A Conversation With Calvin Love.
The moment I listened to Calvin Love’s music, I knew I had to get in contact with him. Not knowing whether he would respond I messaged him regardless, and hoped for a response — and I’m happy to say that he did!
Love is a singer/songwriter hailing from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada who is captivating his fans with beautiful yet haunting music. An intriguing artist, with music just as immersing, Love gives a new meaning to people who are born to achieve great things. Case and Point: Highway Dancer.
Congratulations on your new album, Highway Dancer. Everything from the cover to the music offers us, the listeners, a sense of dreamy nostalgia. What concept were you striving to encode when you were working on it?
Thanks so much. I’m glad you enjoy it. I don’t ever really think about concepts… I just make the music I like to hear. There is no formula, I follow or genre I chase, that kinda stuff isn’t for me. Everything I write comes from a deep intuitive place. I observe my surroundings, I reflect, and I listen.
In describing your newest album you said, “Highway Dancer reflects on the pressure of life, addiction, growing up, morality, family, travel and time… it defines the limbo state of restlessness and movement forward through life…” Would you say that the creation of this album has helped you move past the restlessness that fueled it?
Yes and No. Mainly, I get restless by the music business and making sure the work I’ve done gets the shot it deserves. My restlessness doesn’t come from an anxious place. I am a very ambitious person so its naturally in my character to push forward and always grow and progress and try to find a balance within it all. The albums I make are like snapshots into a time period of my life that is now over. Whatever happens now I can’t control. I learn from the success or failures.
What would you say is your favorite part about recording an album? The beginning conceptual stages or the molding you do in the recording studio?
My favourite part is when I finish the Album. Haha. More specifically the conceptual stages. It is quite an amazing thing to be able to come up with an idea in my head. Then record it and play it back. It becomes real at that point. It is quite another to put so much work and time into an album that is so personal and then release it into the world for it to either connect or not.
When do you know a record is completed? Of course, one can argue that a record is completed after each song has been successfully recorded. But is there a sense of peace within when you complete recording that gives you the confidence to say, “this album is completed”?
Well, that is one of the finest balancing points in the entire process for me. It takes a while for me to finally realize my album is done. I still have ideas I come up with years later and I say, “why didn’t I think of that then?” Oh well, save it for the next one. I know an album is on the way to being done when I have a batch of songs that start working together, and when the songs start living in those spaces with each other. I try to always go for Emotion and Feeling in a performance over perfection.
Do you have any location in specific around the world that unleashes inspiration within?
Inspiration comes from everywhere, anytime, doesn’t matter where I am. Travel in general, people I meet on tour, and conversations…. That is inspiring to me. Solitude after traveling is when I tend to reflect the most. That’s when I chase ideas and write songs.
What does your music mean to you? On the flip side, what do you want your listeners to take from your work?
My music means everything to me. It is my meditation. Where I can dig into myself the deepest and record my truth.
I want listeners to feel something and to hopefully relate to the song and find meaning in it for themselves. My music is not a brand or a party, it is real, emotional and honest.
What would we find on your current playlist?
All my playlists are on my Spotify page! :)
Any last words to aspiring musicians or people in general?
Keep working when nobody is knocking.
Where can readers keep up with you and your work?
Spotify for all new releases, Instagram: @calvinlove, Facebook: @IamCalvinLove, and Bandcamp: Calvin Love .
