Photo by Norman Wong
There’s a wild animal somewhere inside Canadian pop act Elizabeth Lowell Boland aka LOWELL – her name origins in the French word for wolf. And while her music comes as a rather tamed version of freakish pop that’s been heard a lot recently, it’s her lyrics that are aggressively open at times, while simultaneously express vulnerability. LOWELL released her debut album We Loved Her Dearly last year in her home country and is now preparing a worlwide release on June the 12th. To finally get a brighter picture of the artist behind it we posed our famous INTRODUCING-questions to her.
How would you describe your music to our readers in one sentence?
Pop music made with love.
Which 5 tracks should start a mixtape to perfectly capture your musical influences?
1: DEER HOOF – Breakup songs
2: SPICE GIRLS – If You Can’t Dance
3: FATHER JOHN MISTY – Nancy
4: CULTS – Go Outside
5: FOSTER THE PEOPLE – Houdini
Describe your earliest musical memory
I definitely had it in my mind I had written a song when I was 4 years old. I kept on humming Blue Skies Smiling At Me or something. I know the song I ‘wrote’ had already been written. My first plagiarism.
Would you rather be a dragon or have a dragon?
Out of fear of being held captive, or eaten, definitely in this day and age I wouldn’t want to be anything potentially predatory to humans. I’d own a dragon.
If your music would score a movie what sort of movie would that be? What actors can you imagine playing in it?
A Tarantino film. Uma Thurman, Gary Oldman – the usual. Throw in Steve Buscemi just to throw ’em off a little.
If this whole musician thing won’t workout – what would be your alternative dream job?
Not sure, I like finding out new things about the world. Maybe a researcher of some kind. Minus the paper work.
Tell us a mostly unknown artist we should definitely check out
DEERHOOF isn’t unknown really but should be listened to by more for sure.
The music industry is changing quite heavily these days. What’s the best and what’s the worst part of these changes, in your eyes?
The best part is there is a new platform for creative people to display their talents, and it is nearly available to anyone in some sort of fashion. There is more power in the hands of artists. The bad thing is record labels are struggling and need to find new creative ways to stay alive. I think it will all even out in the end. Labels will always be needed by artists as a sort of weeding out system as the platform on the internet grows without a buffer zone. They will find a way to profit off of that I’m sure.
Unleash your inner Burt Bacharach and complete the following sentence: “What the world needs now is…”
… International Income Taxes
What role play ‘hope’ and ‘passion’ in your life?
Obama and the color red.
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