BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition April 2019

MUSiC CONCERT PREVIEWS
NEW KID
ON THE
BLOCK
High School Confidential:
Zoey Leven wins Nimbus
battle of the bands and
drops a colourful debut on
the world By JORDAN YEAGER
I
ndie rock singer-songwriter
Zoey Leven sits in a booth at
Timbertrain Coffee Roasters in
downtown Vancouver, flanked
by her mom-turned-momager,
who’s sipping a latte. The
18-year-old always knew she’d be a
musician. Growing up in the Disney
Channel era, she wanted to be the
next Selena Gomez – and really, who
among us wasn’t inspired by the likes
of Gomez, Hilary Duff, and the Jonas
Brothers? Dreams of international superstardom
saw Leven’s aunt giving
her piano lessons as a child. Singing
lessons followed, and once Leven realized
she could combine the two to
compose her own songs, she started
chasing those dreams full throttle.
She began competing in singing and
songwriting competitions at age 12.
Now, in her final year of high school,
Leven just won the Nimbus Battle of
the Bands.
“Once I wrote my first song, I was
like, this is something I could actually
do with my life,” says Leven. “The
dream has changed a little bit [from
the Selena Gomez days] – a little
more realistic, now that I’m getting
more familiar with the industry and
what it’s really like. I’m on a small record
label, so the goal is to get a booking
agency, to book shows to get me
more well-known, and maybe be an
opening act for a bigger name.”
ZOEY LEVEN
harnessing her competitive side for a series of
wins
Zoey Leven Harnesses Her Competitive Side
for a Series of Wins
Tags: local, indie rock, blues, Zoey Leven,
Messy
That small record label is Amalien
Records, and they discovered her after
she placed third in a Vancouver songwriting
competition. They recently
released Leven’s promising premiere
six-song album, Messy. Leven is a
multi-instrumentalist and usually
hires a drummer to keep the beat
while she records vocals, guitar, bass,
and keyboard on her own. She credits
her family for her talent.
“My mom’s side is very musical.
My nonno was a very musical guy. He
would go play the accordion at Italian
banquets in Burnaby growing up, and
everyone knew who he was. So I say
that I got my musical abilities from
him, and maybe it skipped a generation,”
says Leven, looking at her
mom with a sly grin.
Leven knows perseverance is key
to success and has performed in
competitions, local venues and breweries
for six years. She finally feels
like she’s beginning to break into the
business.
“All those years doing competitions,
it never really felt like I was
going anywhere,” says Leven. “In the
past year, I met my record label guy,
and he introduced us to all these different
connections and possibilities.
It just blossomed from there. I did a
music video, which was a first time,
cool thing. It was pretty surprising
seeing it come together and watching
it for the first time.”
“We didn’t get to watch it with
her for the first time,” adds Leven’s
mom, Lisa. “She’s like, ‘I need to
watch it first, by myself,’ and then we
get to watch it without her, by ourselves.”
“None of this would be possible
without my support system,” Leven
says, gesturing towards her mom.
She says the best advice she has
ever received “is probably from my
mom. Nothing is guaranteed in this
business, and you shouldn’t get discouraged
from that. Even if people
promise you something, it’s not a 100
per cent sure thing, so just don’t go in
with any expectations.” ,
RESISTANCE
IS FUTILE
Emily Rowed wakes up and writes
a love letter to herself, puts her
unpolished journal entries to song
By KATHRYN HELMORE
V
ancouver has escaped the clutches of
a viciously dreary winter as streaks of
unadulterated
sunlight and warm EMILY ROWED
springtime breeze Thursday, April 25
titillate residents The Fox Cabaret
with the promise of life,
Tix: $15, 604records.com
clear horizons and freedom
from gore tex.
Emily Rowed sits in Turks coffee shop on Commercial
Drive, perched on a wooden chair, clad in pastels,
‘Budapest’ printed on a light, pink T-shirt. As the
sunlight sneaks through the window and casts a halo
around her bleached blonde hair, Rowed talks about
waking up.
“If nothing else, I’ve become intrigued to be alive,”
she says. “I’m here and adventure awaits on my
finger tips.”
Yes. Emily Rowed makes electro-pop music but
she ain’t no basic bitch. Her music trades drugs,
clubs and chandeliers for lyrics tracing those familiar
scars that mark the psyche of our human experience.
“If you want to change you’ve got to let your heartbreak,”
says Rowed.
April, a 10-track album set to release on April 12,
is raw, emotional voyeurism that talks about just this;
heartbreak.
“I think this is a delicate, cinematic and intimate
album,” she says. “It has a documentary quality with a
vinyl, watery texture. It is unpolished journal entries.”
The album begins on the corner of Frances Street
and Commercial Drive in Vancouver where Rowed
finished a pivotal phone call and cut ties with the past
to embark on a new journey. In the following days, she
would give up her car, her apartment, a plethora of
relationships and take a trip to Maui. Two and a half
years later, Rowed remains comfortably uncomfortable,
fliting across North America equipped with just a bag
of clothes, a computer, a cell phone and mini keyboard.
No car keys and no permanent address.
“The first of April 2017 marked the first day of
freedom,” says Rowed. “I traded things for experiences.
For movement, exploration, stories and feeling. It
was temporary destruction for a rebuild. It felt like I
was asleep before. There is something magical about
actually observing life.”
But ‘April’ is not some ‘Minimalism for Idiots’ textbook
in auditory form. It’s impossible to paint Rowed as a self
righteous hippie chick demanding you chug the kool
aid. The album is not a sermon. It is not a parable. It is
just a personal story from a naked, vulnerable, honest
artist.
“The album is the story of my return to being
human. I choose deep feelings rather than attempts
to ‘get ahead’ or ‘gather things’. If nothing else, it is a
bare record. It’s all there. Every struggle. It’s all true.
And yes, telling strictly the truth is one of the most
terrifying things I could do. But if it’s not scary, you’re
not telling the whole truth.”
For the most part, the album is chronological. The
first track talks about a phone call on the corner and
winds through the experience of saying goodbye to
everything.
“It’s bliss in the front, grief in the back,” says
Rowed. “It expresses a 360 degree view of myself.”
Such a rollercoaster story fits well into the album’s
release date. April is, afterall, a month of extremes:
pure joy, envy, gooey dreamy love, suffocation, destruction
and rebuilding.
The album’s story promises to meld into the genre
of electronic with poignant harmony.
“After I said goodbye to everything there was no
relief,” she says. “There was just a feeling of ‘here we
go’. A WHOOSH. Like an elevator. Like the rise to a
beat drop. There was a sense of ‘this is happening
weather I like it or not. I did not resist.”
The album was co-produced with La+ch,a Toronto-based
artist, across 21 days spent in his 9x9
apartment.
“La+ch was a chameleon,” Rowed says. “He
stepped in and listened to what I was trying to do
and made it a little cooler. He is intensely creative,
he used vocal mistakes for beats. The intention was
not to write an album. When we started we just wrote
about the weather. But the story came out. In some
sense, we were really diarying.”
After strolling down to Frances Street, Rowed
dons her plastic pink sunglasses and takes a Car2Go
back to her Airbnb, leaving an empty street corner.
The March pavement is remarkably dry with concrete
warmed by sunshine and a warm spring breeze.
Sunshine, suffocating rain showers, and breathtaking
sunsets are on the horizon.
April is coming. ,
26 BEATROUTE APRIL 2019
APRIL 2019 BEATROUTE 27