Using her own life as inspiration, Jadea Kelly’s Lust & Love tells the all too familiar tale of desire, infidelity and forgiveness.
“It was definitely a painful record to write. I didn’t even want to finish it—the whole subject matter was embarrassing to me,” said the indie-rock singer/songwriter.
Despite the gut-wrenching pain and all the other awkward emotions that come with a break-up, Kelly said now that her third album is complete she’s happy she kept going, adding that the writing process helped heal her emotional wounds.
“When I perform the songs now I feel more empowered by them. Sometimes it’s still hard to revisit those topics and it’s still painful but it’s more of a story now—those people in the songs are just characters that I’ve detached myself from.”
However, there are a few songs that still strike a bittersweet chord for the artist, in particular, the album’s seventh track “Mariah,” a painfully honest and open letter to the “other woman”.
“It’s a pretty bare song, but I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of it—it always gets me all worked up,” Kelly said. “It’s named directly after the other woman, but those are my favourite type of songs—the ones where the female vocalists just directly calls out the other woman.
“If Dolly Parton can do it so can I.”
The album appears to be not only healing and empowering for Kelly, but also her fans.
“I hear it from people after our shows and I get messages online from people who have gone through the same issues of infidelity and learning to forgive,” she said. “I don’t think we made a spiteful record. It’s more my journey through all those emotions and getting to my own happiness at the end of it.”
Swelling with vocal hooks and ambient guitar delays, Lust & Love dropped in June and since then Kelly has been busy promoting her latest tracks, taking on a Western-Canadian tour with
Winnipeg trio Sweet Alibi. Up next on their tour is a stop at Jasper’s Whistle Stop Pub, Nov. 7.
This will be Kelly’s first time in Jasper.
“I prefer playing in smaller venues so you can be on the same level as everyone else in the audience and talk to and have a drink with everyone afterwards,” she said. “The smaller shows kind of feel more like a collaborative thing at the end of the night, and people bring out their own guitars and start to jam along.”
After finishing up the tour, Kelly will divvy up her time between Toronto and Nashville, working on new material.
“The songs that I’m singing now were inspired by something that happened two years ago so I’m kind of over it,” she said. “I still enjoy playing them, but I’m ready to concentrate my attention onto something new and maybe more upbeat.”
Kelly and Sweet Alibi will be taking over the Whistle Stop Pub, Nov. 7, starting at 9 p.m. Admission is free.
Kayla Byrne
[email protected]
