SPEAKER_02 0:14

Welcome to How's Your Stool, the show where we pull up a stool and find out if things are really going. Not just the gigs, not just the music, but what's happening when the amps and the lights get turned off. Because if you ask a musician how they're doing, you'll get one answer to check the stool might get the truth. I'm your host, Dave Randall. Today I'm sitting down with the charming and insightful Tatum Quinn. So let's get a stool sample. Hey everybody, I'm sitting here with Tatum Quinn. It's been a long time coming, getting her some time in her very busy schedule to sit down. And um, if you've been paying attention to the podcast, you know that uh you're it's mostly old guys like me that that tell in their old stories, and I really felt it was time for a fresh look at what the music scene is like for a young person starting her career and getting out there. But let's let's, as we always do, start at the beginning and let us know a little bit about, you know, where you come from, and then we'll get into like what you're what got you interested in music.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

So yeah, okay, great. So it's really awesome to be here with you. I always love the the times we get to chat, even though it's been you know here and there. Yeah. Um there's always so much insight that I love to get from you. So um I was raised here in Montreal, born and raised. My dad is American, my mom is Canadian. Um that funny enough, they actually grew up oppositely. My mom studied school in Florida and like her high schooling and everything, and my dad was here in Montreal.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Um ended up meeting here in Montreal at some point because obviously they're both from here. But um, yeah, me and all my brothers were I have three older brothers, and we're all born and raised here, but we're also a dual citizen of Canada.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

That's convenient.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

It's very convenient for the music industry.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

For now, anyway. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

I shouldn't say too much. Um, but yes, it's it's very convenient. Um, I've been, you know, even the boys and I we've talked about, you know, some visa stuff for like playing music in the States because I can, but my bandmates can't.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

But that being said, whatever. Um yeah, so grew up here, started, my whole family is very musical.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

So I had a very, very musical upbringing. My dad has always been into music, he's a drummer. Um he saved up all of his money when uh in the 70s um to buy the John Bonham American like drum kit that he still has in like pristine condition. Um so he still plays, he plays from time to time. He doesn't play often anymore, but him and I have a deal that um on the day I get to play the Bell Center, he'll come up for one song. Yeah, nice. So we're very close. Me and my family were super, super tight. Awesome. Um, my brothers are my best friends. Uh, I just went to Comic-Con with my dad, literally ditched the boyfriend, went with my dad, was like, let's let's do this, you know. Um, so my mom's always been really into music as well. She always dreamed of playing piano, but um she never got a piano, they were never able to really afford a piano. They found an organ. My grandparents found an organ one day, brought it home. My mom was pissed. She did not want to play organ, she wanted to play piano. Okay, and this was not doing it for her. But my mom's a huge music lover. Um, her and I share the the uh same favorite band, and that would be Aerosmith. Oh, nice. Um, Steven Tyler is both our gods for different reasons. My mom wishes she could marry him. I wish I could sing like that. Um, or not sing like that, but he's you know, he's a big influence of mine. Sure. He's like one of the main reasons as to why I got into singing rock music in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Oh okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

But um I remember as a kid, uh my parents they wanted us to do activities, but so they they did the typical do you want any sports? Not really. Um do you want dance? I'll try it, not really. Um, and all my brothers played instruments. So my brother, uh Brandon, he's actually a prodigy bass player. He's like insane. He was playing clubs like when he was like 13. It was really crazy. Um he used to practice eight hours a day, every single day. His fingers would bleed, he'd tape his fingers and continue to play. Um my mom, when we would get in trouble, she would take away his bass, not his computer, not his phone, his bass. He used to sleep in bed with his bass.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

That's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, it was uh it was a thing for sure. But he I mean, he was fantastic. Yeah. And I remember, like, he's been a big role model to me music-wise, but he really like he I I can't say he gave up the music thing because he still plays for himself.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

But he's not doing it for a living. No, and he decided that very early on that he didn't want to do that anymore. He's a bit more, he's a bit more of a homebody for sure. Um, doesn't always love to socialize as much. So he's like a big gamer, um just loves like the technical stuff like that. So now he like will write music for himself kind of like Flight of the Concords. That's a yes. Just kind of playful, um, funny things. And and we used to do that as kids all the time. So we used to make up songs or play stupid songs like Stacy's Mom, which I call it stupid, but I love it. It's one of my favorite songs.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

So uh I love that bad pop punk uh era of the 90s, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

It was so fantastic. I'm glad I got to see it, you know, because I was born in the 90s, but I'm a late 90s, like I'm 96.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

So I really grew up in the early 2000s. Right. But because, you know, my brothers were older than me, like my oldest brother were seven years apart. Okay. Um, but we're four days apart in our birthdays. And he um we would just do do all these things together, um, despite like the the age range, it didn't matter. We would all come together and and play these different instruments and make all these different songs, and and it really didn't matter, like music just brought us all together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

So um I might have missed something, but I'm just wondering if you ever got that piano you wanted, or if maybe your dad put on a deep purple album for you so you could listen to uh who's was it Jo no Ian Pace or John Lord was the organist in the deep purple, yeah, because that that organ sound is very rock and roll.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah, well, it's funny you say that actually, because so we do have pianos in the house. We growing up we had two like saloon pianos with the ivory keys, beautiful. Um we we never had like a finished basement until recently, and now it flooded. Oh yes. Oh no. Yeah, we all the gear got lost. No way. Yeah, we lost all the gear. Oh we lost so much gear. Yeah, but it's okay. I'm like hopefully my dad's on it. But yeah, we used to, you know, go into the into the unfinished basement. It's all concrete. Yeah, we have like the drum kit there. My brother, my oldest brother Mike would play drums, Brandon would play bass, and my brother Daniel would play the guitar, and I would sing, and we would do Stacy's mom. But growing up in the in the 90s, like having brothers that were my oldest brother was 89, and then my other brothers were born in the 90s.

unknown 9:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

And um I got to see like the dial-up computers, like I I really got to live that whole experience. So I feel very grateful about that because I feel like it was a really important time that people now aren't gonna get.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

That's right. You're you're appreciating where we where it was, and it it's amazing what's available today.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yeah, I'm also a big collector of like the old kind of gadgets. But yes, because I mean I collect cassettes, I collect um, yeah, I collect CDs, I collect vinyls, I I have like tons of the different iPods. Um, I have like a boom box, um, my C D Walkman, like all these things. Like I can't get rid of them. They're just they're my life. They're my they were my lifeline at one point.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

I I don't necessarily collect, but I I guess well, my wife would call me a hoarder. Because I do have I have over there a T a ro a Roland TR707 drum machine, which I recently looked up on. There's a violin sitting on top of it, but yeah, recently looked it up and uh it was worth a few bucks, way more than I paid for it. That's true. But uh yeah, and there's another recording machine up there. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of it's fun to have that vintage stuff around.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, for sure. I it's and you can really like we we kind of nerd out a little bit, like you can really hear the difference in sound quality and and everything. So I listen to most of my stuff on vinyl just because I love the the crackling and the the the big sound waves kind of thing. Um but obviously I was like a big C D girl uh growing up and everything like that.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Well, by the time you were born, I would say that they probably weren't pressing too many albums anymore.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, it was it was a big CD time for sure. I and that was actually what I was gonna say. Um, after the piano thing, um growing up, my parents like they didn't really care about the schooling thing, um, which is really odd to say because most parents like that's the thing. You know, it's like you have to do good in school and you can do music as a hobby. My parents saw it a different way. They figured you can do music and you can do school as a hobby. So I remember coming home from school and and I think it was this way because my dad is dyslexic. Okay. Um, my oldest brother, Mike, is dyslexic. I'm dyslexic, and we also all have ADHD um pretty severely. So if you see me bouncing, you'll know why.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

No, no, no. I'm I'm quite familiar with that. So yeah. So hence the music thing keeps all parts of your brains firing, so you're occupied all the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

But I think that's why there was like a lot of leniency there, because you know, my dad he dropped out of high school when he on his like third time of grade nine. Um he he was very successful in his like business career, but that's because he snuck into schools, uh like universities, made friends with the teachers, and they allowed him to sit in on the classes for free. They gave him exams, they said, like, we can't grade your exams, but you know, when the other kids get them, you can compare and whatever. And my dad did that. Like, my dad hustled. Very clever. Yeah, it was fantastic. And I remember, you know, I struggled so much in high school. Uh well, in in any school. I um I redid grade three. I got held back. Um, I don't speak French very well. Um, dyslexia comprehension is like a really big struggle point. So learning languages to me are are like not a thing. Um as much as I would love to, and I've been trying really hard to speak French and get better at it. I just sound really English.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Yeah, I don't me too. My wife my wife is French and yeah, she teaches the kids there. But uh I I I never I grew up in a time when uh French wasn't as necessary. There were no language laws when I was growing up, so uh there was all that, and then when I started my my work career, I worked almost exclusively for US companies, okay and so there was no language requirement. However, I remember visiting Hydro Quebec, they were a customer, and the whole meeting was in French, and I'm like, they had they had here you want to nerd out. Yeah, so programming in the C programming language, they actually had a compiler for the C programming language so that um it it you could write the syntax in French text, so like common common phrase in in in in per C programming would be uh an if till loop. So they would C condition uh fait. I'm like, oh my god, these guys are gonna be hard to support. I don't even think they do that in France.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

No.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Anyway, so with the French thing hasn't held you back though, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Um school-wise, yes. Well, school, sure but music-wise, no. No, um, definitely not, and and we do have, you know, we're actually very fortunate because we got accepted to a really major festival um here in Quebec. Okay. And it's called Music for Cancer. And it's like a it's a pretty big festival. We're actually opening the show on on a Thursday. It's in September. Okay. And um I was just talking with my bandmates about like how I'm gonna have to get my French in order to do this festival. Yeah. But they were saying, you know, or I could do the French part, you know, like my guitarist, he's like, Well, I could do the French part. So um, yeah, we're gonna there's gonna be give and take for sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

I'm sure if you try, yeah, you'll endear yourself to the audience. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah. Well, you know, most of the people I work with are French. So um the I always try with them and everybody it's always a good laugh and whatever, but uh yeah, it's I would love to be better at languages. My brothers are fantastic at languages, but um I didn't get that gene.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Yeah, no, me neither. Absolutely not. It it I wasn't a bad student. I I uh was actually a pretty good student in math and sciencey stuff, but languages, uh-uh. And and I I I always remember this story. I was I was in Paris on business and I was taking the metro, and um there was a guy just sitting there on the metro, and he was turning and talking to everybody in the car in their language.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

I was like, That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Like fluently, like no issue. And it was and he wasn't like trying to raise money or anything, he was just doing it for fun, and fantastic. Yeah, it would be nice to have that skill, but well, you communicate with your music, yeah, and you get through the city.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Well, that's another thing, you know. Like my one of the lyrics that always stick with me is from Stevie Wonder, and he says, Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand, with an equal opportunity to sing, dance, and clap their hands. To me, it just makes so much sense because I've met people from all over the world, and we can't speak the language like the same language, but we're at a concert and we're the best of friends. Yeah, it's happened so many times I can't even keep count. So it's it really is that music brings people together whether you can speak the same language or or you can't.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

So I feel very fortunate to have had very supportive parents like in that respect. Um, you know, coming home instead of hey, you gotta go do your homework. It was, hey, go pick a CD off our massive CD wall. We're gonna listen to it, and then we're gonna tell you the information about this band and the and the writing style and all these things. It's like a big core memory of my life growing up, and we would do it like with all my brothers, with everything. And I loved it because I could listen to music from Ray Charles to Black Sabbath, and I I was getting exposed to all this fantastic music, hence why I went towards the rock field rather than kind of more of that generic pop thing, which was very popular at that time. I mean, I still listened to it on my CD Walkman. I used to I used to jump on my bed listening to Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, like that was a core thing that I had going on as well.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

But it was always met, like the counter was always met with like that really great rock music, which which really I think made me who I am today, made me appreciate different styles of music. I love all kinds of music, minus a couple genres.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Well, that's that's what's for if it if it hits you, then then it sticks. But uh there are some, yeah. I try to appreciate all different styles of music.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Um as an example, um, I put Saturday Night Live on, and um what was the show? Oh, it was the show with Kendrick Lamar, and I didn't know what to I I knew the name, but I didn't know. And they have they have a lot of different new rap, and I don't even know if that's the right word anymore. But anyway, I didn't know what to expect. But he came out and he actually I really enjoyed his performance, even though I would never listen to him on the radio or put him on Spotify, but that was that was well done.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

You can appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I'm not the biggest Kendrick fan, I think he's fantastic at his craft. Um, I know he's supported by MM, which is like I think he might even be on Eminem's record label. Yeah, um, which MM is actually one of my biggest inspirations. I guess I read that a bit. Yeah. Craziest thing to say.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

No, I think he's inspired a lot of people. Just his his go forward and don't take any shit from people, just do do make the music.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Yeah, and I, you know, I remember um my mom got a lot of hate because when I was 13, she bought me my first MM CD. And it was cleaning out my closet. And I hadn't heard MM by that point. Like I didn't even know who he was. Like my brothers might have listened to him a bit. Um, but I really had no I was 13. I had no idea of really anything at that time. And um I was getting really into songwriting at that time, and my mom, she came up to me and she was like, Look, there's a lot of profanity um in this album, but I want you to look past this, I want you to look past that while listening to this album. She said, I think that as somebody going into songwriting, this is an artist that you really need to pay attention to because he, in my opinion, is one of the greatest lyricists of all times. Yeah. And my mom felt that way. And she, you know, she was very vocal about that. And I I had a love affair at that point, you know, with everything I was listening to. And sure, yeah, there was a lot of profanity, there was violence, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

But that was his life.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah. And as a 13-year-old kid, you're also not who who grew up in the West Island of Montreal, like you're not really understanding the full extent of what that actually entails. So um it was really interesting, but she got a lot of hate for that because you know, uh other parents judging her, teachers judging her. I remember like I um in high school, like when I was in high school, I got told when I was in grade, maybe in grade nine, that I was at a grade four reading level.

SPEAKER_04 21:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

And I never read. Like I literally never read. To this day, I might have read two books. And I'm gonna be 30 next month. So um I I came on to, you know, Audible too late. Like I found out about Audible too late. But um we had to do some reading stuff in classes, and uh we had a substitute teacher, and I brought this like MM biography essentially. It had tons of pictures in it, but it had a lot of writing as well. And I do really well, like where I'm gonna stay a lot more focused if there's a lot of pictures, and it's not just a sheet of writing. There's like, you know, I can get through one paragraph picture, maybe another small paragraph kind of thing. And my the teacher that I had was out to get me for that, you know, like she she said, you know, this is not a book that you that she accepts me to be reading in the class. Although there wasn't anything like there was no profanity in the book. There was it was just his life story. And um I asked her, I said, you know, like, well, don't you want me to read? Like, I'm not gonna read your glass castle, I'm sorry. Like I know people love it, but like it's very if I'm gonna read, it's gonna be stuff that's very specific. Sure. To keep my interest. So um it got to a point where she took the book from me and she wouldn't even give it back to me, like at the end of the day. Like she was like, No, I'm not even like giving you back this book. My mom had to go in, full mama bear. She really is. And um, she got me that book back, but you know, and I was able to read it in class after that, but with glares and whatever, but it wasn't it was an important, you know, it was an important book to me, and there was just a lot of hate around him because of you know, he he had a lot of like controversy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

For sure, yeah. He was he grew up in a really troubled environment, yeah. Poor and and uh his mom was a mess and everything.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Yeah, that's Munchhausing syndrome, yeah. Um she would drug him. Um he thought he was sick for so long. But another reason why my mom wanted to introduce me to MM was because he's dyslexic. Okay, and that's why like he has that backwards e in his like Oh, I never knew that. Yeah, he writes it like with a the second E is backwards, and on all of his albums, like the lyrics and everything, like always the E's are backwards kind of thing. It's like a branding thing now, but it it all kind of came from all of his learning challenges, and and he read the dictionary like five, six, seven times to just really have all those words that he can like grasp that he did at any time that he wanted. But he struggled a lot in school, and my mom just wanted me to know that school isn't the only thing that you need to be prior like prioritizing. Yeah. So I felt very grateful to have that type of support because it was rough for me. It was, you know, I I got held back two grades, I did summer school every single year of my life for the entirety of my schooling. I had tutors like four times a week, minimum three hours a day after school. Um, I had all my specialized tutoring and really tried. I tried. I tried and I did not succeed.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Well, I I think this is I we could say fairly that the system failed. It did. Because I don't in the 90s and early 2000s, you know, like it's only in recent years that dyslexia has been recognized and that there are specialists who now understand how to help people with that. And uh 100%. Um and yeah, you just didn't but I very admirable that you kept kept at it and kept trying. And obviously your parents were very supportive to help you do all that stuff too. So so that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Well, my dad came from that time where they didn't know what dyslexia was. So they would call him lazy all the time, and inevitably that's why he dropped out of school.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Did he ever when did he learn that he was dyslexic?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Later in life, yeah, actually. Like he always had a hunch, um, but it wasn't like accessible to really like check that. So later in life he did, I don't remember what age, but it might have been around because I got diagnosed with dyslexia when I was eight years old. So I believe it was around the sim a similar time, actually. So he was quite a lot older.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yeah, and I guess at that time was just there was just more awareness of what this was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

And now it's like financially impossible to go get yourself tested. It's like twenty thousand dollars for like the testing or like it's like insane.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

That's not right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you uh you're you're managed it now. You're you're doing all right. You don't um you're able to sign contracts and yes, actually.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Yeah, and go through them and you know I can imagine that would be a tough one. Yes. I have a lot of tools set up. Um, you know, like I have my computer reads to me. Oh, yeah, I was gonna say, yeah. I have a lot of those things. I have a lot of support in that sense. Um my boyfriend's very supportive. My boyfriend slash guitarist. Um he's very supportive with that. Sometimes, you know, he'll read something to me if, you know, I just don't want to read it. Because that's you know, that's what it comes down to. Yeah, well, something I learned by one of my specialized tutors was that it takes a dyslexic brain four times the brain power as the average human to do the same task. So I get very so like I can read four pages of a book and I'll be KO'd.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

I'll be out for the night. Like it's it's insane. I get I'm like reading and I'm that's why I don't get through books either. You know? Just takes too long. It's I lose my interest, whatever. But it really because of my schooling troubles, that was actually what geared me in the direction of or steered me in the direction of music. I remember um I used to get bullied a lot because I couldn't read. And I would come home and I would like lock myself in my room and I would just sing and cry for hours. And it was like my mom would have to come in and say, like, okay, well, you know, it's time to go to bed, or it's time to eat now, or like something, but there was no stopping me. Like, it was really don't bother me. This is like my time of like where I can let everything out. I felt like a total alien, you know, it was nobody had the same struggles as me. I didn't know anybody at in school that did. So it was until I, you know, I met some people in like the resource area and stuff like that, but they had different challenges than me.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

So, um, because I I got put into class with with kids of all types of struggles. So where it did help, you know, I still didn't really meet anybody that had the same struggles as me.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

And that's an important thing too, is to be able to commiserate with somebody and say, oh my god, I can't get through this book or I can't get through this lesson that we have to do. So um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

So yeah, and that's why my mom, you know, introduced me to Eminem. And, you know, I learned about so many different celebrities that were dyslexic too, like Tom Cruise, Willie Goldberg, like there were so whether you like them or not, you know, whatever. But it was just cool to know. Yeah. You know, like Tom Cruise has somebody read him the lines of his scripts so that he could learn them. So I thought that that was so interesting, you know, because you're seeing people that are at this like fantastic level in their career, but they have the same struggles as me. So it was very inspiring. Um, and and at one point I just would sing so much that my mom said, like, hey, do you want singing lessons? I was like, you know, I'd think so. You know, I had tried guitar, hated it, tried piano, hated it. Um now I love them. Now I like I taught I started teaching myself how to play piano. I play piano to get around kind of thing, me and Robbie, uh, my guitarist. We do we do duo gigs sometimes, and I'll play the piano, and he's on the acoustic guitar, so like so he could still do the solos and have something going on behind.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Um by no means am I a fantastic pianist, but enough to get around and to write music. I write all my songs on piano. So well, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yeah, yeah. It was one of my regrets is that I never truly learned piano. I play keyboards now the way I type, it's kind of I don't I don't use all my fingers, but that's okay for recording purposes or whatever I can. It's whatever works get it down, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

I don't believe it. Look, Hendricks did the thumb thing that it that is technically wrong, but now it's something that people adopt all the time.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Oh, so he had massive hands.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

So it sounds like all of this really well prepared you better than prepared you. Uh you've proven that you have the integrity to to work through whatever, you know. I remember somebody asking me. I was trying to hire somebody at our company, and we wouldn't hire anybody who didn't have a university degree. And it's like, well, I've been working in this industry forever. Why do I need a university degree? And it's like, it's not the degree, it's it's getting through three or four years of university is the challenge. It doesn't matter what you're learning. You you would think you'd pick a topic that you love, um, so that it makes it a little easier, but nevertheless, it no matter how much you love it, and I can attest to it, it yeah, it's hard. It is yeah, you uh I had to give up my social life completely. Just like I I knew I wanted to go and and and do it in one shot, and um yeah, it it uh I had to give up everything. And uh that was that was between phase one of my music life and phase two of my music life and went back to university. And and so you're a full-time musician now, correct?

SPEAKER_00 33:22

For the most part, yes. I I've gone back and forth because I was a full-time musician and then um COVID hit, and so actually I was studying at Berkeley College of Music right before um right before COVID. So I had been at Berkeley for about three and a half years, and then COVID hit. Um, and I was studying um songwriting, vocal performance, and I did like a little bit in audio engineering. Okay, but I dropped audio engineering not because I wanted to, but because being at an Ivy League school, you're taking 16 classes for one semester in one week to have 16 classes, it's near impossible to be accurate. Especially for somebody with a learning disability.

SPEAKER_04 34:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

But I my um I was at a 3.0 at Berkeley.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

And you know, me and my dad had a long conversation about it, and we you know, he he had said to me, This is just a perfect example of excelling in something and not like you're in school, you didn't do well in this type of schooling, but when it was something that you cared about and meant something to you, you were able to lock in. And now I wasn't fantastic. Like I wasn't I I did pretty badly in ear training. My theory is awful. I actually didn't get accepted into Vanier. And um, I remember I didn't want to go to Vanier. That was like my mom, I I wasn't gonna go to school. I didn't want to go to university or CJEP or college, I didn't want to do any of it. I was like, get me out of high school and like let's let's just I'm done. And my mom was like, Well, you have to do something, like whatever, apply for Vanier. My brother Brandon had gone to Vanier for base, um, but he didn't finish Vanier. Um they thought that he was too skilled, and so they didn't feel he felt like there wasn't that much that he was getting out of it. The teachers kind of had said, I see, yes, you know, not exactly, but like just show up to graduation, you know, like we can't teach you anything. And it was very discouraging for him, you know. He he wanted to learn as much as he could. Um but me, I I didn't think that I was gonna get into Vanier um because I didn't have any theory knowledge. Right. And if I wasn't gonna get into Vanier, there was absolutely no way I was gonna get into Berkeley. So I had applied to both. My mom forced my hand. Um I didn't want either of it. And I remember going to the audition for Vanier, I got a zero on this on the theory test. Um I don't know what they scored me for like the audition part, but um I remember them telling me, so we only have one slot available, and we're actually gonna take the a different singer than you, not because they're better than you, but because we're here to make teachers, not performers. Oh, really? That's actually what they said to me.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

And I was shocked, I would have never expected them to say that. But I guess it made sense afterwards because I have like tons of friends from Vanier. And I mean, my my boyfriend is like he studied at Vanier. Um, my bass player, he studied at Vanier. Um, I have I know a ton of people there, and I know a ton of people that are doing the artist thing, but but the when I've talked to them about this, they said like yeah, it really was more tailored towards like the academic side of it rather than like the the performance aspect.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Where Berkeley is like a full performance school. So I I got um decline from Vanier, and obviously I was so bummed because I it just clicked with me that like well that means I'm not getting into Berkeley. And and even though I didn't want to go, I guess it still bothered me enough that like maybe I wasn't good enough to do that. Um but three days later I got a phone call from Berkeley and they were offering me a rock scholarship to the school.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

And it was actually what they wanted to do was because I did so bad in in my theory, because I did bad in theory over there too, but I got a hundred percent on my rhythmic, um, my rhythm my rhythmic test. I got um really great on my performance. I think I auditioned with either I forget what it was, but I think it was either Bohemian Rhapsody or Highway to Hell. Two very unconventional songs to audition with. Um and yeah, so it was really like my my I did well on on my ear training for the most part, like it was passable, um, but my theory was awful. So what they said to me was, we're giving you this scholarship. It's for a five-week program. And basically they wanted me, they wanted to get me there so that I can have like a pre-theory class before I go into the actual school.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Okay, great idea.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

It was fantastic. I was so grateful because I got to like learn the lay of the land in like five weeks of the school, got to meet all these people from 70 different countries. Um, I got to, you know, meet so many amazing teachers, and then and then I got to go to Berkeley and I got to study what I wanted to study, which was songwriting and vocal performance. And I had fantastic teachers. Like I had my my performance teacher, God, I love him, um, but I almost dropped his class because he scared the living shit out of me. Like, genuinely. He's James Taylor's brother, Livingston Taylor. Good God. Yeah. And and I remember being in that class and watching him have another student, there was a stage, and because it's a stage performance class, and he made this poor kid walk up three steps onto the stage for 20 minutes until he until he was satisfied with how this guy walked up on stage.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

And I was sitting there like, this man is gonna eat me alive. I call my dad. I'm like, dad, get me out of here. Like, I need to change. Like, teachers, I'm terrified. I I'm gonna be buried. Um but you didn't. I didn't. The next class was my turn to get up on stage. And oh god, he loved me. No, he loved me. He um he actually ended up using me as an example for for singers to not have to have microphones. So he would stand at the back of the auditorium and try to hear us. And I was one of the few students that he was able to hear because I I really can project and I I've worked really hard on that. And um we became buddy buddy, you know, because of that. And it was really fantastic. I I knew that that I had to have my ducks in a row when I was going to that class. There was a lot of teachers at Berkeley there that were quite intimidating, but and I hated them at first until I would kiss the ground they walked on. You know, my ear training teacher, um Paul Stiller, um, he was a drill sergeant. Oh God. And you were terrified if you came into that class unprepared because he would call on you even if he knew that you didn't know what was going on. That was his thing. But I stayed and I chatted with him so many times. I did this with a lot of my teachers. I stayed for after hours. I really worked hard. That's the thing, you know. Um, I'm not opposed to working hard and I don't give up very easily. So clearly. Yeah. Yeah. So um I ended up building all these great relationships with these like super scary people that were fantastic musicians that like I looked up to, but I was terrified to dive in, you know. Um, and I had, you know, fantastic songwriting teachers and just arranging teachers, ensemble teachers. I was very, very grateful for my experience at Berkeley. Um, you know, obviously we make some mistakes. I got a little bit wrapped up, too wrapped up in a toxic relationship over there that actually some of my music is written about.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Um and you know, that can kind of gear like change your gears a little bit. Absolutely. So if I could go back in time, funny enough, um, because I have a song back in time. Um, if I could go back in time, there would be quite a few things that I would change. I would focus more on the networking aspect um than maybe like the personal life aspect. You know, you're young, I had just turned 21. So it was really it was like, or maybe 22, like it was a big learning experience. So yeah. Um it was really a really fantastic eye-opening experience, but everything is hindsight's 2020, so you learn later on in life, um, you know, what you could have done differently. But I have no, I don't have any regrets. I'm trying to live my life without any regrets, and I still learnt so much from being there and from those teachers. My next door neighbor was Victor Wooten. Oh yeah. Um yeah, he was a teacher at the school. I got to sit in on some of those classes. We it was just such an amazing learning experience.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

That is yeah, a fantastic experience that you had that. Did they was it was it really the focus on building musicians, or did they teach you industry stuff as well?

SPEAKER_00 44:23

So there was a Berkeley is fantastic for that because so, for example, like you can you can take classes of any kind. So Berkeley has degrees from songwriting, vocal performance, film scoring, conducting, music therapy, music business. Like it's really the whole scope of everything music related. So I got to take a music business class just as an elective. I took a jingle writing class um with one of the number one jingle writers in America. He wrote NBC. Oh yeah. Um yeah. John Aldridge, he was fantastic. I loved him.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

He must be a very old man at this point. That jingle's been around for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

He was quite old, and I'm I hope he's still doing great. Um he he said he he was a real funny guy. He would always make these jokes. He'd walk in with like a stack of um checks. And he would always tell people, oh, Berkeley's just my my pocket money. Berkeley's just my spending money, you know? So yeah, it was always hilarious. I got to work, uh I got to um take some Pro Tools classes as well, which with another teacher that I love, Dan Cantor. Um he actually did a lot of the production for some of the Aerosmith albums. Oh, nice. So that was crazy for me.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

What is that name?

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Yeah, he's uh he's kind of all over everything. He was fantastic, taught me how to mic up a drum kit, taught me all of those really cool things that like now as a singer, because uh, you know, at the same time, Berkeley can be a little bit sexist towards women.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Um, unfortunately, they you know, a lot of it's not even just Berkeley as like the school, but but a lot of the students too, like they see you're a girl, the first thing they say is, Oh, are you a singer? Um oh, like, but do you do anything else? Um it's always like kind of the it's somewhat belittling, but like kind of shadowed in a sense. Yeah. Um I had um an ensemble teacher. I was in a classic rock ensemble.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

And we had it was a bunch of guys, like it was I was in this ensemble with six guys, and it was just me. And um they're picking songs like Clapton and you know, just different different rock guys, like like classic rock guys. And then the teacher looked at me and said, So what are some songs that you would want to do? So I'm naming like Joan Jett, Blondie, Pat Benatar, Ann Wilson, like Heart's one of my all-time favorite bands. Um, the dog and butterfly album, like, was my had me in a chokehold for forever. Um and he and my teacher looked me dead in the face and said, What other songs? Women Women Can't Rock.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

And I was like, What am I doing here?

SPEAKER_00 47:41

What what am I doing here in this class if women can't rock? You know, I dropped the class. I told him, I said, like, I'm gonna drop your class. And he, I guess he didn't think I was going to, but I did. And then about a week and a half later, he comes knocking on my door. We want you back. Can you consider coming back? Like nobody sings the rock stuff like you. But I thought girls can't rock. So I had ended up in a different ensemble, a blues rock ensemble, which was my favorite. Um, I um I loved that ensemble so much. And because blues is one of my favorite genres of all times, if not my favorite genre. And um I I remember, you know, even just talking about this with my blues teacher. And uh, you know, everybody that heard about that was just so shocked about it, you know. It's like, um, how can you say that that women can't rock? And and I had another ensemble teacher, uh, Marty Walsh, who he um he also was the one that, you know, went to bat for me for that rock scholarship, too. Which I hadn't known about that before. Um, because it was, you know, between me and this other girl. And um Marty was saying to me, like, hey, I think you should go and you should cover Highway to Hell and really stick it to him, you know. And this is one of his coworkers, so it was just really funny, and I I did just that, you know. So it was um, and then we started performing my uh we started performing Highway to Hell very regularly as our closer uh when I got back to Montreal, which was during COVID time because Berkeley shut down.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

So everything went to online and like as a dyslexic kid, like I don't learn well online.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

I'm a very in-person.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

I I mean I had endless amount of tutoring even at Berkeley. I had like specialized tutors at Berkeley. I had specific one-on-one time that I could leave classrooms to go and and do what I had to do, like with other people that were helping me get through this Ivy League school because Berkeley throws so many classes at you because they want to keep the strong ones. They basically want to weed out like the weak links, yes, yes, yes, yes, and I'm here like fighting for my life, you know, like I've done this my whole life. So, you know, I ended up not doing the uh diploma. Uh I didn't do the degree program. I ended up doing the diploma program or vice versa, I can't remember. Whichever one's lesser. I guess it's diploma's lesser. Yeah, yeah. So I did diploma, um, which cut me down to 12 classes. Okay. Which is still insane.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Like if you think about 12 classes a week, yeah, absolutely. Um I think when I was in university, I had maybe six, and one of them was a lab, so it wasn't Yeah. No, it's you gotta go home and and well, practice what you learn.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

And you have to eat and you have to sleep, and you have to network, and you have to play gigs.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

And were you performing out there while you were going to school?

SPEAKER_00 51:05

So I had n I wasn't performing for the first maybe two and a half years there. I was performing at some like Berkeley school things, but um as far as like the Boston kind of circuit, I wasn't doing that. I later put together a band um there and we tried to do some of that stuff, but COVID hit like around that time, and so I was back, I came back to Montreal.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

But um, yeah, I would love to go back and perform in Boston and do some of those things because it was a really great experience. I wouldn't want to live in Boston, but I really I wouldn't want to live in the US, period. Honestly, same. I do say that a lot, um, because my mom really wants to move to the US, um, but it's it's nostalgia for her. Like that was where the best years of her life were, you know. So, and then like my dad is like totally against moving to the states. And me and my brothers, like, well, my one of my brothers now, like he has a family, like he's not moving right now. Um, two of my other brothers, they work in a company together, like they own a company together, and they're talking about moving to like a countryside somewhere. Okay. But I'm thinking, like, oh god, don't go to the south, you know, like I shouldn't say that, but because I love southern people, but there's just a lot that that goes on there, you know, as well. So um, you know, the uh all the people that I've met from there are super kind-hearted. You just hear all the stories, right? But my brothers were talking about moving to the south. So, um, because they can get, you know, you can get really affordable homes that are much larger than you can get here for the same amount of money.

SPEAKER_02 53:03

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

So that was their thought process there. They were gonna build kind of like a a work home, if that makes sense. Um so, but you know, everything's always up in the air. Right now, like I'm not really looking to move. I don't want to live in the States. I never have wanted to live in the States. Um, I'm a I'm a true, like, diehard Canadian. Good for you. Um I love Canada. I I can't say I'm a diehard Canadian because don't kill me, but I'm not the biggest hockey fan. Shh. But that being said, um So that Carrie Price sweater on the back, your chair is burning.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

You know, no, it's okay. It's okay. I can respect it, you know. There's just other sports that I would watch before hockey, funny enough. Um but yeah, I I'm a diehard like Canadian girl. Yeah. Like I just I love being able to walk out of my house and at any time of the night and know that for the most part I'm gonna be safe. Yeah. Um, especially like a young woman walking alone, like at nighttime, it's not always the smartest thing. Whatever.

SPEAKER_02 54:23

No matter where you are. But I know what you mean. I when I was younger and hanging out downtown, it never crossed my mind that uh, oh, I it's two o'clock in the morning, I shouldn't be walking down this back road.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Down this a dark alley all by yourself. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 54:40

And and then I went to uh well, as I I was telling you earlier, I I worked for US based companies out and at one out in um California. Actually, they were all out in California. And uh I anyway, I was um uh working and staying out there for for a bit and hanging out with a buddy who was a guitar player and we went out to see a blues band. Yeah. Uh and um we had I had picked him up in my car and I dropped him off, and he's he was telling me how to get back to my hotel, and he said, just whatever you do, don't go east of the 101. It is no man's land over there. And I was like, seriously? Like that bad? He goes, don't. You if they say a rental car pull up in that neighborhood, you're done. I was like, I could I couldn't live in that kind of environment that if you take a wrong turn, you're you're doomed.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

So this is so funny that you say this. Because I have been given like a really wonderful opportunity, um, actually, because one of my really close friends from Berkeley, uh, we stayed really good friends after Berkeley. She lives in California. Um actually they they go by they them. So let me correct myself there. Um and their name is Ari. And Ari works for BMG, and BMG is like one of the biggest sync and licensing companies. And I'm, you know, like me and Ari were in the songwriting um degree together. And we did a lot of our arranging classes together and all of that. And um one at one point um Ari sent me a text and was like, I'm currently in a meeting with BMG, we're looking for a female rock singer, hang tight. And so I've and it's out of the blue, and because Ari and I are one of those, we're that friend group where like you don't have to talk every day, it just never changes. So um Ari sitting in the in the room, they get me on the phone in in the conference, and um I was like, duh, I would love to be part of this. Hello, like excuse me. Um so I actually flew to LA and this was maybe two years ago. I flew to LA and I had my first job with BMG, and I got to work on, we wrote either five or six songs, I can't remember. Um, I believe it was five songs we wrote in four days. Fully written, recorded, produced, mastered, wow, sent to BMG catalog. Um, and I wrote, it was a team of four, so um it was really cool. I got to meet these really, really awesome musicians. Actually, one of the writers is the bass player for Olivia Rodrigo. Oh, okay. Um, and she tours with Olivia Rodrigo regularly. Um, but all the all the people I worked with there, there were a couple girls that I got to work with, and they were fantastic. Um, and it was such a big learning experience because I had never written for sync and licensing before. But I had one of those moments of like, this is what I have to do. This is like, this is it, like this is where I need to be. And um then it just dawned on me that like, why don't I try and get as much into the sync world as possible while still doing the artist thing? Because if I can support myself through sync and licensing while still doing my craft, like holy hell, I met I met like I'm there. I did it.

SPEAKER_04 58:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

Um, and so you know, we got some some pretty cool placements, you know. We got there's a one of the songs is on like a show on Netflix, Building the Band, um, America's Got Talent, uh, one of the seasons it's on, like maybe season 17, something like that. Um some other shows that I'm not a hundred percent sure of. And then literally, the reason why it was so hard for me to book this with you the past couple weeks was I was writing for Hallmark.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

So I'm right, I wrote two Christmas songs for Hallmark. Oh nice, love them.

SPEAKER_02 59:28

You have to let me know when they come out.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

I will, because honestly, they were they're so cool. And I told myself when I was younger, like, I'm never gonna write a Christmas song. I am not that artist. I do not want to have a Christmas song. I'm not, I don't even celebrate Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

So it's uh let me let me ask you right there. Uh so uh I'm I'm quite envious that you got to go to school and study music and all the experiences it brought you. Just take a step back for me as so I I played in the late 70s through the 80s. By 87 I was married and very disillusioned with music. It hadn't brought me but I had no formal training, I had nothing. I mean, I took some music in high school, but and I should okay, I I cannot make a living, I can't start a family like this. So that I just dropped out, went back to school. And um, but later, it uh well explicitly did the David Letterman show at night, uh watching that, and I'm watching, you know, because when they had a guest musician on, Paul Schaefer's band was the backup band. And I started to think, God, that would be a sweet gig, man. You get to play almost every day, you get to meet some of the best musicians out there. You're home at night, you're home for dinner. No, no three o'clock in the mornings, no loading in, no loading out. I'm like, I and it was at that moment I thought, I should have gone back in music and and been able to apply in in situations like that. So back to your story is when you were there, did it ever you're you're you're a singer and that's what you were pursuing, but did you ever think, like, where could I take this that's not strictly lead singer of a rock and roll band, a session musician, a session vocalist? I mean have you thought about not being a rock star, but being but being a very successful performer musician?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

You know, it's something I've thought a lot about recently because there's a lot of things that have gone on in my life in the last four years, I would say, that really made me have to stop and think. So, look, I I I had really great opportunities growing up. Um, I was working with Ubisoft when I was 14. I had my first record deal uh at 14.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:04

I had my second You did voiceover or something for a video game or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

I have two original songs on the Just Dance video games. That's cool so one was at 14 and then one I did with them at 16, and I was with them till I was 18. And um that was a very interesting experience. The first song they had to, there was like a whole legal thing that happened where they actually had to, we couldn't release the music video. There was the the producers that were on it were very shady and they stole a lot of money. And so that project, although it came out, it got shut down really quickly, and they had to stop making that game because of this lawsuit, like that that one specific version of that game. So they still had just dance, all the other, you know, sure one, two, three. I think it was three that was the problem, and then I did four and I did like 2014 or something. Um, or I did four in 2014, and four was the one that was the problem. But um, it was really the the second one was great, the the music video came out, like it's up online. It I went by I went by a different name. Um because yes, as we said earlier, Tatum's not my my real name, but um I was going by my legal name at that time, which was Sammy. And uh I remember the first just dance, it was Sammy with a Y. The second just dance, it was Sammy with an IE. And that's actually how I used to write it was with an IE. Um they told me that they hated my name at Ubisoft. They said they hate my name, it's too young. We want something more mature. But I was working with UB France, so they said you have one week to find your name, and that's what it's gonna be. So I did. I, you know, I'm with my brothers writing all these papers of names that I like, and do I want, you know, one name? Like, do I want to be Madonna or do I want to be like Taylor Swift? You know, do I want two names? I don't know. I ended up going with the two name thing, and I had met this one girl, and her name was Tatum, and it was the only female I'd ever met named Tatum. I've only ever met like guys named Tatum or there or people with last names Tatum. And obviously we know our channing Tatum. So um they gave me the they gave me that week. I brought them the name, they hated it, but the week was over, so that's the name, and that's the name that stuck. And everybody loved that name, you know, and still to this day loves that name. Like I love the name, I think it really works, and I would say most people actually know me now more as Tatum than they do as like Sam. So, and I never care like if people address me as like my legal name, it's fine. But most people don't, so I had to really get used to that, and now I find like I answer more to Tatum than I answer to my real name. So um, it's really interesting. But going like moving forward, I had I've seen a lot in the music industry. Being like having different record deals at such a young age, I weighed 105 pounds, and they're telling me I need to lose 15 pounds, you know. And at that age, being 14, I still said, like, so you want me to be unhealthy so I look healthy on camera. I said that. I was 14, and obviously, like my family is like clutching their pearls, like my God, this is gonna be a disaster kind of thing, whatever. Um, but I was still with Ubisoft even when I went to Berkeley, and I left them when I turned 18.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:01

And um because I think I was at Berkeley 5 week around like the 18. I was turning 19.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

So um I just try to get all my timelines right, which is never, never accurate in my mind. Um But so I had a lot of like I was so bummed out when like a bunch of these things fell through. I had other companies approach me for other things, um, music related, that you know, I'm 16 years old, they want to cut out my parents. Um, but what is a 16-year-old making financial decisions on a 10-year contract? Like, what that doesn't make any sense. So obviously, my parents are very protective, so they were like, no. So I did see a lot of bullshit in the music industry, and I've worked with because I was in the music industry from such a young age, I worked with so many great people and so many awful people. So when I got to doing the and I never gave up, I never I never said, like, okay, this is not for me. I'm I'm done with this shit. I'd never said that. So then when I got to the BMG thing, it was very eye-opening for me because it showed me a completely different world than I had ever known before. I was going just solely on that like rock star, pop star route. Like that's all I had been working towards. I had a YouTube channel where I was getting anywhere from like a hundred thousand to four hundred thousand uh views on the videos. My mom and I, we would um we would shoot the videos, and her and my relationship, it was like super tumultuous at that time. Like I'm a teenage girl doing something career-wise with their mother. So it was um, and my mom's very protective, and my mom worked in the film industry, and so you know, a lot of a lot of cooks in one kitchen. So it was very hard on our relationship, and I remember, you know, at one point I was having like no fun. So I gave up on that, and I stopped doing the videos, and I just watched, you know, like all my numbers decline, decline, decline, which is fine. Like music isn't about numbers, it shouldn't be about numbers. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in now, but I with age I'm learning that like the connection is the more important part of it. And so um I yeah, I had to meet all these awful people, and not to say everybody at Ubisoft was awful, because I actually very much disagree with that. I had a great experience with Ubisoft for the most part, um, and it was just a lot of you can really see like the toxicity in the music industry, and then getting to do the sync and licensing stuff, while they still take a huge percentage of everything that you do for them, you're writing for them. It's different than licensing your music with them, and then they're telling you how they want it to sound like exactly, and that was the same thing for homework. So, like I love doing that. Like, I I got really inspired by the sync and licensing stuff, and it's actually something I've been focusing on very strongly, trying to meet as many people in that world and trying to get my foot in there as much as possible because I do think that that will lead me to where I really want to be. Um, it'll give me a lot of I'll meet a lot of people, but basically something that I haven't yet spoken about publicly, as I've been told by many people, you know, like keep this to yourself, people are gonna judge you, people are not gonna book you, people are gonna this, they're gonna that, it's gonna ruin your career. But it's a very real thing that I've been dealing with for four years, and so basically about four months ago I got diagnosed with Crohn's disease.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:24

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:25

And I it's been a four-year battle of trying to get this diagnosis, and so basically what happened was um I went out for some food um and and it was Indian food. I love Indian food, it's one of my favorite meals. I I love spice, spice doesn't love me, um, so I always get really mild food. And um I was eating it and it was abnormally spicy. My boyfriend who can eat spice, like he could put it in his eyes and he'd be fine. Um, was like, oh wow, this is really spicy. Burnt a hole in my stomach.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:08

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:09

And I had, and it's you know, it's fitting for the name of your podcast, actually. Um I had no idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:16

I I promise you I had no idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:20

But I had like a, you know, like a three-day episode of going to the bathroom nonstop, and I was I was vomiting every 10 minutes for three days. I lost 20 pounds in three days. I was in the hospital. I had like four bags of uh fluids like for me. Um I was in excruciating pain. Like my I was in pain from how much I was throwing up. I was getting like a ton of spasms in my stomach, and I was in pain from the ulcer that I had.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:55

Um and nobody, you know, I I still had to wait in the hospital. The first day was like 17 hours. I'm waiting there with like a bucket, and you can see I I look like at the lake shore? No, downtown. I wouldn't go to the lake shore. Um but yeah, it was downtown, which, you know, at that time, like, you know, everything, everything was really packed, anyways. It's still really packed. The hospitals are they're they're overworked, the doctors are overworked, the nurses are overworked. I totally understand. Like, this is not their fault, it's the system's fault, like it's how this is built and everything, but you know, we do have to do better. Um, because I was waiting for 17 hours on the first day, and the second day I waited 14 hours. So, um, and they didn't keep me overnight. So, for the first time that I was there. And basically what happened was it burnt holes in my vocal cords because I got very bad acid reflux. For reflux, yes, yes. So now I on top of Crohn's, I have like a chronic acid reflux issue, and I'm on like all the medication I could possibly be on, and it still doesn't help. I've done all the testing, I'm waiting to see if I'm a candidate for any type of like esophagus like surgeries, but that was at that was basically at the peak of when we were really getting our name out there. Um we were playing like 60 shows, like I had to cancel like 60 shows legitimately, and I don't cancel shows. I can have 105 fever and I'm gonna be there. Like I'm gonna take some Advil and I'm gonna be there. I do not cancel shows. And I remember um being um standing like at the phone and needing to make a decision like that day of do I cancel these shows or not. Because I basically after I got my episode was over and I took, you know, like three weeks to kind of heal, I went back to the singing thing and I started losing my voice all the time, halfway through the set, like even closer than halfway. It was maybe even four or five songs in. And we're a band that was on that circuit. Like we were doing three sets of 45 minutes Friday, Saturday. Sometimes we would do Thursday, so um, and we were doing high-energy songs, hard songs. We're playing Don't Stop Believing, we're playing Highway to Hell, we're playing Rock and Roll, we're playing all these songs that are so vocally challenging. I would say back to back to back to back. And I never had a problem. I never had an issue, I never lost my voice a day in my life. And I was so discouraged, and I remember I'm sitting in my bedroom with my boyfriend, my mom, my dad, my brothers, and I'm sobbing. I'm like, I can see ahead that I'm losing everything that I've ever worked towards in my entire life all at once. And I don't know if I'll ever be able to sing again. I don't know if that like this, these are my thoughts. Like, I don't know that I I would be able to. I don't know. It feels like the acid reflux never gonna go away. At that point, I'm down to eating like four foods, like because I can't eat anything. Now I'm I rotate about 10 foods. But I'm on like I just got into like the IBD clinic. I just I'm on a wait list for like a a a dietitian that specializes in Crohn's disease and acid reflux. So I'm I've been, you know, with Mama Bear too, like there's no stopping. We haven't given up with that either, but there's been a lot of, it has been the hardest four years of my entire life.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

I can imagine. I that when I when I was asking the question about had you considered the other opportunities that are there for you, your answer. So I had uh several other follow-up things I wanted to know about, and you just gave it all to me. You're not only um prepared for the business, uh you've you've really got a good handle on where you are at in the mix. I was talking to people about you know having a young person in to chat with, and they said, Don't crush her soul, you know, because I've heard stories, I know bad things can happen, but it seems like you've had a pretty broad experience in the industry in general. Yeah, and I this is a quote I I I've read from time to time. It's from Hunter S. Thompson, and it says, The entertainment industry is a cruel and shallow money trench along plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men and women die like dogs. There's also a negative side. Right, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:22

It's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:23

And I'm I'm I'm just uh really pleased that you've got this very good heads-up attitude towards what you want to do, where you know, ideally you know what you want to do. Yeah, but if it doesn't, you seem to be nimble enough to change your tack and and approach it. Hell, you've always got songwriting, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

But that's the thing, right? And and I'm somebody that's very I'm trying to get better at it, but I'm very non-confrontational. I um I'm kind of like a peacekeeper, but that doesn't always work in your favor. Um and so, you know, it's it's really trying to navigate the that with like the music industry at the same time and to not get like squashed. And also, you know, I had a lot of I I had a really rough time during these four years. Like I know that you know, I I I come out on the other side of things and and I can see it, you know, from from that other perspective of like where I'm at right now versus where when it started. But you know, we just had our first show in it was literally on Saturday. We played at um Escogriff with Oh, I saw the ad for that, yeah. Yeah, with a band that we love, Stout, and we opened for them. And we just did a you know, a two-band bill, which is always nice. You know, we get an hour, they get an hour and a half. Like it, it's it's beautiful, like it's a lovely experience to have that. Um, but I was shitting my pants, like terrified. I've been trying, I've been back in vocal, uh, I've been taking vocal lessons again um with my wonderful opera teacher. Um, because I have different types of vocal coaches. I have my belting coach, I have my opera coach, you know. I there's tons of different techniques, and I I really felt that I was never gonna get my life back. Sometimes I still feel that way because it I can still lose my voice on the drop of a dime. Like, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna show up.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:48

So it just means that my recovery is gonna be a lot longer. So if I sing on a voice that is all refluxy and I've lost it and I'm hoarse, and I push through that, instead of you know, having two weeks to recover, yeah, it's now a month and a half. Yeah of no talking, legitimately no talking. I have a board at home. Don't talk to me. But um it's I think that I had to live a lot of this to be able to handle what I've been thrown now.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:32

So we had this show and I was terrified. Literally, how could I go? It was almost a year. It would have been if we didn't play on Saturday, as of August, it would have been a year because the last time we played was Ribfest.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:47

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:48

And um, that's terrifying. We had just gotten off of like tons of festivals, and Ribfest was our final festival that we were doing of the summer.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:58

And um I just couldn't get my voice back in shape. I was like my voice was blown from like the different festivals, and I was super stressed even at Ribfest. But you know, we did the best we could, and and my bandmates are super supportive. We did some songs that had a little bit longer, like guitar solos or musical interludes or things like that to let me like take some time to just adjust, you know. And I won't lie to you, like I cry all the time, genuinely. Like, it's I genuinely worry that I'm never gonna get back to where my prime was. But the thing is, is now I'm learning a completely different way of singing so that if I don't get my bread and butter back, I'll just use peanut butter and jelly. You know, like it's weird, but like I don't want to give up on it. I love doing the sink and licensing stuff and tracking the vocals on that, but performing is where I feel like I belong.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:04

I've I've been bullied my whole life. I've had so many challenges my whole life, and and I know it sounds silly to say that because I'm just like this this girl that, you know, grew up in the West Island, you know, had supportive parents, like, you know, but people don't realize what growing up in the music industry does to you, and it and and they don't realize like how targeted you are, especially as like a young female to like sell sex, and your body is actually the only thing that matters. Your voice is secondary to that. So there was a lot of challenges to get over, and then teachers that were really rough telling me that I should give up on my hobby and get a real job. Um, genuinely high school teachers telling me that, where I just replied, like, what? Like a teacher that makes less than I will.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:58

So those who can do.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:00

Yeah, exactly, right? So, um, and I got suspended from that class like for saying that. But you know what? I went home and my parents gave me a high five. Because don't come up here and be that type of person, you know, be like you're a teacher, you're teaching high school kids, support them, support their dreams, support what they want to do, whether or not you think it's realistic. You know, these are kids, they're impressionable, impressionable. So now I'm doing everything I possibly can. I, you know, I've changed my whole lifestyle. The way I eat is completely different. I have to manage my stress because acid reflux comes with stress. I can deal, I've I've figured it out. I can deal with the Crohn's stuff. It sucks. That's like a you know, an unfortunate gift my grandfather gave me. But I can deal with it. I can deal with stomach pain, I can deal with going to the bathroom, whatever. I can't deal with not being able to have my career.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:03

And I've had so many doctors tell me, well, just look for a different avenue. And my mom, being mama bear, says, So you're a surgeon. What if I cut off your hand? What would you do? She said that to them, genuinely. And that it gets them to shut up every time. They're like, Oh, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:27

Well, I I I think you've got a great deal of of hope. You you're a fighter, I can tell that. Yeah. And you'll do whichever you you gotta do to get there. Yeah. Um And we had an amazing show.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:40

It went to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:41

Yeah, I would never have known that you were having any troubles whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:45

But we're actually we're gonna post videos of this show because it was fantastic. Like my voice held up, everything was great.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:52

Super.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:52

I was I You felt strong again. I felt strong. I cried after the show, but it was tears of happiness. Like it was, and it was with all the musicians. Like it was like I had to thank everybody for like, you know, because nobody knows. Nobody knows what I've been going through except for my band and my family. Nobody knows. So I had to thank them all for like giving me the space to do this. And we just had such an amazing, like, heart to heart, all the musicians of like both of our bands, and it was such a beautiful experience that I it feeds the the fire again. It it reminds you of why you don't give up on these things, because until you give up, you're not beaten. So I don't want to be beaten. So I'm gonna figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:41

Well, there's so many classic uh cases of of very talented, famous Julie Andrews, Linda Ronstadt, um, well, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Elton John, you know, they had their issues and they came back from I mean, uh, I think Shania had uh I just heard about that. It was when you get a flea tick disease. Lyme disease, that was it. She couldn't sing. Yeah. And she thought her career was over, and here she's on a reunion tour. Yeah, so that breaks my heart though. So Lindy, oh yeah, well, she's back. She's apparently found some way to cope with her. So there's never give up hope. Yeah, exactly. And usually about this point in the uh in the episode, I mean there's so many more things I I would like to talk about, but we can we can do a part two. Yes, absolutely. We we really should. There's so many, so many things. Um but I I usually and again, this is for the older folks, is uh, what would you tell your younger self? But you still are your younger self. You're at about the point where I gave up on music at your age. I moved on to something else. Um, but you're still out there slugging it out, and um I really I'm really hopeful that you find your happiness in whatever you're doing out there, and and that you uh I know what it's like to lose your voice singing something that was never a consideration. You just get up and sing, and I know what that felt like. Um and yeah, well, good for you that you're not just packing it in and taking a job at Walmart.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:22

Well, that's that's what I would say is if I and and I would also say it to like the older generation too, because a lot of people like to shit on the older generation for still doing music, and they'll say pack it up. But the thing is, is like we had to learn from you guys. You all set the foundation, and Elton John, he's one of my I'm like I idolize him. Um, all these guys, like everyone you have on your walls, like I could not have been more influenced by anybody else. So I would say that it's important that when life throws these horrible things at you, not always to just push through right away, but take that time to grieve what you've lost and then build a plan to get back what you've lost. And it might not be in the exact same way, but if it's you know, if if I had to choose to now sing instead of rock music, jazz music, I'm still singing.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:34

I'm still giving something to people that I needed given to me at a young age to feel like I belonged somewhere. So it's never, and I have to tell this to myself, you know, like it's not over. It's never over. It's never too late. It's never too late to learn an instrument, to start an instrument, to start a band. It's never too late to change lanes.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:57

Yeah, try new styles. Everything. Look how many old rockers have put out Krooner albums. Rod Stewart put out the great American songbook. You get older and you're you're your um things that you enjoy, you you you you adapt, you change, and and and it that's a good thing. That's a great thing. To to be stuck in a rut uh doing doing the same thing all the time is um not good. And uh I think that's what all of us who play music like about it. And the last comment I'm gonna make on on that is I tell the people who are gonna listen or watch this, um, when you go see a band and you're looking up at them, they're not your not necessarily your good time, Charlie. You know, they're people who have dealt with look, everything you've dealt with to be where you are. Be kind, be respectful, and um appreciative and um support them. Don't don't give them a hard time because they won't play sweet home Alabama or something like that. You know, let them do their thing and have fun and enjoy that.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:10

And um and more people in your immediate circle need to support the their friends that are in the music industry as well. We see a lot of that too. People willing to support all kinds of artists they don't know, but not you know, your small town friend.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:32

Well, Tatum, uh I have had an absolute blast. I I didn't know what we were gonna talk about, but uh I've really enjoyed hearing your story. Um sure the listeners will will enjoy it too. And I look forward to having you back uh you know later this year. We'll follow up and see how your summer went.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:49

And definitely, yeah, because we got some really cool things coming out. So we got an EP on the way and we got some fun things, some fun covers and videos that you know people can find online. So I can't wait to come back and chat with you. It's always such a pleasure getting to chat with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:07

The old guys. I love it. Take care of yourself. Yeah, we'll talk to you soon. Well right, that's a wrap. Huge thanks to Tate and Quinn for pulling up a stool and hanging out. If you like what you heard, go check her out. Support local music, go to a show, buy some merch, make some noise. Before we go, one last check-in. How's your stool? I'm Dave Randall. This is How's Your Stool, and we'll catch you next time. This has been Abandoned Monterey Productions.