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Lowell on her song “LGBT” and lending a track to the “Faking It” mid-season finale

photos by Norman Wong

If you found yourself Shazam-ing the song in the final scene of Faking It‘s midseason finale, chances are you’ve already become obsessed with Lowell, the artist behind that infectious banger called, “Cloud 69.” “Cloud 69” is just one catchy song in the Calgary-born/Toronto-based singer’s debut album, We Loved Her Dearly, which dropped last September.

A self-professed control freak, Lowell’s sound is all her own. With the support of a trusted production team, Lowell produces and writes all her own music. And while her songs might sound like fun, synth-y sticky-sweet pop to play at your next rager, she makes it a point to ensure that each song has underlying message of empowerment, for herself and for her fans.

Here, the up-and-coming artist, who’s currently on a national tour, discusses her obsession with pop, manufactured rivalry in the music industry, and her grand plan to infiltrate the minds of homophobes.

AfterEllen.com: How did you get into music and find your sound?

Lowell: I got into music as a kid and then decided I wanted to do it as a career when I turned 18. I found my sound by exploring different types of music. My signature thing is that I mostly listened to pop music as a kid and then switched to this sort of alternative realm, like Sufjan Stevens and Broken Social Scene, for awhile and then switched back to pop. Now I’m obsessed with pop.

AE: Who are you obsessed with right now, pop-wise?

Lowell: The thing is that I’m not so obsessed with pop artists, I’m just more obsessed with the idea of pop music and what it can be, what it’s becoming.

AE: What do you think it’s becoming?

Lowell: I think it’s becoming something with a lot more integrity than it had a couple years ago. It’s so competitive. As a ghost writer, I’ve learned how difficult it is to get a song cut by an artist. It doesn’t just take a good song. That’s a common misconception. There’s a lot of politics involved and a lot of intelligence and strategy. I would say that comes even before the music. I don’t think it’s right, but I think it it’s fascinating. I’m just obsessed with the culture of it. But also just the idea of a perfect pop song, it’s like trying to bake the perfect cake. You have to really study everything that’s going on in pop culture to understand how to do it.

AE: I feel like in pop music there’s a tendency to pit people against each other, especially when it comes to female artists.

Lowell: Yeah that’s true. I would say that people even do that to me. People always want to know what I think of Taylor Swift and Beyonce and Miley Cyrus. I just think that they’re all great. Anybody that’s empowered for any reason is great. At least they care about stuff, at least they care about the music that they do, and about our culture and being role models for women. It is frustrating that people try to pin other people against each other because I think it’s really detrimental to us moving forward, but it’s OK. We have a tendency to get off on drama. I’m not really interested in that.

AE: Your music tackles everything from LGBT rights to gender politics. How did they become part of your songwriting?

Lowell: I just struggled a lot as a female artist so I was just speaking from my own experiences. I became more motivated to speak about those things after I realized what I was writing about and what my struggles were. When I first started writing these songs, I was expressing emotions of frustration, but as I sort of moved forward through producing the album and releasing it, I started becoming more in tune with what those emotions were, and it made me think that if I could identify it maybe other people could do the same thing. Identifying the issues of gender and equality that I didn’t realize were there before actually empowered me and that knowledge made me capable of doing more.

AE: Does it ever make you feel vulnerable? Do you ever worry that you’d be misunderstood?

Lowell: I don’t really worry about it. I’ve never thought about it. People have an issue with feminism sometimes because a lot of times the people that are saying they’re feminists, which they are, sometimes don’t know entirely what that means. I don’t mean that in a condescending way, it’s just that sometimes you feel things and you don’t understand what that is, but you know want to be more empowered. We don’t have a lot of time in the day to figure out these things. So, sometimes I think people have these initial instincts to make them feel more empowered and that’s great, but maybe people that have thought about it more find it under-calculated so they have a tendency to judge others.

But who knows what’s right? All I know is I’m expressing myself as a woman wanting to do more and wanting to feel empowered.

AE: Another issue is that people feel a type of way about certain issues but they don’t know how to talk about it. It’s also very intimidating to talk about, because they feel like they’ll get attacked for it.

Lowell: Exactly. It comes back to what you were saying about pinning people against each other. The problem is that it is a really complex thing and people are very sensitive to it. People are so sensitive that they feel like they have to say everything right, but the truth is it’s just better that people say what they want to say and we can discuss it so we can move forward.

AE: It’s like you don’t know unless you put it out there first and then have someone help you through what you’re thinking about.

Lowell: Exactly. I’ve made mistakes in interviews saying things that I felt sensitive to that I didn’t regret saying. I was glad I did because people pointed it out to me. The one I always remind myself of is when I was talking to the Toronto Star and the Rihanna/Chris Brown case came up. I said, and this was about three years ago and I’d like to think I think a little differently, but I said that I thought Rihanna had a responsibility as a woman to press charges against Chris Brown and that even though obviously it wasn’t her fault, she should’ve done something about it.

It was actually my brother that read that interview and said, “Don’t you think it’s unfair to put blame in the hands of the victim?” I got really defensive about it and I said, “No she’s a role model for young girls. They’re gonna look up to her and decide the wrong thing.” And then he said, “No, if anything, she’s a victim. It’s wrong for us to put responsibility like that in the hands of a victim. It shouldn’t be up to a victim of a serious crime that involves an abusive relationship in which we’ve identified the Stockholm Syndrome that exists. It shouldn’t be their responsibility to come forward. It should be placed in the hands of the law.” Then I thought about it and I was like, “You’re so right.” The whole time I was placing blame on the victim, which is exactly what you shouldn’t do.

AE: Do you think, generally speaking, pop stars have a responsibility to their audience?

Lowell: I think that we’re all just human beings and you can’t place that pressure on single human beings like that. It’s not fair. Pop stars aren’t prophets. They’re just people who want to be singers or writers or producers who want to be successful. I think if you want to have a voice and you choose to speak out about things, that’s amazing, and that’s where the responsibility comes in. I really believe in freedom of speech, but I also think that with that right, there’s a responsibility.

AE: Your song was just in Faking It this season. Do you watch that show?

Lowell: I’ve never seen it but I think I will watch it. I don’t have a TV and I don’t watch TV, except for The Daily Show. Is it about somebody in high school that is gay and hasn’t come out yet?

AE: It starts off being this show about these two friends who fake being lesbian for popularity, but it turns out one of them is actually struggling to come out.

Lowell: Ohhh OK. That sounds interesting. I have to watch it. I can’t comment on it because it’s really great that they use my music and I’m appreciative of that. It’s tough with pop culture and gender issues. It’s so hard to get it right. But I know my old roommate is a lesbian and she loves the show, so that’s always a good indication. [Laughs.] But I don’t want to make that generalization.

AE: Speaking of, you have that song “LGBT.” I love how you take these issues, put it pop music, and show that pop doesn’t have to be about nothing. You dance to it, but you listen to the lyrics, and you’re like, “Wait…”

Lowell: It’s so funny. I was doing a college tour with Icona Pop in the U.S. and college kids are awesome. They’re sorta coming into their own and fun to watch while you’re playing. We were playing a remix of “LGBT” so it was the danciest song on our set, which was pleasing to the crowd, and people started singing, “L-G-B-T!” And I could see this one girl and her friend, they had this sort of what-the-fuck look on their face while they were singing it, and I could see this girl whispering to her friend, “What’s LGBT?” [Laughs.] I was like, “Are you serious?” But they kept on singing it! This was exactly what I wanted when I made this song!

She came up to me afterwards and she was like, “What were you singing in the song?” I said, “LGBT,” and she turned to her friend like, “See! I told you that’s what she was saying!”

AE: That must’ve been so gratifying.

Lowell: I guess the whole idea was that I wanted it to be so catchy that even homophobes would sing it. We haven’t pushed the song as much as I would hope for it to catch on, but in my mind, I just had an image of this person that hates gay people but he’s been singing this song for a month and he loves it, and then somebody goes, “You know that song is about gay rights, right?” Then that person goes, “Oh man, maybe I need to learn to like gay people so I can listen to my favorite song. That was just my dream scenario, I don’t know if that happened. I don’t think it could. I pretty sure everyone knows what LGBT means. [Laughs.]

AE: What do you want to do down the line? Who would you want to work with?

Lowell: Right now, I’m working on my next album, so producer-wise I want to work with Paul Epworth. I’ve sort of spent the last few years backwards as an indie artist because I haven’t really worked with a lot of actual bands or musicians. I’m a studio rat so I’ve just worked with a ton of producers. A part of me wants to work with people that have a fanbase and are on the road and are in the same position I am in now. It’s hard to say. I love A Tribe Called Red. I think they’re literally the best thing going right now, and I would do anything to work with them. They’re friends of mine, too, so working with them would just be calling them up. Maybe Modest Mouse? Oh! It’d be amazing to work with Diplo.

AE: What do you have planned for the rest of the year?

Lowell: I have no time right now. I’m just trying to keep my head above water. I’m lucky because I’ve already written my album so I just need to block out a couple of weeks so I can produce it. Other than that, I’m doing more ghostwriting and touring. I just finished making an “I Love You Money” music video that’s gonna be out soon, and I’m excited about that. The world is my oyster!

AE: Is there anything else besides music you’d like to get into?

Lowell: I’m trying to figure that out because it’s never only been music for me, but now that I’m so busy with it, I feel like I’m going to have to start focusing on one thing. I have a tendency to be too involved in everything. This “I Love You Money” music video, I wrote the treatment and a friend of mine directed it, Norman Wong, who’s like my Andy Warhol. I’m his Debbie Harry. That means I went with him to all the scouting and casting because I just want everything to be perfect and my vision. I need to learn how to pass that stuff off, otherwise I’m going to have a bunch of half-finished projects. Maybe in a few years I’ll do all visuals. For a whole year I’ll just do art.

AE: It’s all about building trust with people and building a team of people who know what you want.

Lowell: It is about trust. It’s really hard in the music industry. Everyone’s trying to screw you over and it’s so hard to relinquish control. I have a really amazing manager and my old manager was amazing, so it was nice to have that person who can do all the business stuff. There’s nobody that I work with that I don’t respect or who’s not my friend. My team is a family to me, so that’s nice. But definitely when it comes to art, I don’t trust anyone to do a good enough job except for a very small amount of people.

AE: Do you have an end goal in mind or are you just about surprising yourself?

Lowell: I have no idea. [Laughs.] Obviously the dream is to be able to be an artist and support yourself. That in and of itself is enough of a task. I have a nice long bucket list of things that I’d like to achieve. It’s important not to have your goals too set in stone because when new opportunities come to you, you will likely be more brave and spontaneous and take them. But it’s also good to have an end goal so you don’t get distracted all the time.

Find out more about Lowell on her Facebook and Twitter.

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