Tara MacLean is a formidable singer-songwriter from Prince Edward Island, Canada. Here, we interview Tara about her recent single – recorded while in isolation, her album Deeper and more.
Hi, how are you? How’s quarantine been going? Everyone else seems to have been relaxing away, but you’ve been recording a single! It must have been a very different experience, doing it remotely?
Oh yes, so different, especially because I don’t really consider myself to be very tech savvy. There’s no one else to do anything for me, I have to do it all myself! (laughs)
No producers or anything like that to make sure the levels are right.
Yeah exactly!
How did the song come about with Catherine? I know your fathers have toured together a lot over the years, so are you close?
Yes we are, we’re like sisters. The song began, I wasn’t feeling particularly creative but right when lockdown started I was locked down with my three children and their dad was way out on the other side of the country, so it was just me and the kids so I had my hands full. My friend is the Chief Medical Officer for Prince Edward Island, so I said I’m going to just record this song for you so that you have it with you. I picked up my guitar and the song just came out. I only got about halfway through and I realised that I could hear Catherine singing it with me, so I called her up and I played it for her. She said ‘wow I would love to sing on it, I know exactly what it needs,’ so we added the rest and sent the song back and forth over the Interweb.
It’s cool to have a song like that that feels like such a healing song. It was stunning.
Thank you! Well I was watching things happen sort of quickly, I noticed that whenever Doctor Heather Ross was saying she couldn’t be with her children. They were a very close family and she was a hands on mom, so to be the Chief Medical Officer and not to be able to see her children… My daughter dates her love who’s a hockey player, he lives in Newfoundland and he got evacuated out of PEI to go home, with almost no notice. My daughter is in her room with her heart broken and I’m away from my husband. Everyone is just torn apart, so I wanted something that would make you feel close but also knowing that this is a temporary situation.
Casting your mind back – which must feel like a different world ago – to Deeper, it was the first thing that I heard of your music and then I delved in deeper to the old stuff. Going into that album, it did feel like you were connecting with your roots – the amount of PEI musicians on the record – was that something that was really important to you when you were making this record?
Well yeah, it was the most important thing. I had spent so much time being a mom and taking a break from music that when I realised that music was coming back into me, I wrote a show about music from my roots. Atlantic Blue is a record of covers from musicians from my area. I really wanted to remember what I was all about, because when you’re young and you grow up in a small town, all that you want to do is get out of there and see the world. For me, to have the opportunity to go to San Francisco to make a record, and to go to New Orleans to make a record, and live in LA and be signed to Capitol and tour Asia and all of this stuff was so great and I got to do it. Then I realised, oh my goodness, we have so much on PEI and everything we have at home is every bit as wonderful as what’s out here. I came home and I tapped into that treasure trove of musicians.
It must have been cool, getting back to your roots but also getting back to who you almost were before all that success and before you were a mother, getting back to what you fell in love with when you started making music.
You’ve totally nailed it, that’s exactly right. Also, to see that there’s something really magical about the music that comes out of the East coast of Canada. My roots are in gospel and country and also musical theatre. The string players here, everyone plays fiddle. It’s really great, so I feel really excited. The best part about it is that Canada is so supportive of our artists, there’s so many grants, there’s so much support. We don’t feel competitive with our fellow musicians, we just raise each other up, which is incredible.
You actually recorded one of my favourite songs, which is ‘Love Song’ by The Cure, but you completely reinvented it and I loved what you did with it. It must be quite different to recreate a song that you know so well.
It was actually a really liberating one with that song, I’m a big fan of The Cure. I opened for them at a show in Boston, and I got to meet them and hear the songs from side stage. It was at a time when I was doing a lot of touring with Dido and I think she’s a genius and she’s a dear friend. One of the things that she really taught me was how to use space in music, you don’t have to throw everything in that you want to hear, you have to use space and silence. It’s a big part of creating the production on a song. I really tried to channel her, while I was doing that version. I used to do it kind of acoustically live, so in a way I’d already stripped it down. It was my first time in the studio with this guy called Colin Gilmore Buchanan who’s amazing. It was just him and I and we just got into it. It’s a brilliant song, it could go in any direction, which is the mark of a masterpiece right?
I know you’ve described your sound as ‘industrial folk,’ where did you come up with that naming?
Well I think if you go back, I’ve always loved that I have a pretty voice and I write pretty songs, yet there’s a real grittiness and a darkness, so when I produce my songs, I want real Tom Waits-y drums that sound like garbage can lids. The first one that I made was in a huge warehouse in San Francisco where it was super gritty, I just think that that mixture of beautiful with the raw makes it really interesting. I try to make it gritty and dirty, but beautiful at the same time. People would compare me to other folk singers, except edgier, and I’m like ‘yes I want that edge!’
It must have been a different experience releasing music in 2019, in comparison to your earlier records. A lot is based around streaming now, but I loved that with Deeper, there’s still a real skill on the record as a whole. Was that a weird thing to navigate?
Well I think because I am so old school, making an album is just how I have to do it, because that’s how I’ve always offered it. A lot of people are releasing singles right now. I was raised on Pink Floyd, hence the grittiness which I love. I’ve got quite the album collection. Without a label, I didn’t even try to get signed….
Has that been quite freeing, different but cool…
It was. It was amazing to learn that I had gleaned a lot from the people that I had worked with over the years and that I now have that inside me. I’ve taken all the good advice that matters to me. I’m really proud of it. It was a very empowering experience, I’m proud of the record and I think it’s a very intimate album.
There’s so many different layers as well, so many things you dive into, which is cool as well.
There’s a little joy, a little sexiness, a little death. Being a woman at this age, you’ve seen a lot more.
Do you think being a mother has affected your songwriting and what you write about?
Absolutely, being a mother changes everything, mostly your body (laughs) but the way that you see things. You have to become very selfless as a mom to a certain degree, and then you have to find yourself again. That process of rediscovering who you are and picking up the pieces after being completely obliterated, it’s intense and it’s awesome. It takes everything. The new person that you gather after is completely different, and hopefully deeper.
You do get a real sense of that coming back together from ‘Deeper.’
Oh that makes me so happy, because it’s my first album of original material in over a decade. The thing about it too, which is a little heartbreaking, was that it was the first year that the album was up for awards and up for these amazing things, and tours being booked, and symphonies, shows. Everything has just been wiped. Here you are with this offering of music and everything opens up, and then suddenly it all closes. You go, ‘ok, why now?’ Dealing with the heartache around that, but also trusting that the music will find its way. I’ve never really cared about being a celebrity, all that I’ve cared about is that the song will reach the person who needs to hear it when they need to hear it.
We all need to go through a process of being ok that we’re not ok, but it’s ok to embrace that and hope still that music will find its way.
Music will find its way. The internet is everything to us right now, even our local theatres are going to be doing virtual things and we will be together again. We will be side by side in a festival or a theatre.
And hopefully we’ll be more grateful for it! I guess it seems weird to ask what’s up next, but is there anything else you’re working on?
There’s the song with Catherine. Then, this really neat thing happened that I’ll share. When the children were small, I spent time writing a screenplay and when I was done with my draft I sent it around to a whole bunch of people who said ‘oh yeah it’s great, but we’re not going to make this movie.’ A week ago, out of the blue, a movie producer goes ‘remember you sent me that script!’ I’ve been working with a screenplay reviser on everything and getting it to a good place. It’s a musical, but not in a musical theatre way. So that’s where my creative energy is going! We live in PEI and everyone has been isolated. They’re starting to open things up slowly, but it feels very smart. We’re starting to feel like we can breathe a little bit.
Final Few
If a biopic was made about your life, what would be the opening track?
Wow! (laughs) That’s a great question, a million songs are going through my head, but the first one that came to my mind was ‘Songbird’ by Fleetwood Mac.
What record, book and thing would you bring to a desert island?
Record is really hard, I’m going to go with Rumours, I also really like Stevie Nix’s solo albums. Book… there’s a really beautiful book by a writer called Anne Michaels called Fugitive Pieces. It’s a beautiful one. Too many! Thing? I was gifted an eagle feather by a chief here, it’s very special to me. I bring it everywhere I go. It’s really powerful and it means I’m a trusted friend and that’s a goal for my life. That and mascara! (laughs)
What record are you playing on repeat at the moment?
Willie Nelson’s ‘Stardust’
Complete the sentence…
Music is… medicine.
Tara Maclean is… present.
