is some kind of goal ahead of us. We have predetermined this material, any number of songs. If we are going on tour we’ll pick 35 songs, we’ve chosen the band that’s going to be on tour with us and we get together with those chosen people. We hire all kinds of players depending on what kind of show we want to put on or what kind of tour we want to have. Ideally I would like to run all the songs twice a day for a few days but usually it’s just once one evening or afternoon. We’ll run all the songs once and then go over any problem spots. Any new material we’ll do it to make sure we iron all the wrinkles out. It’s very much a rehearsal where already know their parts there is not a lot of jamming and figuring [this out]. We might have a new player who might be figuring the song out for themselves but that’s about as much “jamming”  that would happen.

A jam session would be totally different where we would just throw things at each other and play unfinished songs together; we get goofy and play things we would never play on stage. That’s probably the biggest difference: is playing things we would never do in a public setting or aren’t ready to share.

Ashley: How often do you guys jam?

Matt: Less lately because Jesse’s living about three and a half or four hours away from us. I’ve been jamming with other people a lot so that’s helped with actually jamming and loose playing. When we’re together on the road, or together just before a tour for a show, it can happen. We are usually very intentional when booking that time because but sometimes it’s nice to just play. 

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Aug 2, 2015 at 10:11pm PDT

Support Winnipeg Band The Crooked Brothers!

Thank you for taking the time to read this interview with the very talented and wonderful Matt Foster! He is a really really cool dude! If you want to see more interviews like this check out the links below! If you want to be one of the first to know when the next Winnipeg Music Project entry will be posted, follow me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook! 

Photo Credit: Megan Steen

Genres: Acoustic, Classical, Folk, Roots, Singer-Songwriter

Instruments: Instrumentals, Classical violin, Guitar and Voice 

Raine and I met outside the cozy Thom Bargen coffee shop. It felt like we were having more of a hear-felt conversation rather than myself simply interviewing her. Raine was super friendly and easy to talk and listen to about the music industry and her journey so far. Congrats to her and all her achievements so far! I can't wait to see what more wonderful opportunities come her way~!

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Ashley: How long have you been playing?

Raine: I started playing violin as a young child, it’s been twenty something years.

Ashley: And why did you decide to perform?

Raine: It’s really hard not to perform. It’s just something in the blueprint of my life that this is something that I do. It’s so hard to not perform.

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Photo Credit: Hillarie Tasche

Raine: The thing I’m the most proud of is how hard I have worked. I am proud of how I’ve prioritized art and music making in my life because that was the thing that was hard. It was a challenging, scary thing to do, to make it my main focus in life. To put my time where my mouth is. That is what I’m most proud of and that has lead to opportunities that I am so happy to have like going with Manitoba Music to perform music in the Ontario Conference last fall; and all of the work and the opportunities leading to the album release [which was] a really joyful, successful experience. This summer I’m touring all over the place and playing in a lot of festival, which is my absolute favorite.

Ashley: What advice do you have for beginners who are nervous to start sharing their own music?

Raine: I think it’s important to be clear about what you want and then to make a plan. I think the best thing to do is seek the advice and seek the counsel of people who have done this before you. I’ve had a ton of meetings with artists over the last few years and have learned so much and have benefited also from the community. I would say find people that you admire, ask them about [anything]. This community [we have] is really helpful.

Ashley: And how do you approach them, these people?

Raine: I always offer to buy them lunch and always write down everything they say and they take it seriously.

Ashley: But how do you find them?

Raine: Just ask [around]! All they can say is yes and no.

Ashley: How do you balance your music with your other obligations like work?

Raine: A lot of my work is music based so that is good and complimentary to my music. I have achieved balance by reducing my other work’s hours so I can spend more time in the music business. That is one thing, to work less.

Ashley: Does it make it harder?

Raine: Well, financially it makes it harder to work with but there is more time which is much more valuable.  Time is the most valuable thing. I also used to always make lists. I have a bed time so won’t just work constantly around the clock [laughs].

Ashley: So how do you handle the nerves before performances?

Raine: Preparation before a performance. I make sure I’m really prepared. I’ll practice a lot and I practice all the aspects of the show especially for a really important show. All the on/offs, all the things I’m going to say and when I’m going to say it. I craft that and that helps with the nerves. I also think the more I perform the less nervous I am, [the process becomes more fluid]. Just practicing performing is it’s own treatment for nerves.

Ashley: What are you practicing? Are you playing through the songs? Technique?

Raine: I’m practicing anything that needs work. So on any given day it could be any of those things.

Ashley: And what is your songwriting process?

Raine: Sometimes different ways but usually it’s a first line that comes. Melody is often apart of that early process, too. I guess it happens it’s own ways. I sometimes feel a song is it’s own thing already and it depends on what I pick it up by first or what end is poking through the sand first.

Ashley: Are you one of those people that can write an entire song at once, or are you one of those people that takes pieces from a year ago and piece them together?

Raine: I feel that I’m more a collector of bits and they find their way together. In my experience it kind of feels like that.  An accurate description of my process is that I gather pieces together and I feel like a responsibility as an artist to do that when I see those pieces. It often is a process until I find a match together with the bits and I can feel it and often it takes a long time. Sometimes it’s quick and sometimes it’s possible to usher that process along. I was at the Manitoba Songwriting retreat in March 2015 and we wrote a song a day; it’s possible. It’s a different process though.

Photo Credit: Megan Steen

Ashley: Is it harder? I don’t know it if I could do that.

Raine: It’s not that it was harder the process was very different. It was fun. It’s good practice to just make choices faster.

Ashley: How do you choose the feeling to come across in your song? How do you choose your emotion?

Raine: That part happens by itself. That is a pre-existing bit and it usually makes itself obvious in the beginning.

Ashley: Is it like a self-conscious thing or are you naturally picking that mood or feeling?

Raine: You know, I don’t think I can actually describe it. I think that is the crux of the thing. It’s the feeling that it is. It’s the place that where the song lives so I don’t think I decide that, it just happens. I think that just is the thing.

Ashley: So this album you just released, why did you decide to make this album?

Raine: Why did I decide to make this album? Because it’s a step on the way that to the life that I want to lead and it felt right and good to do it.

Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve received as artist or as a musician that you just take with you?

Raine: The best advice I’ve received is [something] someone said to me very matter-of-fact ‘do not be strayed from you course.’ To me it means do not be swayed from what you love, it is important. I think it speaks to me [because we live in a culture where] art is valued a lot less that [how much I value it] in my heart and it can be hard to live like that. But do not be swayed because it is important.​

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jul 30, 2015 at 12:30pm PDT

Support Winnipeg Musician Raine Hamilton!

I hope you enjoyed this interview! If you want to be one of the first to know when the next Interview for the #WinnipegMusicProject is posted, follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram! Thank you so much for all support! Remember if yo liked this post, please share it with your friends! 

Genres: Indie Folk

Instruments: Banjo, Mandolin, Steel Guitar, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar and Organ

Daniel is a really really cool dude. He had a really refreshing look on making music that I really enjoyed listening to the first and second time (when I was transcribing the interview). Please enjoy! 

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Ashley: What start Red Moon Road? 

Daniel: The initiative was a two-way partnership between my friend Daniel and I. We are both Daniels and we were both drummers. At the very beginning he was drumming in a country band and I was playing drums in a metal band with my brothers. We had both come off tour when he invited me to go to the lake with him. His friend had a cabin at the time and we went out for a sail. We tipped the sailboat in the middle of beginning of November, so it was pretty late in the season, and it was a bit of a crisis but we managed to get through it all. All four of us figured if we could survive an ordeal like that, we could probably spend time in a band together and it hasn’t let us down since.

Ashley: Where does the name come from?

Daniel: The name has very humble origins. When we first decided to start recording, before we played any shows, Daniel and I and the singer at the time were recording in a friend’s house in one the suburbs of Winnipeg off Lagimodiere. If you search you Red moon Road on Google the first thing that comes up is the street, Road Moon Road, and then it’s us. That’s actually where we got the name, nothing more glorious than that. We needed a name, we walked out of the studio, looked up there was a sign: a road sign.

Ashley: What is a practice session like with the whole band?

Daniel: Like a rehearsal?

Ashley: Yeah

Daniel: There are two different types of rehearsals. We are all professional musicians and we have an understanding of what an efficient rehearsal means. When we are rehearsing for a show or specific event that’s coming up, we have repertoire that we’re been working on for the last four years so a lot of those songs don’t need that much polish.

Often we will bring in a new song or two or five for a particular show we when we rehearse, we’ll get together and decide which songs [to play], figure out what keys are good to sing and play in and then we’ll go home and practice them on our own and the next time we come together. It’s expected that everything have their parts figured out. In the first three times [when we play them] through, generally we have to figured out what kind of tempo and feel that we want. That way it gives us the time and chance to make little mistakes on our own and without frustrating others. And when it comes together it still has that electric energy.

The other kind of rehearsal is when we are writing songs. When we are putting together the material that we haven’t really finished yet, often we’ll play through a portion of the song or idea or something and when we get to the end of it, we’ll see where your ear takes you or your fingers take you. There is a lot of speculation, lots of trying things over, lots of repetition. Lots of encouragement, we’re a very encouraging group.

Ashley: Do you ever start one song and finish it in one session? Or do you find you’ll usually have to come back to it later?

Daniel: Sometimes, if it all comes out in one shot, then that’s always ideal because you spend a lot less time on it and it feels a little more inspired. But more often than not it’s good to know when you’re beating a dead horse and when to walk away from something when it’s just frustrating you and you’re not being very productive. It’s a combination of both.

Ashley: So who inspires the music? Like, who do you all listen to that you feel really influences the sound?

Daniel: I can only speak for myself, really. But we do share a lot common interests. We all came to folk music a little later in life; Sheena grew up singing gospel and loves R&B music. She loathes admitting it but she’s a big Mariah Carey fan, she loves all the ballad songstresses. She takes a lot of cues from them. But also some real blues singers. Daniel is a really big fan of the Beatles so a lot of his writing is informed from that new wave of British pop from the 60s and 70s. I’d say my bass influences, in terms of folk music, are the folk greats like James Taylor and Neil Young, the gamut. Also Joanie Mitchell, of course. I also listen to a lot of metal whenever I’m driving or at home, I’ll usually listen to it.

Ashley: [Metal], that’s like the same as folk.

Daniel: Well yeah, I’d have to say that blue grass is just metal on acoustic instruments. It’s the same speed and virtuosity. A lot of the parts that I write are melodic and try to include as much melodic diversity as possible. I’d say that’s a pretty big influence in my writing.

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of, with the band or individually?

Daniel: Well, I’d say the band is one of my greatest accomplishments. We’ve come a long way in the past four years. We’ve toured a lot recently. I think [another big] accomplishment is the fact that we’re still such a solid team and are evolving as people and as a business people as well as artists and all [we are all moving] in the same direction. I think maintaining a friendship throughout that and in between all the business has it’s challenging but is extremely rewarding. We just came back from a 2-month European tour and that’s sort of the most stand-out thing in my mind in terms of accomplishments. Yeah, playing a few sold out shows in the UK, getting a chance to see Paris and touring through Switzerland was also amazing.

That would be [one of] the biggest accomplishment, for now. It’s only the first of many tours out there, I think.

Ashley: What’s your favorite song to perform live?

Daniel: Does it have to be one of our own or can it be any song?

Ashley: It can be anything!

Daniel: Sheena is a trained jazz vocalist. We haven’t really been doing it on the stage, but we’ve done it at jams and after hours. She does this amazing version of At Last jazz standard that she just rips to pieces. It’s so amazing. That woman has so much soul it’s great. I just get to color in between the lines, I guess. That song. I feel we do a really good version of that.

Ashley: Are you guys going to share that with the world at some point?

Daniel: We should definitely record it.

Ashley: I would love to hear that.

Daniel: There will come a time. Maybe it will be a radio spot, it might not be something we put out ourselves. It’s gotta happen though, I’ll let you know.

Ashley: Yes please, I would love to hear that! Do you have advice for beginners who want to start making their music and sharing it?

Daniel: Um, I think the best piece of advice I can give is: just do it. You can spend so much time in speculation and wondering what you should or should not do. But there is no substitute for experience in both performance and in creation. If you’re someone who is inspired and already creating music, then great you’re already doing it. But if you feel like you need to share it, it’s just a matter of making connections, good connections, and going out and seeing shows. Make connections with people on stage and finding out how to get on that same stage. More than anything this business is about who know and how you know them. It’s important to be congenial and polite but also a fun human being. But just getting out there and doing it is the most important thing.

Also, don’t be afraid of criticism. Especially, be wary of compliments. Don’t always accept them for what they are because often when you’re first starting people are excited to hear you play and they’re going to say that they loved the experience. It’s going to be great but just don’t let it get to your head. No matter how good you are, you can always get better. The real advice you should be looking for is people who aren’t afraid to criticize it for what it is. That way you can take or leave it but at least you know it’s coming from a place of a true experience. That’s the most helpful thing that you can get. Compliments are nice now and again but seek criticism and then you will grow. Also, always play with people that are better than you.

Ashley: What do you do to help deal with nerves before a performance?

Daniel: Um, I don’t get really get nervous.

Ashley: Well, how about when you first started when you were first figuring out your sound? I’m sure you were nervous.

Daniel: I don’t know, I might have skipped that somehow. When I was young I did a lot of improv theatre so I was used to the stage from a very young age. I was also eased into it in a very supportive community. I’ve always felt really comfortable up there. That’s not to say that if an extremely good act is following us I won’t feel nervous. I’ll want to put on the best possible show. I just try to take a moment before I step on stage. Just take a deep breath and appreciate the moment for what it is. The people that are out there, the fact that they decided to see you perform and that you’re going to entertain all of them, they’re attention is in you’re hands for the next how many minutes and it’s up to you to be prepared ahead of time and be ready. You can craft the experience for them. I guess I don’t see it as something scary and more of an opportunity to make something exciting not just the audience but for you as well. There is a connection between the audience and the performer where that spark happens. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to knock them out.

Ashley: You mentioned how you just came back from this huge tour, what was the most stressful part about touring?

Daniel: Figuring out where accommodations are going to be that same night. Trying to have an itinerary that makes sense. Make sure you have enough time to get from your lodging, or your hotel or wherever you are sleeping, to the stage and a way to get from the stage to the hotel. But then, the most stressful thing is making sure that you’re instruments are all ready to go. There are so many variable when you aren’t in a controlled environment. There is only so much you can do to prepare ahead of time. Be as anal as you can be, cross every ‘T’ and dot every ‘I’.

Don’t be married to any one particular way that things should be because often things are going to change and you’ll just have to roll with it. The thing that stresses me out though is broken instruments; irreplaceable pieces of your tool kit. Accidents can happen and I was just so worried. If something like that breaks when you are over seas and there is no way to replace it, it costs so much money and it stresses me out. There is no remedy for that.

Ashley: Just a few tears and you move on.​

Daniel: Yeah, or just being careful and preventing it from happening in the first place. Ugh, even thinking out about it makes me squirmy.​ 

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jul 16, 2015 at 9:58am PDT

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Genre(s): Folk pop, alternative folk, pop

Instrument(s): Guitar, drums, piano, and violin

Micah Visser is a solo artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba. With a few scrappy EPs under his belt and a full length cassette released in April, he is both restless and meticulous; determined to perfect his brand of sleepy alt folk. Heavily inspired by legendary folk singers and infused with modern pop and indie rock influences, he keeps lyrics at the forefront of his music while ensuring melody is never buried. (--manitoba music)

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Ashley: Do you use violin in your music?

Micah: In my last album when I first started recording, I almost completely based it off violin. I haven’t really been playing [violin] as much lately because I’ve gotten so busy with [songwriting] and guitar. I’ve been moving away from the violin a bit because I don’t rely as heavily on it now that I’m better at other instruments. It’s definitely something I’m still open to incorporate in the future; I just need to find good places to do it [in the music].

Ashley: Awesome, that’s so cool. I don’t know very many people who are really good at violin.

Micah: Yeah, that’s because it’s like so hard to get good at it.

Ashley: I’m told the first seven years are the hardest and eventually everything falls into place.

Micah: Yeah it’s exactly that. My mom said when I was learning the violin at the age of seven, everyone always told her it would take so long before it sounded good. I honestly don’t know why I kept doing it for as long as I did. It might be because I didn’t realize it sounded bad, but I’m not sure.

Ashley: What made you decide to do music?

Micah: It was always something I was really passionate with. Again with the violin, but before that I’ve always loved music. It just sort of happened because I always ended up picking up anything [musical] around me and that sort of accumulated eventually into what I’m doing today which is writing my own songs, playing most of the instruments, bringing them to a band and playing them live. I guess there was never really a moment I decided to do it. It always just seemed like a natural progression of what I was interested [in] at the time. You could say when I decided to not go back to school in the fall and do [music] full time, that could be the moment I decided to do music, but it’s always [felt like] a natural progression.

Ashley: Who inspires you musically? Who do you listen to that really influences you music?

Micah: When I was writing the last album, I was very inspired by Elliot Smith and Sharon Ban Etten and more traditional folk singers; but, lately it’s been that 80s new wave music. So I don’t know, it’s always kind of evolving. I really like all kinds of music. There are lots of pop music influences in my music as well, like catchy verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure. I don’t know, really everything influences me.

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Micah: I think the last album I did Okay Night, all the albums I put out before then had just been stuff I kind of had been messing around with in my bedroom, playing and then eventually releasing by throwing it out on the internet. [I didn’t have] much thought about how it all fit together. But Okay Night, was the first album where I actually decided to sit down and record the songs once, then rewrite lyrics so they all fit together thematically, and finally rerecord them all. Some of them I rerecorded them multiple times. It was a huge amount of work. I probably spent ten times the amount [of work I had] spent on my last two albums combined. It was just a massive amount of work and it’s a pretty small album; it’s only nine tracks and a half an hour long. It’s probably the thing I’m most proud of because it took so much work and now when I listen to it all the way through I can appreciate it as a good self contained piece of work that I can set aside now and move on from.

Ashley: What were some struggles of creating a releasing your EPs and now cassette?

Micah:  [When the music starts] getting inside your head. Since I’m the one that’s writing all the instrumentation and playing all the parts, at least for my previous albums. I don’t think I’m going to do that again for my next album; but for my previous albums I was so, I don’t even know how to explain it; I just get locked into a mode where I really needed to finish these songs and I’d be thinking about them all the time and I couldn’t stop thinking about them. It’s almost like it swallows you because you are so exhausted. And that can be a real struggle of getting outside of that box and making something good. Often the best ideas I have are the ones I kind of just get [out of no where and] then put them on paper and stick to them. Overthinking it can really kill good ideas.

Ashley: Why did you make the decision to record your most recent music on a cassette rather than a CD?

Micah: I did CDs for the last album, and it was nice. But I realized the only people who were actually buying them were people who wanted to support me anyway and just give me money to keep making music. I figured if people are doing that, and no body really uses CDS anymore - if someone is going to listen to it they are going to listen to it on the iPod or their computer. I released it on cassette to give people that tangible representation of the album if they wanted it. Also if they wanted to support me they can buy a cassette and have a novelty item. The EP is free online anyway so if people really want my music, they can get it there.

Ashley: How do you deal with nerves before a performance?

Micah: It just gets better, generally. It’s just going to happen and you get up on stage and it goes away eventually. The more shows I play, the less nervous I get, but I guess I don’t really have a real way of dealing with them at this point. During the day before the show, I’ll take it easy. I’ll make sure I’ll have lots of time to get into a relaxed mode before the show. I like making sure everything is set up, like making sure my strings are new on my guitar, that all my pedals are all in the right place. Stuff like that. Playing with the band helps too because they are a bunch of people that help me out with the nerves. I don’t really have any tricks, it’s just something that you get used to and you cope with and eventually they start not being there.

Ashley: How do you balance music with any other obligations you might have (work, school, etc.)

Micah: It’s nice because right now I have a steady job during the daytime so my nights are always free. I have a consistent schedule which really helps me scheduling things because I know how everything is going to fit together and I can do that as far in advance as possible. It’s mostly just a matter of making things work. Sometimes I’m out playing a show until 2 am and then I need to be at work for 8 o’clock. Which sucks sometimes but it’s just a matter of prioritizing and making sure you have the time to do both.

Ashley: What is your songwriting process like?

Micah: Generally, I let the songs write themselves and then go back and make sure it’s the way I want it to be.

Ashley: What does that mean?

Micah: Everything I’ve released up until this point was basically written by me in my bedroom with my guitar. I would just play and make sounds while playing chords that evoke a certain emotion to me. I would try to make the sounds of the words I’m saying, fit the sounds I’m making with my guitar. The more I do that, the more it sounds like real words and then I can start attach words to those sounds. Then I’ll go back to make sure the lyrics make sense with a specific theme that I’d like to write about.

So, I start with guitar and melody and then I just kind of let everything build around each other, as much as I can. After that I’ll start hearing the rest of the instrumentation in my head. I’ll have drums and guitar parts, then I’ll write the rest of the guitar parts and whatever else I need like bass, keyboard.

Ashley: What advice do you have for beginners?

Micah: I’d say just work really hard. Just do stuff as much as you possibly can, all the time and always think about how you can be improving. I think I might have been a bad beginner in some ways because I didn’t share things with people for a very, very, very long time. I was super shy about everything. I probably wouldn’t recommend that for people because if you are shaping yourself into something that is good, it’s good to have criticism. That’s something that’s helped me improve a lot too. I am a lot more open to criticism than originally because I’m more confident in the work I’m making. A lot of the time people think that it’s easier than it actually is when ultimately it’s just putting in the time and writing and writing and writing and writing until something is finally good. Well then, you aren’t a beginner anymore.

Ashley: You were saying how for live performances you have to hire a band. How do you do that? What is the process for that?

Micah: I’ve gotten really lucky with my band because they were just a bunch of people I knew. They were friends that I met in different places and it all kind of just came together at the right time. I knew I wanted to play with a band for way longer than before when I first started releasing music. I wanted to play with a band, but I also knew I wanted to sound good so I needed people who would be able to [play my music] well. Around the time I was recording Okay Night, I knew the songs absolutely 100% needed a band if they were to be represented well live. So I started asking around to a few people who I knew were good musicians and we had a few good practices. Then I agreed to a show that I said I would do with the band before we had even practiced once so we just practiced like crazy before and it turned out really well. Since then I’ve had to replaced a couple people because they left for vacation or for the summer, but I’ve just gotten really lucky with people who were excited about the project and who were also extremely talented musicians who really helped the music come out better then if I was by myself.

Ashley: And when you are showing the band the music, do you only show you’re your part and let them improvise their own parts or are your very specific with what they need to do?

Micah: I have very specific instructions because I am writing all the parts and because when I was bringing everyone in on this all the songs for Okay Night were pretty much written. Basically it was “Here is exactly how to play the part, you can improvise if you want to, but the songs basically need to sound like this.” I don’t really like doing that because I feel like I’m stifling other people’s creativity but –

Ashley:  -but it is your music

Micah: Exactly, and that’s what it boils down to and that’s why I again got really lucky with the people I’m playing with. They are really creative and they offer great ideas and really great input and we have really great practices - all brainstorming new ideas on how to make the songs better - but ultimately they are people that are okay with the fact that I originally wrote the music and I get the final say. So yeah, my band is good.

Ashley: We kind of talked about it before but what is the most stressful part of being a professional solo musician?

Micah: You’re doing every aspect of a band alone, essentially. I’ve talked to people who are in bands and they have this really awesome [system] where they all designate whose doing what. They have somebody who takes the place of a manager, and they all designate all their specific roles. When you’re by yourself you are doing everything and your accountable for the same responsibilities that each band member would be responsible for. If you aren’t well rehearsed and something fucks up, it’s completely on you. It’s your name on the posters at the end of the day. That’s probably the most stressful part, you have a lot of responsibilities and you have to deal with it if something goes wrong. It’s your fault even if it isn’t directly you fault. You need to be crazy proactive about everything, organized and on top of everything all the time or things can go terribly wrong.

Ashley: What are your future plans, where would you like to see your project going?

Micah: Actually I was filling out grant applications the other day; which was really good for me because it was the first time I had written out my plan on paper. Basically at this point [my plan is to] just go to tour, and keep writing the new music we are making now. It is quite a bit different [than our most recent sound], it’s a lot more pop sounding, I use more synthesizers and I have more fun with it now. It works better for live performances and I’m really excited to see where that goes. As soon as I have songs that I feel good with, we are going to go into the studio and record them. I’m organizing a tour but it’s still in the early stages of planning and I need to figure out how I’m going to pull it off. So far, everything with my music has been falling that natural progression of opportunities coming up and I’ll take them and then I look for [more] opportunities and I find them and take them.​ 

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jul 9, 2015 at 6:00pm PDT

Support Winnipeg musician Micah Visser!

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Instruments: Voice and piano

Genres: Soul, Urban and Pop

Flo and I met back in December 2014 when we were both performing at a Holiday Party. It was one of the first times I ever performed solo and was really nervous. Flo did an excellent job calming me down and encouraging me. (Her performance was also absolutely stunning, by the way.) I knew she would be a great choice to ask to interview because she would have great advice and feedback about the music industry. Her bright and energetic personality was amazing to watch and listen to as she passionately talked about her musical experiences. You can tell this girl absolutely adores music. 

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Ashley: What made you decide to do music?

Flo: For me, it was the one thing that felt right. I felt this fullness, this connection. It not only felt right, it felt good. Everything else I tried and looked into, when I was looking into different careers and fields, nothing felt like really and truly me. [Music] felt like a great fit for me because it was effortless. I loved it.

A: How long have you been professionally singing?

F: This sounds hilarious but I always joke around when I “came out of the closet” with music; because I was definitely more of a closet singer. Growing up, myself and my sisters and my cousins all loved to sing. I always believed because of the way I grew up that the arts like dance, drawing, writing stories anything artistic was a hobby. It’s not something viable.

Now that I look back on it, I was naturally always artistically driven. My sisters and I sang since when were like who knows. I have a memory of the three of us being buckled up in the back of my dad’s car and the radio would be on and we would be singing and I remember him turning around and being like “How?! Who taught you guys that?” We just sang, we just imitated what we heard on the radio and we still sing all the time.

I used to love dancing. I watched those shows like ‘So you think you can dance?’, I love it. Singing, dancing and I still have my old sketchbook. I love writing stories. All the stuff came so naturally to me. Nonetheless, it was something I tried to repress or throw in the closet or under the bed and not open it up. I thought if I would sing it would be in a choir or in the shower or in the car. But it wasn’t until 2003 or 2004 where I got to the point where I said “enough!” Be you. Be real. You cannot live the life other people want you to lead because at the end of the day if you’re miserable it’s you that you have to account for. So in 2003 or 2004 I promised myself that I was going to take steps and cross paths with people, figuring out what I can do to actually take it seriously and pursue it. Since then it’s been a journey.

A: Whom do you listen to? Who inspires you musically?

F: Okay, if I have to narrow it down my favorite are the American R&B songstresses or soul divas. Everybody from Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston, Brandy, Monica and who am I missing? There are so many. John Legend, I was just setting off all these females but also Stevie wonder. My favorite are definitely the rhythm and blues and soul. That’s my language. That’s what makes my heart beat. There are many more, but those are the main ones.

A: What accomplishments are you most proud of?

F: If I’m going to be real and sum it all up. I’m happy that I decided to take that leap and pursue music. It was a scary thing for me. But it’s changed my life and I’m happy I did it.

At one point I’ve wrote a list of venues that I’ve dreamt of performing on. Stages that I dreamed of gracing, and would you believe it, about a year ago I looked at that list again, and I got goose bumps. I’ve done it! Things like that, it’s just crazy. I don’t want to sound like I’m tooting my own horn or bragging. I view myself as a regular girl-next-door, a regular person. But some crazy things have happened to me on this journey that wouldn’t have happened if I had not pursued this. I love Lauryn Hill, and getting the opportunity to open for her at the concert hall or getting the opportunity to perform at the Burton Cummings theatre. There was a benefit concert at the MTS Centre and singing on that stage was insane.

If I told Flo from the past that these things will happen I would have laughed at Flo from the future and said “Come on, let’s be real.”

Those things have given me the faith and the boldness to be like “okay if these things can happen, the sky’s the limit. All things are possible.” Sometimes when I have those down days or down moments. I think to myself, “don’t forget what has happened before. Hold on to your faith, keep on looking forward because the best is yet to come.”

Don’t get into those pity party moments because we all go through those up and downs when we have our vision in mind and we know [it’s] going to be our Mount Everest or our large goal. Sometimes when we look that big goal and it’s so much greater than you, so larger than life and you wonder how you’re going to get there. Baby steps. Which is why when I look at myself and where I’m at, I think “Oh my gosh, this is going to take forever” I need to remind myself that it’s step by step and bit by bit. From where I started to where I am now, things have happened and more is to come.

A: How do you deal with nerves before a performance?

F: Well, I actually heard something that I will never forget that I tell other performers too. I think I as watching an interview on E talk or something. They were saying the greatest performers like Cher, Adele, Madonna get nervous before shows.

Adele, actually, when she had just released her album 21 she was saying how she got so nervous that before a few shows she would projectile vomit. She had a story where she was in Germany on her balcony and she was so nervous that she ended up puking on a fan. From her perspective she’s thinking, “What if I’m not good enough? What if I disappoint all these people who have come to see me?” I was shocked, I couldn’t believe Adele felt the same way.

What really got me was that other than these legends still feeling nervous; I think it was either Cher or Madonna, one of them said that it’s good to feel nervous, like an Olympic athlete before their big feat because that nervousness gets converted into adrenaline. A lot of times, when you have the best killer performance, it’s that adrenaline surging through your veins and arteries.

On top of that, what I got from the show that I’ll never forget, when you stop getting nervous get worried. It means you don’t care anymore, right? And sometimes maybe for smaller performances, where my heart might not be in it, I do okay. From my perspective and from what I know I can do, if I lack lustre and feel that’s it’s a mediocre performance I know I can do better. I find the performances where I’m nervous, and I HATE that nervous feeling, I HATE that feeling where, forget butterflies, BATS are in your stomach and you feel like you are going to puke and you are overthinking. I find those performances that I care so much that I want to do well. That nervousness, as soon as you hit the stage becomes adrenaline and you just kill it.

I don’t like those pre-jitters. But from what I hear everyone; actors, comedians, dancers, professional athletes, they all go through it. It probably won’t go away but that’s okay because it’s normal.

A: How do you balance music with any other obligations you might have?

F: I think it’s a constant juggle. I think there are few people who have mastered the art of balance. They need to teach the rest of us. Some months or some days I’m better than others. It’s definitely a struggle. I’ve heard so many stories and I know there are artists where their careers are so successful but their family lives are just brutal; that really get’s my heart because I want to learn from their mistakes. There are some people who have won Grammies, American music awards, Junos and are constantly touring but they’ve had two or three divorces. Or they will feel like crap because they look in their sons or daughters eyes and they are never there for their soccer games or tucking them in at night. Or even their friends who only get to see them on TV but never in person.

Garth Brooks took a hiatus from his career because he wanted to raise his daughters and wanted to be a dad. He ‘s not just a recording artist; he’s a dad too. I really respect that because I feel that’s important. At the end of the day when you are celebrating your accomplishments with your music, you don’t want to be celebrating them alone.

Success in life isn’t about having a successful career but having a successful family and friends. One thing that I have been hearing lately that really resounds in my spirit is that family and relationships are the most important thing in life. Again, I’ve heard so many stories of successful people who are rich but they are so miserable and so lonely. At the end of the day let’s say, not to be morbid but at your funeral you don’t want one or five people there, not that it’s a popularity contest but you want to know that you’ve impacted and touched the lives of many people through relationships.

For me, I want to try my best to balance. Sometimes, if that means that certain aspects of my music career are going to be sacrificed, at the end of the day I want to sleep well at night knowing that I didn’t mess up when the time comes [something like] marriage or kids because I was so 100% focused on my music career. So to be honest, it’s something I want to master. Balance is so healthy and important. But it’s something that I’m continuing to learn more of and try to be very conscious about. 

A: What is your songwriting process?

F:  I learned that there are so many different types of artists but I find that artists fall into different pools. There are some people who are constantly multi-tasking. When they are on touring a specific album, they are writing their next album. They are finding bits and pieces of time while they are performing to record.

Some artists do things specifically in seasons. That’s me, I’m one of those people. I’m all or nothing. I have a season where I just focus on songwriting and after that, it’s the season of taking the songs and start recording them. After that I focus on marketing and pushing that album, then touring and so on and so forth.

For me, I have learned that I’m a melodically driven person by far. Melodies come to me like out of the blue. I can be in the shower, where it predominantly happens which is the most annoying thing in the world because you’re sopping wet.

I’ve tested it where I’ll finish my shower before getting out and recording the idea as soon and I’ve either forgotten it or it’s changed. I can be driving or at the mall and ideas will just come to me. Thank goodness for our cell phones with voice memos.

It’s great for me to collaborate. Knowing my strengths and weaknesses, it’s great to collaborate with people who are lyrically driven. I’ve met people; it’s funny how things connect naturally, who are opposite of me where lyrics come naturally to them but not melodies. I find that it works best to work people [who are like that.]

Not to say that lyrics don’t come to be, because they do, but I find melodies come to me so much easier. I used to start with chords, melodies and then a couple words will come to my minds or a concept or idea then plug it in and then morph the chords around the melody.

Yeah, melodies are out of my wazoo. It’s at the point where I’ve got tons of melodic ideas and I need to start putting some words to some of them.

As the Beatles did with Paul McCartney and John Lennon, I think it was Let It Be. They started by just saying “Green Eggs and Ham” and they had the melody. Also John Legend said he does [that for] the songs he writes. For All Of Me, maybe the first thing in his mind was the word ‘roses’. He would just sing with the chords he had “roses and roses” until sentences or more concepts came to him.

I’ve found that helps sometimes, I’ll be at the piano and I’ll have a chord progression, then all of a sudden some words will come and I’ll put other words together with other stupid words. Something eventually comes out. For me always start with the melody or chord progression.

A: What advice do you have for beginner singers?

F: Follow your heart. Never sell out and be true to who you are. I love what Sam Smith said at the Grammys. He was trying to form himself to what he felt what the world’s view of the male pop artist. He was trying to lose weight, sing a certain way and he got to a certain point where he was like “screw this.” He was exhausted because he would sing a certain way, create a certain image and would go knocking on the doors of labels and people and everyone was ignoring him and not paying attention. He got to the point where he was so tired of it and just started being himself. If people like it great and if not, they don’t. He was who he was and the rest is history.

Be true to who you are. Soak in as much as you can. Learn from those who want to teach you or go to workshops. Forget just music. Some of the most brilliant minds. have all said that the foolish one is a person who feels that they know it all, but we are all still learning. Learning is so important.

Keep the vision in sight, never stop keeping it clear. Don’t let other people pop it or break it down. Be careful who you share it will because some people who want to tear it down. It’s ridiculous but some people do. Work hard and keep really good people around you. Keep your eyes on the prize and your nose to the grindstone. That’s one of my favorite sayings. Surround yourself with people who are good and people who are stronger in certain areas than you. That’s how you grow. You become more like the people you surround yourself in. There is just so much to say, but that’s the closest I can get to summarizing it all.

A: So you sing and perform, how do you approach people to join your band for performances?

F: The same way as making Facebook or twitter contacts. Initially, when I started off with putting the band together I was a little nervous because what if they didn’t want to join. When I see a musician that inspires me or who is freaking amazing, I’m like “What the heck do I have to lose?” I’ll go up to them and give them my email or maybe if they are into social media I’ll Facebook or tweet them. Telling them “I would love to work with you, let me know if you are interested. Give me a call.”

Of course, it happens where people are busy with a ton of other bands. Or some people, and I’ve told them “Much respect, thank you for your honesty” they will be like “Look Flo, we aren’t really into the R&B soul thing, I’m definitely more country or folk or rock musician.”

I’d rather someone tell me they aren’t feeling it because I’ve worked with musicians who are so good for certain genres or styles of music but it doesn’t blend well with the genres I’m doing. Or someone is playing with me but there heart is not in it. You can totally tell the difference between someone who is passionate and who loves what they are doing with you and someone who doesn’t. I love working with musicians who have their heart in it and will be like “heck yeah, let’s do this.”  Just test it out and just don’t take it personally if it doesn’t work out.

A: What is the most stressful part of being a professional musician?

F: I’d have to say unlike people we know who have the 9-5 or 8-4 job; it’s instability. As people say, it is one in a million who get to that real spot of success. But then again, success is what we define as success. [For] Some people success is being able book coffee shops across the country or continent. [For] Some people success is being able to book venues the like the West End Cultural Centre. Other people, success is selling out arenas or stadium or concert galls and getting nominated for Junos or Grammys.

I guess there are some dry spells. There are periods where it’s quieter with gigs and you have bills and stuff. I’d have to say for me, the instability and for somebody who is a little Type A who likes to have things planned out. The spontaneity can be cool but other times it can be like “crap” how do you plan your life when there are surprises that pop out.

For myself and my goals, as I mentioned, my definition of success is big and out there and so keeping my eyes on the prize is sometimes hard. Meaning I do know what I want but perseverance and persistence and staying on this road [can be challenging] because I know some people who are so talented but got tired and exhausted and sick of [it]. Continuing to have faith in what I believe and to make it and get to the end of the road is the end goal.

The instability with the little surprises that come along and holding onto that dream and knowing it may seem invisible to a lot of other people but understanding it will come. Those two things are the most stressful.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jul 2, 2015 at 10:02am PDT

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Genre(s): Indie Alternative Pop

Instrument(s): Bass Guitar, Guitar, Keyboard, Voice

Sandy from Indicator Indicator, originally from the band Quinzy, talks about the struggles of leaving one band and feeling the need to keep making music. He talks about the stresses of starting out and touring and talks about his decision to join the label Pipe and Hat. His was really interesting to listen to and I really enjoyed the way he understood each experience meant to him and what he took away from it all.

With me still not really used to meeting and interviewing band members, I was really nervous about meeting Sandy. I had heard great things about Indicator Indicator from a couple of my co-workers but hadn’t met them before the interview. I had volunteered at Sc Mira’s Album release on June 11 (which was an amazing show by the way) and got to see Indicator Indicator perform as one of the opening bands. They all had an excellent stage presence that really pumped the audience in a great way and the music was vivacious. You could really tell the crowd adored them. 

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Ashley: What started Indicator Indicator?

Sandy: Well, Quinzy was just starting to wind down a little bit. We spent a long time with Quinzy, doing the four-piece pop rock band thing, a little more mainstream. We spent a lot of years trucking away, swinging for the fences with labels, things like that, and it started to weigh us down a little bit. But we’re best friends - we didn’t want to stop, and so we just put it away for a little bit.

But I’ve got the sickness worse than anyone else, I think, so I just couldn’t stop. I write, and songs just kept coming. My first love, since I was 15 or 16, has been home recording. So I kind of wanted to get back to where I started, which was these home recording projects. Not even thinking about how you would play them live, or what the point of it was. Just to make music for the sake of making music. That’s what the first Indicator Indicator EP was. [It was] me playing at home on my computer, recording all of the instruments myself. A little labor of love.

Then it was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award and things were going really well with it, and I wanted to take things further. But I wanted to do something different from a 4-piece rock band because I had just done that, and was a little bored with it.

So, I recruited a friend of mine, Matthew Harder, and we did it as a duet, striving to make as much noise as possible. We couldn’t quite play these rich pop tunes with just the two of us so we did a lot of digital vocal harmonies and looping and a bit of electronic sequencing. And things like that that were totally out of our comfort zone because we were just musicians, not necessarily technology-oriented people.

In fact, Matt is a folk player - blue grass, primarily - so we really pushed ourselves outside of our comfort zone. We spent a couple years doing the two piece thing, and did a little touring - it was really cool and fun. Then as the next recording started to happen, it was getting bigger with more live drums and real bass guitar, and I was starting to inch back to making it a band. I took this long circular route back to a 4-piece band!  But this time we’re using a lot less traditional electric guitar, more synth, more fake instruments and other stuff like that. Just blending organic with inorganic.

What I love about pop is that it’s like a mockingbird.  These birds are known to grab all the other bird songs they hear and blend them into their own collage. It doesn’t care about genres, it will just take what it wants out of everything. So, if you like a hi-hat tone from this hip-hop song, grab it. If you like heavy synth, use that. It doesn’t have a lot of parameters, and I like that. 

Ashley: Where does the name come from?

Sandy: It was a song title for about 10 years. I like song titles; I have notebooks full of them. For some reason its kind of where I start a lot of the time. So I had this song title that I really liked - I had read about a bird called the greater African honeyguide, the genus is “indicator” and the species is “indicator”. It somehow knows where honeycombs are trapped in trees, but can’t get to them, so it co-evolved with nearby tribes of humans, and would lead them to where the trees were and where the combs were trapped. The humans would crack them open and they would all get to share the honey.

I though it was the coolest nature story, plus I loved it as a name, but I could never find a song that was really good enough for [it]. Then when I was starting this new project I was like “oh good, I’ve got the perfect name waiting in the wing.”

Ashley: What is a practice session like with the whole band?

Sandy: I get to play with a lot of guys who have a lot of band experience, so we don’t have much patience for watching each other practice anymore. There are high expectations that everyone knows what they are doing, and so more we’re just tweaking and selecting who is playing what part, and making more “production” decisions than actually “can you play this guitar line”.

I tend to think with production in mind as I write, and maybe 1 in 10 songs I could just play on an acoustic guitar and have it make sense. I guess I could write more of those types of songs, but that’s not really where I lean. I like parts; I like having a bass line that’s distinctive to the song. When there are all these moving parts in a song and there are only four of you to play them, it’s more about who is doing what at what time, and making sure we’re representing the song correctly. If someone were coming in [and listening to this] cold, would they be able to understand it?

So it’s more about a “producer” mindset than “instrumentalist”.  I don’t want just a guitar player, or just a drummer. I want people who can do whatever. And so we’re just four producers trying to make something cool.

Ashley: So when you are writing music, do you think of every part? How do you bring that to the band?

Sandy: Usually I record it all and then say, “here’s what we’re playing.” Although this is the first recording that the other guys are really deeply involved. We’re getting ready to release a mini-LP, (it’s a little bigger than an EP, so I’m calling it a mini-LP), and one of the songs is called No Anthem, which is the first single, and I had it fully produced [to sound] kind of cool. But when I brought it to the band it just wasn’t working. So it got deconstructed and became something totally different and now it’s very much a band arrangement.

But for the most part they come fully fleshed, though. I did that a lot with Quinzy too. As soon as I get into a song, I can’t really let it rest until it’s finished in my head.

Ashley: I can’t produce music.

Sandy: You should try, it’s easy.

Ashley: I have tried, it’s too hard for me.

Sandy: The world we live in, every low-entry Macbook has Garage Band; which is an amazing recording tool and let’s you multi-track as much as you want. You can dick around, and no one needs to hear it. You just chisel away at it. Sometimes you can be recording something, a full song even and the only thing you like about it is this little guitar part, so then take that and build around it.

I think it’s a great tool and it’s obviously revolutionized music. People are making laptop rock. People are making full music all on their own and they don’t know how to play a single instrument. It’s lusher and more innovative than any 4-piece folk rock band you’ll ever here, again because they’ve got no parameters.

Ashley: I guess I can give it a shot. So who inspires your music?

Sandy: Bands that mess around a lot in the studio.  And people who can write songs. But that’s almost beside the point. Too me, it’s how can they make it interesting, different, cool. Subvert what may be a great melody. I find that stuff inspiring, and I’m often scared that I’m maybe not pushing myself enough to do that.

But also, modern pop. I love modern pop. With Tegan and Sara, when they just jumped straight into top 40 synth-pop recently… I thought that was a really cool move. And I know they took a lot of slack for it; but I think their songs are just so beautiful and air-tight, so unnatural-sounding, but so moving. It cannot be recreated. It’s an art onto itself. It’s unnatural. It’s an impressionistic painting or something. All kinds of pop nowadays, the amount of creativity involved is just staggering, the amount of love these engineers and producers are putting into it. Put headphones on and it’s a magical world, it’s great. And pop never gets credit for it. It’s seen as disposable, and maybe it is. The songs don’t actually “mean” anything, but they are staggeringly beautiful. Like that new Selena Gomez song; I mean, who likes Selena Gomez? But that song is so good when it comes on the radio.

We can’t do that modern pop thing, quite. I don’t have the skills, but maybe I would if I could.

Ashley: You mentioned a little earlier that you start with songwriting titles, but what exactly is your songwriting process?

Sandy: Sometimes titles. More often than not I’m sitting at the piano. It’s almost always at a piano. Once in awhile I’ll try to come from a more production-based place. I’ll get a really nice feel or beat or something like that and just improvise over it. I usually have email drafts of lyrics all over the place and when one melody comes out I’ll sort through the lyrics and see if anything goes with that; in terms of feel, or if it actually fits with the melody.

So it’s pretty rare that I just sit at the piano and pop something out all at once. Maybe a verse melody comes along, then I think about other chorus melodies I have laying around, and see if they fit. Look around at the lyrics I have, or see if there is a title I want to start with, and it slowly comes together.

But it can happen suddenly once in awhile. Our new record starts with a waltz called Instant to Instant, and that feels like the last time I just sat down at piano and was like, “Oh, here’s a song. Oh, and the lyrics came too, how nice!”.  I walked away that afternoon feeling all good about myself. But it’s usually a more painful process than that.

I try to be really ruthless with songs. My personal belief is that everyone can write melodies. Everyone can. When we’re whistling in the street, when we’re singing in the shower. People are creative. Every single person. I think the craft of it, or the hard part, is in he editing. Knowing what’s good and what is not, and being able to cobble it into something that both makes sense on first listen, and yet is not quite what people would expect.

Ashley: With Indicator Indicator, what accomplishments are you most proud of?

Sandy: Little moments. Like back when it was just Matthew and I doing a two-piece, when we were in Toronto for a little festival - it was our first time on the road, and we were still working out a lot of kinks. (Actually we never really got through all the kinks, we kind of just moved on). But it was particularly tricky in that first little go, to the point where two thirds of the shows were miserable. This piece of gear broke, I didn’t do this right, this looped sucked.

We had one of those shows, and it was a showcase where we were supposed to be judged, and it was a terrible show. I was like “Oh my god, I’m too old to have terrible shows like this.” We went home, had a beer and kind of licked our wounds because we actually had another show that night. We did eight or nine shows in six days, I think. So we had to pack everything up again and go do another show and THAT one we crushed. The idea that we just got right back up and put the first one in the rear view mirror, and then got a win. It’s those tiny moments that I love and will never get tired of. Because it should always be hard, it should always be SO hard so when you get those little victories it feels so good.

It’s a double edged sword, I’m always kind of proud of the product, but I’m never satisfied with it, I’m never really happy with it. I like the records that I’ve made, I like the recordings, I like the recordings Quinzy made. But I don’t listen to them, I would never listen to them, I would only hear the things I would want to change now. Similarly, I look back at shows and see the banter that I didn’t like, or the missed notes. So, the details are almost always painful, but there is a more general pride simply in that I get to be in a band. It’s the coolest thing in the world and I still love it.

I love it as a concept, but every actual moment of it seems frustrating and hard and soul-sucking [laughs]. But it’s who I am and I have to do it.

Ashley: What is you favorite song to perform?

Sandy: I think it’s the song called Back into the fire. It’s the last song on the first EP, and in retrospect it touches on the time that Quinzy was going for major label deals, and we got kind of close, but all around us we could just see that this model we were chasing was dying. That it doesn’t work anymore. It’s all going to be totally different soon so when it ended, it felt like I was escaping a burning building. But then I realized “Nope, I’m going back in. Here we go.”

It’s a simple song that just felt kind of pure coming out, and the feel of it works with the lyrical vibe. And I feel it every time we play it, almost every single time. It’s a slow, boring ballad and maybe we shouldn’t be doing it all the time, but I love it and it’s important to me. It’s one of those rare victories that I don’t always feel in songs.

Ashley: How do you deal with nerves before performing?

Sandy: [Points to beer] For the record, I just pointed to my beer. [laughs] No, I generally don’t get too nervous. What’s funny is that I’ll usually have nerves the day before. Or even the day of, but as soon as I’m setting up, that’s where the experience comes in. “Oh I’ve done this before, I’ve done this a million times. I know this.” This process of getting ready, strapping on your guitar, checking on your gear, tapping on your mic, it just puts you in this zone like, “I know how to do this”.

I used to have worse nerves, and you just have to barge through it. There is no easy way around it. Really, you should always have some nerves. If it’s just dead to you, that’s not a good thing. You have to feel some kind of apprehension that it’s not going to work, that you’re always on the knife’s edge, and you have to accept it for what it is. Yet, you need to realize that the stakes are not that high. I mean, you cannot play the worst rock and rock show ever played. You can’t. And what’s so important to you won’t be that important to the audience. That’s sort of sad and sort of cynical, but it’s the truth. All you can do it make them feel that this is as important as it is to you. The worse case scenario is not that they’re going to hate it, it’s that they’re not going to care. If you can kind of realize that without letting it take away your steam, you can put it in a proper context. I mean, this isn’t Doctors without Borders. It’s standing there trying to entertain people, and it’s been done a million times before you and will be done a million times after you. So just do you’re best.

That’s no answer for you at all, I’m sorry.

Or, I guess the answer is doing it again and again and again because you have to. That’s the only way.

Ashley: What is the most stressful thing about touring?

“...it should always be hard, it should always be SO hard so when you get those little victories it feels so good.”

— Sandy Taronno

Sandy: Money. It’s expensive, and being away from home is hard. I have a two-year-old son and it’s not easy to be away and realize he’s growing up without you, and that life just goes on. I know a few musicians for who [touring is] their primary source of income, but it’s very rare. For the most part, even the most creatively successful musicians have another job somewhere. They have to. Which means you need to leave that behind when you tour, and if you have a family you need to leave them behind too. There’s just so much selfishness that it can feel pretty bad. So, when you come to a place and play for no one, you wonder “why am I leaving everyone for this?” Yet, if you want to be in a band you have to do it. It’s a sacrifice, but really it’s a selfish sacrifice. And if you think too much about it, that’s what makes it hard. So, you just need to not think so hard about it at the time, and be very careful in the touring that you choose to do, and make sure each trip is the right move. That it’s appropriate, and it’s worth the investments. You have to do it for a very good reason.

Ashley: How did you get signed to your label?

Sandy: When Indicator Indicator started, I knew I wanted to release as much as I could on my own. I’ve always liked the do-it-yourself approach. I’m a very hands-on kind of guy. I even ran our own promotion campaign for the first record because I wanted to see what it was like. And I just like learning and seeing all the different sides of the industry.

Anyway, I was really happy doing it all myself and seeing how far I could get, but cracks were starting to show and I was hitting some walls. I wasn’t doing a very good job over here, or the music was suffering over there. And there were just these walls you hit – some things you just can’t do on your own. It’s not a matter of will, it’s that you just can’t do it. I came to the realization that I should probably team up with someone to relieve some stress and get opportunities that I can’t get on my own.

So I reached out to Pipe & Hat just because I wanted someone local that I could talk with in person everyday if I wanted to, and I felt like they’re hungry. Like, they have these large ambitions so in a way I can unload that feeling a little bit. Let them feel the fire and hunger so I can focus a bit more on perfecting my own little world.

These guys seemed to fit the bill, so I reached out to them and we right away got along beautifully and formed a fast friendship. I’ve been really impressed with what they’ve done so far and the level of professionalism that they’ve brought. They’re challenging us to raise our game, and that pressure feels damn good.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jun 18, 2015 at 3:21pm PDT

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Genre(s): Neo-Soul influenced by Jazz, Hip-Hop, Folk and experimental

Gaby's Instrument(s): Lead Guitar, Percussion

Selci's Instrument(s): Singer, electronics, guitar

I first met Gaby at the Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba. We were both in the same chorus so I felt good about contacting her to interview her and Sapphire Empire. I had seen Selci on campus but hadn't had the opportunity to formally introduce myself. Gaby, Selci and I got together at the Hollow Reed and over some delicious tea and snacks, that I can’t remember the names of, we talked about Sapphire Empire. These girls must be on the same wavelength. They were so much fun to interview because they were constantly finishing each other’s sentences.

I love how this interview focused a lot on how to make a big band work. I've never experienced performing in a band and I had never asked any other the other artists I interviewed who were in bands what it was like.

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Ashley: What started Sapphire Empire? Where did it come from?

Gaby: Well we met and started jamming together and it worked magically somehow.

Selci: Yeah, we met somehow. Apparently she used to see me on the bus but I didn’t see her.

Gaby: We also both go to the same faculty.

Selci: We met at a show and it was like “Oh I think I know you from choir”. Then we were like “let’s jam” and then we jammed and it was like ♪♫La la la, this is awesome! ♪♫ and still now every time we jam it’s like ♪♫La la la, this is awesome♪♫.

Gaby: We’re just good musical partners now somehow randomly comrades.

Ashley: So how did the whole band get together?

Gaby: Well we write the music primarily and then we have a lot of different members. We went through a few bass players and drummers. We ended up getting together with some people from the faculty of music. So our drummer Ben kidd, our keyboard player Anatol Rennie, our trumpet players Decarlo Jackson and Emily Kidd. They all go to the faculty of music. Our bass player is this little wunderkin, he’s this little 20 year-old who we met and he’s so good and wonderful. He doesn’t go to school with but we just love him so much.

Selci: He’s been in the band the longest and we love him dearly. His name is Lucas Redekop. We’ve had the group with all of us for about a year and a bit. It’s been a great band and it’s been super jamming, really great. And everyone is super down, so it’s nice! [laughs]

Ashley: How did you approach them? Did you know them first?

Gaby: We picked them out little by little we were like “Hey you know drums, you’re in the faculty, and I kind of know you; let’s jam.” And just like that.

Selci: and when we started jamming everyone realized how good it was. Everyone is a unit now. It’s really nice.

Ashley: What happens during these jam sessions?

Selci: I think if we just want to write music, sometimes we’ll just open jam and jam it out. That’s not an entire rehearsal though. Sometimes we will jam for a bit to get the juices flowing and then practice the songs that need work. Sometimes we will end up re-writing sections or change people’s parts.

Gaby: Basically it’s three things:

1. Someone has something that they would like to bring in that is incomplete and we will all work it.
2. One it will be completely random and open and don’t really know what we’re doing.
3. We’re fixing things or rehearsing. Making sure everything is tight if we have a show coming up.

Ashley: Is someone just playing and then someone else just joins in?

Gaby: Yeah they could yell out “this is in A minor and I’m going from First to Fifth to First” or Lucas will play a bass line and others will be like “ooh, what can I do with that.”

Selci: Even when we write the songs, we write the shell of the song but we aren’t writing every bass line or the drum charts. We bring it to the band and everyone adds their own artistic flavor and help complete it.

Ashley: Where does the name Sapphire Empire come from?

Selci: We were just brainstorming names for a show-

Gaby: No what happened was, we got a phone call for the very first show we were going to play and the woman who was printing the posters called and left a message saying “Hey, I’ll be printing the posters in an hour. Can you call me back with your band name?”

Selci: We were like “Uhhh”. This is when we had just been jamming for a few weeks and we were like “I don’t know.” We wanted something epic. I think somehow we were looking into names of different stones, we were searching books and sapphire came up which resonates a lot with me because it was my birth stone and I’ve been into it my whole life.

Gaby: and I thought it was funny that it was related to Sapphos which is the Greek island where they send all the lesbians and I thought it would be funny if people thought we were lesbians.

Selci: And empire rhymes with [sapphire]. It resonated with both of us and some people after even approached us saying, “oh that’s kind of like Sapphos” and we were like “oh cool, that’s good.” We’re pretty girl power.

Ashley:  What other bands or musicians inspires your music?

Selci: Erykah Badu and Amy Winehouse have really inspired my singing. Me personally, I’ve been listening to a lot of freak folk like Regina Spektor, Coco Rosie. Oh! Also MadLib.

Gaby: Nina Simone

Selci: Yeah for sure, she’s classic.

Gaby: She’s badass. She’s cool.

Selci: We probably listened to the same folk music when we were younger and then now we’ve transitioned into a lot more soul.

Gaby: Totally. I’d say I’m actually still into some kind of Jazz. If I had to name the top people that are really influential to me are Nina Simone, Charles Mingus, Q-Tip and Neil Young. 

Ashley: What is your songwriting process?

Selci: Different often. We are the most productive when Gabi and I get together on our own time and bring in little riffs that we’ve thought of or stuff that we’ve written on our own time. We then get together, mishmash parts, add stuff and then bring it to the band.  Sometimes we’ll do songwriting with the band but since there are six of us and it ends up being like “this is not going anywhere.”

Gaby: For me, the whole song just happens and I’ll write it out. Like the song High Fructose Corn Syrup I just wrote in one go. I didn’t write the words for it or anything so I brought it to Selci and she finished it.

Selci: Then we brought it to the band and refined the whole thing.

Gaby: So either the whole tunes comes out and then I give it to them to complete it or if I have little pieces of stuff I’ll come and meet Selci and we’ll sew them together.

Selci: Sometimes she’ll have a riff and I’ll have a riff and when we don’t know what to do with them, suddenly we’ll realize they work and we’ll smush them together and it will be this Frankenstein song.

Gaby: but they don’t sound like Frankenstein songs.

Selci: No, they don’t! It works!

Gaby: Yeah, it’s weird.

Ashley: I’ve never written a song with someone else so I don’t know how to bounce ideas off someone.

Selci: It can be tricky breaking that barrier. Starting out as “Do you think this is okay?” and eventually being like “I don’t care if you like this or not, I’m just going to play it.” Sometimes we really like what the other person wrote.

Gaby: You just need to be comfortable. I write some really weird stuff and I’ll feel it’s too personal or it’s too much about really personal things that I’m sensitive about.

Selci: But’s that’s what people want to hear. The truth. The honesty.

Gaby: You should do it; it’s an interesting experience.

Ashley: With the band, what accomplishments are you most proud of?

Selci: Our EP release!

Gaby: That’s true, that was great!

Selci: We released an EP in the spring and I think it’s a really early sound. We recorded the first 5 tunes that Gaby and I first wrote together and recorded them over the year. We did it pretty casually because we had been in school full time and it was hard. We got together, released it and we had a really really nice EP release. We’re not necessarily promoting the crap out of it but we now have something to show and to listen to and to reflect on. Now we are going to move forward and we are currently working on a new sound and a new album.

Gaby: I think we’re proud of the EP and I’m just really happy with everyone in the band and how we all get along and respect each other. We can go on tour and not kill each other.

Selci: That’s probably the biggest thing. Having such a unit.

Gaby: The people are committed and amazing people. They’re responsible and we all get along.

Selci: They’re all super conscious individuals.

Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform with the Band?

Selci: I don’t think I have one.

Gaby: I like playing the song called Bebop; because it’s about how much I hate school.

Selci: I was going to say that is my least favorite one because it’s really hard. It challenges me but I have to say these words so fast and I have to make it sound good somehow.

Gaby: That’s fine; we don’t have to have the same one.  I didn’t think we would.

Ashley: Do you have any advice for people who want to start a big band?

Selci: Just keep asking people to play with you and then don’t get discouraged when people don’t keep playing with you or you don’t want to keep playing with someone. Keep on going.

Gaby: Yeah, don’t get discouraged. We went through so many people.

Selci: People have their own agenda and it’s hard to find people who mesh with you. Ask as many people as you can. And keep asking after that.

Gaby: If you see a band and you think their guitar player is really great, as them to jam! It can feel really discouraging and I think some people are reading this interview are thinking “they just got lucky and find the perfect band?”  But man, we went through tons of people and it was really frustrating.

Selci: We had a drummer for a long time that Gabi didn’t jive with that I was really attached to him and we didn’t know what to do. We almost broke up at one point but then felt we had to just keep going.

Gaby: It seems like the biggest deal, but it’s not.

Selci: People will see us in our band and ask how we have such a great band.

Gaby: Well, we went through so many people. Don’t worry, we went through it too.

Selci: It’s all what you manifest too. If you’re like “ooh no one wants to play with me! The world’s going to end!” Well, no one is going to want to play with you. But it you’re like “okay! I’ve got to keep trying because this is what I want to do!” Manifest that energy and people are going to want to play with you because you’re not being a bum hole.  I know it can be hard to find people to jam with but you just have to keep on looking.

Ashley: Where would you recommend to look?

Selci: At shows!

Gaby: Go to shows! Check out the music scene!

Selci: Check out some bands. There are so many awesome people playing. The scene in Winnipeg is thriving. There’s really good venues. If you don’t know where shows are happening, just go to the handsome daughter on any random night. Go to the Goodwill on any random night. Go to the Park theatre any random night. If you don’t like the bands, check another night! They have all genres.

Gaby: Just ask. I’m pretty sure if anyone asked anyone in the band to jam, we would say yes. I mean if someone asked me to jam I’d probably say yeah.

Selci: People ask me to jam all the time and sometimes I have to say “sorry I don’t have time right now “ or sometimes I do. You’ll definitely have to put yourself out there. If you’re not willing to do that it’s going to be pretty damn hard to find someone to jam with.

Ashley: What kind of stressful situations or challenges have you’ve had with being in a band?

Selci: Well now that we are a solidified band and we aren’t dealing with a lot of turnover of people. So I guess just making sure everyone is happy.

Gaby: and everyone’s needs are being met.

Selci: and everyone is feeling okay and comfortable. Gaby and I have moved through a lot as a result of being in a band together. We went into this band barely knew each other and then ended up seeing each other constantly.  We come from really different backgrounds.

Like Gaby is a first generation Mexican chick and she has crazy pride. She has experienced many things in her life that I’ll never experience with regards to oppression and race. With me, I’m the epitome of the type of person that she, like, want to be when she was a kid because that was what seen as the ideal or something. So she has a lot of really intense issues that I encompass. A lot of my beliefs for a long time were non-intentionally ignorant but a little ignorant because of my upbringing. I’m not aware of what it’s like to be a racial minority. I’m not aware of what it’s like to be a first generation immigrant. So there’s tons of stigma that I had and that she had from the opposite side of the spectrum that we’ve had to move through together.  And now we’re both way better people and we ‘ve learned so much from each other. I even think that’s on a large scale but even with relationships with other members of the band and we had to navigate how they work as a person. We want to make sure everyone is comfortable because when you are sharing such a bond with someone like making music you have to be on the same page as him or her. You can’t make music with someone when you don’t feel like you are one the same conscious level as him or her. It doesn’t feel satisfying or something substantial.

Gaby: Yeah, I think at this point we are just trying to navigate relationships. Because being in a band for us is like being in a big family. We have the music thing happening, we’re pretty organized, and we have goals that we want to accomplish in terms of careers and financial success or whatever. But we are focusing on being feasibly a working long-term functioning band. So we have all these plans, which is the easy part because the hardest part is the relationships.

Selci: Just making sure everyone is good.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jun 11, 2015 at 11:57am PDT

Support Winnipeg band Sapphire Empire!

If you like this post, please hit the like and share button below! Please reach out to me via Twitter or my contact page! I would love to hear anything you have to say! Really, anything. I'm lonely. Also I now have a new Facebook page that will let you know when each post is posted! I would really appreciate if you could like it! Thank you!

Instruments: Guitar, Voice, Piano, Bass

Genres: Folk, Roots, Singer/Songwriter

Slow Leaves is Winnipeg's Grant Davidson. His songs, genuine and honest, spare nothing in creating vivid images and heartfelt connections. His voice, warm and effortless, has been compared to the likes of Doug Paisley, Gene Clark and Brian Ferry. His latest release, 2014's Beauty is so Common, like a California country-folk record newly discovered in your parent's attic, blurs the line between new and old. With producer Rusty Matyas’ (Imaginary Cities) keen sense of pop harmony and arrangement supplying a modern vitality, the result is an album deceptive in its simplicity, rich in melody, and immediately classic. (--ManitobaMusic)

I'm so glad I had the opportunity to meet Grant. He talked about such really problems that every musician faces. I adore his music and getting to hear his music making process and his views on making music was a real treat; it taught me to appreciate it even more. I had such a great time even though we were both freezing together in the chilly wind while talking outside.

Before the interview, I just want you to watch a this video just to see how charming Grant is. I stumbled upon it while doing a little research before meeting him. (I can't help but chuckle every time he does something in the shots where he is wearing a turtleneck and drinking from his wine glass.)

Okay enough about me [ha, at least I think I'm clever] and how I felt talking with Grant and read the interview! I hope you enjoy! Please also check out Grant's social media pages! All listed at the end of the article! 

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Ashley: What’s your musical background and training?

Grant: I don’t really have much of one. When I was 15 I told my mom I wanted to learn guitar so she bought me a guitar and I took lessons for 2 years for classical guitar. I never really had any interest in theory; I just wanted to play like Jimmy Page. So I kind of quit and took it from there on my own; but it was pretty valuable because it taught me how to fingerpick which is something I do a lot of.

Ashley: Do you do any kind of practicing? How often do you push yourself?

Grant: I don’t do a lot of practicing. I just sit and grab an instrument and play around.  Sometimes a certain idea comes along or some sort of interesting melody on the guitar and if I can’t quite to do it, but I hear it, I’ll practice to be able to figure out how I want to play it. I’ll keep practicing it until it’s second nature so I can sing over it. But no, I don’t really practice. But that being said when I started guitar I practiced all time. Well, I wouldn’t use the word practice because I would play any minute I had at home. I would fall asleep playing it. Sounds cheesy, but I really just loved the guitar. I had always wanted to play it, so once I started it never felt like practicing. And I wouldn’t say I would work on specific things I just played.

Ashley: When writing your own music, what is your process?

Grant: There are a couple ways but primarily it comes from sitting around with the guitar and strumming or finger picking, singing melodies or random things. That’s how I’ve written almost every song. Sometimes nothing comes from it but once in awhile there is a certain melody or a hook or a line or some little thing that kind of sparks my interests and I’ll start building around it. Sometimes it becomes a song, sometimes it doesn’t. The inspiration could come from something I’ll hear from another song or another band. If it’s framed a certain way I hadn’t thought of before or just gets me excited, I’ll want to do something like that. It always starts the same way with my guitar, playing around with different ideas. For me, the music always comes first. Music with some kind of vocal melody and then I’ll write the lyrics.

Ashley: I’ve never been able to do that. I think of a melody I like then write a lyrical line that’s doesn’t quite fit and the only way to fix it is by changing the melody so I’ll get stuck. I’ve never done it successfully.

Grant: You don’t want to change the melody?

Ashley: Yeah

Grant: Then you just have to pick words that fit the melody. I run into that too, I’ve had big headaches that never actually turned into anything because I couldn’t get past a two-syllable line to finish a phrase. For example if the cadence of the song needs a word with the emphasis on the second syllable but I could only find words that emphasize the first syllable that rhymed. I couldn’t finish the song just based on that because I didn’t have the right cadence.

Ashley: Who inspires you musically? You mentioned you sometimes listened to other bands for songwriting ideas.

Grant: There are lots bands that I’ve loved over the years. I got into collecting music years ago when a friend of mine with a record player and a great record collection got me excited about records. This was 10 or 15 years ago, but it was a musical awakening because suddenly I would go digging through records and pick something that looked interesting. The scope of music that I was exposed to grew exponentially because I would find anything that sounded interesting to me like: 70s music, early German electronic, ambient records, all sorts of different jazz and everything else. Stuff I had never really explored too much before that. In high school my tastes were limited compared to what they are now. I could name all sorts of stuff, but often it comes from a certain record I fall in love with. It could be the songwriting, the production quality, the instrumentation, or the overall feel of it. I’ll have it in my head while I’m writing my own songs. I’m always consciously or subconsciously wanted [my music] to fit in the context of the accumulated records I love.

For me music is about the feeling. I mean that’s how it is for everyone, but I put much more emphasis on the feel than the technical prowess or dazzling people with my skill. I’m not a virtuoso. Music that feels the best to me could be two notes just repeated sparsely as long as there is a certain feel. I like music that makes me feel like I’m getting into a warm bath. That’s what I try to create generally with my music.

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of, musically?

“My wife and I have had this philosophy of trying to do what we feel is most important and separating it as much as we can from money and making decisions not based on financial reasons.”

— Grant Davidson

Grant: I hope that the best things are yet to come for me. I kind of started looking at music more seriously and make it a primary occupation in the last couple of years so I’m not a spring chicken, but I’m not old. I have a 5-year-old son and a wife and it’s become more complicated. It’s hard to go on the road and right now there isn’t very much money in it so it’s been challenging. I’m coming to it late so in that respect I feel like I’m still doing a lot of the ground work of building before I can really hopefully reap some kind of benefits. I don’t meant financially, that would be nice too but you know what I mean.

For sure there are definitely some high water marks for me. This year I’ll be playing at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. I grew up going to that festival and most people or musicians who go daydream of some day of being up on that stage. That’s a pretty big [deal] for me. I also started touring, which was another big thing. I went from playing around town to going on the road, which is a whole other experience.

What I’m most proud of is taking that leap and quitting my job. It was with support and suggestion from my wife. We’ve been together for a long time and we go through these cycles of doing different jobs but always feeling like I’m rotting on the inside. Like I’m wasting some potential I would regret if I didn’t give it a proper chance to fulfill it and explore that part of me. It was a big decision: quitting my job and I’m really proud of doing it. It felt like a really big risk. It’s something I still struggle with, I have friends who have nice cars and who go on trips; but my wife and I have had this philosophy of trying to do what we feel is most important and separating it as much as we can from money and making decisions not based on financial reasons. Hopefully the opportunities get better and better.

Ashley: I think that’s the hardest thing, making the big leaps. I have the hardest time putting my music out there. I just can’t get past that fear of people hearing it.

 Grant:  There is no way of getting around that. Some people spend a lot of time building their craft and working on it before they put out anything. I guess there are kind of two ways.

Like with the YouTube thing, some people just throw it all out there from the beginning. Some people just have the personality that others catch on to. That’s not for me. In fact when I made my first record, I recorded it with my brother-in-law. It was a very low budget thing, solo singer-songwriter stuff. I was pretty proud of it at the time. We were making them one at a time just burning CD-Rs. It sounds bad so I don’t want anyone to hear it now. It’s no where to be found other than a few people who have it. I don’t like putting something out unless it really represents what I want it to. I think there is a risk if something’s not quite ready or if the ideas are only half-baked or if it’s just not there. I don’t know if there is a right answer for that but that’s how I’ve always felt. 

Back then there was no YouTube. 15 years ago, I was just playing songs for my friends late at night. I don’t know if I would have put stuff on YouTube then either, it’s hard to imagine. It’s the idea of releasing, like I’ve said, I’ve hidden that record from when I first started. 

Actually going back to your last question with what I’m most proud of, my last record I feel like I finally made a record I am really proud of. I put out something I could 100% back up because it felt like it was fully realized. All the other albums I made prior, I felt there were compromises in different ways and in varying degrees. That was my fourth record, and the first one has disappeared, a lost classic maybe [laughs]. That was pretty important to me to finally have something and it also goes to show how hard it is. You can’t stop there; you always need to move forward. It takes a long time to realize those things. At least, for me and for a lot of people it does. You have to start putting stuff out there. You want to be proud of it but who knows if you’ll be proud of it 5 or 10 years later. All that matters is that you are proud of it at the beginning and even that’s hard.

Ashley: You mentioned you had gone on tour, had you had your son at the time? What’s the challenge of having family and going on tour for a long period of time?

 Grant: Where there is are few. Number one, I’m basically a stay-at-home dad. I quit my job so I can stay home and take care of our son while my wife works full-time. It frees me up to work on music in the evenings. Going away means having to find some kind of childcare. That’s the tough part. I have our family chip in and it’s hard leaving feeling like you’re leaving a burden behind. Not my son, but putting that responsibility on other people. I can’t go on tour for a long time for that reason. It’s hard because some bands, especially if you get involved with labels, they want you to be touring a lot so it’s hard to get involved with that. 

The other real challenge would be financially. I wouldn’t say the money is pouring in on my end and especially the way music works for the first little while you are investing more that you are getting back. Everything is expensive like making records and applying for showcases. It’s a real financial hit when you have many moments where you’re like “Why am I doing this? Why don’t I get a reliable job?” 

Ashley: Once your son gets older will you try to go on longer tours?

 Grant: Yes for sure. He’s in kindergarten now and next year he’ll be in grade one.  He’ll be in school until three which helps alleviate the logistics of whose going to take care of him. Hopefully it will get easier that way, I don’t know. We will see.

Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who are starting to perform or who want to get their music out there?

 Grant: I don’t know much advice other than you just have to perform. Performing in front of people is it’s own topic, an art in itself. Just like learning how to be good at piano or guitar or singing, you have to just start and practice. You have to do it a lot before things start getting easier and more polished. There really is no way around just starting out. You just have to keep doing it. Getting comfortable in front of a mic and knowing how to present yourself on a stage, there is really no short cut. Some people are naturally more comfortable but I think for most people it’s just a nerves thing. People get really nervous. You’ve got to start out in comfortable environments, in front of friends and family. People who won’t boo you off the stage, you just have to keep doing it.

Ashley: That’s what everyone keeps telling me, but I’ll need to hear it 100 more times before I start to believe it.

 Grant: Yeah when I first started playing guitar and I had all these songs. I was terrified of playing in front of people. I remember my sister and I would have these house parties, back with I was 15 or 16 and my friends would want to hear my music. I would take a select group of 5 or 6 people down into my room in the basement, and it’s funny thinking back to this, but I would have to have the lights off. I just didn’t want to see anyone’s faces. It’s so nerve wracking. That’s how I first started.

Ashley: Do you still do that?

Grant: No [laughs] I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable.

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jun 4, 2015 at 11:50am PDT

Support Winnipeg Musician Grant Davidson!

If you like this post, please hit the like and share button below! Please reach out to me via Twitter or my contact page! I would love to hear anything you have to say! Really, anything. I'm lonely. Also I now have a new Facebook page that will let you know when each post is posted! I would really appreciate if you could like it! Thank you!

Name: Lucas Roger

Instruments: Acoustic and Electric guitar, voice, a little bit of everything

Favorite genres/Music to play: Rock and roll, singer-songwriter, story-lead music, folk roots

Name: Madeleine Roger

Instruments: Guitar, piano, Mandolin, voice

Favorite Genres/Music to play: Rhythm instrumentation, singer-songwriter, folk roots

Roger Roger is a sibling folk/roots duo from Winnipeg, Canada. Twins Lucas and Madeleine Roger are both singer-songwriters who have joined forces, each playing guitar and shamelessly harmonizing all over each others' songs. The offspring of producer/engineer/musician Lloyd Peterson, the twins have a knack for songwriting that must have something to do with growing up in a recording studio. 

Before we started the interview, I had the great opportunity to hang out with Madeleine and Lucas over some tea as they shared stories of growing up together and how they got their adorable but temperamental cat "Turtle". I was able to hear the story of the unexpected birth of this charming duo and how their fun and enjoyable music came to be. This adorable and quirky pair are definitely some of the coolest performers in town.

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Ashley: You [Lucas] like rock and roll and you [Madeleine] like folk music?

Madeleine:  Oh I love rock too! In terms of playing, I’d love to be able to do something like thrash around, but that’s just not where I am right now. We grew up listening to a lot of rock music.

Lucas: The Who, Tom Petty (that’s a big one), the Hold Steady. It sounds nothing like our music, but we like it a lot. Deep purple, country-rock, Jayhawks, Canadian rock like Matt Mays and Joel Plaskett.

Madeleine: People who kind of walk the line between folk and rock. Ron Sexsmith is one of my favorites. I’m typically drawn to is singer-songwriter style music or people who are singing about stories. I ‘m really drawn to the lyrics and melodies.

Lucas: Even if it’s not a unique story; but the performer sings a normal topic in a really interesting, unique way. It’s always fun to hear a songwriter write like that. I think that’s what Ron Sexsmith does so well. He has really cool and interesting stories, like “Strawberry Blonde” and “Pretty Little Cemetery”; and then he has songs like “Clown in broad daylight” which is a song about a clown in broad daylight. You wouldn’t normally think of things like that but he just does it so well. That’s what I like in songwriters.

Madeleine: I think a lot of the art that I like, in many genres and aspects, has some kind of connection to human truth and there are many ways to access that kind of inspiration. I like it when someone puts their finger on something and an audience can listen to it or view it and think “I know exactly what that feels like” or things can just be amazing to listen to. If it’s something that sounds so incredible and imaginative that it’s a new way of hearing something.

Ashley: So you told me earlier you have been playing instruments since you were little, why did you decide to play together?

Lucas: At the time, we were both writing songs on the acoustic guitar. I had been playing in a rock-and-roll band that dissolved in a very healthy way. I took some time to enjoy writing songs on the acoustic guitar and singing them in the kitchen, waiting for the pasta to boil, and Madeleine would walk by and she would add a harmony line to the chorus. Then Madeline went away to the cottage by herself and wrote a bunch or really great songs and started playing them when she was waiting for her pasta to boil and I would hear her.

Madeleine: I would say it was almost accidental. When Lucas was in his rock back, I would hear them rehearsing in the basement and would be sitting at the top of the stairs singing along the entire time. They didn’t know and I probably actually didn’t want them to know that I was making up harmonizing tunes and blasting from my little haven in the kitchen. Then at some point, like Lucas said, I went out of town and started to write more. I had written a couple songs and I knew that I liked songwriting; but I didn’t really like the songs yet. So I thought maybe if I go somewhere and just focus on it for a while so I could figure out how to do it.

Lucas: Did some woodshedding.

Madeleine: Exactly. So when I came back, I remember being a little sneakier that Lucas said. I remember quietly playing the songs I had written in my bedroom. When I thought no one was home I would come down and play them in the living room. Lucas would come in and say “Hey whose song is that?” I would bashfully say, “Oh, it’s my song” and he would ask me to teach him. 

Lucas: In the winter, Madeleine works out at this ski hill and pretty much everyone who works there are musicians. They all like to get together and hang out.

Madeleine: The family that owns the resort is so wonderful and generous. They really have gathered this incredible community of artists around this resort and around that area. It brought together a lot of like-minded people.

Lucas: We had a chance to play some tunes out there. It was a lot of fun and then we started thinking we should see if we could play for the Young Performer’s Program at Folk Fest. I think that was the first things we tried to do together as a duo. We were going to need some demos, so we went on the computer and recorded some basic songs. It got to the point were we needed a name. It wasn’t a one day decision.

Madeleine: We maybe wouldn’t have realized it could work if we weren’t living together. We wanted to sing songs with other people and we were both here, so it just kind of made sense.

Ashley: So, how often do you guys practice your instruments, alone and together?

Lucas: Uh.. [laughs] Easy answer: not enough. I don’t spend a lot of time practicing to get better at the guitar. I probably should, I work all day on guitars and then go home and work on some guitars some more in my shop.

Madeleine: I think the nature of the work you do though has you noodling away on the guitar all day.

Lucas: Yeah, I guess so.

Madeleine: There you go, so you practice.

Lucas:  Yeah, you could say I practice 12 hours a day [laughs].

Madeleine: I also don’t spend much time sitting downtown to practice the instrument specifically. I try to play each instrument everyday, but most times, what seems to happen is when I sit down to try to learn a new song; I just deviate into songwriting. I can’t find myself actually focused on just the instruments for too long because I start to hear tidbits or lyrics and melodies in my head and I end up wanting to catch that. So I stop practicing and start songwriting. I’m starting to see songwriting as a practice in itself. I can happily spend four hours of an evening, just working on a song. And with the practice of songwriting, sometimes it resolves in nothing and sometimes it resolves in bad verses.

Lucas: That’s such a good thing though!

Madeleine: It’s so great! There’s a song you didn’t have to write.

Lucas: I find it so helpful to get past a song. Not to discard it completely or saying that’s awful. 

Madeleine: Just to be able to have the exercise. I’ve written a chorus and I don’t think a verse will come up and that’s okay. I can walk away from this and maybe something will come to me two months later. That’s been happening to me a lot lately. I have this book that collects all the lint and static and madness from my mind. I go through it periodically and see what’s in there from months ago. I might see something I’ll want to work on more. It’s amazing what can happen. I finished a song the other week that had been a couple chords and a couple lines that resurfaced from a year ago. 

Ashley: I’m glad I’m not the only one who has a crazy little book of music.

Madeleine: I would go absolutely mental if they were on just little scraps of paper or worse that I’d try to have my mind remember them. My phone is filled with little pieces too and I will often put them on paper. I always feel I have to catch that stuff. If I don’t it’s gone; which is okay too. 

Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Lucas: Getting along?

Madeleine: Not killing each other. It’s amazing how we live together, we shared a womb, share an Instagram account, a bank account a house and a refrigerator and we don’t hate each other.

Lucas: Or we are really good at pretending! I think our greatest accomplishment is that we are setting a goal for something. Madeleine has been doing a lot of work in terms of preparing for the future and what we are working on. It was so much fun to play together in the Young Performer’s Program because we had been going to see performances there our whole lives and it was important for me to be on the other side of the microphone.

Madeleine: Even the other week, we had opened for Carly Dow’s CD release and played with the Crooked Brothers at the West End Cultural Centre. We had been going there since we were born. Our parents used to pack us up in snowsuits and blankets to haul us there two or three nights a week because our dad was often working or playing there. We would always be going there to see shows. We spent so much of our childhood falling asleep in that building. It was so exciting to play on the same stage where we watched so many of our favorite performers play. A whole bunch of our family and other Canadians musicians I’ve watched on that stage. It was pretty special to play that show with performers and artists that we really respect and love as human beings. It was so amazing.

Ashley: What advice do you have for beginners who are starting out who are nervous about getting out there?

Madeleine: The biggest thing I believe in is to go for it. There is nothing to gain from not trying. You have to just jump in.

Lucas: I would say the same thing. I wish I could tell myself that. I don’t open myself up much to playing with other people. I’m very reserved with how I play and write. I like to do it on my own. But, whenever I play with someone else I learn so much. Just have fun with it.

Madeline: Be nice to people!

Lucas: Write bad songs!

Madeleine: and get over it. Writing a song is an incredible thing. You took something that had nothing there and you turned it into something. That’s amazing! I also really believe it’s important to find other people who are your comrades; we can all help each other. People want to be touring, doing shows in town, recording, they want to be experience new instruments. They are all around us, we just need to find them and drink tea with them!

Ashley: How do you balance work and paying bills with your music.

Lucas: I don’t balance very well.

Ashley: How so?

Lucas: I put work at the top of the list and put everything else at an equal last place priority list. Lately I work eight hours a day and fix guitars then I come home and I work in the shop in our garage until 11:30pm. I’ll give myself time to eat and I can pay the bills; but I just shut everything off.

Madeleine: He’s also been doing fantastic things. Like he’s making me a new acoustic guitar. The guitar he plays is the first one he’s ever built. So we will both have instruments that’s he’s made. They will sound really great because they will have similar qualities.

Lucas: I’m working on making them complement each other well. I think it’s cool that madeleine and I just like making things. She draws, sews, makes kayak paddles, and whatever else she’s making.

Madeleine: And the moccasins I’m wearing!

Lucas: Yeah, it’s apart of who we are, so why not play on guitars I have made.

Madeleine: In terms of balancing, we are both trying to do a lot at once, sometimes it can be hard to focus, or figure out what we want to focus on. I’ve been having an easier time with it because I’m not working full-time. I’ve been able to put a lot of my efforts on navigating learning more about the music industry. I’m learning how to make grant applications, and what’s the best order or operations for releasing an album. That’s what I was talking about before with knowing other people in the industry.  Those people are so helpful. Every time I have a question, I feel like I have a couple people I can call up and ask about pieces of advice. Like booking a show or whatever the case may be.

Lucas: Madeleine is able to just tell me when something needs to be done. I’ll be doing something in the shop and she’ll come up to me and tell me that on Thursday we are going to the studio. If there isn’t a second party making that call, I won’t even be able to do it.

Madeleine: I’m making a lot of my work the administrative side of the music making process. I’ve actually found I quite enjoy it because it’s a lot of logistics and a puzzle needed to be put together. I’ve never really been okay planning two years in the future, Lucas can attest to this, I’m more of a traveler and a wanderer. I usually don’t stick around too often. It’s nice to have found something that I feel really solid and safe in planning two years in advance. This strange feeling of peace comes up when doing all this paperwork for planning, recording, releasing and marketing an album. I need to figure out audiences and what kind of playing we want to be doing for the next couple of years.

Ashley: What is your writing process?

Lucas: I hide away where no one can hear me and I don’t come out until it’s done. That’s probably a very basic answer. I often come up with the entire structure of the song on the guitar and then piece in words. I’ve only ever done the opposite once. I wrote the words down and then the music. It actually went really well so I maybe I should do that more often but; most of the time I hum along to a few chord progressions until something comes up.  I don’t co-write. Again, I’m very reserved. I don’t really do that.

Madeline: I love this question because it perfectly highlights the difference between Lucas and I. Lucas will write a song all at once or the same way every time, and always alone. Where as for more, it’s a choose your own adventure. I honestly have no set steadfast way of writing. Sometimes I write the lyrics first; sometimes I’ll write a melody and plug in the words later. Or I’ll be thinking about a topic a lot and I’ll decide to write a song about that story. One time I decided that I wanted to write a two-chord song and I sat down for a day. It really depends, I don think there are two songs that I’ve written that have been approached the same way. Maybe the first couple songs I wrote, but they were really directionless. I think I decided that I want to write a song and sat down at a guitar and plugged some meaningless words; but I quickly moved away from that to a completely scattered but intentional writing process. A couple times, I’ve had dreams where I’ll hear a song so I keep a journal beside my bed. There have been a couple times where I’ve gotten tidbits of songs from dreams and that’s really cool.  When that happens it feels like magic.

Ashley: What made you decide to make this upcoming album?

Madeleine: It’s time.

Lucas: It just came from looking forward to what we want; what we want to do. Like when we were talking earlier about the accomplishment of thinking of the future.

Madeleine: We have so many songs collectively. We have probably 50 finished songs between the two of us. That doesn’t include the bits and pieces that could turn into songs and those that are still brewing. When we play live we only play originals and we can play several sets of exclusively original songs. After most shows we have people coming up to us asking if we have an album for sale and we have to keep telling them no. We really want to start going on tour and see that it would be best to go with an album.

Lucas: Also venues want to see what kind of product you have. In terms of needing some kind of representation of what we are, we could have thrown up a couple microphones and done a demo but what we agreed upon was to make an album as best as it can possibly be. We realized this is the first one, and it we will be all over the place with ideas of what we want to do with it with how it should sound; but we want it to be done properly, in terms of how its produced and engineered and who else plays on it. We wanted all those aspects to be done professionally, not DIY. 

Madeleine: Even thought so much of what we do in the rest of our lives is DIY, we decided to take the opposite approach.

Lucas: we wanted to start with something we are proud of rather than worry that we don’t have representation online. We hear it all the time, people can’t find our music online. 

Madeleine: We made the conscious decision to not put music online until we have something we feel is really good quality, so the first time people hear our music, it’s something we are proud of and a true representation of our work.

Lucas: And until then, you can see us play live! 

Madeleine: Something else is, I want to make this first album so we can hurrying up and start making the second one. We have only been working on demos right now and it’s the most fun we have ever had. It’s so awesome.

Lucas: Recording is so great. We decided to, with our album, that we are going to have other people play with us. When we perform, we usually just have the two of us: two guitars and two voices. 

Madeleine: Believing that the art of recording is different than the art of performing live or song writing is a whole other entity. You have so many options available to you in a recording studio. It’s more opportunity to play with the songs you have created. Our songs have been growing and developing through the recording process, we have been changing things.

Lucas: When you hear it so many times, and you hear something you don’t like that you’re forced to fix it. It’s good to sit back and hear what you do. Although I’m very critical of myself when I record.

Madeleine: But who isn’t though?

Lucas: I just find doing vocal recordings to be so stressful because someone’s voice sounds slightly different then it does in their head. Or you’ll sing a take and you’ll think it sounds great but when you listen to it you’ll hear it wasn’t actually very good and you have so many things you need to fix and where to breathe and what to stress. 

Madeleine: We love that human quality of recordings though. We decided that we don’t want to make an immaculate album.

Lucas: That was another mutual decision.

Madeleine: We want to make an album that’s us: the real people. With all the flaws and all the moderate mis-chords that may occur.

Lucas: Maybe not so much mis-chords, but making a decision on vocal harmonies.  Some people want them to be bang on that it sounds great and match each other perfectly. There is a song we did the other night that with the feel of the song, even though the vocals didn’t line up it sounds kind of cool. It sounded like we were singing together than rounding off every corner and make it really comfortable. 

Madeleine: A lot of our favorite recordings, the older stuff, when the recording style was more analogue, you weren’t able to take as many takes as the digital world is able to offer. Those albums are filled with all kinds of things that now you wouldn’t often find. 

Those moments, where you hear something unintentional can turn into your favorite part of the song.  That’s the part you remember and you can picture the human in the room recording that part.

Ashley: Do you guys have any upcoming performances?

Lucas: We are playing at the Real Love Summer Festival, this summer in Gimli. It’s a good time.

Madeleine: We’ll be hosting some morning singer-songwriter workshops.

Lucas: some good friends of ours put on the festival and they do a really good job of making that happen; it’s a really cool thing. It’s good to be around people like that too, they said they were going to do something, and they did it. We are also performing at Folk Fest. We are doing the Young Performers again. 

Support Winnipeg Musicians Madeleine and Lucas Roger!

A photo posted by Ashley Bieniarz (@ashleybieniarz) on Jun 6, 2015 at 8:59am PDT

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