Elizabeth Boland — professionally identified by her center title, Lowell — is sitting in a tiny Toronto studio. The wood-panelled room could also be small, but it surely’s the place she’s crafted lots of her hits, and it exhibits.
In entrance of her sit each a Juno and a framed gold document for The Seashores’ Blame My Ex, the album she co-produced and the hit monitor, Blame Brett, which she co-wrote. To her proper is a Wurlitzer electrical piano, which, she remarks, is rather like the one she introduced on tour for one in all her three critically acclaimed albums.
To her left is a PR particular person, bashfully telling the story in regards to the time her five-year-old requested Lowell what Beyoncé smells like (the reply was relatively unsurprising: she smells nice).
And in her lap is a guitar, at present getting used to play the monitor that captured that child’s consideration, no much less the remainder of the world: Texas Maintain ‘Em. The genre-melding soul/R&B/people/nation tune helped launch nation again into the pop culture stratosphere, Beyoncé finally onto the Grammys’ stage for album of the year, and quite a lot of Canadians onto Canada’s comparatively equal stage this March.
“I did joke that, you recognize, in the event that they did not make this class this yr, I used to be going to be mad,” Lowell says of the new non-performing songwriter class on the Junos.
She’s up for it this yr for co-writing each Cowboy Carter‘s Texas Maintain ‘Em and Bodyguard (in addition to for co-writing The Seashores tune Takes One to Know One). That nomination got here shortly after she shared two Grammy nominations with Beyoncé for greatest tune and greatest nation tune.
“As a result of if I received a Grammy [nomination] forward of getting a Juno, that may be fairly dangerous. ?”
In her ‘massive sister period’
The half-serious barb showcases the standard temperament of Lowell, a girl whose feminist, self-possessed lyrics blended with sometimes heartrending, mournful preparations have come to color a number of the greatest songs in pop music. These qualities are probably drawn from life experiences: a pushed confidence paired with pure sensitivities (she has each good pitch and synesthesia, a neurological situation that is not uncommon among artists) pushed her towards music in a household of non-musicians.
Then dropping out of a stuffy classical music program, years of intermittent, unreliable and unrewarding work outdoors of the business — and a critically lauded however commercially-stunted debut album — left her considerably jaded.
Her experiences with these hardships have discovered their manner into her music, guiding her to what she calls her present “massive sister period.” It is pushed her to guard and information the songs and careers of musicians like Hailee Steinfeld and Madison Beer — Lowell wrote a lot of Steinfeld’s EP Half Written Story and helped write practically all of Beer’s album Life Help. And she or he’s additionally growing the up and coming Nova Scotia artist Child Nova.
If you’re in a room along with her, you possibly can’t assist however discover that she has a little bit of an iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove sensibility. She’s form and humorous, however not the sort to be delicate about sensitive points.
When a side-conversation round a very prickly topic for music nerds comes up — whether or not studying music principle is all that vital to crafting nice songs — she does not should assume onerous for a solution.
Whereas she’s extra inclined to observe extra modern, pop-oriented colleges of thought than classical methods when crafting songs, she nonetheless all the time has principle in thoughts. It signifies that whereas creators who haven’t any information of principle would possibly have to depend on fleeting inspiration once they have off days, Lowell can fall again on her coaching to crank out one thing ok to get to the subsequent alternative.
When it is identified that some musicians really feel that educational, theory-guided pondering will get in the way in which of an natural connection to the music, she finds it humorous. Folks with that opinion on music, she says, in all probability do not discover themselves in working studios as usually as she does.
“I am a fighter. I really like to simply stir the pot a bit of bit,” she says later, laughing. “I all the time joke, like, ‘I am not essentially preferred, however generally revered.’ ”
Bittersweet victories
It has been a hard-fought-for respect. And although she presents her lack of Junos as a joke, there’s a unhappy little bit of reality there; it isn’t bitterness, she’s fast to notice, however one thing shut. As a result of whereas she’s spent her decade-plus within the business writing songs for giant names just like the Backstreet Boys, Charlie XCX, JoJo and Demi Lovato, Lowell’s personal title has been slower to take maintain.
In relation to established performers, particularly American ones, that is kind of to be anticipated. However what was more durable was seeing the Canadian artists she wrote for — Tate McRae, Bülow and sure, The Seashores — incomes accolades and awards from their shared dwelling nation.
Bülow’s win on the 2019 Junos for the EP Broken and its double-platinum single Not a Love Music is a very tough reminiscence for Lowell.
“It was bittersweet … being there, meant to rejoice about it, however not likely being allowed to be celebrated for it,” Lowell says. As a result of, even whereas stressing the enjoyment she felt for her collaborator, that second highlighted the intractably powerful ceiling Canadian songwriters usually crash into.
“I co-wrote that entire EP along with her and I did really feel like, you recognize, all the creators behind it wanted to be rewarded, not simply a few choose individuals,” she says.
“In order that was after I actually began excited about this class, and whether or not it wanted to alter.”
Songwriter Elizabeth Lowell Boland obtained two Grammy nominations for her contributions to the Beyoncé’s tune “Texas Maintain ‘Em”. The monitor has been nominated for tune of the yr and greatest nation tune.
Altering the sport
That pondering translated first into a typical technique for Canadian songwriters — transferring to L.A., the place it appeared essential to go to search out work and recognition.
However after the transfer and regular success, her technique modified. As an alternative of accepting the grim prospects at present on supply for songwriters in Canada, she thought, why not work to alter them?
“The way in which that Canada does not embrace their very own expertise could be a little little bit of a deterrent to sticking round,” she explains. “I went down there, however I believe that it is in coming again I’ve realized you can also make extra change. You possibly can’t simply run away from issues on a regular basis.”
Now, the class she’s championed for years lastly exists. And its existence signifies that as fellow Canadians Shawn Everett and Jack Rochon compete for his or her work as producers on Cowboy Carter, she and her Canadian Texas Maintain ‘Em co-writer Nathan Ferraro additionally get to go to Canada’s greatest night time of music for his or her probability at a Juno.
To be truthful, she already picked up Billboard Canada’s inaugural non-performing songwriter award last year. And if she wins on the Junos, she already has her (fingers crossed) speech deliberate out. Like this yr’s Grammy-winner Amy Allen, who lamented that it’s only the third year of their non-performing songwriter award, she would acknowledge and thank all of the songwriters who got here earlier than her.
However greater than that, Lowell needs to maintain combating for songwriters who do not need to flee south.
“My hope is for individuals to have the ability to keep right here,” she says, whereas admitting that the aggressive nature she discovered in L.A. helped her again dwelling. “I am hoping I can deliver that nature right here, deliver up expertise right here … so that folks, at the very least, do not should go so early to search out their manner, you recognize?”
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