1.The First Song I Wrote
When I was young I sang pretty much all the time, so I guess I started practising then. My first attempts at songs were lessons in how to say a lot in a few lines, and I definitely borrowed heavily from the styles of music I grew up on. I listened to Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris – the great ladies of country music, so I wrote a few things about heartbreak before I knew anything about it.
2.The Last Song I Released
I’m about to release a brand new single on April 1! ‘Remind Me Of Myself’ is a song I wrote about the emotions that make us all human. It’s about living, breathing and loving in current times. We recorded the song in Vancouver in the former Mushroom Studios (Led Zeppelin, Diana Ross). As you can imagine, there’s a lot of mojo in that room. The song has a bit of a throwback vibe that sounds great on tape. You can hear the live version of it on March 17 at Lazybones Lounge.
3. Songwriting Secrets
I always consider it a gift when a song comes fully formed. It doesn’t happen often for me that I write the chords, lyrics and melody in one day, but it has a few times and it feels like magic. Most of the time I think of snippets of melody and lyrics and save them for later. I construct songs out of those snippets when I set aside the space specifically for songwriting.
4.The Song That Makes Me Proud
I’m really proud of a series of songs I wrote for a side project of mine called My Peace River. It’s a multimedia project created to bring awareness to Canada’s most endangered river valley – which happens to be where I grew up. They were the most difficult and personal songs I’ve written. The mandate of My Peace River is to spread awareness through making art inspired by the Peace River. You can hear a song, which we recorded live on the banks of the Peace River, at mypeaceriver.ca.
5.The Song That Changed My Life
I’ll have to go with ‘When The Levee Breaks’ by Led Zeppelin. There are a few different reasons for this. It is one of my favourite grooves of all time, and I love heavy grooves. Zeppelin has taught me a lot about rock’n’roll. Another reason is that it is an adaptation of a Memphis Minnie song. She was was an amazing guitar player, the first woman to record electric guitar and a huge inspiration to me. And finally, the reason that the Peace River is endangered is because a hydroelectric dam is scheduled to be built and flood 107 kilometres of pristine river valley. I would love nothing more than for that levee to break.
See and hear Miss Quincy at Lazybones Lounge Thursday March 17.
