Photo courtesy of Emma Lee Photography

When Justine Blanchet first made her way to Nashville, she knew she had found her people.

She found it quite easy to run into and find support from other Canadian transplants, including her producer, Danick Dupelle. The Grammy-nominated lead guitarist of Emerson Drive works with a number of artists in the Nashville area, and is the producer of Blanchet’s latest single, “Heart Less”.

Dupelle encourages artists newer to the songwriter community to release music written by established songwriters while they continue to hone in on their own writing capabilities. This is how Blanchet came across “Heart Less”, written by Canadian country star MacKenzie Porter, Grammy winner Emily Weisband and Grammy nominee Jordan Schmidt. A playlist of around 10 songs was presented to Blanchet, and “Heart Less” really stood out.

“It’s very much how I would write songs,” she said. “The play on words in the song with ‘heart less’ and listening to your heart less but not being heartless… it really hooked me. I had to record this song.”

Blanchet understood the importance of finding a song similar to her own methods of songwriting. If she didn’t feel attached to the lyrics, it would surely be noticeable.

“The problem with picking songs that you don’t feel like are yours is that it very much shows in the performance and in the studio; the emotion isn’t there,” she said.

Blanchet said that Dupelle usually prefers to record in batches of three, but choosing two other songs was a tough decision. She knew she had to bring in a trusted, valued opinion in order to choose, so she sent the playlist to her mom.

Separately, the two women took notes on each song. When it came time to bring their ideas together, Blanchet was surprised that her mom had “Heart Less” at the bottom of her list. Despite the disagreement, Blanchet saw the potential of the song and kept it as her first choice.

Most of the original demo was kept in the final production. One of her favorite details of the original was the aggressiveness in the voice that assisted in getting the message across, and she is satisfied with how her voice was able to duplicate that on the final version.

The accompanying music video was shot in Nashville with the treatment written by Blanchet. She wanted to portray two characters - the head and the heart - with distinctive qualities that looked and felt a certain way. Her navy blue shimmery blazer represents the head: the one that makes rational decisions. Her pastel pink tulle dress represents the heart: the one that is more expressive and vulnerable.

“For me, the lasting mantra of ‘Heart Less’ is to choose confidence and clarity over crying if things aren’t going your way romantically. Don’t be heartless, just use your heart less. Your stubborn heart won’t always realize when someone is wrong for you. The strength that comes from recognizing when it’s time to walk away will leave you feeling good about better things to come.”

Photo courtesy of Maxine Bowen

She jokes that she can’t release 100 songs a year, but that has yet to stop her from writing them. She has spent the last year experimenting with everything she can in order to discover who exactly NERIAH is.

“This was in my transition period where I was doing one to three sessions every single day for over a year,” she said. “I was writing with a bunch of different writers, a bunch of different producers, a bunch of different collaborators, and I was really figuring out what NERIAH is.”

From these experimentations came her upcoming six-track EP, No One Cries Forever. The EP explores themes of heartbreak, sadness and self-discovery, which she said focused on one relationship that felt like she would never get over.

“We all have that ex that we swear we’re never going to get over and we’re going to miss for the rest of our lives,” she said. “But no one cries forever; everyone moves on eventually. Sometimes the journey it takes to get there is really important and there’s a lot of growth, but I promise one day it will all be ok.”

She really enjoyed the process of figuring out who she is as a songwriter and allowing herself to be honest in her lyrics. There was no pressure to sound a certain way or have a completed track at a certain time, so she found her time in the studio to be enjoyable.

“Each song is so different from each other,” she said. “There’s a little bit of a hyper pop song, there’s a ballad of course; there’s a lot more experimental tracks which I think are really special. Every single one is written by someone different and produced by a different producer, and it was just this world that I thought was really cool and this evolutionary moment where I could show all of the different versions of my songwriting and the variety in it.”

By having the freedom to finish this project at her leisure, it was important for her to sit down with each song and decide if she still feels the same. If she wrote five songs about the exact same topic, is there one that stands out the most? One that explains the feeling the best?

She also takes into account what her audience is looking for. By sharing every stage of the creation process on social media and in her live performances, she gets real-time feedback that can help determine how she is feeling about the song.

Something she has learned in the last year is to not hang onto songs too much. A major part of her writing process is that it helps her get through the emotions she’s feeling. She recognized that there are so many ways a song can turn out, and there’s nothing wrong with working on a song all day only to realize that it doesn’t work.

Since completing No One Cries Forever, NERIAH feels like she has discovered exactly who she wants to be. These six tracks might not be 100 songs a year, but this also isn’t the only release she has up her sleeve.

If a frog is dropped into a pot of boiling water, it will naturally attempt to find its way out. If the water is tepid and slowly brought to a boil, a frog will not recognize the danger. It is a metaphor used to describe anything from climate change to abusive relationships, and for the band Featurette, it is the metaphor they are using on how to shake up the music industry.

For so long, songwriter Lexie Jay was caught up in the idea of songs she should be writing instead of songs she wanted to write. She found herself looking back on Featurette’s last album, Dream Riot, and feeling that her soul was not in it. She recognized that not only had she fallen into a deeper depression, but that she was wasting precious time by being caught up in it.

She took one of the songs from Dream Riot, “The Blame”, and gave it a stripped back makeover. She calls it “the exposed version” as the song as well as the music video paint a more detailed, darker picture on a previous relationship. The music video was self-directed and won two Canadian Independent Music Video awards.

By creating this new content, she knew that she needed to say goodbye to that version of her. She can even hear in the delivery of older songs just how mentally and physically tired she was. Releasing this version of “The Blame” helped put that girl to rest.

“I don’t need to be the victim anymore,” she said. “I don’t want to be this second fiddle thing; I just want to have fun and know what I am and really get into what makes me work. I was just playing the game as perfectly as I could and then I realized that the game was playing me, and it was my turn to take charge.”

The band’s first single of 2023, “Cocaine”, is what Jay calls “the party favor” of music to come. The song is an energy-fueled look at love obsession and the addictive qualities it possesses. It touches on her newfound enthusiasm for pushing boundaries and not being worried about the eventual downfall.

“I think in the new stuff I’ve got energy from the darkness now,” she said. “I carry myself differently now, having chosen to not be scared of the darkness. We all have our demons and I think a lot of people just suppress that stuff, but I just looked it in the eyes and said, ‘you want to sing about it?’”

Their next single, “Shibari”, refers to the contemporary art usage of Japanese bonding. It was written during a songwriting camp where another songwriter told Jay the story of how someone in passing casually suggested wanting to try shibari. Jay found the comment so uninhibited that she wrote the song within 10 minutes.

“What shibari is about for a lot of people is giving over control,” she said. “I’m a person who very much likes to be in control, that’s my entire personality; I’m incredibly uptight and I like things a certain way, and in this release of all these things that I’ve been exploring, this new persona that I am letting myself finally fucking be, I discovered that every time I challenge what my natural disposition is I end up in a comfortable and wonderful place that I very much enjoy. Giving over the idea of control would be a huge thing for me because it’s not at all natural to me, so shibari is the mental shibari; it’s something I would very much like to try. It’d be really cool to have your fate in somebody else’s hands for a moment and be ok with that. You are tied up mentally, emotionally; you can’t do anything about it.”

The frog that is the music industry has not noticed that Featurette has brought the water to a boil. “Cocaine” and “Shibari” are just the beginning of Jay’s freedom era - where she refuses to be anything more than herself, and all the potentially dark concepts that make their way into her music.

For Tasche de la Rocha, New Orleans was the light at the end of the tunnel. She was just 14 years old when she first visited, helping provide relief to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. She knew becoming a resident was her end game, and knowing that became her motivation to graduate high school.

As she settled into her new city, she also settled into her career as a musician.

“New Orleans made me a musician,” she said. “I was lost in the past, singing songs to get me through life like some kind of meditation, escape. It’s New Orleans that taught me rhythm and celebration through pain. I love that and will carry that forever.”

Performing as Tasche and the Psychedelic Roses has been everything she ever dreamed of. Since releasing her self-titled album, she has taken those experiences and discovered how exactly she wants to make music moving forward.

First and foremost, she learned strategy and teamwork. She worked alongside over a dozen people who were a part of making the album, and made sure that everyone understood and could help bring her ideas to life.

She learned everything about herself. She is comfortable and confident in her creation process, and now feels the same about “taking the reins and spearheading a project into completion when my heart is in it.”

“The album I just put out was ambitious for me and I gave it everything I could,” she said. “I wanted to do one big production with all the moving parts present. I plan to make it easier for myself in the future. Every time I record, It makes the next thing seem more possible. I think a lot of people have an easier time recording albums once they have done it a few times. It’s inspiring and exciting to think about what is next.”

Some of the songs on her album date back to her teenage years, however the album itself had been a six-year-long process. She describes it as long and challenging, especially the process of leading an eight-piece band, but she found that working alongside such talent gave her the exact experience she needed.

“I was in a deep depression when we recorded our album, possibly one of the darkest times I have had in my life,” she said. “Pushing myself through it and following through while trying to stay positive was rough. The whole thing was absolutely worth it. It was cathartic to make as it releases massive darkness coated in fun. It was rewarding working with my team and giving everyone a shining moment. I feel incredibly blessed with so much gratitude. Having finished this big project is the most relieving and satisfying of all. I got to spend time with my band who are all incredibly busy people who are hard to pin down which was one of my favorite parts. I encourage people to record despite how daunting it can be. Capturing a moment in time is irreplaceable.”

The songs on the album share a central theme of unapologetic transformation. de la Rocha believes that most people connect with “Hook”, which is about not existing for anyone’s pleasure or validation. It is also about escape, which she feels like listeners really find relief in. Her favorite track these days is “Pretty Things”, which is one of her favorites to play live.

“The tempo change in the center of the song takes me to another place completely, some kind of sexy rock island with glitter caves,” she said. “It [captures] a mindscape of trying to stay strong when feeling weak and turning to a higher source to find inner power. It’s romantic, holds tension and longing but strives for independence. These are all things I enjoy and feel often. I don’t know if people relate to it as much as other songs on the album but I like the idea of it touching the few that need to hear those feelings.”

To think that one visit to New Orleans sparked an entire life journey is almost unimaginable. Tasche and the Psychedelic Roses is much more than the current project for Tasche de la Rocha. It is a never-ending love letter to the place that made her who she is today.

“New Orleans changed my life, possibly saved my life,” she said. “There are many facets of the ever-evolving music community in New Orleans. Musicians here are my family. We take care of each other and encourage each other to grow. It’s rad to see people I've known for years develop their sounds and progress. Trying to refine what I have learned in the music community here into a few sentences is complicated because there is so much. There is so much amazing music in New Orleans! Massive talent. I’m honored to be amongst it.”

Photo courtesy of Marina Hunter

Between her family’s love for classic rock and her self-discovery of alternative, L E A knew music was her destiny.

Her 2021 EP, Jersey Boy, gave her the freedom to experiment with her sound while trying to land on one that best suited her. While her producer in Los Angeles went a more pop route with her music, she knew she wanted to dig deeper into the sounds that defined her childhood. When one of her musical inspirations, Chase Coy, reached out to work with her, she knew she had to make it to Nashville to work together.

Along with several collaborators, the beginning of her next EP began to take shape. Mixing engineer Carl Bahner, co-writer Michael Grubbs, The Wonder Years’ guitarist Casey Cavalier, pop-punk artist Bemo Rogue and Sleeping with Sirens frontman Kellin Quinn all made their mark on her next release, Happy Never Ending.

“This felt like the most natural genre to be a part of,” she said. “I grew up listening to classic rock and jazz so I always had a rock ‘n’ roll bone in my body. Some of the first bands I discovered myself, like Secondhand Serenade and Mayday Parade, were traditionally pop-punk and that was a thing that I am very influenced by.”

The more she immersed herself in the sounds of pop-punk, the more she felt like she belonged. Despite mostly writing on the piano, she was easily able to convert a ballad into an anthem. A booming drum beat and a signature gang vocal transformed her lyrics into everything she loves about the genre.

Everything about the writing and recording process solidified her move to the pop-punk side of music. She found collaborators that understood and respected her. She felt instant gratification upon the completion of a song. She watched in real time as the singles found their ways onto playlists and live performances at Emo Night events.

In spite of all the rewarding moments of creating Happy Never Ending, the real challenge for her is to share those moments in her everyday life. A topic that never seems to make its way to the surface is the financial struggle that comes with being an independent artist. Barriers have been broken in terms of having the capability to share music without the backing of a major label, but that means having to fund the entirety of a project alone.

“When I graduated college and was going into the real world as an adult, the transition of doing [music] as a hobby to doing it full time quite literally shocked me and my wallet,” she said. “With my financial situation, things were doing well enough to where I couldn’t focus on a full-time job but I wasn’t getting paid enough from my side gigs to be able to focus on music full-time. It was a lot of back and forth and tears and stress.”

Especially in a world where social media and the image of success dominate lives, it’s challenging to post the not-so-good moments. Some days she’s just a “regular working gal trying to make money” and some days she’s L E A. Some days she’s traveling to a different state to perform her new music. Those same days she’s sleeping for only a few hours on a friend’s couch.

“We need to talk about it more but it’s hard to always be that forward about it,” she said. “I’m trying really hard, after releasing [“FTS (Sick of This)”] especially, to be more transparent, especially online. When people ask for advice, just tell them how it is; don’t sugarcoat it.”

Photo courtesy of The Dwyers

Sam Tinnesz found himself, like many others, using the last few years as motivation to ask the question: what am I doing with my life?

He still finds it difficult to consider himself a professional musician, but he can admit that he has had some once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to write and perform alongside legendary artists. So why has he not made the type of record that he has always wanted to make?

It started with the discovery of singer, record producer and comedian Oliver Tree. Tinnesz was mesmerized by the punk rock guitars and outlandish lyrics, and inspired by the recognition it was receiving.

“Everybody was doing the blink-182 thing,” he said. “Nobody was doing the Weezer thing; nobody’s doing the Everclear, Nirvana, Wheatus… that’s what I grew up listening to. I started just seeing if I could write stuff like that but with a modern, fresh spin on it.”

A song or two became an EP, and ultimately an LP. Titled There Goes The Neighborhood, the 14-track album is set to release February 24.

For the first time, it felt like Tinnesz was making an album for himself. He found himself reflecting on past relationships, touring and being away from family. A lot of previously ignored emotions came to the surface, and diving into them brought forth an album of resolutions.

“I’ve been making music that’s very cinematic,” he said. “I’ve been [putting forth] all these different faces, but this was the first that I felt like I was really leaning into my natural thing.”

His public and personal personas are vastly different. By embracing more of his personal persona, Tinnesz let go of that less touchable, more distant vibe to share his true self with listeners.

“With this record, trying to be my full self and not censoring myself and not thinking of music in terms of ‘how is this usable’, just making the music was really the most challenging,” he said. “Getting myself to be as authentic as possible, as real as possible, writing about things that I actually feel but also if somebody was hanging out with me, what would the music sound like? What would my music sound like as a person?”

He had so many questions going into the creation process of this album. It gave him the freedom to really think about those questions before answering them. There came a point, however, where he had to wrap up the creation process and prepare to share it with the world.

“I’m never satisfied with what’s there,” he said. “The whole idea of ‘art is never finished, it’s just abandoned’ is more where I stand.”

What he refused to abandon was the idea of collaborating as much as possible. He has spent a great deal of his career playing in bands, and finding collaborators gave him a bit of that band feel again. Bryce Fox, who is featured on “Loser”, wrote the song with Tinnesz, while Chris Carrabbba of Dashboard Confessional wrote and sang on “Bittersweet” as well as appeared in the music video. After writing the song “Spaced Out”, which included lyrics as a nod to The All-American Rejects, Tinnesz was able to snag the band’s guitarist, Nick Wheeler, to accompany the piece.

“I keep meeting these guys that are in really awesome positions but are so open to work together,” Tinnesz said. “I knew at that moment when they were open to being a part of it that maybe I had something special that was happening. Doing this rock record has felt like a magnet that’s pulled all of my favorite acts growing up into my orbit and it’s just been a dream.”