Singer/songwriter Kaeley Jade is a vivacious performer with a voice like velvet. She weaves lush imagery and catchy melodic lines to create music that is both serious and lighthearted. Kaeley’s music has been played on radio stations all over North America, and her song “Painless” recently rose to the top of the Indigenous Music Countdown charts. She has been highlighted in numerous publications, including Tinnitist (500k reach), SAY Magazine, and The GATE, as well as editorial playlists across the major streaming services, including New Music Friday and Fresh Finds on Spotify, Indigenous Now on Apple Music, and New Music Friday on Apple Music. Kaeley has performed on stages across Canada, including the Edmonton’s Indigenous Peoples Festival, the Big Valley Jamboree, the Edmonton International Fringe Festival, the Tkaronto Music Festival, and Taste of Edmonton. She is a nominee for the Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Award. She explores the power of relationships in her polished brand of indie pop, which is reminiscent of musicians like Maggie Rogers and The Lumineers.
The Edmonton-based Métis artist Kaeley Jade premieres a brand new single, “Beneath The Lies,” which is available right now on all digital streaming platforms. Turpentine, her debut album, was released on September 23.
Kaeley’s most recent song, which was produced by the JUNO-nominated Velveteen Music team, combines glitz and gritty to explore the ways in which we hide the truth. ‘Beneath the Lies’ will make listeners eager to enjoy the final rays of the summer sun because it is reminiscent of musicians like Maggie Rogers and Taylor Swift. According to Kaeley, the idea for “Beneath the Lies” came from a painfully awkward encounter she had with an ex-partner. “Following that, I started to think a lot about the masks people put on, the walls they build, and the little white lies they tell to avoid any kind of vulnerability or confrontation.” Check out the song and the exclusive interview below:
1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?
KAELEY JADE: I was born in Fort McMurray, Alberta, and I would say that throughout my entire life, music has always been an interest and passion of mine! My first taste of performing came quite young, through church choir and family karaoke nights. Once we moved to the Edmonton area, I started taking musical theatre classes, and the rest is history!
2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?
KAELEY JADE: I took pop vocal and performance lessons for quite a few years starting when I was about nine, and the place I took lessons from also acted a bit like a booking agency, so I got to perform at a lot of really cool events from a really young age! Once I started my acting degree, voice lessons were a part of our training, which I’m very grateful for. I taught myself piano, guitar and ukulele by ear, which was an entirely different and challenging experience.
3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences?
KAELEY JADE: I grew up in the height of Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, so I would say that those two were very influential to me as a young, aspiring singer.
4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
KAELEY JADE: As an actor and singer/songwriter, I am most interested in serving the story—I’m very lyrically-driven as an artist, and I take a lot of care in building my vocal performances to support the story being told. I would say that my sound sits somewhere at the intersection of indie, folk and pop, in that I like to bridge the storytelling of alternative and folk music with the accessibility of pop music.
KAELEY JADE:
My music is a bit of a collage of my experiences, my influences, and my inspirations. Especially in the recording process, it’s great to have references when building a vocabulary and finding the right sound! For Turpentine, I have references that range anywhere from Shakey Graves to Kings of Leon to Brandi Carlile to Olivia Rodrigo to The Lumineers to Post Malone, but it still feels authentic to me and my sound. When I was developing my own style, I mostly wanted to pull from genres that I deeply loved, and it was a pretty natural process for me.
6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative and entertainment?
KAELEY JADE:
Music is an incredible force—I do believe that art has the power to influence and inspire change. Turpentine is very much an exploration of my own personal experiences in my relationships, but I think that its themes of unconditional love, how our relationships can impact our mental health, and finding strength in vulnerability are universal.
7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?
KAELEY JADE:
It’s a tough industry—you have to get used to a lot of no’s, and to get comfortable with the fact that not everyone might resonate with the art you’re creating! For me, anytime I get to share my music onstage, and create connections with the audience, it makes all the gruelling parts of the process worth it.
8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do you usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?
KAELEY JADE:
It depends on the song—usually, I’ll start with the lyrics, and then find a melody to fit them to, and continue to sculpt, working back and forth between melody and lyrics, until a song takes shape. Then, I’ll dive into the chord structure and musical arrangement.
I typically write solo, but I’ve worked on a few projects collaboratively in the past year, such as the musical Two-Headed/Half-Hearted, which I wrote with Trevor Schmidt at Northern Light Theatre.
9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
KAELEY JADE: In my career, one of the hardest things I have to face aside from things like rejection or harsh criticism is a constant feeling of “never doing enough.” I struggle with finding a life-work balance, and while I find the work I do very fulfilling, it can also be quite detrimental to my mental health at times. Especially in the rise-and-grind culture we currently live in, it can be so hard for me to feel worthy of taking time for myself to breathe, so burnout is quite real. I’m working on finding ways to genuinely rest and recharge, but it’s a journey!
10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
KAELEY JADE: I’m proud of a lot of the things I’ve achieved, but moments like these are the most special: for example, the other day, a radio producer at one of the stations that has my music on rotation reached out to me to tell me how much his daughter loved my song, “Painless,” and that she used it to audition for her school this year. Hearing that my music is inspiring to folks (especially young girls!) or that it touches people is such a precious gift.
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Photo credits: Mollie Laura