A few days before it was released, we hung out in my living room with my cat, while listening to Lana Del Rey’s Lust for Life. After hearing the title track a couple weeks earlier; this chill, sad-girl vibe felt necessary.
Tayler shared, in detail, the making of this EP
and how it evolved as she and her collaborators got excited and started exploring bigger sounds. What began as a simple mission to get something out into the world so she could meet the requirements to start applying to play festivals; quickly turned into homemade sunflower seed shakers, late night writing sessions, and sobbing harmonies (I am not going to elaborate on that).
She discovered her sound at 14 when attending her first Edmonton Folk Fest. For some reason I tend to assume every young artist aspires to be a pop star but she says, “sometimes I feel like my problem is I almost start writing things that sound pop-ish, and I want to be very folky. My dream is to have a full folk band with a banjo and a mandolin. Folk music was like a revelation for me.”
When she’s not on stage wowing you with her hopeless love stories, she’s shaping our youth.
As in, she’s got a side gig, and it’s teaching.
Teaching music in an elementary school, to be specific, “when I’m teaching my students to play a song, I have a guitar and sometimes I’ll be silly and try to play with a kick-drum, a tambourine, and a shaker all at the same time and they eat it up. I learn more from them and their ideas and it makes me more creative and silly.”
I was curious if it affected her writing, imagining it would either hinder it in fear of her students hearing, or possibly open her up to be as weird and creative as ever – because kids are weird.
“When I was recording, I was like ‘what if my students hear this?’ and ‘should I make all of my songs child-friendly?’ but why would I limit myself? This is my dream and teaching is my side gig. Teachers can swear!”
She joked about how everything she wrote before this project was shit,
“I so look up to all of these 16 and 17 year old Edmonton artists that are already writing songs that are so incredible. My brain did not work like that at that age.”
Only in the last year or so has she figured out what she wants to say and boy does she say it on a rollercoaster. In these 4 tracks, she shares the deeply personal journey of apathetic love, infidelity, and yet still missing them when it’s over.
The first track, Let You Go,
was released as a single a few weeks before the rest. It’s about “running towards alcohol and abandoning your lover.” She brought it to her friend Eric Yaremko after writing the first verse and chorus and then not knowing where to take the song, which she says happens to her a lot.
“I cried the first time I heard what he’d written for the second verse.”
Also, fun fact: the line of the chorus I just don’t know how to let you go was not the original line. It was you won’t see me tomorrow when you get home. Before figuring that out, she says she’d play it at shows and, “I was just like, it doesn’t feel right. It felt bland.”
The second track, Strawberry Lipstick,
is quite literally the most heartbreaking cutesy song I’ve ever heard. To see the signs of infidelity and just wash them away to not cause a stir, and then right into “called you to make sure, that you made it home safe from work” and “maybe I’m hard to love.” Tayler I can’t!!! I could cry. I did cry.
If you only listen to one song on this EP, please make it this one.
About the third track, Salad Rolls,
she says, “it’s just a silly song about making dinner by yourself. And it’s sad because you wish you were making it with the person you once loved. It’s lonely and you’re doing your dishes and you’re like ‘ok, I have less dishes to wash, which is great.. but I wish you were washing dishes with me and we could be falling in love.’ and it’s like awww darn but yeah just a silly little sad song.”
Folger’s really does taste so much better when it’s your lovers’ favourite coffee (red flag tbh BUT HINDSIGHT IS 20/20 BABES!!!)
The EP ends on a high note with Spark Back
Tayler’s in love again… and it’s going way better this time. Inspired by that one time she went to therapy (literally just the one time). “She told me I needed to find my spark and get it back, and I was like.. you’re so right. I need to do that.”
It’s about my current boyfriend, so it’s kind of a diss track – YOU SUCK HE’S AWESOME!”
Tayler Grace’s next performance
will be at Felice Cafe on October 26th. These curated concert series shows tend to sell out so you should buy tickets like now, here.
It took me so long to get this piece out but I am not upset that it gave me a reason to revisit Tayler’s voice frequently over the last 5 months (omg). It’s a beautiful body of work and by the time she left my house that day, I felt like I knew her. She is expressive and excitable and sometimes it’s nice to just sit and talk shit with the girlies.
Bye 🙂