Juno-nominees Madison Violet are marking 25 years together this year and they’re excited to be at the Errington Hall on Jan. 18.
The duo of Lisa MacIsaac and Brenley MacEachern play a style of folk music that's difficult to place in a category, combining elements of pop, indie, bluegrass and country.
“From record to record our sound changes quite a bit, but when you see us live, that’s really who we are,” MacEachern said.
Although Madison Violet's music has changed over the decades, MacIsaac said they've circled back to their singer songwriter and Americana roots.
"We’ve almost gone back to the beginning a bit. We sort of ebb and flow around the folk genre. Our No Fool For Trying album is a bit more bluegrass-y,” she added.
The band's eleventh album, Eleven (2022) is the first they self-produced, recorded in a renovated 1972 Airstream travel trailer on a farm outside of their home base in Toronto in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Years earlier, after winning the John Lennon Songwriting Grand Prize, they earned a trip to a prestigious music conference in LA — and some new hardware.
“They gave us a whole recording set up,” MacEachern said. “Back then it was everything we could have needed, like just plug it all in and boom — you’re set to record.”
They spent three months studying production and audio engineering online at the Berklee College of Music and mixed the record themselves.
The songs on Eleven are about relationships, heartache, trauma and loss — and what they’ve encountered on their journeys as songwriters.
“Brenley and I have pretty much put our hearts on our sleeve and draw on a lot of personal experiences," MacIsaac said. "From heartbreak to grieving the loss of loved ones."
The loss of several loved ones in close succession has made sorrow the "number one muse now,” MacEachern added.
As a result, Madison Violet are on a bit of a "sabbatical", in terms of writing.
“We’re writing, but we don’t have anything to share in a recording right now,” MacEachern said.
They love to tour and to play to a live audience — the connection they feel seeing the look in people's eyes and seeing them mouth the words.
“It is that give and take and the reciprocation of the energy that we put out and we get back,” MacIsaac said. “I feel like it really drives me.”
The pair both have Cape Breton roots, but it was not until they met in Toronto that they realized they both had roots in the same small town. MacIsaac grew up in Cape Breton in a musical family, while MacEachern spent summers there with her dad, growing up.
They both fondly remember kitchen parties and ceilidhs — informal social gatherings with music, singing, dancing and storytelling.
MacEachern recalled a pivotal moment when she heard a cousin sing 'Old Man' by Neil Young.
“I got the kind of music that really stirred my soul, I suppose, and that was in Cape Breton.”
All these years later, the duo joked they will have to figure something out for their 25-year silver “bandiversary”.
"It’s pretty remarkable I think, that two people, two human beings can stick it out that long," MacEachern said. "Especially in our situation where the first 10 years we were a couple and then, sort of had to navigate what it looked like being on the road and still spending days and weeks and months in a van travelling around together.”
The concert at the Errington Hall starts at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. They promise not to keep you up too late.
“You’ll be home in bed, by 9, 9:30 — maybe 10," said MacEachern with a laugh. “We want to be in bed early.”
Tickets are $25 at Shades of Green and Errington Store and $27.50 online at erringtonhall.tickit.ca/events/25234-madison-violet.
