Ep.12 Christa Couture | LevelsFM Music Production Podcast - YouTube
[Music] [Music] what is your name and or your alias my name is christa couture and i never had an alias i wish now that i did but i i never came up with one i love it where are you currently residing i'm currently based in toronto
i love it when if i didn't know you and i do but if i didn't know you and we met in an elevator what and i asked you what you did what would you say you do i would say i'm a writer a musician and a broadcaster so cool i got it dialed i've got that elevator pitch dialed i'm ready i know that about you [Laughter] um are you ready for the lightning round yeah hit me what's the best song of all time oh jesus i'm not ready for that question nobody is take a deep breath one of the best songs of all time songs of all time okay i'm gonna tell you the first thing that comes to mind and then i might
regret this answer but we're just gonna run with it okay all kinds of disclaimers caveats whatever uh banned it by neil young i love it why because i believe it it's the lyrics his delivery it's whatever they did in that song i'm like i [ __ ] believe you that's really important isn't it is that what is that authenticity authenticity absolutely and and the thing is with that song like the the chorus is like someday you'll find everything you're looking for which is a beautiful some thing to wish for a person right much less guarantee and and so it's this message and and that you want to be true and then there's just the way that he says it or delivers it or is it recorded that that makes it true and i i think about that song when i'm thinking about my own yeah authenticity or my commitment i think it's a commitment as well um cool yeah
is it is it the lyrics or the delivery or both that are authentic or commit i think i think it's more the delivery you know maybe it's the melody it's it's the weight it's kind of almost delivered like one word at a time um and and the production of that song is is kind of like the sort of constant it's pretty straightforward um it's gentle in a way because the words like someday you'll find what you're looking for like that's not like a great line of poetry it's a nice thought but it's not like oh i wish i thought of those exact combination of words um so it's it's it's just i think guess in the commitment to the performance and the choices they made about the instrumentation and i love it so far we're off to a great start in the whitening round by the way but my reluctance with that is like i don't want to name the old white guy who's got like neil young come on he's great but like we don't need to give him more flowers but uh it it's just what
popped in mine first there's so many favorite songs and maybe i'm just feeling that song that in this moment right of course it's the lightning round don't worry everybody who has the best voice of all time also there's so many probably not neil young no i'm guessing no you know um best voice of all time uh shout out neil young by the way and you have a great voice don't don't listen to us no shame um regina spektor and because obviously beautiful voice she can sing in all kinds of styles big loud soft um and and that she does one of my favorite things about regina spektor's voice
is that she's not afraid to actually not have a pretty voice or not have a beautiful voice and i feel like especially for women where if you do something that's sort of like quote-unquote ugly that's a real risk and she'll just like like she'll grunt she'll get right into it she'll play with it and so again there's sort of like choices or commitment to like using her voice in a way that i love that i think makes her one of the best singers that's great great answer i love that who is your favorite musical group or band of all time or maybe just this week i don't know these are just the hardest questions ever how do you pick a favorite do you have a favorite do you know i i would never answer these questions i just say no comment these are these are ridiculous questions that don't really have any answers to them okay at least you know that my favorite group so not like an artist
because i listen to a lot of individual like singer songwriters we're looking for a group here it's the lightning round this is the lightning round looking for a group oh man who's my favorite group of all time could be a duo yeah it could be a duo just looking for a you know just a non-individual okay my favorite group and they're named after the individual but which i used and i now know but they're really like a collaborative number is uh brandy carlisle i haven't heard of them haven't heard of them oh they're good she also would be contender for best voice that women can sing like she's got like a bonnie rate kind of quality cool um and great hooks my god and their album
bear creek was just like i one of those things that i've listened to you know top 10 i've just listened to over and over so many times um been her work since but just really great songwriting and two members of the band are twins they're these twin brothers and that's just a good look and uh and they all like live near each other and one of the brothers is married to her sister like their family they just have like a real solid thing going that's cool yeah they're good i love it um who would be your dream collaboration um there's so many there's so many dream collaborators the first thing that comes to mind is um recently newly named uh the hallucination formerly a tribe called red oh cool i've like never i'm so singer
songwritery right i'm like folky and um i would love to work with producers or artists that are doing something completely different and uh i love i love the collaborations they've done so that's great i approve of that name change too because i was always like oh oh yeah right it's pretty it's pretty pretty close to another band name yeah um laptop or recording studio recording studio i love it why i'm i i like being in a room i like the the idea of a record as a record of an event and for me that happens when you're with people right is it the space or the people or both both
both yeah yeah often oftentimes the walls are made of wood and that just helps seal everything right isn't that right yeah uh what is your favorite audio effect like delay reverb eq hmm i mean i think the audio effect i've been helped by most as a performer probably reverb also well auto tune i mean i've got pretty good pitch when it comes to singing but every now and then there's just like for whatever reason a thing i can't get and the fact that we can fix it it's pretty awesome that's great i approve of all of those answers i'm gonna skip by the i'm gonna skip by the question what is your favorite plug-in because i'm guessing you don't have one but surprise me do you have a favorite i mean auto tune is a plug-in so you can go with auto-tune there you go i'll pick that one i love it okay last question of lightning round
which song sounds great which song sounds great correct and i've been listening to this playlist i made on my phone for when i'm cleaning and so i've been listening to that playlist on my headphones this morning i'm gonna say because just like i was thinking about it listening to it today it was better in black by thelma plum cool i haven't heard of that but it's good i believe you velma plum selma th thelma plum better great name great name that's a that's an alias you could have had if you had taken it first if i thought of it didn't think of it i know too slow too
slow on that one that is the end of the lightning round what do you think of lightning round whoa it's tricky those are hard questions dude man they're terrible terrible questions nobody can answer those questions realistically oh those are the kinds of i mean i i i stand by those answers but they're the kind of thing i'm going to be thinking about those and like later today i'm going to be like oh you know what i should have said that's the kind of questions those are just text me and i'll overdub your answers good right perfect we'll fix it fix that we'll fix it in the mix right yeah it's always been our motto isn't it no it never never has been um awesome so you currently reside in toronto where were you born let's go way back in the in the way back machine little Christa where were you born i was born i mean not far from here i was born uncur uh peterborough ontario my family lived on curve lake reserve at
the time and uh but they went into town to make it to the hospital and uh that was 1978 an autumn day i love it libra season nice um can you tell us about an early musical memory [Music] i have a really musical family both my parents are singers and have wonderful voices my whole family you know plays instruments and stuff a musical memory i remember stepping into like a diner with my mom and um i want to hold your hand by the beatles was playing and i was like what are what is this this is the best thing i've ever heard like it just wait like it got to me so fast and i actually went and held my mom's hand because i was so moved by the sentiment i was like
i want to hold your hand this is the best song i've ever heard i had i was like maybe four or something like it's a really young memory but it's the first memory i have of being like the way that music can just like ignite you and like like my body was like electric because i just was like i love this what is going on you know um there's this now that i ha i have a daughter who's four and there's this um this kids show called kyrie and lou that we watch it's on cbc gem and it's from new zealand it's five minute little shows with dinosaurs anyways one of the dinosaurs was by jermaine clement from uh flight of the concords anyways there's this episode where this one little dinosaur um kiri she doesn't know what's happening to her and like her body's moving and her feet are moving and she's kind of confused and she can't understand what's what's like possessed her and it's because someone's drumming and she can't help but dance and uh and i feel like when you're
little like we sort of are born with knowing how to dance and and to respond to music like it's so inherent it's so human and so that moment of hearing i want to hold your hand was just like this moment where i was like wow there's something is happening right yeah oh my god music that's so cool have you played i want to hold your hat to your daughter no i haven't so play that for her today and see i i bet she goes meh probably no i wanna i wanna see if her reaction is genetic maybe right maybe i'll try it but it'd be funnier if she just went meh she's like nah no beetle schmidle's mom great song great song shout out beatles if you're listening some of you um those of you left
it's possible apparently um [Music] do you think at that moment at 4 might have been the moment where you're like i think i want to do this with my life or probably a little too early to make in that call but maybe the seed started there did you eventually start you know your your parents or or musicians and singers and everybody in your family's musicians did you pick up an instrument soon after that or what was your first sort of instrument well my first instrument was my voice you know i was um i'm i'm mixed cree and scandinavian and when i was like two ish um we had a traditional naming ceremony and that's like a thing us natives do and so in this in this naming ceremony which like takes you know the sweat lodge with the elder and
and uh and he came out after the ceremony and he and he said to my parents um you know her name is zany bay uh which is arapahoe i'm cree he was arapahoe so you know use his language but he's like her name is zany bay it means singing woman and he said she's gonna sing a lot and she's gonna talk a lot and i grew up being told that story over and over like you're saying ebay you're our singing woman you're gonna sing a lot and you're gonna talk a lot and so i feel like at what point did i become a singer or decide to make music i i either grew into that story because i was told so often or it was always going to be true um so there was just this sense of like that's who i am that's my role like these are the like the way our traditional names work is that it speaks to like the gifts that we have but also speaks to our uh responsibility to use those gifts and give back to our community right like it's we're very community first
community focused and we serve our community by being ourselves and and so um there was always this this just knowing i was like oh i'm a singer i sing that's what i do i'm singing woman and i remember i mean i would walk home from school and be writing songs and singing to myself and i was always always writing songs and then but my first musical instrument was was piano my grandma had a piano and um and so i took lessons and loved that and then in high school when it was like listening to the indigo girls and anita franco i was like [ __ ] the piano i need an acoustic guitar right it was the 90s and lil affair was happening and and so i was all about it and that and then picked up you know in the guitar then cool swaney bay is that what it was is shay knee bay sandy bay sandy bay yeah krista sane sanibay i don't have a
nickname i don't have an alias i should have used anyway people would have been all over that [ __ ] but uh it's not too late maybe it's not too late maybe the next ep title yeah maybe when i do my hallucination remix i'll be saying ebay that's your that's your electronic uh yeah our art artist name i love it yeah so cool great story i love i love that that's so awesome um at some point you're listening to the indigo girls you got your acoustic guitar you're singing you're writing songs every day at some point was there a moment where you're like i'm gonna do this or did you sort of always did did the nickname the naming ceremony sort of maybe made you think oh everybody does this or this is what i have to do or was there a moment maybe in high school or
earlier or later where you're like i'm gonna i'm gonna go do this i'm gonna go try this even though it seems a bit crazy it sure is a bit crazy but there was a moment you know it happened in my 20s i think in high school even though i you know knew i was saying ebay and this was a big part of my identity and i playing guitar and playing my indigo girls covers and all that i i didn't feel worthy in a way i think i felt like a fear or an insecurity about pursuing music and you know that's something most of us like feel it's like am i good enough and if i just don't try then i don't have to find out if i'm not good enough right and of course i couldn't have articulated that way because i was a teenager but i felt very cautious and nervous i didn't want to audition for you know a lot of i went to performing arts high school and a lot in edmonton and my peers were going to go to grant mcewen and study musical theater and i just was like i don't know so instead i went to film school and
like decided to go into production and like television production i was like that's cool that's still creative i can just make music you know my own time but then i was uh on a like backpacking trip through europe as one does in their early 20s and i was in the back room at the hostel in amsterdam two in the morning uh with a group of people you know other travelers and the guitar was going around the room right people were taking their turns uh daryl the scottish guy who had super crushing on played a david gray cover and i like sang harmonies and he was like oh you can sing like here do you play guitar and i had like just started taking lessons but i was like sure yeah and i had this moment i was like okay am i gonna play a cover or should i play that one song that i've written on the guitar and i'd only had one that had written with guitar at that point and so i sang it
and everyone listened and there was this moment after my song had finished when people were just quiet before that cutie patootie daryl said i they started clapping in that split second i was like [ __ ] i want to do this i want to perform music and have this feeling where people are just going ah i get it i feel it i feel something and and it was in that second i was like okay this and it sent me on a path where like then i went home and i figured out how to start recording demos and and started trying to you know just play open mics i hadn't even done that yet um and i wrote a song about that experience it's called day four it's on that album you and i produced but it's and the in the um chorus it says thank you for starting me off like i just feel like something happened in that room um where it just set me on the path of like okay i want to have this as my career i want this to be a thing that i focus on
i wanted that feeling again and again i love that when you were telling me that i was like i've heard this story before but in a different form this all sounds so familiar um you know what would be cool is i'd love to hear you sort of do that like break down the story of the song and then sing the song but whenever people try to do that live through a pa system it always just sounds like amsterdam and everybody's like yeah i don't i can't hear a word you're saying but beers are half price um but if you did it on youtube or something where you know something where your your mic sounds good and by the way your mic sounds great blue shut up yeti um if you did that in in that format where we could actually hear what you were saying like when you were when you were saying that i had total chills i was like that's a great story and and i
think you would be great at telling the stories of your songs and here's the song yeah and here's the song of course yeah song comes second i do love the stories behind my song and that's in some ways the second part of that teaching about my name right she's gonna sing a lot she's gonna talk a lot there was this way of like i also talk about these stories i also write them down i did a thing with my last maybe two albums where as a like you know pre-sale like bonus thing or whatever people could buy um postcards and i would mail them one postcard a month that has had i wrote out the story of one of the songs because i love giving that to people i mean people have their own stories that they're going to hear in music right oh yes but i happen to enjoy like telling the story so yeah maybe maybe that's going to be my next youtube thing i don't know good idea futch that'd be great yeah this is what this is what i'm here for right we're all about starting youtube channels yeah based on every podcast episode i don't
know if that's true at all uh it's probably not um that's a great story though and so uh correct me if i'm wrong it was sort of the dramatic pause between you ending the song and sensing their reaction but you hadn't heard their reaction yet that dramatic pause was probably half a second but felt like an entire lifetime and you decided in that dramatic pause this is what i'm going to do with the rest a large portion of my life anyway until i decided to become a writer and that's so great you are correct because it just was like that we know that moment right as performers like that just moment where you're like i nailed it i nailed it and like you just feel it you can it's wordless and you feel it and it's this like moment of this connection between you and the audience and we know that feeling as an audience member too right like i've so many times been the one in the audience going right so uh yeah it was in that moment
of feeling that yeah and it's almost like the longer the dramatic pause the more real it is like because people feel so socially awkward that they just don't like that space and so they just immediately want to clap and yelp and so if the performance isn't that great the clapping and yelping is going to start right away but if there's that dramatic pause people are almost like oh right i'm a human being on planet earth where are we oh wow that was [ __ ] great sorry i shouldn't swear on my podcast but i've already sworn a bunch i assumed it was okay i yeah i let each person decide yeah okay um yes just that suspension of time in a way yeah 100 percent it's good to put that in production too like when you when you put in a dramatic pause in production it's always great too especially if you're thinking down the road of what it's going to be like live do you know what i learned from you when we made that first album which we recorded live off the floor right and we were capturing all that
feeling everything in the room and you talked about like the drummer you know just like when you're especially when it's live and every we were having to get everyone at once but like if waiting to say yeah we got it because like don't don't like let that moment hang um so that we can capture that feeling in the room right i remember that so clearly i learned that from you and i've thought about that um as a performer and in recording because it's like you have to just let those moments happen and let them settle yeah like like at the end of a great take when the symbols are still uh shimmering and somebody goes that was [ __ ] great yeah exactly i think that was the story because then you guys then you've got to over dub a symbol take and that's not really live and then you feel bad yeah yeah exactly but it's also good to know that the take was so great that the person lost their mind
right and responded broke the broke the fourth wall yeah yeah i think that still lets you know you're on the right path um so how many instruments do you play piano voice yeah invoice yeah is that three when you hear instruments or uh you listen to albums what's your favorite sounding instrument do you have sort of a oh i love that sound sort of instrument um i mean it depends on so many factors i love a clarinet there's like something when i hear a like clarinet come in i don't my grandpa played the care in it maybe that's why i mean i love the piano i love cello i love a trumpet um i thought i hated the saxophone until i finally heard some like good saxophone solos um
yeah i think it depends on like what's going on like what the song is those are all great answers yeah cello's a good one and you're you're right about sex it's kind of a love-hate relationship with sax it can sort of it can go bad it can sound bad right sound brash but it can sound good too um [Music] when you were growing up and when you were you know i guess hearing music around the house or maybe music you were bringing into the house what were your early influences you mentioned ani defranco and that sort of scene maybe even before that sort of between i want to hold your hand and ani defranco what was the the other sort of music you were being influenced by um like so it was the 80s and my what was available to me was my mother's record collection
and so it was joni mitchell carol king the soundtrack to amadeus um my mom listened to a lot of like singer song my mom is a singer songwriter as well and so there was a lot of that around simon garfunkel um you know and she'd been in like a folk trio in the 60s so it was like a lot of her influences became my influences paul simon i think graceland was like this moment where we both liked something you know that uh was current and then i was i was you know just starting to find my own my own tastes but that was a huge album was great massive hey yeah yeah really really good crossover with all of the the instruments they brought into them good sounding album um okay so at some point you're writing all these songs and at some point you're gonna have to bring this stuff to the stage and you
are going to have to perform live was the first time you performed live a nightmare like it should be or how to duck how did that go oh yeah i felt i was sick to my stomach i was an absolute wreck my guitar teacher murray atkinson shout out mariachi shout out to maria um he was playing a gig at the railway club in vancouver with like a band he had at the time and asked me if i wanted to play an opening set which is i mean thank goodness he did it was a push i needed i got there and i didn't i hadn't thought about standing up to play and so like the other band had to lend me a guitar strap so i could like have a way to hold my guitar he let me keep it after he's like at the end i think he was like you just you you should keep the guitar strap you need it um i still have that guitar strap um and i just was i was just
beside myself i was shaking my my knees were rattling my heart was racing i think i did maybe 15 or 20 minutes i played every song i'd written you know at that point and like everyone from my work had come like everyone from the office you know uh was there um and it was so it was so nerve-wracking my very closest friend david um who i he's in a song he's in two songs actually um was in in the front row and you know just beaming at me and giving me like all the love and support i needed and the second i was done i just like put down my guitar and like literally left off the stage into his arms because i just was like i need a hug that was brutal it was brave you know i think about it now and i'm like oh bless little krista with her guitar totally it's crazy that it's crazy to do that why would anybody do that why so how did you feel after a week after a
month after oh after i was like let's do that again i i and you know i still go through this with performing to a lesser degree but particularly particularly if it's been a while like when i'm on tour and i'm performing every night i'm like in the zone i don't really get stage fright um and even now at this point like i've actually like i've stepped back from performing but i will say that um it's still i still go through that cycle i'll be like why am i doing this why am i putting myself through this this is terrifying i'll play the show and then afterwards hi as a kite i'm like i can't when's the next gig this was amazing i love this i'm in love with my life let's do this right like it's just and i even though i know that cycle happens i still go through it i mean now i can beforehand be like oh this is the thing this is the thing i do where i regret it and i want to cancel and i'm scared it's gonna feel different two hours from now um like now i just kind of accept that that's what i'm gonna put myself through but in the beginning i like didn't have that awareness of it i just was going through this kind of ups and downs of of performing but it
was right after that i wanted to do it i mean i always felt the urge to perform and i was combating my stage fright um but it was worth it because that drive to share and that drive to express myself and and my enjoyment of of the task kept overriding the ways that it just felt like crap sometimes did that change you as a person did it give you more confidence did you did it somehow affect your life performing hmm yeah i mean i think it's probably a good exercise to keep pushing against your fears those kinds of fears um and to push against you know what is i mean the fears that are for the most part those these were not high risk experiences right there was like but a fear of judgment right or a fear of
failure um or wanting people to like me and like what i do and like the thing i made you know so i think those are good fears to push against and find where you're like oh i i can do this thing or this is you know i like this thing that i made and so i i imagine that i applied that to other areas um i think performing yeah i learned how to step into a room and try and win it over a room full of strangers night after night i learned how to yeah put myself out there and have a little faith in in what i do it's huge i think most people would rather i mean this isn't just public speaking this is public singings it's like times two and most people would rather like fight an alligator than public speak right so you're out there with a guitar so they're like on top of public speaking ad pitch
and an instrument like it's just cuckoo bananas when you think about it yeah it's like spinning plates it's a real feat yeah yeah but it's you know but we do it we're trying to do it yeah yeah so why what what's the feeling on the other side is it is it a sense of connection with the humans is it a sense of accomplishment is it a feeling of being in the now and creating something in real time what is it yeah all of the above i think there's so much that goes on in music and in a performance and so for me [Music] yes the the experience of connecting that moment of pause that we talked about and wherever that happens that might you might get them in the first song and you've got them or you know that they aren't quite with you until somewhere after the third song and then you're like oh okay here we are now we're together it's a it's the moment of connection
it's the feeling of being seen and heard and i think in particular because of the kind of writing i do which is very autobiographical i'm you know speaking about my own experiences um i'm i'm learning about myself and my experiences through the process of writing the music and then in crafting the songs and sharing them i'm kind of understanding myself in a way and in like giving that to people and that being received and people saying yeah i get that i get what you mean me too in these ways um that's really a basic need that we all have like but for some reason i want to do it on stage with a spotlight and a microphone but like we all want to feel seen and there's something like that kind of circle of what happens in that moment is that i i also want to give that like i i like i think as listeners you know when we connect to music or performance
we also feel seen like it's a mutual there's an exchange that happens and so i feel seen but i think it's also that like they're seeing something in themselves too and just for a minute for a night we get to all feel a little less lonely and that's what i i love about it i mean i love there's so much i love about the experience i love the physicality of singing um i love the kind of um you know the the lights and glamour that go with that sort of performance in a way not that i ever had like pyrotechnics or something no one was flying me down in a disco ball but like the just the the thing of a show right is also just fun it's fun to do and it can be nerve-wracking absolutely um and when it doesn't go well you can feel like garbage uh but yeah i think it comes down to the connection come it comes down to the connection i feel and it comes down to my ongoing
pursuit as an artist to understand my own experience that's great thank you you don't need my validation but it feels good though it still feels good again and it's just seeking validation can you remember one of the more memorable things something memorable some somebody came up and said to you after a performance hmm [Music] did anybody say like thank you or just anything anything anything that comes to your mind what comes to mind there was a point after my second album um where in the press release but also on stage i would
i would talk about um the losses i experienced so i wrote my second album after my first son died and i wrote my third album after my second son died and these are stories that i i share in my work and that i would talk about in a way and so somewhere around that second and third album people either started coming to my shows because they'd experienced a similar loss or they got there and were like oh i feel this and so what comes to mind is a woman at a show i was in saint john new brunswick and her coming up to me and her having tears in her eyes and her saying my husband died last month and and we just stood there and we hugged and there was that that's like a memorable thing that someone said to me because they shared something from their life in response to me sharing something from mine and
that like that's that beautiful part of connection that's what i'm hoping for i want to hear back i'm i'm giving you this thing i want something back not to say you're obligated to tell me about your life story but it just was that moment i was like ah and now i can receive something from you i can do that i can be a container for that and so that's a memorable moment that's great and then and i'm sure you knew this be before that but it sort of reiterates the idea that it's not really about you it's about them you know you're you're providing a service yeah whether it's just a catchy melody or some thinking lyrics or something like that where you're like oh this is an important job i'm doing and uh this is serious business yeah yeah which it's interesting i feel like it took me a while as a writer and performer to understand that even though as a listener i know that so well right
like i mentioned banned it by neil young as far as i'm concerned that song was written for me like that is a song that speaks to me that makes sense to me that like that and who knows what neil's ex what he thinks of that song but it doesn't really matter because it lives in my world and in this way and so yeah we're as we the service of of of sharing this stuff is is so vital and those are different entry points right like i i i i'm such a lyric person i think a lot about lyrics and and but when i was touring in germany where suddenly people didn't really know what i was i mean a lot of people speak english there but they weren't necessarily getting the lyrics in the same way as people who speak english as a first language and they weren't getting my like cultural references that i was like working into my songs and i was like oh so what is it now and then it was like oh it's how it sounds like now i'm delivering something based on just the sound so like i
started to play more with then it was like with my voice and like how can i give something how can i offer this service just by what it sounds like versus what i'm saying and so yeah we get different things out of it but totally it's performing as a service that's great that's a great point i heard a great interview with max martin talking about he's from sweden and swedes would sort of hear north american music and not quite understand the lyrics and sort of confuse them a little bit and you know the sound of the melody is so important so important because if you don't speak the language if the melody can still get through to you you know you think of that song gangnam style by psy right there was only a couple of phrases that were in english but that song was a massive hit all over the planet you don't have to speak korean to love this song right this is a this is a heater um and so it's i guess it's a combination of you know the melody and the and and the catchiness of it attract all these people and then if you do happen to
speak the language then it takes you to that next sort of level of understanding like a bonus level totally um one more question on the first side of the page and it's a pretty abstract one but i i just want to see how you uh answer it what is music production hmm for me and the type of music that i have made so far music production has been capturing that moment those people in a room whoever that particular combination of people happen to be and it's then you know the tools and the the gear and all the things that come into place to make that happen um during recording and of course after
um you know i think it's like working in film and television like and the the lengths that you have to go to to make something look real on camera are so completely unreal in life right like water doesn't show up on film very well so when you see rain on tv or in a movie they've actually they often add milk to it and so production is like these kind of artificial steps we take for something to feel real that's great i love it yeah does that sound what do you think is that true what do you think i think i mean there's a million ways to answer that question but that's definitely true and then um like you like you spoke about earlier you know when we were doing especially the first record we were trying to capture a lot of stuff live off the floor to to not do it that way to not have milky rain to actually capture rain
um and i definitely think their part of the art form is navigating through those those those two like when i when when people mix a song i think there's sort of two general approaches to a mix realism and surrealism and both are amazing right and of course most people end up doing a combination right of both of those things so the surrealism is the milk the milky rain and the realism is capturing warts and all live off the floor right yeah and so those are the two extremes and then in between there somewhere between there lies the truth yeah so maybe production is like understanding the choices and then getting to make the choices sure that's another great way of putting it um you've worked with a number of producers can you tell us about sort of like your experience with the difference in
approaches or anything you want to talk just because you're a wealth of information just because as an artist you've you've made a lot of albums and you've gone about them in a number of different ways i guess just any anything you want to comment on in that arena yeah i've worked with a few people now and i love that the the different ways of of of working with people in the different results that makes i mean with you i remember i remember you describing yourself at the time i mean and we made fallout of oz in 2005. um but you described yourself as a cinematographer speaking of this like film analogy that you were like i'm here to capture right um and i and that was the perfect approach for those songs and and um at the time and then when i worked with steve dawson and i made two albums with him and he's such a like incredible musician um and so
skilled on the instruments he plays he comes into it with like a lot of that kind of like instrumentation perspective and what's what's he gonna do and play and what can these other people play and uh he really like works with um knowing what each musician is capable of like i think those are kind of his tools like okay this person i know they can do this kind of thing this person can do this kind of thing so that experience with him was sort of witnessing like uh that perspective of like coming in as a as a musician really um and yeah i think those and and i've loved working with him too i made an ep a couple years ago with jim bryson and i think he was like somewhere kind of in between like he's a real like easygoing hang and so it's sort of like okay let's see what we do today great you know just like um like kind of seeing what came up and anyway he was very collaborative i think
with steve i often when i'm working with steve i'm sort of like asking him to direct certain musical choices i'll be like i wrote this song i don't know where it should go and he'll be like i have an idea and with jim it was like what are you thinking what am i thinking maybe this what do you want to do like we had kind of a more uh figuring it out together um so again just different different approaches yeah yeah yeah i love it that's great um okay so the next question is a guest question so this is from my friend tamara edelman who i think i think you two would love each other um and her question she said when you start a podcast i want you to ask your guest this question so here it is it's a two-parter okay what has been your biggest career high and your biggest career challenge so far [Music]
as a musician my biggest career high was a show that i played at the cendicel in bramen germany it's this beautiful incredible space that's designed to um not like even require microphones but we ended up having i was playing with the cellist i would like i was moving between the guitar and a grand piano and i had a cellist with me and we had one mic just in the middle um and so it was this incredible space and it was a sold out night and i had three encores and a standing ovation and i sold out afterwards of my merch and people lining up to talk to me and i'd had you know i'd had good gigs i'd had and i'd run out of merch before you know but it just was like every element was there a stunning venue an incredible audience
um this outpouring of support afterwards and it was kind of it was like a new level for me i'd been playing lots of small venues bars cafes and stuff where that kind of thing isn't possible certainly not the grand piano um so it just was like a glimpse of like how the other half lives or something you know i was like oh that's what it's like when you're operating at that level playing you know for at least 100 people playing you know in these beautiful spaces it was a it was a really special night that i will always yeah i will i'll just always remember that night and there's other good gigs that i will always remember but that one was special and challenges um [Music] so one of the greatest challenges in my career is that the question tamara your biggest career challenge so far uh there's a lot of challenges in this
industry one of my do i want to say that i mean one of the biggest challenges was and has been finding um help like management booking anyone to help with all of the things that have to get done um to play a show or make an album and there's so much administrative work i mean when i was like kind of full-time musician when that was my full-time job that all of my you know time and energy and focus went into you know even if at times i would have been juggling other like paid work on top of that but it was largely a desk job like for the most part i was sitting at my computer writing grant applications sending emails you know all of that stuff and then like ten percent of the time on stage five percent of the time writing
like which is fine like it it's fine that was still a job that i really liked it's still it's like gershwin nice work if you can get it and you can get it if you try like it but that's the reality and i think um it was really challenging to do that on my own and that a team never really fell into place for me and i tried i was trying and for whatever reasons of things timing i don't know that these things weren't falling into place um it just never did and that was a huge challenge because it's exhausting to do all of that stuff um ultimately so i think that that's been a big challenge is just to like doing it on my own because it's a job that actually takes a lot of people ideally a lot of work it's a lot of work yeah uh shout out gershwin by the way um
if you're listening um [Music] when you're producing music producing an album what's your fav producing a song what's your favorite part starting or finishing um i'm gonna think of yeah you you love my questions don't you you're really warming up i can tell they're well they're thought provoking i i'm gonna say as far as like producing a song i'm gonna think about from the moment where like you and i and the musicians are in a room so i'm gonna think of that as the start and like um versus like me alone writing a song so i would say my favorite part is is that start is that trying things is
especially because i write alone is that moment where i'm now handing it over and saying hey what do you think what do you do show me what you've got i now have just done my part and now i get to be part of this whole um i love that part where we're like figuring it out and pre-production yeah trying things getting a glimpse of what it might become um yeah yeah i remember a lot of our pre-production ideas like we should have we should have thumb piano on this like tack piano yeah or we should get uh cello on this so we should we should we should hire a bunch of uh expensive session players and then and then the computer will die because we have a usb plug hub somebody plugged in that doesn't have power and and it's wrecking everything and we have no idea shout out shout out unpowered usb hubs the bane of
all music production existence i remember that day i remember i mean pre-production with you was so fun my memory of of that like you would be sitting on the floor you'd have like your knees up and you'd you know be just listening and me and like you know the band whoever would be playing and yeah we'd play and you you just like you could see those ideas happening and then you would jump up and you would have something i mean you're like you're such a laid-back dude but you're also so energetic when you're excited about something and so when you would like have an idea you'd be like yeah i got i know let's do this this is gonna be you know like you were so excited about ideas like that was fun i like that yeah yeah that's my that's my favorite part of the whole thing too is pre-production i i do like mixing and i do like i like to hear it finished too but i think everybody kind of has that weirdo art thing where like finishing art is always this sort of like you know now people are gonna judge you you know that whatever you do two weeks
later you're gonna be like i don't know that hi-hat could probably come down half a db like that's inevitable right so i think with with pre-production it's the the idea stage and the taking a song from here to here or just the instruments you can add and or even just like the problem solving being like this is missing like what you know and just being like oh why don't we just like cut the verse here and try this and then you're like oh yeah yeah that's it i think you're right i think it is about problem solving maybe too yeah because i i've realized lately that uh i'm a big fan of systems and specifically designing systems so maybe that's what that is i'm designing a system for the song and then when when the verse and the chorus and the pre-chorus and the and the bridge all make sense together i'm like the system works it's perfect right it's
efficient it's an efficient system i love that i love that in any aspect of life is when that when when there's when it doesn't click and everything's good and you know you have a great idea but the bridge isn't there and then all of a sudden in a dream or by accident usually or or some rando yells it from a car window as they drive by the bridge clicks and it's all there and you're like oh here we go that's my favorite part it's a good feeling it's always so random too yeah um shout out random driving by in a car um [Music] let's go to the fast track assignment which you kind of alluded to a little bit in during uh the answer to tam's question um spoiler alert i kind of know what her fast track assignment answer is um so the fast track is where
you tell us one thing that you do really well and then you give us a little method or a system foreshadowing uh shout out footch five seconds ago 30 seconds ago um and you tell you give us a little system or a method where we can practice that thing at home and be more like you i got it yes so as mentioned um the work of being a musician is highly administrative and the thing that i do really well in relation to music is actually that admin side to be honest my ability to write grant applications and budgets and do bookkeeping i took a bookkeeping course once it was made a huge difference in my life those have been some of the biggest secrets to my success or like longevity with a career and those are all areas that i have tips but um but where this comes into play most often that i think most people can use is in writing emails that
people will actually reply to because there's a lot of cold calling when you're doing this stuff right so um i've learned you know like when i'm booking gigs when i used to book all these tours or applying to festivals or just like getting a podcast interview if i don't already know the host um i've learned how to increase my chances and here are my steps that you can do at home so uh step number one is a super clear and specific subject line so you're not just saying booking inquiry you're saying you know booking chris couture at the black sheep in in march 2022 and this has also helped when i've gone back trying to like find the email that i sent to someone is like you also bring it there for yourself but you want that ask to be clear because these people get emails all the time so it's nothing vague um two i always start with proof that i've done my research
and that i'm a decent person i learned from uh anita shara to approach each venue like each producer like they're a potential friend like this is going to be a relationship you might develop over years so you want to give them a reason to show you've paid attention to them first like you know with with venues i would say oh i saw that you had this artist and this artist and i love that you like post highlights on instagram and my favorite was that one um and i spend time doing that research and i'll say and i'm similar to these artists in this way and that's why i'd be such a great fit so do your research make it show they're more likely to care about you if you show that you care and you've put some energy into that um and so that's always my first paragraph before i even go into that elevator pitch of like i'm chris couture i'm a singer songwriter blah blah i always start with like i know who you are don't worry this is not a completely uninformed email right three i make sure that there's a clear ask and
i'm really specific with my asks as well so it's easy for them to respond like with booking gigs i would suggest three specific dates you know they might come back and say i don't have those dates but i'm still like how about i play on this day you know after i've checked their calendar online um or with pitching myself for an interview same thing i'll be like i'm available tuesdays at noon how about you because then if there's something you know it moves the conversation forward in a more like action-oriented way um you're not just saying are you interested let me know like it's like let's just let's just move ahead here's a time you know now we have something to talk about and lastly although i do have a bonus tip but my like last step in writing the perfect almost perfect email is my magical closing line which is something that i learned from marsha shandor of uh yes yesmarsha.com she used to do like networking uh stuff i use this on every single email i end
with if you have two minutes to hit reply and let me know what you think that would be fantastic and it's this magic line for some reason it's because everyone has like a million emails most of the time we're like okay i'll reply to that later but this invitation to be like it's just gonna take you two minutes hit reply people are like oh yeah okay good idea i can do that um and it has totally upped how many times i hear back from people i mean this is like anecdotal i haven't done like a hard analysis but i have noticed that um it's this it just like gives people an easy way to write back and then the ball is in your court and then you can like keep that conversation going because it's amazing i mean even being you know i'm i've also been like an arts programmer and and manager at different arts organizations like when people send you emails it's so often that people aren't including the best information that you having to like kind of do that work for them and so i do as much of the work as i can when i'm sending that email clear subject line clear ask
i've done my research take two minutes to let me know what you think that's great those are my tips for you i love it super helpful it reminds me of marketing too it reminds me of good marketing you've got a clear you know tagline the the the thing at the end is your call to action yeah the middle part is your you're appealing to people on on on a real level and i think with all this it goes without saying but um it has to be authentic going back to the the beginning of this interview you don't want to do all those things inauthentically unauthentically inauthentically inauthentically because people have a great [ __ ] detector and so you don't want to you know you've got to be real about all this and i think most people understand that but they they don't do the clarity they don't make a clear subject line and they don't
have a clear call to action and they don't have a defined date and a do this this and this because they feel like they don't want to boss people around but but like you said if you don't boss people around then they're gonna have to do all the work and they don't even know you and they probably just did the work for the last email so it seems a little bit counter-intuitive yeah i think but it makes it easy for people and i found with like with all like suggesting dates it's been also because again it's like it gives them something even to say no to where they're like actually now we're already booked those dates but and then it's like but we can do this or whatever um yeah the authentic thing is really true and that's why like on his advice of like you know you want to be their friend like sure it's a business relationship you want it to be friendly um that i learned a lot from that i learned also from uh doug cox who's a great musician and is was is the a.d of um i think it's called vancouver island folk festival in like comox valley and i remember asking him about like how
do i book more festivals like i'm inviting them to my showcases and like uh and he was like two things are true one you know like you're great at what you do but there's a lot of people like you there's a lot of talented singer-songwriters more than we can program in a festival right and he was like your best bet is to actually when you're at those conferences or whatever don't try and get them to your showcase try and just sit down and have a coffee with them because they actually might be more inclined if they get to know you you're going to be able to talk to them you're going to you know pull on these skills of like chatting and being friendly and and that then that might be what gives me the edge and it it did like i you know you think that you can just make the music and that's gonna be good music is gonna be enough um and it's not which is sort of disheartening i know i felt disheartened by that for a while but then i felt a little less precious and was like okay well if the music isn't enough i'm gonna write the good emails and figure out you know like how to take those steps
yeah my bonus tip is the um gmail add-on boomerang it's like i use it so much from an organizational perspective do you use boomerang my fit i don't know what life would be like without boomerang it is so useful i used to have like spreadsheets where i'm tracking who i emailed when but the fact that you can just be like hey boomerang tell me if this person doesn't write back to me or like hey boomerang send this email at a reasonable hour instead of 3am um or boomerang i want to read this email on wednesday at 3 30 p.m be on be gone with you be gone with you remind me later yeah so boomerang is a amazing tool for keeping track of all this stuff that you're sending out into the world free tool shout out boomerang by the way boomerang uh levels fm is accepting sponsorships at this point i don't know how that would work but i mean that was an organic you and i really love boomerang that was an unpaid plug
unpaid plug genuine authentic faith in the product once again everybody that's boomerang by gmail i don't actually think they're a gmail product it just can add on although gmail has started imitating boomerang where you can now use gmail to send later and gmail will now have those those like nudge reminders will gmail be like hey you said this four days ago so i but i think they're totally like biting boomerang style they're biting boomerang style and they're not doing it as well yet right boomerang still the reigning king um aside from boomerang what are you currently obsessed with what am i obsessed with aside from software um hmm good question what am i obsessed with right now like
in music like in anything anything hmm i am and this is kind of abstract but i'm going to say right now i'm obsessed with reinvention what i'm thinking about these days is like i moved house in july and um went through a separation and like figuring out co-parenting with my kid and it's all good it's happening in a like the best way possible but i'm like coming out of this like my daughter's four and i've just been in mom world but i'm now finally able to look outside of that a little and i've like moved into a new place and i'm like figuring out what i'm doing next in my career and i'm figuring out what i want and what feels good and what can i do that i love in the short amount of spare time that i have and i'm kind of obsessed with figuring that out i'm obsessed with like i want to change some of this stuff
up so i'm going to change it um that's broad that's like very like that's good personal development thing but i feel like that's what's on my mind right now is like i what can i do that's gonna make this feel better and now that that's i actually have some time and resources to to make some changes i want you to write an ep a really quick one live off the floor called mom world [Laughter] i think that would appeal to a lot of people yeah we'll have to just like sample peppa pig and like you'll have here like the tv in the background maybe some screaming some laughs yeah it's mostly just a 20 minute song with with you with you yelling and the tv in the background right moms are like i can totally relate to this song oh yeah mom world you know it and i mean there's there's there's it's not all yelling there is joy and laughter but there's some yelling [ __ ] oh that's funny um
what do you still want to learn hmm i want to like just learn how to keep getting better at this stuff you know how do i how does how do i make the next song better or if the last song was better than this one what was that difference um how do i you know continue to like tell these stories how do i want to tell these stories um i just want to keep learning those skills and and learning what i like and want is this does this all come down to storytelling yeah i think you know i mean so as mentioned right like i music was my thing really the focus for 10 years i've released seven
albums you know eps and albums whatever and and then i made a change uh for a few reasons and one of which being burnt out one of which being parenting one of its being a vocal injury and my thyroid removed and it didn't go well and i was my voice was injured for a while and all of these things kind of put music on hold um and when that happened i was like okay well what is it about music that i love some of the things we talked about making a connection expressing myself i was like all right if i'm not touring and performing how do i do that and it was like okay well like i want to maybe write maybe i could write these stories down maybe i could still have this moment with an audience through uh through a book through essays um i've also like i went to film school right when i was like too scared to pursue music and i've also gotten back into doing some filmmaking i directed a short animated film last year co-directed um and and and i loved it and i've been
like oh maybe i'll make some more films like and it's all about telling stories um and i think you know that has been i mean people make music for a lot of reasons but i think that's been a big part of why i do it and so yeah this what do i want to learn is like yeah other ways to tell stories other ways that feel good to tell stories that's cool i've noticed that a lot of my interests from the past things that i roads i was going down or things that i was obsessed with 10 15 years ago now are coming back and me there's a reason why i was interested in them even though it kind of fizzled out then now it makes sense kind of like with you in filmmaking you're like oh maybe that's something that is actually more important than i gave it credit for in the last 10 years or whatever right like i love seeing that stuff happen
like stuff kind of boomerangs back into your life so natural yeah totally awesome um okay let's uh let's just wind it down here i want um i want you to think about uh where you want our listeners to go to find out more about you i know that you have a recently uh released book and maybe like to talk a bit about that we kind of alluded to it in the last segment there um and maybe just before that give our listeners some advice so maybe there's somebody out there that's thinking about recording their first song or somebody that's thinking about paying somebody to produce their song or maybe they're just writing their first song what would be your advice to people that are just thinking about
stepping their toe into the artist world music production world um my advice is like despite the challenges despite all the things it's worth it and that if you're being true to yourself in that art form you are offering something unique it's all been done sure blah blah blah but your voice and your perspective is valuable and it will reach people um you know the best advice i got i was like backstage at the vancouver folk festival i had i think just like a cdr of my first album it hadn't really hadn't come out yet and i was like trying to give it to feist and she was about to go and stay she didn't know i was like a volunteer and i just was like what should i what should i do i want i want to be a singer and she went connect the dots just connect the dots and it's really good advice one thing
will lead you to the next thing you don't have to worry too much about the big picture just like one step at a time write that first song then record that song then perform that song like you'll connect the dots and they will take you somewhere probably unexpected um and you can see it in hindsight right we were talking a bit about this before we started recording like where we both are in our lives now and where we were when we met 15 years ago we couldn't have predicted but we've just been connecting the dots one you know where does this take me i didn't mean to go there now what you know um so it's good advice thanks feist shout out feist shout out feist that's amazing advice so true and and like i like i always say the best music production advice has nothing to do with music production this is life advice right that's that's a good like you could have easily said feist what do i do with my life and she she said connect the dots connect the dots
all true yeah and there's also just like some faith in that right like you just have to have a little faith do your work do your best have a little faith yeah that's great and not get too caught up in your destination because like you say as you start connecting the dots and you're like i'm going north and you're like we're east yeah it's like deal with it east is awesome too right yeah totally yeah yep so cool shout out east um where should our listeners go to uh find out more about you where should our listeners go to find out more about you your website instagram yeah so kristacouture.com um instagram is my like go-to platform that i use a lot that's at christa couture my music is in all the places spotify itunes you know band camp chris couture um i have a new single coming out in november so that will be in all of those places
and then my book so i wrote this book um that i am so proud of it's called how to lose everything and it's a memoir about my different experiences with loss and um i also there's there's music in it in a way like i include lyrics throughout because there's sometimes you know i've been telling these stories in music and sometimes i told them better in a song than i could in this book and then sometimes i'm telling them in this other form because they make more sense now in in in a memoir um so my book is wherever you get books that's your library at your bookstore amazon indigo your independent wherever you find books it's there uh and that's it congratulations on that book i'm super jealous of that book i'm totally going to ask you a bunch of questions about it because i want to write a book even though i don't read books i want to write a book
um i do read audiobooks um and i'm also jealous of your microphone and i guess i'm just jealous of you and i miss you and i love you and it was great to see you again so great to see you it was so great catching up this was awesome and really really great stuff really great insight really great advice great stories thank you man thanks for the good questions i mean this is stuff like i don't think of myself as knowing a lot about production even though i've made all these things but then when you ask those questions i'm like oh this is what i think so um thanks for that yeah i knew your insight would be great for this uh and by the way i'll ask the question that everybody's thinking at home did i make it into the book was there any mention of you are in the book you are in the moment you're it yeah it's small it's a little cameo um you know it ties into my advice about emails actually
but you're in the book because i talk about getting into music and i talk about that moment in amsterdam i was like i want to be a singer and i got back to vancouver and i was like all right what do i do i find a producer who did i find this guy this guy you're in there that's awesome well i'm glad you sent that email because look where it led to right 15. never know that's it would have been 2004 when i first contacted you so 17 years yeah a teenager this friendship and i know what everybody at home is thinking how is that even possible look at these two or they couldn't be a day over 18 19 themselves right that's what you're thinking right people all right we've aged well we have aged well it's the music keeps us young right yeah um everybody that's Christa thank you
