By Jim Barber
Author’s Note: This interview was originally conducted late last year, but I took a couple of months off for health reasons, but now I am back, and catching up. Apologies to Sarah Smith and her fans.
Songs of love. Songs of life. Songs of Hope. Songs of Light. There are few Canadian singer/songwriters who are able to mine the depth of meaning, the sense of introspective wisdom, the delightfully hopefully, and painfully raw vagaries of existence like Sarah Smith.
Even after a solo career stretching back more than 15 years, tours that have taken her overseas, south of the border and across Canada; even after crafting musical compositions that have brought laughter, tears, which have changed hearts and minds and most importantly brought people together in celebration, commemoration and joy, Smith may have outdone herself creatively with the release of her dynamically inspiring, blissfully authentic new album, So Brand New.
It is a work that took time, took thought, took years and which, now that it has entered the world, is bringing Smith accolades and reams of new fans. It marks a shift in tone, as well as a change in the way Smith has operated her ‘business’ as a professional touring musician and recording artist.
For the first time in a long time, Smith decided to collaborate with a label, Crown X Recordings, for the release of So Brand New. It was an opportunity to step away from a lot of the business and logistical aspects of the music industry, and instead focus solely on the craft of songwriting and of making the best possible album she could. One of the first collaborations with the label was to release a best-of package, entitled Shine Bright: A Decade of Sarah Smith.
It was a way to suss out the partnership with the label, and build creative trust and a working rapport with her new team, one that she says is already paying positive dividends.
“I signed a record label deal. Yeah. And the label’s sort of like, ‘let’s do a collection that kind of represents who you’ve been for the last 10 years. Let’s show people who you’ve been and put all your best on to one compilation, so that moving forward, we can begin anew.’ It’s kind of a fresh start in a way, or like you said, a launching point for a new chapter in my career, exactly. The label is actually a couple of friends of mine. One of them runs the online merchandise company that I’ve been working with for years [RPM – Rock Paper Merch]. He’s teamed up with a studio in Toronto called Iguana Studios, and together they’ve created a record label called Crown X Recordings. I would say I’m basically one of their first artists. So there’s a lot of learning, you know, on their part, and I feel like I can offer a lot of wisdom from what I’ve learned through the years. And, you know, I got a free product out of it. I got a great album that was on the record label’s dime,” Smith said of the adventurous and mutually beneficial new partnership.
“This whole process has meant there’ve been a lot of changes for me after being an indie artist all these year, a lot of things to get used to, which is okay. I am now signed to a label where I don’t own the masters of the songs, and because they have other priorities as a business, you know, they don’t work in ‘Sarah Smith time.’ They work in record label’s time, which is very slow. That’s a negative about it, but it is what it is. One big positive is that I have a great product and great songs. And the hope is that they will invest money into marketing and videos and advertising and that kind of thing and get me a bigger audience. That’s the goal. There’s no guarantee it’s going to happen, but that is the goal. And, you know, I’m okay with either way. If it doesn’t happen, I’m ok with that because it’s been nice to have a little bit of a pause from all that extra stuff that I would have had to do if I produced the album on my own, and just reflect and enjoy some downtime. That’s okay with me, too. And if they decide that instead they want to really push me out there and get me on some great festivals and that kind of thing, I’m ready to go.
“So, yeah it was recorded in Toronto at Iguana Studios. Thiago Lima is the producer, who is also just a phenomenal instrumentalist. We got together before we decided to do an album. And we sat down and he just gets it – he gets music. He’s been doing it his whole life. He’s a Brazilian who moved to Toronto to work, especially as a producer at Iguana Studios. And he does bring a bit of Brazilian flair into my recordings for this new album. You’ll hear his idea of what Canadiana is. But it’s also got some Brazilian flair to it. I can hear the world, the international sound in my own roots recording. He played acoustic, electric. He played all the fiddle, all the mandolin, the keys. He played everything but drums.”
One aspect of working with an outside label for the first time in a longtime was that the label’s team took a comprehensive and open-minded approach to working with Smith, something that she truly appreciated – to have other that were as invested in the material as she was.
“Well, actually, what was the best for me was that the record label wanted to hear every single one of my demos for the last, you know, five years. And I had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ideas. So now I actually had somebody actually want to hear them. Do you know how great that feels to have somebody listen to the shit that you put out? You know, I’ve been putting out so many song ideas and I just keep thinking, you know, and then somebody got what I was putting out and they were like, ‘whoa, there’s a gem there. I really like that idea,’ you know? And so for me, it was cool. I got to finish a lot of my half done ideas because the record label picked some of the great songs that I thought were cool, but they weren’t done yet. So I got to actually sit down and finish them. And they listened to every single one of my demos. How cool is that?” she said, adding that another element that they added to the mix was the inclusion of a broader range of instrumentation on the recordings.
“Yeah, I think most of my other records have been, you know, with a four-piece band. So whatever we can do with a four-piece or even a five-piece adding keys, it was just a basic band sound. So if we had a cool sounding guitar part, that would be because the guitar player had a different kind of pedal and made it sound cool. We always tried to be organic as a band. This is more of a produced thing where the guy has every instrument at his disposal and he can choose to put any instrument he wants on there. So there’s some Beatles-inspired sounds. There’re some really cool instruments on there, like mandolin, banjo. I’m not a fan of banjo. I’m not a fan of harmonica. But the way that Thiago used these instruments, I was really happy with.”
So Brand New is being released in the usual digital formats, but also on CD and vinyl. Smith says she still believes the long-form album is the best way to capture a period in time in an artist’s life and creative cycle.
“For me, it’s a stamp in time, like a tattoo. You know, you just, you stamp it, you put it out. And it’s a keepsake, a legacy of exactly where I’m at at this time. And there’s nothing else out there that can do that. A song, just one song, is something that only peeks into the power of a feeling or a moment. Whereas an album is a stamp in time, a legacy and the art and the physicality of an album is so amazing. And you know, my fan base is like 40 to 65. That’s my main market and they’re buying more vinyl than CDs as well,” she explained.
“And I think that it’s also about the listenability of vinyl. There’s so much more range: you can hear all the instruments. You can hear when the things are panned and when they’re stereo. And you can hear the vibe of every instrument. There are songs on my Shine Bright: A Decade of Sarah Smith album that I’ve been playing my whole life and been listening to, and yet I never heard that there was a keyboard part in ‘I Need To Know.’ I knew it was there, but I’d never actually heard it. You know, and when I was listening to it on vinyl I was like, ‘what is that?’ These are songs that I’ve known for years and years and years. And some parts stuck out to me that I’ve never heard before. So it’s different listening quality.
The title of the album is more than a hint to it’s emotional and narrative theme. So Brand New is a bold, effervescent statement of the sense of unabashed joy, contentment, emotional solidity, peace, sense of purpose and unbounded love that Smith has felt since she and her life partner Lesley moved from the urban hustle and bustle of London, Ontario to the utopic, bucolic splendour and simplicity of Pender Island, off the coast of British Columbia, a few years ago.
More than a change of scenery, it’s been a dynamic and restorative revivication of her mind, body and spirit – a radical re-examining of her life, her goals, dreams and desires. It’s been a revelatory change that has not only bright light and passion back to her in abundance, but which has become a new artistic and creative wellspring – as evidenced by the songs on So Brand New.
“Yeah. So that’s actually how I’ve continued to feel those feelings since I moved out west. You know, I think COVID really was a turning point for so many people. And you either went down a different road in your life, which could have been a dark path, or you switched into a more open, accepting path and allowing the universe to just guide you. And that’s where I’m at. I really am rejuvenated, revitalized and reborn really every day. I feel really grateful. There’re some days where I don’t want to continue in my career. Some days I’m just like, what the fuck am I doing? I’m working so much, paying way too many taxes. Why am I doing this? And I have to remind myself that music is a total gift. And some days just having a gift is not enough. You have to dig deep to find the gratitude in those gifts. The thing is that I worked really hard on my inside world. I worked really hard to find some inner peace. And now my outside world is reflecting that. There is so much peace, Jim. There is. It is so dark where we live at night. You sleep like a baby. There’s no noises, nothing. There’s no traffic. And then when you wake up, the birds are chirping. There’s mist in the air. The sun is poking through the forest and there’s a crisp ocean air. We’re breathing in just freshness. And yes, it does affect me and it does kind of make me want to hibernate a little bit,” Smith said, her wide, expressive smile beaming across the thousands of kilometres through the Zoom link.
“One thing is that there’s a lot of different themes on this album, and I really started to hear them when I played the songs live. So this idea of so brand new, it comes out as, you know, through love, like real love, finding love, feeling safe, secure, home. That’s a big theme in this album – home. Also angels being guided, that kind of thing is also a big theme. I would just say that the feeling of being home and being at peace is a part of this album for sure. And also, you know, there’s a song called ‘The Light’ on there. And this is like my first stab at a political song. I’m not a big voice for politics, but this song is just about how we collectively can stop these wars and fights by just being that light and bringing the light into every day. It was just the feeling that we’re all divided right now. It’s a mask that we’re all divided. But it’s not true. We’re not divided, but it seems that we are all feeling that divide. So, you know, to me, the war that I speak about in that song ‘The Light’ is just about the divide we have as a connectedness, as a connected, you know, whole unit in this world. So, yeah, it’s a spiritual thing to me. The outside world, what’s happening outside of myself, I really reflect that inside. So I feel instead of me pointing out all these politic things that are going wrong or not right, I just feel that inside we do have judgment of other people and we do feel divided in some ways if we’re not in a good place ourselves. I think that if we’re doing well, then the connectedness is there.
“It’s anthemic. And it’s epic. I wrote that with Mike McKyes. He was the guitar player of [her longtime former band] The Joys. And I haven’t written a song with him since The Joys. So this was our first sit down. We sat down a couple years ago on Zoom and wrote that song together. And he always brings out interesting parts in my voice. And I just, I love this song. I love the message. You know, how we can stop all the negativity of the world. We can stop it one person at a time by bringing the light everywhere we go. The light is not divided. It is connectedness. It is unity. The light shines no matter what, where it’s at. The light will always shine. It will shine brighter than any of the darkness around it. I know that I’m a musician. I have people that watch me on stage, and I have a little bit of a following. But I know that I would still be a light if I had music or not. To me, I’ve worked so hard on my inner self, that when I walk into a store, I see smiles. People smile at me. I don’t know why they smile at me. But they do. And I want to be that light forever. And that’s why I work so hard on myself.”
Connection can be created and cultivated in many ways, but it is through the medium of music that many of our deepest connections take place. It can be connection to the melody, the lyrics, the entire song, to the spirit of the artist, to everyone in the room hearing the song live, or everyone hearing the song in their own way on their own device. Music has power that so many other things do not, simply by it’s versatility, it’s malleability and the way it hits people not only in their feels, but in their mind, their body and spirit. It’s a sentiment Smith takes to heart.
“I think that music is different for everyone. And I think that people are still finding their rebellion through music. I find solace in music. I listen to really soft music. I like feeling dreamy and it takes me into a different peaceful state. And then some people really relate to the words and the story behind the music. That’s kind of what my music is. I feel like people relate to the words and the story of the music more than the vibe. So, absolutely, it’s definite therapy. And you know what’s weird, Jim, is that when I’m doing well, I don’t really want to do any songs. I don’t want to write and I haven’t written in a while. To be honest, I really haven’t. It was years ago that I recorded this album. And I have not written any songs since I’ve collaborated with other people that need songs written for them. But me as a human, I have not written a song about me in a long time because I’m in a good place and when somebody is in a good place, they don’t need the therapy they used to need. Yeah, it’s really weird. Like it’s hard to write a song about being happy.”
But it takes a lot to get to that place of happiness, as Smith has already talked about. The song ‘Whatever It Takes’ from So Brand New is gaining traction amongst fans and listeners for not only it’s prescient topicality, but because it’s a message that crafting a life of depth, meaning, joy and abundance take work, takes sacrifice and takes resilience – talk about a song for the times we’re currently living through?
“It says, in these trying times, we must get by whatever it takes. And that to me is like, I always compare it to John Lennon’s words. ‘Whatever gets you through the night, it’s all right, it’s all right.’ We have to go above and beyond to make ourselves and our fellow humans happy right now. We have to be kinder than normal. We have to be better. We just have to be better. Whatever it takes. Yeah, I’ve had people say they really connect and like that one,” said Smith, as the conversation moved to one of the most compelling and emotionally rich tracks on the new album, and one that could be said to be the signature song for So Brand New because how it returns, or more accurately highlights one of the album overarching themes of being where you’re supposed to be, where you’re happiest, most creative, most satisfied, most inspired, most loved – ‘Home.’
“So this song, really, it’s a cool story. There’s a local guy here on Pender Island, and his house burned down that he took 10 years to build. It burned down. And he was on the edge of his life. He was going to end his life. But hen he decided, after three weeks of building, for his first time ever doing woodworking, he built a totem pole out of one of the trees on his property. And it was a healing pole. And that healing pole told him, ‘get off your ass and build another house.’ So this time, he built a house out of concrete and stone. He asked me to write a song about his house. When we sat down, I wrote 10 pages of all the stories about his house, about the rock and the vintage stuff, and then I went back and I wrote the song ‘Home.’ It’s got nothing to do with the house, but it has everything to do with him, you know? The house is just a physical outward manifestation of the actual human that lives in it, right? So that’s what that song is all about. It’s about community. It’s about who you invite into your temple, into your home. And it’s about who you affect inside that temple of yours.”
For more information on Smith, on upcoming tour dates, and how to order copies of So Brand New, visit https://sarahsmithmusic.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at bigjim1428@hotmail.com.
