its-bold-to-be-honest-an-interview-with-lowell
Photo by Meghan McCabe courtesy of Freshly Pressed PR

It’s Bold to Be Honest: An Interview With Lowell

“There’s more than just my story.” Lowell struggles to find her place in a larger narrative.

In her 2014 debut EP, I Killed Sara V., Canadian pop singer-songwriter Lowell made it immediately clear that she wasn’t going to shy away from letting the world know exactly who she was and exactly what she thought of everything around her.

“Lowell” is Elizabeth Bowland’s middle name under which she releases her music. She followed I Killed Sara V. with a full-length album, We Loved Her Dearly, which saw her open up even more about herself, singing about her bisexuality in “LGBT” and rejecting the patriarchy in “I Love You Money”. Her songs casually referenced feminist principles, women’s and LGBT rights, and a myriad of other social issues, proving that she could mix political messages with dreamy synths and fun electro-pop hooks to create music that was enticing and empowering all at once.

In the song “I Killed Sara V.”, Lowell refers to the time in her past when she worked as a stripper under the name Sara Victoria — an identity she “killed”, as the title suggests, when she got herself out of that life. We loved her dearly is a line from the same song, which offers a sweeter goodbye to that identity and marks a refusal to see herself as any kind of victim, eschewing traditional narratives in favour of telling her own story the way she wants to.

Since the release of her first album, Lowell’s toured with Icona Pop and collaborated with them on a hit single, “Ride”. Now, the Toronto-based singer has just released a new EP, Part 1: Paris YK, the first step of the three-part project that will make up her second album. It contains three tracks: hazy, taunting “High Enough”, mellow dance anthem “Blow the Bass”, and dreamy runaway ode, “West Coast Forever”.

In an interview with PopMatters, Lowell talked about the new and different ways that she had to open up on this EP, her struggle to be vulnerable and empowering at the same time, and her awareness of speaking out about important issues from a single voice and perspective.

On your first EP, I Killed Sara V., you made a bold statement with the title, signifying an end to one part of your life. In the same fashion, does the new EP also represent a new chapter for you?

The EP is part of a bigger picture, which is obviously my second record, and I definitely approached writing this from a completely different angle. I’m still writing about the same things, really — that is who I am — but it’s definitely from a different perspective.

I chose to name the EP after this non-existent town in the Yukon — and by non-existent, I mean it existed once, but it doesn’t anymore — but it was close to where my father lives and I spent a lot of time there growing up. So it’s definitely a different concept from the last one, but I don’t know, I think it does represent dreaming and this sort of make believe concept, if that makes sense.

Like, the Yukon, for example, at one point during the Gold Rush, was like the land of opportunity and dreams, and now this town called Paris, Yukon, doesn’t even exist anymore. So I think a lot of the concept is this idea of something that feels so important to us and then all of the sudden you realize it was all made up and make believe.

Part 1: Paris YK feels like a very confident EP. There’s definitely a collective sound throughout all the songs that holds them together really well. They all sound like they fit together. What inspired that sound?

On my last record, I wasn’t thinking about continuity at all. I was literally just pouring out sounds. It was the first piece of music I’d ever made and I was just excited to make anything. I think that’s what great about the record, but (on this EP) I was trying to be sort of aware of the fact that I wanted to make something more, have one thing for this. So I mostly just worked with one of the producers that I work with on everything.

We’re kind of a producer/songwriter group, and we just tried to focus on only using certain sounds and limiting ourselves, setting rules, which I’ve never had before. We only used one synth through the entire thing, for example, for pads — like we would never go to a different pad. Even if I felt like I wanted e-piano, I couldn’t put it in e-piano, it’s just this one sound.

Who was the producer that you worked with?

His name is Cale Epstein… We work together, kind of on everything now, whereas he’s just somebody that I found in Toronto that I really jived with… And then I also worked with a friend of mine, Davey Badiuk.

When you put out I Killed Sara V. and We Loved Her Dearly, you made a strong impression, referring to women’s and LBGT rights, your own sexuality, and social issues. You said you’re still writing about the same things now in your music, but was it ever a struggle for you to open yourself up like that?

It wasn’t at the time, at all. I think it was actually liberating to just kind of pour out how I was feeling about everything. I think the hardest thing for me now is just reflecting back and trying to, you know, instead of just being a loose cannon and saying whatever I feel all the time, I try to take into consideration how a lot of different people are feeling. You know, knowing that there’s more than just my story.

I speak out for the LGBTQ community, but I also am just speaking as a bisexual woman. So I try to be more aware of the fact that although I’m speaking for everyone, I’m also just speaking for everyone through my own story.

I guess the only thing that’s difficult is like, all of these issues are extremely complex, and it’s just important for everyone to realize that what you might feel in your own situation that what relates to you is not necessarily what everyone else feels. That’s the only thing that I’ve struggled with, just trying to stay in line.

Does it ever feel like now that you’ve made that impression with your music, you have a responsibility to continue to write with a social message? Or is it something that would just come naturally no matter what?

It definitely just comes naturally. There are times, especially on this record, when I battled with feelings like — on my last record, I mainly wrote through either an asexual tone or a kind of dominant tone, and I definitely never wrote about being in love. This record had certain emotions of feeling like I was in love.

I’m in a relationship right now, and I struggled with that feeling of like — I’m trying to speak for women and encourage them to be their own person, but now that I’ve become my own person I’ve allowed myself to fall in love, so — one second. (Dog barking).

Sorry, my boyfriend’s doing a terrible job of keeping the place quiet. Speaking of love.

Anyway, there’s just a part of that, me looking out for women, that also had to come to terms with the fact that being a feminist doesn’t necessarily mean being closed off to a relationship, either. And also it doesn’t mean being closed off to sharing with somebody, that you can be vulnerable at times. I’m always aware of what I’m saying, and what my message is in a song. I’ll think like, is this going to confuse my message if I say that I am in love and that I do feel vulnerable at times?

But I always come back to the same thing, it’s the more honest you are, then the more you’re tapping into real things and real issues. So I think it’s actually more bold to be honest about it and to speak about love. I just try to just make sure that I’m doing it from the right place.

The songs on this EP feel personal in a really different way from your past music. Even though you were really open before about your own life experiences, this feels a lot more open emotionally, with the references to love and relationships, like you’re talking about, on “High Enough” and “Blow The Bass”. How did it feel to be vulnerable in that kind of different way than before?

I think that it’s always hard to be vulnerable… or to demonstrate to other people that you’re vulnerable. My story, it’s like — you can interpret it in so many different ways, and I’m already going to be victimized. So as a defence mechanism, I will always try to bring myself forward as not a victim, but that doesn’t mean that that should be the case. I should be just as, you know — I’m just as much of a victim as anyone else. Just because at times I feel vulnerable doesn’t mean that people should jump to the fact that I would be a victim.

You put a lot out there about yourself in I Killed Sara V. and We Loved Her Dearly. Now that it’s all out, does it give you the chance to be more subtle, or explore different ideas?

Yeah, I think that’s sort of what I’m saying. Now that I do have that out there and I’ve expressed how I felt about it, I feel more free to just go on and sing about my everyday life, and I don’t have to put up a front or position myself in any sort of way. It’s more just the human being of me.

“Pop music” as a genre is kind of trivialized sometimes. Your music’s really fun, pop music that you can dance to, but there’s obviously important messages in there too that you’re trying to communicate. So I was wondering, why do you think that pop music can work as a platform for things like that, and what kinds of reactions have you had for mixing social and political ideas with pop music?

The thing about pop music is it’s not really anything. It’s not preachy; it’s just something that makes a lot of people feel a certain way. You know, you’ve kind of listened to a song and you feel instantly moved by it. Pop is an international language, it’s by definition the most popular form of music, so having that initial platform allows you to get deeper in your lyrics without alienating people, and then the people that are really listening can dig deeper and feel moved by what you’re saying.

I mean, I know when I make like, really angry music, and I just say angry things and yell into a microphone, it might make me feel great — and I do it sometimes — but those are not going to be my most influential songs. They might influence a small group of people that feel just directly that way all the time, but most people are going to feel kind of shut out when you don’t make it relatable, so pop music is just this great way to (relate). It’s a language, it’s just a good way to communicate, and then later on people can dig deeper and find the truth in it.

In the song “High Enough”, I thought it was interesting that you’re really asking a lot of questions about your own worth — “Am I good enough? Am I high enough?” It’s a new side to some of the fun confidence in your other music, the kind of “brat-pop” vibe, as you’ve called it before. What was it like to step in a more self-questioning direction, and what inspired that?

All the stuff usually just flows out with how I’m feeling at the time, so you know, I think I was probably feeling low in my relationship and feeling like I could never be good enough, and I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling. That feeling of vulnerability is there, but there’s also an undertone of me being kind of sarcastic, like, you know, it’s vulnerable and then the drop hits and then you realize maybe I’m saying like, I am fucking high as shit, so am I good enough? Am I high enough for you yet? ‘Cause can’t get much higher than this.

Yeah, I liked that the song is just called “High Enough”, and it feels like a final assertion that yeah, you are enough. Is that how we should take it?

Sure, I think that that was what I was feeling at the time. Like it sounds sultry but it’s really like — a lot of it is just me being like, “Fuck you, can’t get higher than this.”

* * *

(This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.)

Kabriya Coghlan is a writer living in Ottawa, Canada. She recently graduated from Carleton University with a Bachelor of Journalism, and she’s a regular contributor for the local arts and culture website, Apartment613. Find her on twitter @kabriya.