One of the most accomplished artists we know calls Vancouver Island home, and we are very excited to feature swoon rocker Alexandria Maillot as The Zone @ 91-3’s July Band of the Month.
After months of being unable to take on Band of the Month photo shoots due to COVID-19, it was glorious to finally be back in our element. We spent an afternoon exploring a brightly coloured ghost town, a magical mushroom, and a suspension bridge at a local swimming hole.
Shortly after our adventurous photo shoot, Tyson Elder and Alexandria Maillot soaked up the sun on the patio of a local coffee shop while chatting about her music, social responsibility, moving home, and working with Gary Oldman.
Tyson Elder: It’s been a huge week for you. First you were nominated for BreakOut Artist of the Year and Pop Artist of the Year in the Western Canadian Music Awards and now you are The Zone @91-3’s July Band of the Month. Congratulations!
Alexandria Maillot: Thank you! It’s certainly been an exciting week.
TE: The Western Canadian Music Awards/BreakOut West nominations were pretty exciting to see the other day.
Alexandria: Award shows and nominations are interesting. The only thing that I care about is every time I see a festival, music conference, or an award show announcement is I get to see my friends and my peer group. It’s very exciting to eventually just see friends populating award nominations. We’re all getting to an age but also a stage where collectively we’re growing together and it just starts to feel like one big family.
TE: Yeah, there were a lot of like friendly names like Luca Fogale and The Funk Hunters and everyone we have worked with over the years. It’s nice to see everyone we know make it.
Have they canceled the award ceremony and festival? Will they go digital like the Junos?
Alexandria: As far as I know they haven’t canceled it, but it’s going to be interesting. The thing I’d look forward to at any sort of like award event night is being surrounded by people I miss and care about so much.
TE: Where are the Awards this year?
Alexandria: I’m pretty sure it’s in Winnipeg this year. [Laughs] I don’t have my plane tickets just yet. Have you been to BreakOut West before?
TE: Just when it was here in Victoria during Rifflandia.
Alexandria: Last year was the first time I got to partake in BreakOut West as an artist and it was in the Yukon.
TE: Oh, that’s amazing.
Alexandria: It was so amazing. Festivals and events happening in small little areas are just so magical. I am going to try to advocate for it to happen where I live in Courtney because it is such a cool little area.
TE: Courtney has the Philharmonic Festival, right?
Alexandria: They have a bunch of little festivals. They’ve had the Vancouver Island Folk Festival for years. That was like one of the first festivals I played when I was like…12 years old. There’s the one in Cumberland that is in November. The area is becoming a little hub. It’s really cool. They have like they used to have Big Time Out and Cumberland Wild. They have all these little festivals that have really sprung up. They’ve just become this really cool — way to cool for me — little valley. [Laughs]
TE: I’ve always loved going to little festivals like Otalith in Ucuelet and Song and Surf has always been fun. They are these tiny little thing and everyone is like-minded and having fun.
Alexandria: It’s like you’re in a Sims game. Did you ever play Sims Roller Coaster? You like create your own theme park and then like you just watch The Sims just bumping into each other and going around. I feel like any time and I’m at small festival it’s hard to not run into people. It’s hard to not be everywhere.
TE: Did you do Tiny Lights?
Alexandria: I was graciously invited to perform with Kirsten Ludwig. I went up with her to support her which was pretty fun. I don’t quite remember when that was that was that was but it feels like it was a couple years ago. Luca Fogale was there too. It was so much fun.
TE: Let’s chat about Messed It Up as it’s going to be featured on The Zone @ 91-3 this month. I love seeing and hearing my friends on radio. It’s such a cool thing these days.
Alexandria: Messed It Up is off of my album called Benevolence that was released last year. Wow, last year. That feels crazy to say because it feels like it was a hundred years ago that that I released it.
TE: Benevolence came out in November, right? It was one of my favourite record and I ordered the special edition of the record on the yellow vinyl.
Alexandria: Thank you.
TE: I think that showed up at the beginning of the year. Holy shit [laughs], that feels like a long time ago.
Alexandria: It’s been a really interesting year. This whole year we were supposed to be touring and all the things that go along with releasing a new album. It’s kind of strange not doing those things. This opportunity to be Band of the Month reminded me that it hasn’t been that long since releasing the album. Even though it feels like a lifetime ago. We were lucky when pandemic happened we were able to make the safe decision of canceling all of our tours for the rest of the year. I think we pulled the plug at the right time as we were a week away from going on a US tour when things started to get bad.
TE: Wow, that’s good timing.
Alexandria: I wrote Messed It Up when I was transitioning from Vancouver to the Comox Valley. It was written around the time where I was making the decision to let go of everything that I had tried to create in Vancouver and the insecurities that come from moving back home. When I was 16 I graduated early and moved out. Coming back home it kind of felt like I had my tail was between my legs a bit, but that’s just an ego thing.
TE: There’s nothing wrong with needing family support. We all need it. Yes, I see my parents pretty much every day… which is fucking weird sometimes, but nobody wants to see their kids like struggling. I honestly don’t see anything weird about moving home at this this point, especially with how the climate is now and most of us in the arts community are struggling in some some shape or form.
Alexandria: I think those struggles are amplified now. I was thinking about when I was writing that song specifically. I had this idea of where I would be in my personal life and professional musical career. It was having to shed that mindset of where I perceived myself being and re-evaluating my level of success. I grew up here on the Island and to me Vancouver was the BIG CITY. In hindsight, I never really appreciated the island because I was focused on getting to Vancouver. When I moved back I realized that I didn’t feel like supported in Vancouver. Yes, I had friends, but it’s hard when you’re just trying to make ends meet. I was working three jobs at one point.
TE: And that’s the story of everyone I know in Vancouver and Toronto. They are all just trying to survive. Rent is crazy despite having four roommates.
Alexandria: Exactly! I used to think I was really irresponsible anytime I needed to buy a pair of pants. I felt so guilty and I felt like every little scrap of money I could find in my bank account every month that had to go towards music. Why else would I doing in Vancouver making the sacrifice of being away from my baby nieces and nephews. What was the purpose of being there if I wasn’t in the city grinding away? It’s just so silly.
TE: It’s funny you talk like that because I’ve felt the same way in photography. There have been points in my life where I think if I’m going to be a photographer, I need to keep spending my money on gear and you get into that cycle. I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend like on it every month. Part of being a concert photographer and working with musicians. It’s like I’m always at a nightclub or bar…
Alexandria: It’s true; there is a lifestyle that comes with it.
Alexandria: I go on Twitter a lot right now. It’s where I get like my my kicks nowadays. I can’t remember who posted this Privilege Bingo Card specifically pertaining to UBC. It was full of squares like “if you can live off campus,” “if you don’t have to have a job throughout the year,” and “if you like don’t have to pay for your groceries.” I was reading it and it’s funny because that is the only way that you can like sustain yourself in a way that you won’t burn out. You have to have someone else to support you through it. So when you’re trying to grind by yourself it just doesn’t work.
I think that’s what a lot of people in the music industry are talking about right now which is like, “yeah, that grind we were trying to do… does it matter now?” Especially since we are all confined to our own little boxes. For myself It’s a nice pretty giant garden which I’m really grateful for. The grind doesn’t feel like it is that big of a deal anymore.
TE: Yes, there’s a lot of parts of that grind that are just gone and will be gone for the first foreseeable future. At this point like even though you know things are pretty safe in BC and on Vancouver Island I’m not ready to go back to a bar for a concert or pretty much anything. Maybe a house concert if it’s in someone’s yard, but I wouldn’t be in a room with 30 strangers watching someone play music. It doesn’t make sense. A lot of people are taking those risks and if it means I don’t continue to succeed because I refuse to take a risk that’s okay. I’m sorry, but my health and the health of my family and the people around me is more important than any kind of success.
Alexandria: For people in creative endeavours, there’s a lot of people who are impacted. The infrastructures that exist for artists to be able to tour and stuff — going to actual like venues or whatever — that’s so hard. I feel like if any artists are trying to like put on shows right now, it’s so selfish. It just doesn’t matter. Right now you virtually have every other outlet out there. You have your friends, your family members and you have people in your life who you can call over Zoom or whatever if you are feeling like I need to connect with people. If that’s why you’re trying to put on events there are ways to do that safely.
TE: I know there are people out there looking at it going, “Okay, we’re in Phase 3 and there’s no one else doing it. We have a captive audience no matter what we’re doing. People will come.”
Alexandria: Yes, exactly.
TE: Let’s talk more about fantastic record, Benevolence. I said earlier it was one of my favourite records last year. I really enjoyed listening to it again the other day and just just like soaking in how much of that record is different. Each track tells its own story but almost in a different musical styles. The album feels very organic in its stylistic changes. For example the penultimate song on the record, Someone To Keep You Warm gives off dancey indie rock vibes while the opening track I Never Liked Your Friends is full of deconstructed classical notes. It also may be my favourite song on the record, by the way. There’s so much to that record to digest and to take in. Was it a conscious effort to make the album so diverse?
Alexandria: It was definitely not a conscious effort because I started making music at a very young age. I started writing music when I was 9 and at first I used to do lots of like karaoke competitions and singing competitions. I did all these weird different things and tried on different hats. At one point I was like a country cover artist and when I was 11 and I played the big country music festival that was in Merritt. I just would do these random things just to like dip my feet in to see if I liked them but it was all about escapism for me and that was exciting. As I go further into my writing and going deeper into music there’s no way to not be a reflection of the music that inspired me. I’ve become more conscious about it because I was told so many times that you had to pick a genre or that you have to pick a sound. We’re in a post-genre era. It just doesn’t matter anymore. It’s a false narrative to give artists who are not in music for commercial gain or to have a certain type of lifestyle. The thing that I’ve deconstructed over the years is understanding that all I want music to achieve for me is balance.
Alexandria: I remember listening to this Fireside Chat at the Halifax Pop Explosion festival with DJ NDN who was talking about how Anishinaabe believe that wealth is meant to be shared and that the colonial mindset that wealth is meant to hoard. Since I listened to that talk I think I’ve been really re-evaluating what success is and what wealth what that even looks like. Is it even a monetary thing? I don’t think so. The album title for Benevolence came from all these thoughts.
It’s really important for everyone but artist specifically to re-evaluate what they do. Is it an escape? Is it to prove something to people? Is it because you bullied and you just want to be feel important? What has led you down this path and what what has led you down this specific road? Why are you taking up the space that you take up? Who is it serving? Also are you stealing from other cultures when you do it? I think for me being genre-less is very freeing because you can be inspired and by other genres. At the same time I don’t feel comfortable identifying my music with R&B. I don’t feel comfortable and identifying with soul. I just don’t think that it’s the answer. I think that’s what Benevolence was an opportunity to really dig into like playing with different sounds but they’re still rooted in where I came from. When I wrote the song Someone To Keep You Warm song I was at the point in my in my career where I was I’m tired of feeling like what I do needs to be important or needs to like be perceived as important. Obviously I understand things like press releases, publicity and all that that is associated with having a career in the Arts. I’m very grateful for that, but I think that it can also do a lot to your head when you want to just make a weird song. You won’t take that risk because it doesn’t fit your brand or genre or sound. I think Benevolence was me saying, “you know what, it doesn’t matter.”
TE: Experimentation is a prime opportunity for growth in your songwriting and your structure. If you keep making the same indie rock songs or folk songs or whatever metal song like you don’t grow as an artist you kind of pigeonhole yourself. It’s a great way of looking at it.
Alexandria: I was watching something the other day and it was specifically in regards to artists and how it is your responsibility to do the homework of who came before you. Why are you inspired by certain music and where that music came from? I really just believe that should be a part of your job description as an artist. It’s your job to do that work.
In the studio and there were other songs that I had written that I thought were so dumb. These are not the songs that I care about because they’re not reflective of what I actually find important. So I wrote the song I Never Liked Your Friends after listening to Vashti Bunyan. I really think she is so awesome. She has this song called Train Song but then she has this other song called 17 Pink Sugar Elephants. They are basically the exact same song with the same chording structure and everything, but the 17 Pink Sugar Elephant song is so weird. It’s about pink elephants and it’s just amazing.
It’s amazing that like you can have an artist who you’re so inspired by and then can just make something. Obviously just because it’s a reason like Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a good example of someone like Fiona Apple just spending her entire adult life immersed in an industry. It kind of feels like the album isn’t necessarily rejection of the music industry, but it’s a rejection of I feel like the pigeonhole artists are kind of asked or forcibly asked to go down. An artist like Fiona Apple is at a place where she has she’s worked hard to be able to make albums like that and not have to care. Younger artists who don’t have the confidence or don’t have the understanding of where the intentions come from an album like Fetch the Bolt Cutters are think they’re scared to say what they actually care about.
TE: It’s just an interesting time and everyone’s scared about in a lot aspects of what to talk about and how to talk about it.
Alexandria: It’s important that if you don’t know what to say, you don’t have to forcibly think you have to say something, right?
TE: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.
Alexandria: For me a lot of the things I do are from like personally, a political place and the things I believe. I will never be able to or want to write about something that I do not understand fully because there are other people who have a voice that can articulate those thing way better than. To force my voice into that it’s disingenuous and I feel like now because there’s a lot of movements happening maybe artists feel like they’re like, wow, I need to stand for something and it’s like I think the thing that everyone should do first and foremost is their homework and just internalize it. Sit with it. Everyone talks about feeling uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is where growth comes from. When you fail at something or you do and something’s really embarrassing or you have bad experience you remember those things and you literally grow from them.
TE: I can 100% identify with that. I haven’t said or shared much lately, but I’ve been reading constantly and internalizing and you know, see where my privilege lies. I’m starting to realize like things I didn’t know. despite always being fairly educated on things like that. You learn more everyday and if there was something I thought that is in challenged look into it and research. I’m willing to change my view on things and as everyone should be.
Alexandria: It’s important to just stay malleable as an individual.
TE: On a lighter note, what’s it like working with Gary Oldman?
Alexandria: Oh my gosh. [Laughs] Well, okay, so I’m a super super awkward person. I’ve had these really bad experience… well not bad experiences but every time I’m in front of someone that is a celebrity do really stupid things. I had moved to Vancouver to work on this movie Red Riding Hood that was right after I graduated. So I was 16 when I moved to Vancouver and I went there specifically because I got cast in a role and I was only on set for three days. On the very first day on set I was still such a newbie to like acting I didn’t even really know what the term circus meant or how to find the circus on set. I had a massive case of imposter syndrome when had to ask a crew member where to go. I end up sitting there for like 40 minutes until eventually a woman looked at me weird and I was like, I don’t know where I’m supposed to go.
Here I am 40 minutes late on my first day even though I showed up on set an hour and a half early because I was so stressed out. I walked into the trailer like we’re to get hair and makeup done and Gary Oldman is sitting next to me. He started humming a song and I love Gary Oldman. He has really great style and looked really cool. I didn’t want to seem like a weirdo. So there he is humming a Beatles song next to me and I awkwardly blurted out “is that a Beatles song?” He just looked at me and we did not talk again. [Laughs] That was it and then I quit acting.
TE: I had to ask. I didn’t know you were in that Red Riding Hood movie. I’ve probably seen the movie but I just don’t remember. [Laughs]
Alexandria: [Laughs] I actually get periodic messages from people either friends or people who I don’t know. They’re like, “did you play a dead girl in this movie once?” I don’t know what to answer that.
TE: Thanks so much for chatting with me and sharing that Gary Oldman story.
Alexandria: It was my pleasure!
Alexandria Maillot’s single, Messed It Up will be featured all month of July on The Zone @ 91-3. Two more songs off of Maillot’s fantastic album, Benevolence can be found for your listening pleasure on their Band of the Month page.
Rocktographers is proud to be a supporting sponsor of The Zone’s Band of the Month program.