Name: Good Lovelies
Members: Kerri Ough, Sue Passmore, Caroline Marie Brooks
Interviewee: Caroline Marie Brooks
Nationality: Canadian
Current release: Good Lovelies will release their new album We Will Never Be the Same on October 6th 2023 via Outside.

If you enjoyed this Good Lovelies interview and would like to stay up to date with the band, their music and tour dates, visit their official website. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



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?

This is such an interesting question – I do not generally start with concrete ideas, though I do spend a lot of time visualizing the process (not the final product).

I greatly value openness and flexibility while I am writing as I want to avoid rigidity in the process, and for me that means not committing early to one theme or idea. That is not to say that I don’t spend time working through a specific thought or theme to write about, but usually I am starting with a blank slate.

I have recently been exploring a different approach, where I write a series of songs that thematically connected and that require quite a bit of advance research. This is new to me, and exciting, but very challenging (in the best kind of way!)

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

In the early days, I used to need to create the perfect conditions to be able to write – a clean room, dim lighting, candlelight, or perhaps a morning coffee by the lake. Over time this has changed drastically.

Some of my best songs over the last few years have come spontaneously, while the kids are making loads of noise in the next room, amidst piles of laundry on the bed next to me.

I’ve learned that taking any opportunity to write and scheduling writing time is far more “productive” than waiting for the perfect conditions to arise.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

For me, lyrics start as gibberish – a sort of stream of consciousness as I build melody around chords. Melody and chord structure almost always come first for me, but early on I will start to play with words that feel/sound good to me as I build out the melody.

Generally there is some lyrical anchor that will emerge throughout this process that will inform the content of the rest of the tune. I try to stay very open during this process and not to overly censor as I continue to build melody, chord structure and rhyme scheme (if I am committing to rhyming at all).

Usually when I stay open and not overly focussed, I will find my way to something decent, possibly even good, then work from there.

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

Lyrics are by far the most challenging part of the writing process for me. I believe I am becoming a better lyricist as my lived experience grows and varies with time. While I used to settle on a lyric if it was “close enough”, now I will spend many (many!) hours refining and trying new ways of saying what I need/want to say.

I recently spent a day doing a song writing workshop with a group of middle school students and the biggest message I had for them was to “get out of your own way”. I must remember that too – not to overly censor myself in the early stages of writing.

It is important to be open to saying something plainly if that’s the way it needs to be said, without complex language and flowery imagery. Sometimes you do need that complex language to say what you’re trying to say as well. Just get out of your own way and let it be so!

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

100% this happens!

I have recently been experimenting with water colour painting. I’m not great at it, but it gives me joy and is so new to me that it has opened new pathways of creativity. What I’ve been finding is that as I paint, a new idea or style will emerge within what I am doing. I then take that idea and start a new piece which goes in a totally different direction.

I have been taking this approach to heart and using it in my song writing. Alternative roads emerge as songs develop – they lead to new songs, or new parts of other songs, new lyrical concepts or a rhyme scheme that will suit another song. I love the endless opportunities of this process.

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?

I think the role of production is incredibly important in the song writing process and am often thinking about that aspect of the song as I am writing it. I almost always have rhythm and percussion sounds in my head, as well as a sense of the instrumentation.

That being said, there are songs that I have written that have ended up entirely different than I expected (and for the better!). Case in point, our song “Open Windows” from our album “Burn The Plan.”



Production, or the “sonic interpretation” can entirely change the feel of a song in the best of ways.

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?

I do not relate to this – I never feel an emptiness when I am finished with a song and have released it into the world. I am just excited for it to be heard by others, after such a long writing/production process. What I do feel is accomplishment and excitement, almost always!

I do find it difficult sometimes to get back in the creative zone. So much of our work as artists and musicians now is focussed around the release process, the creation of social media “content” to support the promotion of new music. It can leave one feeling entirely depleted and takes up so much of our creative energy.

That is when I have to really force myself back into a creative practice, either early mornings or a structured writing regimen to get the juices flowing.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I LOVE THIS QUESTION! I believe creativity exists in so many parts of our daily lives. I love, for example, the creativity of cooking only with what’s left in the fridge, of finding an efficient way of organizing the laundry or of loosening the mind through imaginative play with children (you’ll notice that most of my examples are domestic in nature, as I still have young children!).

In some ways song writing is different because it has a final form, it exists permanently for people to revisit. A meal is enjoyed once, childhood play is ephemeral.

But it doesn’t take away from the creativity itself - sometimes it’s just about recognizing it!