QSC Aspiring Interview: Devarrow on Heart Shaped Rock, his most intimate album yet

Canadian indie/folk singer-songwriter Devarrow delves into his upcoming studio album, Heart Shaped Rock, explains why it’s his most intimate and adventurous album yet, how he found unlikely inspiration in the form of Goosebumps, and why he’s stopped trying to be cool.

What are your early memories of music as a child and a teenager in terms of what you naturally gravitated towards?

Growing up, I listened to a lot of local music that was what my parents liked, and then mixed that with the opposite end of the spectrum – my father had a quite sizeable record collection, so I was listening to a lot of ‘80s, like Roxy Music and David Byrne. It was quite an eclectic mix of experimental art-driven local rootsy music. That's what I grew up on. 

Getting into high school, there was the classic teen angst that we all feel, and that drew me to the guitar and piano, and that's what I first learned on. I wish there was a more romantic story behind it, but really, it just started from a place of being an awkward, lonely, shy kid in high school, and music was a good way to fill the void of time. 

The desire to want to be cool and fit in – that's what got me started. Then as I got older, I fell in love with folk music, and Neil Young was my first early inspiration. As the years went on, that branched out into more contemporary folk artists. I listen to all sorts of music, but it was always folk that brought me home to something I wanted to play.

Are you into any music that might surprise people, that’s totally different to the kind of music you make?

I've always loved folk, but I've always been a fan of stranger things. I mean, if you can call jazz strange – some people would call it strange! All sorts of different jazz artists, from back in the day, to contemporary, and a lot of world music. I am absolutely obsessed with Afro psychedelia that came out of West Africa in the ‘70s. 

I also love grunge music – I'll put on a Nirvana record any day, but The Spice Girls are also so good! I recently started listening to their music and was like, “This is so good; they really know how to make a pop song!” 

I guess I was a bit of a sheltered kid. I have pretty hippie, Bohemian parents and we were listening to a lot of world music; I didn't really grow up somewhere where I heard The Spice Girls a lot.

What was the first music you bought with your own money?

Funny you say that because this is big news for you [in the UK] right now: it was Oasis. This will date me… I bought a cassette and it was (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. I distinctly remember loving that record. 

I actually hadn't listened to it in probably 15 years, and then just yesterday, hearing that Oasis will be touring, I went and listened to it, and it still holds up. What a fantastic record.

Your upcoming album, Heart Shaped Rock, evokes echoes of Fleet Foxes, Noah Kahan and Peter Bjorn and John, the lyrics are inspired by routine and literature, blending heartfelt introspection with catchy melodies, and providing a fresh lens on small-town Canadian life. What was the first song you wrote for the new album?

A major part of building this record was taking demos that I had recorded when I was 16, 17 and 18, revisiting them and trying to finish them. I wrote a song called The Apple Tree when I would have been probably 16 years old. it was time for it to see the light of day!

Heart Shaped Rock is your most intimate and adventurous album yet. Did you intentionally set out for this to be so intimate?

I would say a bit of both – in line with a change in mental health and an ability to see more clearly. That whole experience changed the way that I related to songwriting and being a musician and made me want to care less about how other people perceive my music, or how well it did. 

Ironically, the thing is, the less you care as a musician, the less you care as an artist and just make from a place that feels honest and genuine to yourself, the more likely the artist is to speak to others. I came into this songwriting process like, “I just want to write songs that feel really good”. 

There's still songs that are a bit more melancholic on the record, but they feel good to me. I don't really care whether they're cool or not, or at least my perception of what cool is, or what I felt that was. I’m not feeling anxious about how other people will perceive them. I think that created a real intimate experience.

Has worrying what other people think held you back from releasing the music you wanted to before?

It definitely did, and that's one thing I feel sad about. A lot of my songwriting in the past was constrained by that. I had a personal insecurity about writing pop music, thinking that it has to be more artsy. As much as I love doing that, and I I tried to do that through A Long & Distant Wave, I realised that I actually, I just really love making catchy pop-folk, and that's okay.

Is pop music looked down upon in the folk world?

I think it's my own insecurity, perhaps, but I felt that it was snubbed. There is a pressure that folk music needs to be serious, or needs to have some grand, deep meaning, and that you need to rip your heart out to produce content that's worth listening to. I wanted to push back at that and be like, “No. I want to make music that feels really good”.

Does inspiration ever strike from any unlikely places?

I listened to this really interesting interview with the guy that wrote the Goosebumps books [R. L. Stine], and he had no previous writing experience, and just started writing these books because he was asked to. The interview was really interesting because they were talking about that, and he said, “If we teach kids to only write from the heart and only write from this deep place of a heartfelt feeling, kids will never write. We need to spend more time teaching kids to write from a place that is fun”. 

He kind of said, “That's how I made 300 Goosebumps. It wasn't that I didn't really care about them, but they were fun to make; I wasn't pouring my heart out ". That's how I feel about songwriting right now.

What is your favourite song on the new album and why?

It changes depending on the day and the mood. Falling Into Pieces was a song that came about through the writing process, so it's actually a very new song, and I quite like it just because it was recorded live – at least the guitar and vocals were – and it's a rare thing as a musician, especially for this record. 

I was working with a lot of songs that were 17 years old, and trying to finish them, and that song – I wrote and recorded and finished it in a couple hours. It's very cathartic when that happens, when it almost feels like it's not you that writes the song.

Is there a song you’re particularly excited for people to hear live?

I'm really excited to play Heart Shaped Rock, the title track, partly just because it's really fun. It's a fun song to play, and it's quite laid back. I would also say Together Again, which is similar in that it starts as a song and ends in a jam. It's fun to connect with your band and to have fun and feed off the audience in that way.

In terms of performing live and expressing yourself through music, what does the phrase Play out Loud mean to you both?

Play out Loud means being sincere with yourself and playing in a way that feels authentic to yourself, and thus will feel authentic for the people that are watching. It’s about feeling a little carefree, not taking yourself too seriously, and just having fun. 

For instance, I just started learning the penny whistle, and I'm really looking forward to playing the penny whistle in this upcoming tour. And I have one little song called Coffee that's about the joy of falling asleep and being excited for the coffee you're going to have the next morning. So to me, Play out Loud is about playing authentically and with a sense of fun.

Is there anything you’re interested in that might surprise people?

Oh, gosh…my friends would say quite a few! I'm quite scattered. I'm definitely someone who has a case of ADHD and quite a lot of eclectic interests, but one that my friends joke with me about, is that I have got into the habit of wheeling and dealing with wood stoves. I love wood stoves so much. I just love sitting by a wood stove. 

Then one day, I realised that there's a lot of old wood stoves out there that are rusty and that could use a little love, so I started buying, selling and flipping wood stoves. I've kind of stopped a bit because I realised that it's really impractical to try to pick up a 500 pound wood stove and take it home, fix it up and then sell it. 

But I've been known to love wood stoves and buy and sell them, so if anyone's in eastern Canada that wants a really good, old classic wood stove, hit me up!

Devarrow’s fourth studio album Heart Shaped Rock will be released on October 4th.