Having Coffee With Lowell and Sara V

“And God said, ‘let there be pussy’ and she punched Adam in the rib,” tweets Lowell. While, one could debate the validity of this addition to the biblical timeline, Lowell’s sentiments reflect her ability to provoke a reaction while obscuring her true intentions. A self- identified feminist, Lowell’s music throws spotlight on issues like discrimination, sexual abuse, and women’s rights disguised as catchy power-pop ballads.

Born in Calgary, Alberta, Lowell’s name has been bubbling quietly in the Toronto music scene for some time. Despite being raised in a home devoted to classical music, Lowell cultivated an interest in different genres. By the age of 14 she started hemming together stories of her life and personal tragedies to paper. Never one to stay still, she crisscrossed between different cities before finally settling in Toronto to pursue classical music studies at University of Toronto. However, that didn’t pan out. Believing she could accomplish more on her own, she dropped out and started doing odd jobs to keep her musical career afloat.

“I was young and naïve and just wanted to be a singer and ended up in this weird lifestyle,” she adds, “I was stripping and people didn’t have respect for me or maybe I didn’t have respect for myself and ended up in a lot of [bad] situations.” But through frustration she found success. With the help of her publicist and a growing number of songwriting credits, her music would find its way into the ears of Martin Terefe (producer of acts like James Blunt) and member of the group, Apparatjik. Impressed by what he heard he invited her to London to help him work on the group’s second album, Square Peg in a Round Hole. Eventually, their collaborations would transform into her 2012 mini-album, If You Can Solve This Jumble and the pitter -patter pots and pans driven standout track, “Shake Him Off.”

Since then Lowell has expanded her resume, working with artists like R&B soul singer, Yuna and the mantle of boy band gawds, the Backstreet Boys. In addition, she’s released an EP called, I Killed Sara V which flourishes in a unique blend of sunny dispositions and social issues with debut album, We Loved Her Dearly on the way.

Impulsive yet honest, Lowell is unapologetic in what she sees as right and wrong, understanding that although many may disagree with her opinions “I’d rather say something that I regret, rather than something that is diplomatic.” In the middle of coffee, we caught up with Lowell to converse about the negatives of the music industry, being as good as John Lennon, and who is Sara V.

Noisey: Why is Chad VanGaalen’s Soft Airplane an integral part of music culture?
Lowell: Wow that’s an amazing question. I think what he does is incredible because he produces everything and makes his own instruments in his basement. But it’s not only Soft Airplane, it’s everything he does. He runs his own label, records his own albums and is like, “Hey, I dropped my record.”

Is that a model you want to follow?
At some point in my life I wanted to, but I always go back and forth on what I really want. I admire what he does and that he doesn’t care about what anybody thinks. But I think his model is the opposite of what I want to achieve. I want to be a pop artist.

He’s more of a recluse.
Yeah, which I can be at times when I think it important for me to [step away] from being culturally active in politics or music so it’s a different game.

Where does your interest in politics come from because you had an interesting tweet about Nixon about him shipping prostitutes?
It wasn’t about shipping prostitutes it was actually about the summer of 69’. I’m guessing you’re talking about my song “Kids.” I’ve always kind of been interested in politics and I think its super important to incorporate that in music because when it comes down to it the youth isn’t necessarily looking towards politicians for people to admire. They’re looking at the media. They’re looking at people like Taylor Swift or I don’t know Britney Spears or Chad Vangaalen. So, I think as a musician it’s important to me to have that sort of role model thing about me. I mean one of the reasons why I started writing music was because there were things happening in politics that were bothering me.

But at the same time most musicians steer away from it.
Well, its two things. First, if you’re really outspoken in music and say the wrong things people will never let you live it down. But also if you want to be super successful you have to be diplomatic. So, if you want everyone to buy your music you can’t say for example you’re like a gay rights supporter because everyone that isn’t a gay rights supporter might not want to listen to you anymore. I just don’t really care because I think it’s important to [hold onto] my beliefs and I’m okay with the fact that some people might not like my music.

I think we’ve gotten a bit better at being allowed to voice our opinions as an artist and being accepted.
Me too.

I mean lord knows, Kanye-I’m a Yeezus disciple- I’d like to think he says whatever the fuck he wants and he’ll still sell a lot of records and sell stadiums. Do you think there’s now a bit of an opening to almost be the bad guy?
It’s a tough question because I actually think it just depends on the person. I’m also a Yeezus supporter and I think Kanye is actually a really smart guy so he’s able to do it. Some will disagree with what I’m saying, but I believe that everything that I’ve ever heard him say I can agree with to an extent. People get upset with him because he’s voicing truth. [In the song, “New Slaves”] he’s expressing what it’s like to be a repressed black male and in an aggressive way because he has the right to be aggressive about it. And I think people take it the wrong way because they don’t want to hear that racism exists, but it does and he’s expressing it.

And it’s the same way for me; I can’t relate as a [black male], but as a girl and a feminist, people often just want to put me into a box as an angry girl lashing out against society. The truth is I have something to say and there is truth in it. But I don’t know if I steered off from your question

Well, even the word feminist I find its definition is positive but it’s such a loaded word and both men and women sometime ascribe negative connotations with it.
Yeah, it’s easy for people to think that feminists are women that hate men. It almost feels like instead of creating equality, feminism almost creates a disparity and just puts men and women against each other. I don’t support that and I actually purposely try to maintain my own individual form of feminism, because I don’t want to be a female that comes in and calls other girls sluts or whatever. I don’t subscribe to that, that’s not feminism to me. To me feminism is everyone coming together and lifting each other up instead of pushing each other down.

Does a song have to have a special importance to you because a lot of your songs tread that middle line between being a catchy pop tune but also autobiographical.
Most of the time what I write is based on something that inspires me or is currently going on in my life. I rarely make up stories to go with songs. Sometimes I’ll stretch the truth for artistic reasons, but generally the songs that I write are important to me and personal.

You have one interesting song that you’ve started performing live called “LGBT,” what’s the inspiration behind that song?
I was in London which is a little bit less of a liberal city when it comes to gay rights and people will more loosely say things like, “fucking fag.” Anyways, I was on my way to the studio and these guys were picking on a guy because he was gay and it didn’t sit well with me. I’m usually the kind of person who gets up and goes like, “Come on guys stop it and cut it out,” but for some reason I just sort of chickened out. I don’t know if it was the guilt from that; from not feeling like I stood up for what was right, but when I was in the studio I couldn’t get it out of my head and started making this song about it.

Well yeah and it’s interesting how the title isn’t open to interpretation it’s very in your face.
I did want it to be completely in people’s faces and I purposely made the song super poppy and really catchy so you wouldn’t be able to get it out of your head. It’s less left field than all my other songs deliberately so that people will listen to it and eventually have to like it

Your EP is called, I Killed Sara V. Who is Sara V?
Sara V is lots of different things. I guess it depends on who is listening to it could be the girl in high school who was bitchy to you or your cat that died in the streets. To me, Sara V is who I used to be. I suppose in killing her I created a new being who is knowledgeable and careful in life. Maybe an alter-ego too.

How does your I Killed Sara V EP and your upcoming album compare to your debut EP, If You Can Solve This Jumble?
It definitely has its similarities and differences. I’d say the album that I’m about to release is probably a little bit less lo-fi. It still uses a lot of my original demos and [songs] from my studio which is basically just pots and pans. But it also has this sort of other hi-fi aspect to it and is pretty pristine. I did it in a nice studio and I wanted it to be that way. The other thing is it was less of a collaboration compared to, If You Can Solve This Jumble so it means more to me. Jumble, I did with [Apparatjik] and it was done over four days. We mainly improvised and finished it in a couple days. Whereas this record I’ve been working on for two years and its sort of the story of my life so it’s a little more personal I’d say.

There’s an intro on the Jumble EP called, "C=Blue", why did you decide to talk about synaesthesia?
That came out because I have synaesthesia and me and Apparatjik we’re talking about it in the studio. I didn’t know it was being recorded, but at the time we just decided to read the Wikipedia link to explain what it was. [Apparatjik producer] Martin Terefe was testing my pitch for vocals and he started playing around and banging the piano with his arms while I was naming out all the notes that he played.

As a songwriter do you put yourself in a different space because you’re writing for someone else.
Definitely, when I’m writing for myself I have no inhibitions. I don’t think about what people want to listen to or anything it just comes out naturally. When I’m writing for other people I try to put myself in that person’s shoes and think what it’s like to be them. Kind of like when you’re interviewing people, I try to actually research the person and know about their life like, “Does this person have a wife so would I be singing about her or maybe they’re a total womanizer.” You really have to be a chameleon.

So then how did writing for the Backstreet Boys song “Take Care” come about?
[laughs] That actually –this is funny because I always had a crush on Nick Carter and when I found out I could be writing for the Backstreet Boys I decided to write a song about me from his point of view. So I wrote, “I’ll take care of you” because I imagined he was singing to me and writing that song was like my [childhood] dream come true. So, now I have a song where Nick Carter is singing for me. I’m sure there’s lots of other girls out there that would love for Nick Carter to sing that to them.[laughs]

He was always the favourite, or was it Brian?
No, Nick Carter was always the favourite. Blond with blue eyes…

And then Kevin kind of disappeared.
People liked AJ I think.

Mehhh…I have nothing against AJ but he was always just there in the background and contributed nothing like Joey Fatone from N’Sync. Would you ever be satisfied or content just being a songwriter?
It’s definitely a backup, but I think when it comes down to it I love the music I make the most. The songs that go to other people are the ones that I decided I didn’t want. And plus I feel like I have a lot to say and it’s one thing to implant what I want to say in other peoples music, but when its coming from me it’s a lot more personal.

Well, “Shake Him Off” was your first single and sort of the world’s introduction to you and feels like a song pulled from your experiences.
Basically, I wrote it at a really early time in my music career and it’s sort of based on me and my experiences as a female trying to make it as a singer I suppose. More directly it had to do with meeting radio DJ’s that were always telling me to “suck their dick” for fame or whatever and I didn’t want to be a part of it. But it became frustrating because somebody shouldn’t be trying to manipulate you into that kind of situation. So, [the song] was kind of a lash out against people who were putting me through those situations.

How often did you run into those situations? I mean you hear about those things but you kind of chalk it up to being isolated incidents.
It definitely happens. I mean it happened to me in an earlier time in my life but I think the music industry is one of the most sexist things I’ve ever seen in my life. Now, I actually don’t experience it that much because I display myself in a very specific way so most people are intimidated by me. I now realize that what I had to do was educate myself and become smarter than everyone I was around so people couldn’t manipulate me

When I was young and naïve I just wanted to be a singer and ended up in this weird lifestyle. I was stripping and people didn’t necessarily have respect for me or maybe I didn’t have respect for myself and ended up in a lot of [bad] situations. I don’t blame myself for it at all because everybody has a right to be naïve and not be harassed sexually. However, I’m definitely proud of who I am now because I can walk into a room and not get hit on by radio guys. I don’t need them and they know that.

And that’s for the best you become stronger as a person. I actually recently interviewed another artist who talked about how music from its composition to lyrics whether it’s sung by a man or woman is catered to men. As a songwriter do you find that to be the case?
Yeah, that’s dead on in many different ways. I mean for one, especially if you’re a pop artist you’re writing music and it’s being approved by male A&R’ s or music industry employees who want to hear certain [songs] from female artists like, “Oh I’ll get down on my knees or I love you so much that I’d do anything for you.” I definitely get sick of hearing it. There’s either the left field where there’s the indie singer that sings the ballad about love and how much she’s into this guy or not or…

Like Adele.
Exactly, and I’m not smashing Adele because I think she has a lot of talent, but a guy would generally not write about that because there’s more to life than women, but women are encouraged to live there life based on men. Some woman don’t, but there is that encouragement and it’s hard not to want to get married when you watch Disney films you’re whole life and want your prince to come to you.

Is it hard for you personally as an artist to move away from those narratives?
Yeah it can be really difficult. It comes naturally to me, but other people having a lot of trouble…

Selling it.
Selling it is extremely difficult. It was hard to sell [my ideas] to the music industry which is why I ended up going with an indie. If I went with a major they would encourage me to do otherwise. At the same time that’s its own issue. For example, I’m designing my album art right now and it’s hard not to put my face on the cover because if you look at the top 20 albums of female artists on Rolling Stones every single one has a picture of their face. But if you look at the top 20 albums for men its always cool artistic pictures. So for me, it’s hard to find that balance between doing what you know sells records but also being honest with yourself. I have to remind myself every morning of what I’m trying to do because it’s easy as a competitive person to say “I want to sell a million records and I don’t care what I do ,” but at the same time know I would feel like I sold out in some sort of way

Have you always wanted to make music that is personally and politically motivated with pop sensibilities or is it just the best way to “sell” your ideas?
I make all kinds of music and a lot of times I’ll actually release demos of really left field things that I do. However, I think it is a political statement to make it so “sellable” if that’s a word. I think when you- well I also love pop music so it helps. I’m a sucker for a hook and I don’t want to ever be ashamed of my pop abilities because I love listening to it, I love dancing to it so why not make the music that I love and not worry about being cool. I think that sometimes we have a tendency to isolate ourselves when we have certain opinions and we put ourselves into this “intellectual” group of pretentious artists where all of us think the same instead of making music that is accessible for other people. It’s like we isolate ourselves. And I could easily put myself into that group, but it won’t achieve anything because it’ll just attract the same people. But if I make pop music with topics that other people won’t bring up, it invites a new group of people that I can talk with and get them thinking. Instead of just making people who already think, think.

You’re also very visually inclined in a lot of your videos like “Kids” or “Cloud 69.”Is there a type of artist you pull your influences from?
I try to avoid most of the art people create because I don’t want to be influenced by anybody else. It’s important to acknowledge your influences, but I look more at what artists have done and the people they are. For example, one of the reasons I dropped out of school was because I was at the Picasso museum and I got this little piece on how he was going to school for classical art and at the time I was going to school for classical music. So, I looked up more stuff on him and learned he dropped out because he felt like he was being taught to do something that didn’t come naturally to him and thought he do better on his own terms. And of course he did. So, I try to follow his footsteps because I feel like I can relate in terms of what he’s done and what I want to do.

And I’m not discouraging school because I think it’s really important, but it’s like if you go to school for art everybody’s teaching you how to do things that other people have done. So, often I find that people who have gone to school – and this is a generalization based only on the people I have met so it’s definitely not a balanced study- but they tend to be more similar to each other because they’ve learned from the same curriculum. So, when I realized that, I didn’t want to lose my natural tendencies because I think that’s what makes me special. Who knows maybe if I’d gone to school I would be a billion times better as an artist or maybe I would be…

Ten times worse.
Ten times worse and definitely would have a lot more inhibitions

In another interview you talked about how you don’t want to only be a singer but a master of all facets including being a producer, director, and artist. But you’ve also commented on how there are very few if any prominent female music producers. Why is it important for you to become one?
I think actually one of the biggest things in society when it comes to anybody is having role models. It really comes down to who you look up to as a kid and who you think you can become. We only ever decide things based on evidence and quite frankly there’s not a lot of evidence out there that I could be a great producer who is female. The only evidence I have are through the people that I’ve forced to acknowledge that I’m as good as they are or through working with my producer/mentor, Martin Terefe. I could easily just be just be some throwaway singer or some ukulele chick whose success is entirely based on her youth and voice which all fade as you grow. But, I feel I could be so much more than that. I mean I want to be known as a musical genius because I believe that I am and I don’t know if there are other female artists that have been identified that way. You look at John Lennon, he’s a musical genius. I think I can write a song as good as John Lennon. It’s a bold statement but I really do.

I think it’s definitely possible with your confidence. Well, I think that concludes our very lengthy chat.
Did you still want to know who Sara V is?

Of course.
Well, that’s my old stripper name which was Sara Victoria. So, I think the I Killed Sara V idea is me killing that part of my life which I try to talk openly about because I think it’s important. But sometimes when people are around I don’t like to talk about it even though I’ll say it in an interview and it’ll get published to way more people.

Basically, I was brought into a shitty situation when I was pretty young by people in the music industry who said that they were going to help me. But then I got brought into this horrible world of pimping and all this stuff and I was sort of manipulated into it. And one of the things that kept me from being able to leave was because it was such a sensitive topic for me and I didn’t feel like I could talk about it to anybody. So, nobody was helping me and the people who brought me into that world were using it as a way to manipulate me and be like, “Oh everybody is going to find out that you’re doing this.” But when I grew up and realized that my experiences shouldn’t be a taboo subject that was when I was really able to get out of that [world] and start making music. And through that situation I ended up sort of saving myself.

Jabbari Weekes is a writer living in Toronto. He's on Twitter.