With the final days of summer quickly closing in, we have come to the conclusion of our 2021 season shooting Band of the Month promo photos for The Zone @ 91-3. Closing out the year of spectacular local artists is our August Band of the Month, Madeleine Daye.
Neo-soul and R&B singer-songwriter Madeleine Day calls both Victoria and Montreal home these days. In the past year, she has received well-deserved praise for her debut EP, Davie Street, as well as several high-profile collaborations.
As the sky filled with that warm evening sun, Rocktographers got together with Madeleine Daye to chat about floating between genres, street names, and why someone would be walking a ferret.
Tyson Elder: Welcome to Band of the Month!
Madeleine Daye: Thank you!
TE: You’re the last one of the season? How does that feel?
Madeleine: I’m really quite excited. I never imagined that this would have happened this year. So I’m psyched about it.
TE: Yeah, this year you’ve been in Montreal getting your bachelor’s degree. Now you’re coming home and you’re going to be on the radio and you’ve got all this new music out? How does that feel?
Madeleine: Honestly, it’s bizarre. It’s so exciting. I wrote the majority of the music that I put out this past year, last summer in Victoria. So coming home, then sitting with it, and playing with the people I wrote it with has been really lovely.
TE: That’s great! Your experience has been way different than everybody else’s for Band of the Month. COVID is obviously the big topic and you can’t not talk about that stuff, but how is releasing music in another province while you’re going to school? You had so many extra steps in there and your music’s blowing up on Spotify. How has that experience been for you?
Madeleine: You know, it was a lot of work. It’s a big learning curve for me. Figuring out how marketing works and how to get it to people and getting people to listen to it. Definitely on top of getting the bachelor’s… [laughs] we were doing a lot of work. It’s been very cool and I’m truly amazed that people have received it the way that they have.
TE: The song Eggs is going to be the single on The Zone and it’s so good. The horns at the end just tie it all together and I love that. Can you tell me a little bit about the writing process for that song?
Madeleine: So, Eggs is a really, really funny one. Originally, that version that we released was just the demo. The take I’m singing on that the first and only take I ever sang on Eggs. The harmonies, we did one track through, and I just sang some harmonies and we put those on there. Chris Eriksen and I wrote that song in, I’d say, under two hours, from scratch. We just wrote it in his basement at Christmas. [laughs]
TE: Wow. That’s that’s impressive and right at the end of the song you can hear you talking so it’s funny to hear that it was only one take.
Madeleine: [Starts to chuckle before sharing the story] Yeah, that little clip of you talking was we started and I think we were in the first verse and I was like, “No, I messed it up.” Because I was reading the lyrics off the page that I’d just written them down on and I said “We need to cut that.” He [Chris Eriksen] kept that in and threw it at the end on our second take.
TE: Yeah, it’s wonderful. [Gets distracted by the weird sights of Cook Street Village] Look, there’s somebody walking a ferret.
TE: You released Davie Street, your debut EP, last fall. How’s that been?
Madeleine: Very cool. So…Davie Street…the whole thing happened last summer. We recorded it live off the floor at Silverside Studios up in Cobble Hill with Lucas McKinnon, Chris Eriksen, a group of guys out of Nanaimo, and my guitarist from Victoria. It was so sweet to have that. Just to do it all in one go, have the whole studio experience and then sitting behind the computer while I was back at school doing my bachelor’s, tweaking songs. Then to have it released, have people listen to it, and share it so much. It was just absolutely unreal for me.
TE: It’s blown up. I was talking to Chris Eriksen a little while ago and he was like, “Did you see how many streams this has?” He is so excited about the record. I understand why…you guys made a really great and beautiful record. It’s definitely funky, R&B, and it’s got a bit of jazz to it. I know you played a little bit of country before. How is it getting into that sort of music versus the country side of things?
Madeleine: Well, R&B and Neo-Soul stuff is true to my heart. I start writing all those tunes with just me and the guitar and then I bring them to Chris or whomever I’m writing with. We go from there, they can help me build a track and then bringing the band in. I’d argue that this, the style of the Davie Street EP, is definitely like that’s what’s at the core. That’s where I want to jump from going into writing more music.
TE: Nice. You’ve recently released some music with EDM artists and rap. How is it jumping from genre to genre?
Madeleine: You know, I worry about the people that follow me on Spotify and if they’re going to be completely confused [laughs] because I just keep releasing things out of their usual listening stuff. But it’s been really cool. It’s been a big learning experience for me this year, exploring new genres, and writing with different people. It’s really amazing to be able to hop from genre to genre and try new styles.
TE: What’s next for you? Like what’s your plan? Are you going back to Montreal in the fall for school and all that sort of stuff? Do you have shows planned for the summer?
Madeleine: We’re working on getting some shows planned. I’ve never been able to play a live show in Victoria because since my music’s been released it’s been COVID. I’m excited we’re working on that and hopefully we can do something before the summer’s over. We’re writing new music. I wrote a new song the other day, which I’m pretty psyched about. Probably in the fall is when we’re going to aim to release a new music, maybe a single or we’ll work up to an EP again. I’ll be going back to Montreal in September, back to school. I got one last year in my degree.
TE: What’s the second EP street name going to be? [Both laugh]
Madeleine: You know, that’s so funny. When we were naming my first EP, Davie Street, I originally wanted to be called Madeline Dallas because my real last name is Dorian. It’s got the same amount of letters and I can keep my initials. It felt good. Chris was like, “It’s too country. Everyone’s going to think you’re a country singer. You’re going R&B. You can’t do Dallas.” So we finally settled on Daye, but while I was in that time period of trying to figure out the last name, me and my mates drove through Victoria. Every single street we passed would be like, “Madeline Cook. No, that’s not going to do it. Madeline Beacon. Nope. That’s not going to do it.” So we’ll see maybe I’ll have to do that again and pick a new street.
TE: Pick one in Montreal, right?
Madeleine: There we go.
TE: Well, it’s been great talking to you and congratulations again on being part of the Band of the Month program. I’m really looking forward to hearing you on the radio all month.
Madeleine: Thank you so much and thanks for having me!
Tune in to The Zone @ 91-3 this August to hear Madeleine Daye’s single, Eggs. You can find two more songs on her Band of the Month page for your listening pleasure.
Rocktographers is a proud supporting sponsor of The Zone’s Band of the Month program.