Name: Begonia
Occupations: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: Canadian
Current Release: Begonia's Powder Blue is out February 24th 2023 via Birthday Cake.

If you enjoyed this interview with Begonia, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

My impulse to create comes from ALL of those things. I do draw a majority of my creative inspiration from personal relationships and things that I’ve directly been through. Other art and music inspires me immensely and yet I always find myself coming back to a lived experience or at least a shadow of one.

Lately I find that my inspiration comes in the quiet times … when I’m doing the dishes or taking a shower or doing something mundane I’ll suddenly have an idea to scribble in a book or recite into my phone.

Other times it comes out of pure emotion. Some sort of emotional shift will happen and I’ll immediately be pulled to the piano or to just sit in silence thinking of melodies etc. Sometimes it feels like lightning and other times it just spills out haha. It’s hard to predict!

My upcoming single “Married By Elvis” felt like that spilling out moment. I was in the studio with Deadmen (my main writing / producing partners) and one of them had a guitar riff sampled into a loop and was playing it and the lyrics and melody came out of me within an hour.



That does NOT always happen haha ... so when it does I run with it.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

When I know I’m trying to write for a record I do love to try and cultivate an atmosphere that is narrowly focused on creating. Like … going to a cabin in the woods with my co writers or marking out a week in our schedules at home where we write every day of that week together in studio.

It’s hard to force creativity but I find when you set a goal even if your “best work” doesn’t come out of that time you’re still in a headspace of intention and that can lay the ground work for MANY different great ideas or at least clear the cobwebs a bit. I rarely know exactly what a song is going to be when I start it.

It’s like that for records too … Deadmen (Matt Peters and Matt Schellenberg) and I do a lot of experimenting with different ideas and then if the spirit pulls on one we try to follow it without thinking TOO hard on “how is this going to be when it ends?” I love the idea of starting a song and then serving it as best you can. If you listen, a lot of the time a song will tell you where it wants to go.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

Depends on the song really. A song like “Right Here” started at a songwriting session.



Matt Schellenberg had the production loop on his computer and was playing it over and over and I just sat with a mic throwing gibberish melodies into the air. It felt really hard to land on something I was proud of in that moment and the pressure I felt kind of made me shelf it for the day.

Eventually outside of the session I thought of lyrics to go with the melody and everything else fell into place when I was alone and had some distance from the session.

With a song like “Butterfly” from my upcoming record, it was made at my piano alone one night and the words just kind of spilled out with the melody while I was playing around with different chords.

So I guess I’m saying sometimes it feels like a slog and sometimes it feels like I’m just a vessel for something that needs to spill out. Cheesy but true!

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

It’s always a balance for me between worrying if I’m being too specific that I’ll alienate people OR being too vague that I’m not really saying anything at all haha. Honestly more and more I really try not to over think it though and as long as it feels natural when I listen back, like … pure and honest … then that’s all I want.

That’s kind of all I’m ever after!

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

Absolutely I love to follow things where they lead. I can think I know what I want the song to say when I set out but then, for example, something changes in the production or I eat a sandwich at lunch that sparks a memory lol. And then I'll come back to it and everything changes! That’s how I felt about “Cold Night” and a couple other songs that ended up on my upcoming record specifically.



We started them before the pandemic so they held certain feelings about where I was at then. We came back to finish them for the album during pandemic lockdowns and my brain makeup had kind of changed haha ... so my songwriting headspace was also was changing. I tried to just go with that and let the song be what it was without tweaking my older thought process and without trying to challenge my new one too much. It just flowed in a different way.

You can’t try to control that kind of pure creativity without losing something. AND it doesn’t always flow that purely for me so when I have an instinct that appears I like to follow it and see where it takes me.

I worked on my last record (Fear) with Deadmen and Marcus Paquin and I remember the first writing session when I met Marcus, he told me that his songwriting strategy is like improv where you always have a “Yes and” mentality so nothing is ever paused or overthought or second guessed. That really stuck with me for some reason and is something I personally reference a lot.



You’ve got to be open and serve the song, trying to control it too much usually leads me to something that’s more emotionally disconnected.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

Sometimes, very rarely, but SOMETIMES when I’m stuck on trying to finish a song it can feel like a math problem or something clinical and not a spiritual experience at all. BUT most of the time for me I 100% feel a spirit of something when making music.

I’m a very emotional person haha … never have been a super scholastic musician, never went to school or really took lessons officially. So I for sure see music in my own way as a result. That used to be something I was pretty self conscious of but as time has gone on I’ve really learned that my feelings and instincts are what I bring to the table and I see the value of that more now than I used to.

SELF LOVE IS A JOURNEY PEOPLE!

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

Oh gosh knowing when a song or especially ALBUM is done can be such a mind game. When I start to feel like I’m getting close to the end of a chapter but don’t know what to do I usually like to get some distance from whatever it is. Like I won’t listen to the song or tracklist or whatever for 1 to 2 weeks to try and then can come back to it with fresh ears to see how I feel.

I also have a few trusted people in my life that I bounce shit off of but you gotta be careful how many people you send your shit to and ask for their opinions because sometimes you get waaaay more opinions than it turns out you actually want. And that makes it even harder to decide haha.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Getting a great mix is very important to me. We worked with Jason Agel on my upcoming record and he did exactly what I want someone to do when I hire them to mix. He listened to the song and really respected where it was at WHILE also adding his own flourishes and creative touches that really elevated it all for me.

I love making a record with one crew and then finding someone outside of that crew to mix it. Someone who has an objective voice and brings new fairy dust to the project. I’m not really a hoverer in the studio during the mixing process but I would like to think I’m like an average note giver?? Lol … like I’m usually not asking for like 500 super specific revisions but also … I know what I like and don’t like haha.

I love asking whoever is mixing the record if they have people they like using for mastering. I also like doing my own research and listening to records and paying attention to what I like and don’t like sonically and then reading the credits to find out who made it sound that way. Honestly though … mastering to me is a bit of a mystical process that I must admit I don't always entirely understand.

But I love the way my record sounds and I know that mastering is key to that so ... haha … that’s important to me.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Oh gosh this career is FULL of those kinds of electric highs and purposeless feeling lows.

Usually if I’m feeling a big block I just need to take time. Time to rest and reflect and to literally sit in silence. I find when I don’t give myself that time and I try to force creativity when I’m not ready it can almost definitely lead to some sort of burn out.

I’m really trying to learn how to create a healthy balance of what I expect of myself day to day. Prioritizing rest in this artist life can be hard but it’s so important!