Written In The Roots - Holly Clausius's Roots

The very first guest on Written In The Roots is Holly Clausius!
Holly is a Toronto artist who is blazing a trail of her own! 
Join us as she shares a handful of her beautiful songs and the meanings behind them. 

You can follow Holly here:
http://instagram.com/hollyclausius
 https://m.facebook.com/hollyclausiusmusic
 https://www.tiktok.com/@hollyclausius?_t=8ZXkLaYkvZu&_r=1
https://www.hollyclausius.com
 https://open.spotify.com/artist/3qVAMrkDSWaJHCnZ8xbrvp?si=yQGPe3zFSca2h0te6HUPzQ
https://youtube.com/@HollyClausius
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Hosted by Candy Dinsmore-Bekaan
Theme music written and performed by Candy Dinsmore-Bekaan

Written In The Roots episodes feature musicians/singers/songwriters who share their original songs, the meaning behind their songs, and their musical journey. A celebration of their creativity and incredible work.

Transcript

Candy:  So, welcome to Written In The Roots. I am here with Holly Clausius. How are you doing today? 

Holly: Good. Thank you so much for having me. 

Candy: So, where did your journey in music begin? 

Holly: My journey in music began probably when I was about four or five years old. I was really into, like, Disney movies, like The Little Mermaid, and I started taking piano lessons for a little bit and just fell in love with performing and being in front of people and making music.

Candy: That's amazing. So, when did this become a career?

Holly: I really loved music throughout school. I did go to school for acting, but once I graduated, it was kind of like I started diving into the open mic scene here in Toronto. I went full-time in 2019. So, the journey kind of started there professionally and has been going ever since.

Candy: What is your favourite song that you've written? 

Holly: I feel like it's constantly changing, um, as a musician, it's usually like the last song that you write is your favourite, but I don't know. Um, some of the ones that I chose today that we're gonna talk about are my favourites. Like, I would say Yellow Dress is one of them.

Yeah, yeah, we'll say Yellow Dress.

Candy: So, what was the very first song that you wrote? 

Holly: Well, the first song I ever wrote was when I was ten years old, and it was not good. I do have a video of it, which might come to the surface eventually, but for now it's just for me. But yeah, it was a very, like, peace kind of hippie child singing about world peace and bringing everyone together.

Candy: So, you are a performer. You perform on stages. Do you do this anywhere, everywhere?

Holly: That's a great question, um, definitely have done it everywhere, um, from, like, a bar and pub to a wedding, to Tiff's, uh, main stage during the festival. So, yeah, I, I'm performing I guess, everywhere. 

Candy: So, what was it that made you think, I really wanna do this? I really, really, really want to focus on this?

Holly: I think it's always been in my dna to want to be a performer. Um, and I think once I started getting really into the music scene here in Toronto, I, I found that like, it was possible like, you know. I was working at a cafe and playing shows ‘til, like, one or two in the morning being like, wow, like I'm making enough that I can do this full-time and it is what I love to do. So, let's do it.

Candy: So, who are some of the people that influenced you with your music? 

Holly: There's a bunch of influences. I like to say that like growing up in a small town, I found that my parents listened to, like, a lot of, like, well, I guess not even just in a small town, but overall there was a lot of rock and roll in the eighties and bands like Journey and stuff like that. So, that definitely has had some impact in my music. And then kind of finding my own style, I would say people like Lady Gaga, Florence and the Machine, Feist. Kind of all over the place genre wise, but just really good performers. 

Candy: So, what are you currently working on? 

Holly: I'm working on, as well with my personal music, I'm also kind of curating and organizing different showcases in this city. So, um, I've been putting on specifically a showcase for the queer community where they can discover new music, um, drag performers, visual artists and makers. So we've, uh, sold out the past three shows we've done, and it's just kind of a really wholesome place to find new music and new art.

Candy: That's amazing. So, where can everyone find that? Obviously we'll put all your links in the description. 

Holly: Yeah.

Candy: But it's in Toronto. 

Holly: It is in Toronto. I have some announcements coming up soon where I might be going outside of Toronto. We'll just say that. But for now, um, our February showcase is on the 25th of February called Soft + Sapphic and the March one is not announced yet, but uh, will be on my Instagram so they can follow me there.

Candy: When it comes to the music that you create, ‘cause you are a singer-songwriter, do you also create the music or do you work alongside somebody else? 

Holly: Yeah, I do both. I compose the music as well as the lyrics. Sometimes I work with, like a producer to kind of, you know, do the recording process and stuff, but it's mostly me writing by myself or with a co-writer. 

Candy: Very cool. So how do you create the music then?

Holly: I would usually start with kind of just, like, If I'm thinking about what I wanna write about, I'll write down some, like, words and themes, and then I'll write the music, like the chords and whatever kind of progression. And then the lyrics usually come by improvising over top of that. 

Candy: So, do you still play the piano?

Holly: I do. But the funny thing is, I, uh, only played piano for like, maybe a few months when I was that age, and then I ended up relearning in high school and, uh, teaching myself guitar and ukulele and I guess singing as well, teaching myself that. So, yeah. 

Candy: So, Forget You Not was actually the very first song I ever heard of yours. Tell us about that song. Why did you write it?

Holly: Yeah, so Forget You Not is the title of my EP track and I don't know, when I wrote the rest of the EP, it kind of just came organically, whereas I knew what I wanted to call the title of the the project and had to, I wanted to write a song called that. So it was kind of like working backwards for me, where I was thinking what that meant. And it really somehow really connected to, like, my past growing up in a smaller town, being bullied and just kind of feeling like I couldn't be myself really there. So, that was kind of where the inspiration came from and uh, yeah, it kind of took over the song.  

Candy: You sing in the song, “there's nothing like searching for a moment of peace” and I just, I loved that line. I, I resonated so deeply with that. What kind of peace were you looking for in that song? 

Holly: I think, um, the concept of, like, going back home, um, once you've moved out of your small town or wherever you grew up is just, like, it feels like sometimes you don't have the control. Whereas when you can go back to where you live now, it's like, cool, I can find that peace. Whereas back at home, you don't really have that control. It's kind of just like an environment where it might be chaotic or, you know? 

I think this whole song is kind of about looking at my, my youth and my life before I was an adult. Um, the different people in my life that wanted to stop me from growing into who I wanted to be, whether it was people in high school or my family or friends or whoever, the song's just a reflection of that and, like, how, I won't forget them, but sometimes I have to try  just to like move on, you know?

*Holly’s song Forget You Not plays*

Candy: In You Didn’t Deserve Me, you sang “It stained my brain with little moments that hurt me” and then again, “No, you didn't deserve me” and that was a line that really stuck out to me because I feel like we, um, we've all kind of experienced that, unfortunately.

Holly: Yeah.

Candy: But what is that song about? Why did you write it?

Holly: Yeah, so this was a song I wrote kind of like a sequel to my, uh, song on my first album called Strawberry Blonde. And Strawberry Blonde is about a long distance relationship, and it kind of was written a couple weeks before that started. So, there was a lot of hopefulness and there was a lot of, like, we can make this work. Love is the most powerful thing. And then, um, unfortunately the relationship didn't work out and uh, the excuse was that they just weren't looking for anything serious. And a few weeks later they started dating the person who they're actually marrying next month. 

So, I just needed that song for some cathartic reasons. And it was when I found out they were engaged where I kind of felt a little bit of betrayal and a little bit of hurt from being lied to if, you know, they weren't, actually were ready for a serious relationship, you know?

Candy: You had a line in there that specifically mentions somebody, you know, the person getting married. What was that line again? 

Holly: Yeah, so the line is, um, “You just made excuses, told me you were busy. Well, that didn't stop you from finding someone you could marry.” There's a little bit of a double entendre there because her name is Mary. So, I thought that was fun. 

Candy: Don't you love that you can take these, these experiences that are painful and hard and find healing with your writing and with your music?

Holly: It's definitely therapy for me because I don't really choose, I mean, I can choose when I want to write, but the songs that I feel are more, um, sentimental or organic are the ones that I just can't help myself from, like, going through the process of, of musical therapy, I guess.

*Holly’s song You Didn’t Deserve Me plays*

Candy: So, I found Creedance really, really cool and really interesting. Um, just the way that you used the word Creedance in, in the song. But you said a line in it that I really liked, which was, “They say that love songs are for king and queens, but I'm falling in love with the princess, you see” So, tell us about that. Who is the Princess? 

Holly: Yeah, so Creedance is written about one of the first dates I went on with a girl here in the city. And from someone who was pretty, like, straight passing and not had any queer relationships, um, I was very infatuated with this girl named Creedance. And, uh, after our date, I just wanted to write a song about her.

This was also years and years ago. But I wanted to write a song actually, like the Dear Prudence from, by the Beatles. I wanted to make a parody and call it Creedance. I never got to it because she ended up ghosting me. But years later, um, when writing this album, I was like, wouldn't it be cool to bring back that idea of the infatuation on a first date? And, um, obviously make it queer. Definitely, you definitely don't hear a lot of same sex love, like, in pop. So, I kind of wanted to be the Taylor Swift, like the gay Taylor Swift. 

*Holly’s song Creedance plays*

Candy: So, Yellow Dress was a song that you actually put a video together, a lyric video, and a beautiful, you know, woman in a dress twirling around, which was a really, I thought it was a really cool video. But in this song, the thing that stuck out to me was when you said, “Hey you, come help me clear this scattered mind. Thinking love is what we'd find, but it was never found, no way, no how.” That was a part of the song that really hit me hard. So, tell us all about Yellow Dress. 

Holly: Yeah, Yellow Dress is also about falling for a girl, um, who is emotionally unavailable because she was straight. Um, but it's kind of, it's a very token song, like, whenever I sing it to other people who are in the community, I feel like they relate a lot with just falling hard for someone that will never like you back and it's just something you have to kind of. It's almost like a breakup, even though it didn't happen. You have to go through the process of feeling on your own. And, uh, yeah, this was that for me, and I don't know, I, I guess “help me clear this scattered mind” is just, like, you don't know, like you, you're scared to fall for anyone after that who, who is of the same gender because like, what if they don't like girls? You know? So that's what that meant to me.

*Holly’s song Yellow Dress plays*

Candy: Sunflower. When did you write Sunflower? 

Holly: I wrote Sunflower, I wanna say probably in 2019. It was a song that I wanted to write for a long time. I, uh, it's about a friend who passed away, and I believe they passed away in 2017. So, for about two years I was trying to write this song, but I, I kept kind of going to the wrong place with it.

And then eventually in, uh, in 2019, I just, like, looked at myself in the mirror and was like, you need to make this simpler. You need to make this about a flower, even though that's ridiculous, you can't write a song to him, so write it to the flower. And that's kind of where I started using this metaphor. And yeah, as, as simple as it is, I feel like it's a really great symbol of hope. And it is definitely a song connected to mental illness and, uh, just getting through really, really rough times.

*Holly’s song Sunflower plays*

Candy: This song was my absolute favourite. There was so much hope in it. It was such a beautiful song. 

Holly: Thank you. 

Candy: So, do you have any new music coming out? 

Holly: Yes, I do. I've actually been working on some new music in a little bit of a different genre, um, kind of leaning towards more soul, more pop. Um, so you can expect that in the next little bit.

Candy: All your links will be in the description for everyone to follow you and stream your music. And I'm, I'm really happy that you came here today. I think that you are so talented and I'm really glad that we crossed paths. 

Holly: Thank you so much for reaching out. It was great to, to hang out with you today.