Poster Boys documents two musicians who travel the country peddling pop culture posters to college students - a job they use to fund the production of an album they record while on the road.

• published: 28 Jan 2013
• views: 458

When the time came to follow-up on her breakthrough 2007 album Nothing Fancy, Canadian country bombshell Jessie Farrell’s pursuit of authenticity was so painstaking that she actually put her health at risk. “When I'm giving something every bit of energy I have, I find myself getting short of breath,” she reveals, with a giggle (and a slight wheeze that’s a little hard to ignore). “I’ve done it since I was 12 years old. It’s anxiety. At the end of this record, I feel like I learned how to breathe better, and I learned how to sing better, and then on the last day of recording, I went and got ‘Breathe’ tattooed on my wrist.” We can probably assume from her comments that Farrell is satisfied with the results. The flame-haired Vancouverite had wrapped-up her debut on the Canadian Country scene with three 2008 CCMAs when she lit out to Nashville on a writing expedition in mid-2008, winning for Female Artist of the Year, Rising Star, and Top New Female Talent of the Year, not to mention scoring a 2009 Juno nomination for New Artist of the Year. The 2007 album Nothing Fancy had elevated Farrell into Canada’s country A-list, yielding a top 10 single with “Let’s Talk About Love”, a top 5 video for “I Guess”, and putting the rising artist on the road with Emerson Drive, Johnny Reid, Aaron Pritchett, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Gord Bamford, and Toby Keith, among others. With so much buzz at her heels, and facing her sophomore effort, Farrell readily admits she needed to come up with a slam-dunk “That was in my head the whole time,” she says, describing the meticulous lengths she took to find a producer who, in Farrell’s words, “would be willing to basically lay down on the railroad tracks with me.” “I’m not one of those people that can get by knowing it’s just another record for them,” she elaborates. “I want them to be my friend, and I want it to expand far beyond just being my producer.” A raft of industry giants were, at this point, clamoring to hitch up with the hyperventilating songbird. After interviewing a good number of them, Farrell was still producer-less, but wiser. “What I really learned in this process is that it’s all about human connection,” she asserts. “How are you going to make sure they hear you, and that they’re putting their heart and souls into it? You can say, ‘Here’s a certain amount of money, please make me a record.’ But I knew that that would not be a successful record, and that I would not thrive inside that environment.” Enter Victoria Shaw – one of Music City’s insurgent major-players; a singing-songwriting-producing tyro with auspicious credits like Garth Brooks’ “The River” under her belt, and no small amount of heat from a recent co-production job on Lady Antebellum's smash debut. Shaw met Farrell at an industry party and abruptly turned the tables on her. “She said to me, ‘Why don’t we date before we sleep together’,” Farrell recalls with a laugh. “She said, ‘I gotta see what you’re like writing, I gotta see what you’re like in the studio, to work with, to collaborate with - then I’ll see if I wanna do this record with you.’” Shaw subsequently roped songwriter Gary Burr into the scene, adding another hit-making heavyweight to an already formidable duo, and the team swiftly drummed up three of the tracks that would end up on Good, Bad & Pretty Things. At the end of it all, Farrell was calmly informed that she’d aced her “week long interview”. And the real work began. Significantly, among those initial three songs was Farrell’s first single from Good, Bad & Pretty Things, “You Make Me Feel” – a country-pop confection every bit as bright, crafty, and insidious as “Let’s Talk About Love”, built not only on a gigantic hook, but on the striking emotional logic of the line, “You make me feel like that each time you kiss me, my heart starts racing like a car just missed me…” “I think it’s fun, summery, an earworm,” Farrell says, with touching modesty. “It’s not a complicated song, but I think it’s a good one to ease people in with. And it’s a love song.” Farrell hopes the effect is like “little soap bubbles, with hearts in them, that will pop in people’s laps.” At the other end of the scale, her first week with Shaw and Burr also produced “Burn So Bright”, which began as a tribute to Farrell’s brother (who passed away in 2001), before morphing into a broader hymn to affirmation. ”I’m hoping it’ll be an anthemic songs for people moving on to the next stage of their life, or about to attempt something new,” she offers. Shaw’s crisp and restrained production keeps “Burn So Bright” on the correct side of sentimental, while leaving plenty of room for Farrell’s keening vocal (not to mention a sizzling fiddle-pedal steel showdown). Indeed, across the whole of Good, Bad & Pretty Things, Farrell and Shaw rai

• published: 04 Jan 2010
• views: 9087

Poster Boys documents two musicians who travel the country peddling pop culture posters to college students - a job they use to fund the production of an album they record while on the road.

• published: 28 Jan 2013
• views: 458

When the time came to follow-up on her breakthrough 2007 album Nothing Fancy, Canadian country bombshell Jessie Farrell’s pursuit of authenticity was so painstaking that she actually put her health at risk. “When I'm giving something every bit of energy I have, I find myself getting short of breath,” she reveals, with a giggle (and a slight wheeze that’s a little hard to ignore). “I’ve done it since I was 12 years old. It’s anxiety. At the end of this record, I feel like I learned how to breathe better, and I learned how to sing better, and then on the last day of recording, I went and got ‘Breathe’ tattooed on my wrist.” We can probably assume from her comments that Farrell is satisfied with the results. The flame-haired Vancouverite had wrapped-up her debut on the Canadian Country scene with three 2008 CCMAs when she lit out to Nashville on a writing expedition in mid-2008, winning for Female Artist of the Year, Rising Star, and Top New Female Talent of the Year, not to mention scoring a 2009 Juno nomination for New Artist of the Year. The 2007 album Nothing Fancy had elevated Farrell into Canada’s country A-list, yielding a top 10 single with “Let’s Talk About Love”, a top 5 video for “I Guess”, and putting the rising artist on the road with Emerson Drive, Johnny Reid, Aaron Pritchett, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Gord Bamford, and Toby Keith, among others. With so much buzz at her heels, and facing her sophomore effort, Farrell readily admits she needed to come up with a slam-dunk “That was in my head the whole time,” she says, describing the meticulous lengths she took to find a producer who, in Farrell’s words, “would be willing to basically lay down on the railroad tracks with me.” “I’m not one of those people that can get by knowing it’s just another record for them,” she elaborates. “I want them to be my friend, and I want it to expand far beyond just being my producer.” A raft of industry giants were, at this point, clamoring to hitch up with the hyperventilating songbird. After interviewing a good number of them, Farrell was still producer-less, but wiser. “What I really learned in this process is that it’s all about human connection,” she asserts. “How are you going to make sure they hear you, and that they’re putting their heart and souls into it? You can say, ‘Here’s a certain amount of money, please make me a record.’ But I knew that that would not be a successful record, and that I would not thrive inside that environment.” Enter Victoria Shaw – one of Music City’s insurgent major-players; a singing-songwriting-producing tyro with auspicious credits like Garth Brooks’ “The River” under her belt, and no small amount of heat from a recent co-production job on Lady Antebellum's smash debut. Shaw met Farrell at an industry party and abruptly turned the tables on her. “She said to me, ‘Why don’t we date before we sleep together’,” Farrell recalls with a laugh. “She said, ‘I gotta see what you’re like writing, I gotta see what you’re like in the studio, to work with, to collaborate with - then I’ll see if I wanna do this record with you.’” Shaw subsequently roped songwriter Gary Burr into the scene, adding another hit-making heavyweight to an already formidable duo, and the team swiftly drummed up three of the tracks that would end up on Good, Bad & Pretty Things. At the end of it all, Farrell was calmly informed that she’d aced her “week long interview”. And the real work began. Significantly, among those initial three songs was Farrell’s first single from Good, Bad & Pretty Things, “You Make Me Feel” – a country-pop confection every bit as bright, crafty, and insidious as “Let’s Talk About Love”, built not only on a gigantic hook, but on the striking emotional logic of the line, “You make me feel like that each time you kiss me, my heart starts racing like a car just missed me…” “I think it’s fun, summery, an earworm,” Farrell says, with touching modesty. “It’s not a complicated song, but I think it’s a good one to ease people in with. And it’s a love song.” Farrell hopes the effect is like “little soap bubbles, with hearts in them, that will pop in people’s laps.” At the other end of the scale, her first week with Shaw and Burr also produced “Burn So Bright”, which began as a tribute to Farrell’s brother (who passed away in 2001), before morphing into a broader hymn to affirmation. ”I’m hoping it’ll be an anthemic songs for people moving on to the next stage of their life, or about to attempt something new,” she offers. Shaw’s crisp and restrained production keeps “Burn So Bright” on the correct side of sentimental, while leaving plenty of room for Farrell’s keening vocal (not to mention a sizzling fiddle-pedal steel showdown). Indeed, across the whole of Good, Bad & Pretty Things, Farrell and Shaw rai

• published: 04 Jan 2010
• views: 9087