My Lifelong Relationship With Music

Pop music was my first love, it hit me hard and fast, and I never really gave it up. The Beach Boys were played regularly in my house growing up, and the Locomotion by Kylie Minogue was my favourite song. When I was slightly older, I had an obsession with New Kids on the Block that was so huge that it was probably a bit concerning, but I'm sure most parents felt this way. 

By the mid 90's I was as much of a fan of the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys as I was No Doubt, the Cranberries and Alanis Morissette. If I was singing, I was singing Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, with a little Céline on the side. I had TLC, Boys II Men and Destiny's Child open me up to the world of RnB, and eventually, I fell completely head over heels for Lauryn Hill.

As much as my musical tastes may seem a bit vast, I understand now what it was all teaching me as a young artist about to embark on my own journey into this amazing world of artistry, musicianship and craftsmanship. 

At the age of 12, I wrote my first song, I didn't complete it, but I started it. I wrote two in total that couldn't seem to make it past the first chorus. I had taught these half songs to a couple of friends, and I decided we should be in a girl group. No matter how focused I was on my new venture, I couldn't figure out how to finish these songs. I couldn't see where they wanted to go. 

At that time, I didn't know anyone else with that kind of interest or skill set, I felt very stuck because I knew I wanted to complete these songs and write more; I knew they were leading me somewhere special, but I just didn't have the tools or capacity. I will say that these two songs, in particular, had a very heavy RnB underdone to them which helped me recognize that that's where my heart wanted to go. 

Vocally I found RnB the most fun and expressive way to sing, and I loved practicing runs. Hearing other artists’ vocal gymnastics became something I would regularly attempt to imitate in order to learn and grow my own voice, and I felt very connected to my soul when doing so. The feeling was very freeing. 

When I was 15 I became so enamoured with Lauryn Hill's MTV unplugged album that it gave me the drive to finally learn guitar (at this point, I still had not finished those songs or anything other I attempted to write).

Playing guitar gave me a whole new set of tools and opened up a world of inspiration. I essentially began my career by attempting to recreate Lauryn Hill's Unplugged album but in my own way. She was so open, raw and enlightening, when I listened to that album I finally felt understood, I felt seen and heard and completely inspired to write a song, and finish it. 

It wasn't long before I was doing just that; I laid bare my feelings and thoughts about myself and the world around me. I became more self-reflective and observant. I wanted to understand more of who I was and the people I was surrounded by. I had so many feelings. I remember being very productive at this point in my life. I was disciplined and excited to learn more about how I could pursue music as a career. 

I can confidently say that at that time in my life, I was completely following my heart. Music felt like my purpose, and even though I had a lot of fear around performing and being heard, I also had very few problems talking to myself or letting others convince me out of those fears. There was a huge part of me that just KNEW going this way was the right way, and I followed it. 

Being very heavily inspired by Lauryn Hill's Unplugged album, the mix of her voice paired with her acoustic, classical guitar had me becoming very interested in folk music. I explored Bob Dylan and Neal Young, Jewel and Joni Mitchell, all while still practicing RnB vocal inflections. I thought it was an extraordinary mix. To me, it was like pairing the future with an ode to the past, both familiar and unfamiliar sounds beautifully mixing together to tell a very personal view and story. 

I began to explore poetry within my writing, I loved metaphors, and my songs were usually 4 to 5 minutes long. 

People were sparked, they were intrigued, but they didn't "get it". And to be honest, I didn't care. 

I was happy doing this, and in doing so, I had quite a bit of interest and opportunities come my way.

In 2007 I thought the best thing for me to do was move away from my home town of Alliston, Ontario and head for Toronto. I figured that if I wanted to make a career out of being an artist, then that's where I should be. For about the first 6 months, I didn't play a single show or do anything that was actually considered productive. I started to feel lost and didn't really know how to take care of myself. When I realized it was the music I was missing I started looking around at the open mic scene in my area, I was living near the heart of Kensington Market, so finding one wasn't very hard. I began playing The Free Times cafe every Monday, met some really cool artists, and they told me that The Supermarket open mic was the place to be, so that's where I headed to next. 

I'm not really sure how it all happened, but I felt like I literally met everyone at The Supermarket. So many artists and people who became so important on my journey, one of them being my producer Mike Schlosser. At that time Mike was playing guitar in his friend's band, we didn't speak much, but we ended up playing a bunch of shows together.

Eventually, we lost touch, but the universe had other plans. 

I kept running into Mike on the street. At one point, he reached out and told me what he's been up to since leaving the band and that we should write together. I had never done a co-write before, I was super nervous and almost cancelled on him, but thankfully I didn't. 

The song we wrote catapulted me into a whole other cycle of my career. It was titled "Cryin'," and it was a moody alt-pop kind of vibe. People loved it, and it had Mike and I, along with his best friend Sandra Wong, now all working together under their then newly created label Little Noise Records. After a few more well-received songs and music videos that we created together, our next logical step was to create an EP. 

ONE 

Mike is a huge pop fan, loves himself some Bieber and Charlie xcx, but Charlie wasn't around at the time we conceived ONE, so I'll leave her out of this. I really wanted to introduce myself with a bang after playing the semi-underground open mic scene for some time. When Mike and I got talking about what music we loved, it was only natural that pop be the main heartbeat of this record, with some RnB undertones. I was listening to lots of Janet Jackson at the time and Destiny's Child, so we came up with this nice blend of sounds that was very much a pop and RnB throwback kind of vibe. 

Personally, however, I was in a different kind of space than when I had started making music. Without knowing it, I had been slipping further and further into my ego. I wanted to make money. I wanted to go to hot parties. I wanted to be seen by others who I thought were more important or had more power than me; I wanted everyone to hear my voice on the radio and know exactly who I am. I was so caught up in that mindset that I was unaware that I was actually losing my WHY. 

For the first time since I began writing, I wrote songs about made-up situations. I created a story, and then I wrote about it. I was having fun exploring this form of songwriting, and it was definitely an interesting new skill to acquire, but by doing so, I was actually disconnecting from the part of me I needed most; my heart.

Creating music from my heart is what had everything unfolding so easily. It gave me energy and excitement, and that showed in my work. The creative chemistry that Mike and I share guaranteed a good song by anyone's standards, ONE has really well written good songs on it, but behind it, my energy was flawed. 

Looking back I feel as though I was a bit difficult to work with, my voice had been damaged prior to recording, I was very unfocused and my social life became way more important than being mentally and physically at the studio. With Mikes hard work, we pushed through it and got a really great group of songs together. The release of ONE brought some exciting moments for me and receiving the recognition felt great, but I didn't realize how quick it would all feel, and that was a blow to my ego for sure. 

Without knowing it at the time, the universe gave me exactly what I needed. I needed space, I needed to reconnect and find what was missing; I needed to wake up. 

OK COOL

After the high of ONE ended and after a few life-altering breakups, I was left deflated. My life was making me tired, and I felt disconnected from everything and everyone around me, which perfectly mirrored what I felt inside. I was forced to face the broken pieces of myself and was given only space, so I could figure out on my own how to put them all together again. I didn't understand how I could write good songs and be a great singer yet not be where I wanted to be in my career and not feel validated by the industry. 

By early 2016 Mike and I slowly began working on some new songs, testing the water as to where we wanted to go for our next project. I still felt too scared to be vulnerable and too lost to know what I needed to be vulnerable about so the universe stepped in a delivered me more time to figure that out. I was too anxious at that point to realize what a blessing that was, but now I am forever grateful.

Sometimes we think we have had enough, that we have been broken down by our own patterns enough, but then some things come around to show us otherwise. 

Human Feel needed to happen, so that OK COOL could happen, but in order for me to unlock the parts of me that were able to conceive that song, I had to really feel how isolated I was from my own heart. 

Every project any artist is creating always has a defining song; the one that gives the whole project its life force and vision, Human Feel was that song for me. 

In August 2016, the universe handed me someone who had me question all of my values. I was willing to compromise so much of myself just to be in their presence, because of who they were and what they did. 

I could no longer deny that my self worth was basically at zero, and that my need to connect on an intensely deep and vulnerable level was activated without any proper tools. I didn't know how to do any of these things with another person, but I did know how to do it with music. 

By allowing myself to feel inspired by my unsavoury choices, I could allow my heart to say what it needed to say. One after another, my feelings in song form were molded by Mike into something I will forever be so proud of. 

All of my life, it seemed I just wanted to make music so I could see the end result, but now I am able to understand and appreciate how important and precious the journey and process is.

ONE was created so I could learn more about my craft and career, while OK COOL was me taking those tools I learned from ONE and reconnecting with my authentic energy; to write, perform and sing from my heart.