AINSLEY McNEANEY
In a noisy bar tucked away in the Annex, Ainsley McNeaney eagerly awaits her beer.
The blue-eyed songbird certainly deserves a cold one after seven hours behind the computer writing e-mails, updating her website and setting up meetings. It’s just the tip of the iceberg compared to the amount of work she’s done over the past year. It’s non-stop stress as there is still much to do for her debut album True Story Orchestra set for its June 24th release.
Reflecting on her experience, McNeaney wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s been a year of hard work and getting the album together,” McNeaney says, “but it’s been many years before that writing songs and cutting my teeth as a performer.”
In an industry where manufactured talent takes the lead, the Toronto-based singer/songwriter has an extraordinary approach to her art; she has traveled a path mostly unrecognized by today’s music listener. This talented beauty is a one-woman marketing team, manager and producer, making her work that much more rewarding.
“Everything is coming into fruition and I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m so sure of that…I’ve always been sure of that,” McNeaney says.
In fact, she’s known since she was just a teen. Teased by her friends as a kid for having a natural vibrato in her voice, McNeaney knew from an early age that she would be an artist. She started playing the organ as a baby on her dad’s lap, but began piano lessons at age nine after begging her parents. Not owning a piano for the first year, she practiced at her neighbour’s house a few times a week. She ended up playing percussion when it came time to choose an instrument in school.
Listening to Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos as a young teenager, she picked up on song structure and began writing her own stuff that she describes as “pathetic and very depressing, sad girlie music.”
The drafts to these songs are stashed away in a shoebox!
McNeaney stuck with her sticks and mallets upon graduating high school, studying classical percussion performance at the University of Toronto. While many of her peers aimed to play in major city orchestras, she followed what meant the most to her: creating and playing her own music.
“I wanted more personal input, musical direction and more creativity,” she says. “It’s great to play in an orchestra, but if you have that drive to create inside you, that’s not going to satisfy.”
After graduating with honours in 2003, a short stint as a “working girl” and a semester spent honing her craft at The Banff Centre, McNeaney assembled a small orchestra of her own to play shows for receiving audiences at reputable venues such as The Drake Hotel, The Cameron House and The Free Times Cafe.
Last summer, she took a break from playing shows to focus on her album. Determined to hold the reins to her music, the first time producer sat down at her computer to arrange the twelve songs that were to make up True Story Orchestra. There were many challenging moments, but she would hate to sacrifice any bit of what she experienced this past year.
“It’s been amazing having 100% control over what’s happening,” she says. “It’s been so hard at the same time because it’s my first time. Some of the best moments were when I sat back in the studio – in the control room – put my feet up and listened to what people were recording in there.”
For McNeaney, writing music is beyond knowing song structure and musical theory. “Music has to come from a very honest place inside of you,” she says. “It can’t be faked, contrived or forced. For me, songwriting comes from a place that’s very different and very mysterious. A lot of the time the lyrics that come out just happen. I won’t even be thinking about it.”
With her music, McNeaney has honed an original style all her own. Her list of influences range from Led Zeppelin to James Brown to J.S. Bach, while on her album alone she plays piano, organ and most of the percussion. Meanwhile, she’s written and arranged the entire musical accompaniment.
Then of course there’s her voice.
With a voice that sings the sweetest of lullabies to the freshest of funk, she could easily win any Idol competition. Calling her album True Story Orchestra, she gives kudos to the nearly 30 musicians that have helped, while her whimsical songs weave a complex tale of real-life experiences.
“All of these songs are true stories,” McNeaney says. “I went through all my song titles and none of them single handedly suggests what the album’s all about. There’s an orchestral aspect to it and for me that was really important to evoke that in the title.”
But inspiration can’t be conjured up on command. Though McNeaney is constantly inspired, she doesn’t push that creative muse to come. Songwriting is an almost mystical experience for her, sometimes writing lyrics not consciously knowing why until much later.
“Several months down the road,” McNeaney says, “you’ll be looking at a song and saying, ‘Ah, I know why I wrote that at the time. Even though I didn’t know I was feeling a certain emotion while writing it, my imagination did; my muse did; my core did; my intuition did.’ ”
Such is the case with her planned first single Closer. Written during a time when she needed a major life change, the song was triggered by the fear of that transformation. “To me, that uncertainty is the most frightening thing about being human,” she explains. “I don’t know what’s more frightening: things changing and you can’t stop them or the feeling that you need to be brave enough to make the change. Closer is about both of those. It’s okay to wait until tomorrow and see what tomorrow brings. You’re shaking…you’re afraid…just hold me closer.”
And closer she is to her record’s completion. For her, the album represents the journey: years of hard work and dreaming.
“I wanted to satisfy the artist inside of me, yet being practical about real life. But this is my real life. It’s not just a fantasy. It’s a dream, but it’s happening now,” she says “If you’re true to your art and you have a good vision of what you want to do - if you believe in it - then you should be able to work hard enough to get it done.”
True Story Orchestra was released June 24th by Pet Lion Records.
- As told to Ryan Sang