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.