Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your latest album, and what themes or stories you aimed to convey through your music?

This EP grew out of ‘Untitled Song About Driving’ which I wrote after finding myself mesmerized by a program on TV that was simply showing dash cam footage of someone driving through the Canadian province of Quebec.  It made me think of all the long drives I have taken on Canadian highways, and the hypnosis that occurs after several hundred kilometres of trees and rocks broken by the occasional white cross on the side of the road, or declaration of love spray painted on an overpass.

To capture those meditative qualities the song structure is very repetitive, which is quite a departure for me and my progressive rock background.  I wrote the song live in front of my audience on Twitch, and it soon became a crowd favourite.  Since it was such an anomaly for me, I decided that in order to release it, I would write two songs to bookend it on an EP.  First came ‘Red Twist’ which is about that feeling of spotting the twisted red neon ‘Vacancy’ sign on a roadside motel, and pulling over to crash after a long day of driving.  Then I went back to write ‘Packing the Car’.  There’s a very specific early morning feeling, before the rest of the world wakes up, that I wanted to capture here. The fuzziness in your brain before you’ve had your coffee, the haze and mist in the sky before the sun fully rises. Also, no matter how well prepared you are, there’s always that little voice of doubt wondering if you did all the things you were supposed to do, and packed all the things you were supposed to bring. And maybe the weather won’t cooperate.

Music often has the power to transport people to different places and times. Can you describe a moment in your life when a particular song or album had a profound impact on you?

I think Jethro Tull’s Songs from the Wood had a particularly profound impact on me.  I was a little kid when I heard it first, and I can really picture the living room of the house we lived in at the time when I listen to it, even though I’ve listened to that album a bazillion times since.  I probably wouldn’t sound quite the way I do if I hadn’t heard that at a young age, and then learned to play parts of it on the guitar.

Many artists have rituals or routines they follow before performing or recording. Do you have any unique or quirky pre-show or pre-recording rituals that you find help you get in the zone?

I usually show up to a gig in sneakers, glasses, hoodie, hair in a bun.  I do my soundcheck, I warm up, and then I let the hair down, lose the glasses and hoodie, and put on my lipstick and high heels.  That moment of transformation really puts me in the mood for the performance.  Lately I’ve been trying to remember to pretend I’m a pro-wrestler before I walk on stage, which has been fun.

Your lyrics often tell a story or convey a message. Can you share the story behind one of your songs and the inspiration that led to its creation?

I’ll tell you about the song ‘After the Battle’ from my last full length album. (Bloom & Grow)  I had read the Histories by Herodotus over the course of the fall that year and I was very taken with his opening paragraph about the importance of writing these stories down so that they wouldn’t be lost to the passage of time.  The histories of course mainly deal with war, but there are many parts of the book that are just Herodotus telling us about the things he saw on his travels.  There are descriptions of landscapes and waterways that are still around and that got me to thinking about the longevity of nature.  After the Battle tells the story of an ancient soldier’s last moments coming to on the battlefield after all is done and seeing the beauty that exists in the world.

If you could curate a music festival with a lineup of your dream artists, who would be the headliners, and what would the theme of the festival be?

Nobody would let me curate a festival. My headliners would be Jethro Tull and Steeleye Span and Morbid Angel and Janelle Monáe and Necrophagist and Judy Collins and Buckethead and Funkadelic and Gentle Giant.  I would say all those acts write beautiful melodies, so melody would be the theme.

Music can be a powerful tool for advocacy and change. Are there any social or political causes that you’re passionate about, and how does your music play a role in promoting these issues?

I am very passionate about the imminent destruction of the humanity due to climate change.  I think the Earth will right itself after we’re gone, but that extreme short-sightedness and greed have led to this.  I write a lot of songs about the importance and beauty of nature, and I have a number of songs that deal with the idea that humanity is fleeting and nature will keep doing it’s thing.  It may be my most visited theme.

The music industry has evolved significantly with technology. How do you see artificial intelligence and emerging technologies impacting the creation and distribution of music in the future?

By it’s very nature AI can only ever create derivative works, and it can’t perform live, so it can only be used as a tool to either generate ideas that a human will then run with, or generate the same old stuff only without the tangible quality of a human soul, which isn’t going to speak to listeners.  It’ll be used to save some time on some mundane tasks, and for writing things like bios and marketing copy, and some people will forget to double check the AIs work, and there will be some humorous errors made because of it.

Many recording artists evolve over time. How do you see your musical journey changing and growing in the next decade?

I think I’d like to work with more and varied artists over the next decade.  There will likely be periods of me doing some experimenting, mixed with me doing some back to my roots voice and guitar folky stuff.  I do have a tenancy to let the songs take me where they will.  Sometimes they take me to familiar territory, sometimes they take me someplace strange.  I hope to visit some more strange and familiar places.