Part 2

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

I’ve always been a night owl. I feel most creative at night which would often lead to me staying up way too late, but recently I’ve been waking up really early and giving myself a chance to have a relaxing, sometimes creative morning. I typically try to get my work done in the morning / afternoon so I can have evenings to socialize, be creative or just be alone. I actually have a whole other career separate from music, so that takes up a couple mornings and a couple evenings a week.

Finding the balance between that work life and my music work life has been tricky at times, but I’m feeling pretty good about it now. Basically, I work 24/7. I often feel like I don’t give myself enough time in a week to be alone, which is essential, so I’m constantly battling with my schedule to find more me time. It’s challenging for me to be creative around people so time and space to recharge or create is really important for me.

I live in a little place in the forest with my cat, and my family is close too. All of 2020-2021 I would spend 5 or so days a month in Vancouver recording my album, but since that has been wrapped up there’s been fewer trips over there. Just for music videos now, but soon I’ll be back there quite often for rehearsals for my upcoming tour this year… (laughs)

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

When I first started writing this album, I didn’t know it yet. I had taken a break from music for a couple years to focus on school, but once I was finally ready to get back into it stronger than ever, I wrote like a mad woman for a year before I was ready to start recording. I figured I’d put out a couple singles, maybe an EP, but the songs kept coming and before I realized, a bigger story was forming. My producer, Shane Stephenson, said to me one day “If people have enough of an attention span to binge watch an entire season of a show in one night, they can listen to a 45min album.”

I went home that night, dug out my white board, and I mapped out the entire thing. I wrote down every title, I connected them with different coloured lines based on lyrical relations, visual potentials, which connected to each antagonist, so on and so forth. This was a big moment for me because at that point I thought making an album was so far out of my reach. After a short while, I stood back looking at this chaotic, spider-web of a map of colors, titles and chapters and said “That's my album.”

I was stumped for a long time about what the title should be. Nothing felt quite right. Then one day while Shane and I were working on "Tipsy" - which didn’t end up making it onto the album, but still owns a place in that world - and "Kitchen Light". I said “God, this is gonna be such an emotional rollercoaster of an album.” and he, oh so casually, said “Yeah. You’re throwing tantrums so other people don’t have to.” And that's how the album was named. It was exactly right.

But the creative process of Tantrums was really a coping mechanism. I hadn’t put any music out at that time so none of this had started yet. It was just about healing and finding peace in all the madness. This album was a space for me to be loud and expressive and capture all these moments and experiences and turn them into something immortal so that I didn’t have to be the one to carry them anymore.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

I’m very much a private creator.

My producer Liam Moes was one of the very first people in existence to ever hear something I wrote. I never shared anything with friends or family. I remember when I got back home from my first recording trip and I showed my family "Yellow". I don’t think they knew what to expect, but I don’t think they expected that. It was a good feeling. The only song I ever wrote in the presence of someone was the blue room interlude with Liam, and even then I went into the other room to work on the lyrics while he worked on the production.

I’ve always been very shy with my writing and never wanted anyone to hear it until I felt it’s ready to be shared. But I have felt myself relax throughout this process and writing with people is something I’d love to try in the future. Musical creation is a very fun and beautiful thing to share with someone.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

I use my creativity and art to create other worlds which we can escape to. I’ve always been an avid daydreamer, I love losing myself in books, music, movies, anything that puts reality on hold for a little while.

But these worlds of fantasy are also places where we can dream and create and feel and experience and indulge and learn, so I think it’s vitally important for people to have a safe place to escape to.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Music is probably the first place I turn to when I’m feeling lost, hurt, confused etc. Some people turn to religion, loved ones, substances, books, but for me its music, both my own and that of others.

Sometimes, someone else knows how to put your feelings into words better than you do, and that’s such a comforting and relieving feeling. Sometimes I put my feelings into words before I even know what those feelings are. Art is life’s best teacher.

There seems to be increasing interest in a functional, “rational” and scientific approach to music. How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

I’m not much of a scientist but I do know that my body responds to pain and trauma in creative ways rather than destructive ways.

Music is a direct connection to other people, whether you’re the creator or consumer, and feeling understood and a little less alone can rewire your brain and help people out of very dark places.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I feel much safer admitting certain things in music than any other way. There have been so many things I’ve said in my writing that I hadn’t ever said out loud before. I think it’s similar to how it’s so easy to tell a complete stranger your life’s story but find yourself keeping things hidden from your loved ones.

Maybe because art is so subjective and can be interpreted a thousand different ways, it feels like the people who really hear what I’m saying probably relate to it in some way, so we both feel a bit more seen and understood.

I’m honoured to play the role of admitting the hard stuff so others don’t have to. They can just feel seen.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

Music is more than just a frequency. It’s a universal language that people have always used to relate and connect to others and themselves.

I feel grateful to be able to make noise and call it art and have people genuinely enjoy it.