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

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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

Support Winnipeg musician Flo!

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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

Support Winnipeg Band Indicator Indicator!

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

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!