Gone are the days of dating with serious intent, at least until you’re ready for a change. Just ask Danielle Sweeney, singer of local indie/soul/pop band Lovecoast. Although she is in a long-term relationship now, Sweeney says a main theme on The Trip, the band’s first full-length album, is the idea of learning to love yourself first and foremost, then loving others; the album is the opposite of a love story, she says.
“The song ‘Motion,’ that’s about this day and age and the way that people date, and the whole Tinder era… this idea that you don’t have to stick to one person or you don’t need to follow the rules. Everyone wants to live in this very quick-moving relationship,” she says.
Sweeney says most of the songs on the album are about someone realizing that in order to be able to move forward in a relationship they need to take care of themself first.
“You really have to be in love with yourself before you can love someone else,” she says, “and almost all the songs on the record carry that sort of a theme.”
Sweeney prefers to be settled now, and she recognizes that it’s sometimes hard to find someone else who feels the same way.
“There’s always the island and there’s always the ocean,” she says, referencing “Motion”’s lyrics. “The ocean is the person who’s constantly moving around them and not allowing the relationship to go further beyond just an initial visit.”
Making the album was a two-year process during which Sweeney pushed herself both creatively and personally.
“We probably wrote 30 songs,” she says, “and only 10 made the cut.”
During the writing process, Sweeney’s grandmother passed away. Sweeney took time off and went back home to Squamish, where she and her family came together and looked through photo albums with pictures of her grandma. The photos eventually became inspiration for the band’s cover art.
“There’s a photo of a woman on all of our album art so far,” says Sweeney. “[The] ‘Lonely’ [single] has it… and then also The Trip album cover does as well.”
Sweeney says her grandmother was always really supportive of her musical career, and the photos are Sweeney’s way of honouring her.
“We were about three months into, ‘Okay, this record’s happening,’ and that was when she passed away,” says Sweeney. “To me, it felt like all of the creative energy that I had was taken out into this wave of grief. I didn’t want to write with the guys; I didn’t want to get together. I was just kind of out of it.”
While she was in Squamish, one of her cousins digitized old pictures of her grandmother, which sparked an idea in Sweeney’s head.
“I got to see all these pictures of her my age, living her life and being very happy and energetic and just herself,” she says. “It kind of sparked an interest in me to honour her in a way, if I could, with this record; she was a huge supporter of my music and me as a singer. It felt like a way to get through the grief, versus just putting it aside so I could focus on finishing this record.”
Lovecoast
Saturday, April 7
$10, The Rubber Boot Club
do250.com/venues/rubber-boot-club