A Reflection of Making Albums 

It’s that time again… Album making time!  As much as I enjoy the thrill of pouring myself into the creation of a new compilation of recorded tunes, there is some of it I don’t enjoy as much.

“I can’t wait to hear the new songs,” people will say to me. “I can’t wait for you to write some more music!!”

Well, to be completely honest, I don’t always look forward to the writing process.  Most of my writing happens while hovered over my keyboard or guitar, weeping uncontrollably and scribbling my thoughts onto my tear soaked pages. (Ok, not so much scribbling. If you were to see my songwriting notebooks you’d see how I’m a bit of a closet perfectionist when it comes to penmanship).

The process of creating forces me to dig deep into my thoughts, emotions, and experiences.  There are certain songs from previous albums I no longer perform live because it’s too painful.  When I sing some of my music it brings me right back to when I wrote it and ultimately back to the experience the song is created from.  I have a history as everyone does. My life is made up of good experiences and challenging ones, which always makes for lots to write about, but sometimes I don’t love going through the process of reliving some of my past moments and feelings.

One of my mentors, Suzanne Pasternak, received wonderful advice from one of her mentors Janet Lunn.  Janet, an award-winning Canadian author, told Suzanne to write about other people’s experiences, not always her own.  The reasoning had something to do with not giving away all of your secrets, but what can I say - I’m an open book! I have always said I can keep everyone else’s secrets but not my own.  Great advice from Janet Lunn, but I can’t seem to get to a mature enough place where I can put it to use! Perhaps one day…

In the meantime, there I sit, bawling my eyes out while I crappily sing into the voice memos app on my phone. 😉

As I grow as an artist and a human, I realize how my experiences have changed so much and therefore my songwriting topics as well.  It is never my main focus to try and create lyrics that resonate with other people, but I think by just telling my truth, there seems to be so much in my words that end up connecting me to so many other people.  We all hurt, feel joy and excitement, go through awesome times and hard times, and ultimately, many of our feelings are shared by others for different reasons and from different experiences. Perhaps that is why music connects us all in so many ways.

A lot has happened since the creation and release of my last album.  When the process started for ‘In Between,’ my two co-contributors (Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker) were still in the middle of their Tragically Hip anniversary tour of the ‘Fully, Completely’ album.  For those of you who follow The Tragically Hip (or live in Canada and have a TV or radio), you likely know that the past few years for the band have meant lots of changes, and a significant loss with the death of their frontman Gord Downie.  The release of the ‘In Between’ album happened the week following Downie’s death, and for that reason, I waited until 2018 to release any singles or videos from the album or perform shows supporting it. It was the right decision.

A lot has changed since ‘In Between’ was released, even though not much time has passed.  The new album will feature many of the same participants (why fix what isn’t broken?!) and we will make this record close to home once again.  I like being able to break for dinner and still have some decent hang time with my family. That’s always important to me.

There is nothing greater in my industry than creating music with one’s friends. Even with the emotional tolls of making my art, it’s always worth it to me in the end… Hopefully, you agree.  🙂

I can’t wait to show you what we create.