Interview with Singer-Songwriter Janel Rae
Interview with Singer-Songwriter Janel Rae
Today on What On What's Good with Jovin Tardif, I am here with Janel Rae. Janel is a Canadian singer-songwriter from Kelowna, BC. She has been performing and creating music since she was five. Her new single “Sometimes” is available now. In our #cinqque5tion interview, we discuss making the video for “Sometimes”, her favorite song from your 2022 LP, 'Dinner With Stranger', acting in indie films, her first Poetry book, musical influences, and much more.
1. What was it like making the video for “Sometimes”?
Since my latest album Dinner With Stranger, I’ve approached my music videos with the same thoughtfulness and time that I gave the songwriting process. Letting images enter my mind freely and without urgency, building colour palettes patiently, leaning into movies for textures, and trusting my audience more. It all seems to surface right before the sculpting begins. With Sometimes, there came unforeseen challenges that, as they do, opened up new lanes that essentially carved a clearer story in the end. I spent a lot of time sitting in my mood board mosaic of visuals, building the design while processing the lyrical intention behind the song. In a way, the process of creating Sometimes was reminiscent of the video itself. The demand and solitude that arrives when taking on your own dream is loud and infuses a visceral trepidation that shakes you silly! The two days of shooting were blissful. I can always be sure in my team of Jason D’Souza (Cinematographer) and Erik Berg who seems to do anything and everything. They are the catapults that shoot my ideas forward with their own artistry at play. I am extremely proud of our work. We are always challenged, always growing, and always eating well.
2. If you can only pick one, what is your favorite song from your 2022 LP, Dinner With Stranger, and why?
The end of the album is hugged by a song I wrote in the corner of a stuffed room, packed with my things sleeping in boxes and my partner’s books stacked higher than the window. Winter came to me out of one of the most peaceful times of my life. Walking for hours, the world asleep and quiet, studying the history of cinema and the music of the 70s every night. Space edged out from government support that allowed me to hang, allowed me to get over the fear of a wandering mind and capture a life in a song. Many of my songs I love dearly, but I never thought I would write Winter.
3. Can we talk about your acting in indie films? What sort of movies are you doing?
I just finished working on a feature written, produced, and directed by Erik Berg. We began this movie in 2020 and on May 19, 2022, Greasy Lake was completed. The film follows a night walk taken by two friends who face their growing differences and a tangled history. Playing one of the leading friends, I was excited to shape and sink into Cece as she grew and evolved with me over two years. An arc that accompanied the development of my latest album. I always find myself returning to a child-like openness and availability when acting. It makes me a more specific and thoughtful songwriter and creating music helps me find comfort in improv and spontaneity as I act.
4. Can you tell us about your first Poetry book?
Walking home down Palmerston blvd, a paperback copy of Stone, Paper, Knife lying on the curb, found its way into my hands and buried itself into my skin over three days. Riding the subway with Marge Piercy, learning, and leaning into this garden, it changed something subtle and deep within my nature. It began to lay out new flooring, the base, and the beginning for formulating Dinner With Stranger.
5. Who are some of your musical influences and why?
Let me introduce you to my family. My three sisters Kate Bush, Bjork, and Fiona Apple. They challenge me every day, demanding truth along with fearless composition and arrangement. My brothers, David Bowie, Kendrick Lamar, and Moses Sumney are a constant display of unapologetic vulnerability and the ownership of self, trailblazing towards the outside of a binary with style, innovation, and reflection. My uncles, Supertramp, The Beatles, and Bob Marley, wise and wicked through and through. My parents Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, the comfort in quiet corners, a lived life, littered with an honest expression of their own conditions, and a lyrical artistry that inspires me daily. And last but not least, Nas, the grandfather of poetic genius. If you haven’t yet, I hope you get the chance to spend some time with them.
6. Where can we see you next?
Songs seem to bug me often these days, so it’s looking like another album is surfacing along with ideas for a new musical. The music videos are a large part of my life and process, and I imagine you’ll see a new piece in the near future. I am playing the vessel for the stories that continue to present themselves through me and am excited to share as they develop over the summer.
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