For people discovering you for the first time, how would you describe your music? What song of yours should they start with?
I’m a pop artist, but my music is very influenced by a lot of different genres. I grew up listening to a lot of jazz, hip-hop, soul music, and pop, so it’s kind of pop that is very influenced by other genres from my childhood. The songs that would sum that up would be “Next to You” from this upcoming album and “Confetti” because they’re both very different but cover all the vocal things I like doing. They’re very meaningful to me, so both of those would be a good starting point!
How does your new album 99 Nights reflect where you are at personally but also as an artist?
Compared to the first album, 99 Nights is a record I approached with a lot more confidence going into the studio. I knew better who I was as a person as well as an artist, so I allowed myself to be more playful, and I think you can hear that. I wasn’t afraid to write songs that felt more instinctive rather than overthinking in the studio. A lot of jamming was involved in the creation, and it was very collaborative. I made it with friends in Montréal, and I think you can hear that on the album. There’s something a little bit more raw. We tried to encapsulate the sparks we had in the studio and not alter them too much in production so we could keep that first-draft magic. Even though we worked on the production a lot and put our heart and soul into it, we wanted to keep the “first spark” feeling to the final songs. I approached it with confidence and openness to collaboration and playfulness on the arrangements and musical choices that we made.
Is there a song on the album you are particularly close to, and why?
The most personal song on the album is “Next to You.” It’s the last song that I wrote on the album, and it was a six-month-long process to write it. It was the most time I’ve ever spent writing a song, and it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I wrote a sentence for the song in the first month, and then six months later, I finished it.’ I worked on the song for six months, one word at a time. It just really grew in a very slow way, and I was going through a lot of stuff and life-changing decisions that I was making at the time. It’s a song about moving away from my hometown, and it’s kind of a love letter to Montréal in which I say, “I need to leave in order to grow.” I was making that decision while I was writing the song, so the song kind of evolved as I was experiencing those things in life. I usually write songs in hindsight of things that I’ve gone through in the past, but that one was like writing about the present moment and over the course of six months during that creation process.
The album was recorded in Montréal, London, Los Angeles, and Toronto. How did this global tour play into your creative process?
The DNA of the album was all made in Montréal. The direction we wanted to go in, the sound of the album was figured out there with my friends during the summer, and it was very much jamming sessions in my hometown. We then wanted to take the songs to another level with those first sparks that we had, so we took them to producers and super-talented artists that we wanted to collaborate with.
It’s made in two different phases. Phase one was the Montréal-based demos and the vibe of the album being created, and then phase two was wanting to take those songs to another level and taking them to people that we wanted to work with in a bunch of different cities. That was a fun way to work. There’s a lot of magic involved in this album because of the collaboration. I surrounded myself with producers that I love and that I really wanted to work with, but I also surrounded myself with really close friends who also happen to be very talented songwriters.
What can fans expect from your tour that kicks off at the end of August?
I’m really excited for this tour, especially for this album that has more guitar sounds. It’s a little bit more bandy than the previous album. For music with those types of sounds, live contexts make the most sense. The music just speaks for itself when it’s shared in a live context, and I can’t wait to do that with these songs specifically. We’re going to be sharing really special moments telling these new stories, and I can’t wait to tell them live. We’ve only played some of these songs a couple of times at festivals this summer, so it’s all very new for us. I feel like I’m going to be discovering new parts of my own songs at the same time as I’m going to be introducing them to a lot of people, so that’s always a really exciting thing, but I just can’t wait to see my fans! We haven’t toured in the States in years because we had to cancel our U.S. tour due to the pandemic. We’re just excited to go and reconnect with my fans—it’s going to be really fun.
What would you say is a Charlotte Cardin style signature?
Very simple. Baggy jeans are always my go-to onstage. I like feeling comfortable but sexy at the same time, so I’ll go for a super-baggy jean and a cute fitted top, something I can move around in. I usually like wearing things onstage that I would like to wear in real life as well, so there isn’t a clear signature or a clear-cut between my stage outfits and my life outfits.
Are there any Canadian fashion brands we should have on our radar right now?
Some Canadian designers I like are JJJJound, Punkandyo, and Friends With Animals.
Jessica Baker
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