Q&A with Leanne Hoffman
Leanne Hoffman (Photo by: Meghan Tansey Whitton)
On Friday, June 23, Halifax-based singer-songwriter Leanne Hoffman released her captivating album The Text Collector, which is a compilation of songs born from a poetry project. In 2019, Leanne committed to writing a poem every day for an entire year, eventually transforming these poetic creations into beautiful songs which are featured on this album. Leanne takes us behind the scenes of her creative process, revealing the inspiration, challenges, and evolution that led to the creation of The Text Collector.
The songs from The Text Collector started as a poetry project. Is that a normal songwriting process for you?
It isn’t normal for me, no! I often start songs with some sort of melodic or lyrical idea and I build things out from there. I make a lot of voice notes and regular notes throughout my daily life and use those to start things. Or sometimes songs just come out all at once. But I’ve never set rules for myself before with my writing, and I’ve never had such a clear theme or path to follow.
What was it that inspired you to embark on the poetry project?
I really love taking on massive projects or goals that feel impossible when I start and require an intense amount of devotion. I do this with physical challenges a lot and my friends know how much I love a bit. Something we stick to and do until it crosses the enjoyable line into discomfort. I like the feeling of pushing myself right to the edge and then getting to look back and say “I did that!”. It’s type two fun for sure. I think with covid, I was looking for something stimulating and inward, but also something I could share with others and hold myself accountable. I wanted to practice writing, and I wanted an outlet that (ironically) wasn’t music.
Did you know that they would eventually be songs?
I did not know. I hadn’t really considered it at all until I was finished. I think the idea sprouted over time, through multiple conversations with my roommate at the time who is also an artist, and with Erin Costelo. The concept for the project started to solidify when I began making the songs.
How did you go about culling down 365 poems to the songs on your album?
I think this was one of the major hurdles at the beginning. You know when you’re reading but you’re sort of distracted, so you end up reading the same line forty times before you realize you’re not getting anywhere? I did that for weeks with my own poems. Just reading and re-reading the first thirty poems. And then I realized I needed to create groups based on themes, which really helped. Once I had things grouped by theme it was easier to see the potential of each song and what the lyrical content would be. I started with my favourites and used the themes that came up most frequently. Once my favourites were used, it forced me to write about things I’ve never written about before and some of those songs turned out to be (in my opinion) the best songs on the album.
Are some songs a mixture of multiple poems, or are the songs an expansion of a single poem/idea or something else entirely?
It’s a mixture! Some songs are multiple poems pieced together, like Portuguese Tarts and King Size Bed. Some songs have an entire poem in them, but also have additional lyrics, like My Body. And some songs started with a poem, and then it evolved to a place where the poem is barely there in its initial form, like Sad and Bilby Street. At the beginning, I was being so intense and weird about the whole thing. I would write a great song and someone would say “you should use that for your album” and I would say “I CAN’T IT’S NOT A POEM”. I just wanted it to be pure and perfect and I was afraid if I didn’t do it 100% no one would take it seriously. But it turns out it doesn’t matter. Letting the poems be a catalyst instead of a limiting factor was the right way to go.
What experiences influenced the poems and the eventual songs on The Text Collector?
I think all of them! Since it was such a reflective and personal endeavor, it felt like I was showcasing my diary which I would absolutely never do voluntarily. It’s easiest for me to write about my interpersonal relationships, and the way love feels and the way love doesn’t feel, so there’s a lot of that. But there’s also a bunch of new stuff that I don’t think I ever would have written about in my songs if it wasn’t for the poems. The act of writing every day meant that some days I was writing about the puddle behind my house, or my favourite food, or my allergies, or my boredom. And it was really cool to look back after a year and realize I actually had a lot to say that had nothing to do with romantic love. That’s one of my favourite things about this album, how many different aspects of my life I wrote about. I was starting to worry that I could only do one thing well, and this project really helped build my confidence in my songwriting.
The title of your album is ‘The Text Collector,’ and it’s also the name of an Instagram account where you posted your poems. Is there any meaning behind that title?
I started that account way before I started writing the poems. It was just going to be a place for me to post any word related stuff I saw that I liked. I think the first post on the account is a newspaper article about octopus. It just turned out to be the perfect name for the poetry project as well, and in general, I AM always collecting text so it feels right. I’m sort of excited to see what it becomes next.
The album and single artwork have a very cool and unique theme - can you tell us about it?
Katie Tower (the roommate I mentioned) did all the artwork for the project. It was all based off some of my poems where I used cut out words from books to make new poems, sort of like collages, but still poetry. We wanted to keep that aesthetic throughout the release and make it feel organic and soft. She made all the collages by hand! The visual component of this album is something I’m really proud of, I’m so pleased with how it all came together. It doesn’t always work out the way you imagine it, but this did.
What would you consider the vibe of the record to be?
This is the hardest question to answer. I tend to rely on other people telling me their opinions in order to describe my music. Not because I don’t have an opinion, but because it’s impossible for me to zoom out and give a summary of something without projecting my own shit. I’d like to think the vibe is fun and honest and energized and sexy and dense. I’d also like to think it’s beautiful, and cohesive, and feels like a sonic package. It feels good to listen to whether you’re a lyric person or not.
Do you have any favourite songs from the album? Why?
Ugh yes, so many! I love them all for different reasons, but I think Sex With You and My Body are my two favourites right now. Sex With You just feels so COOL. It sounds like a song I would hear and think “I wish I made that”, but I did make this, so that’s exciting. And I love My Body because sonically it’s layered and textural and unique from the other songs on the album. It’s also a song about my own relationship with myself instead of with someone else, and every time I listen to it I feel a sense of relief. It feels like a comfort song for me.
Can you tell us more about how you and Erin Costelo produced this album together?
This was my first time being really involved in the production and mixing process, and Erin is such an amazing person to learn from and to learn WITH. I just got back from studying production and engineering at Berklee in Boston, and so my interest and perspective has shifted greatly since my last album. Many of the songs began with a (poorly recorded) rough demo that I would piece together on my own and then I would take them to Erin. I would feel so embarrassed to show her and every time she would end up liking it or insisting that parts of it were really cool even though I didn’t believe it in the moment. I usually have a strong idea of what I’m aiming for, but less of an idea of how to get there, which Erin is great at. And sometimes we would get “there” and we’d both realize it wasn’t right, so we’d regroup. She’s patient and wants me to learn and it felt like a very wholistic process which I loved. We spent a lot of time playing around with digital sounds and weird effects and layering vocals. The whole process was spread out over the past two years, and it’s so cool listening back to the first drafts of the songs in comparison to where they ended up. It’s been an inspiring process.
What are your hopes and expectations for the album, and how do you think it will resonate with fans?
This is a scary question that I usually only discuss when I’m with my therapist, but I’m feeling brave. I oscillate heavily between my wildest dreams and my downplayed/realistic dreams. I try and aim for somewhere in the middle, but it can be hard to do. I hope that the things I create will help me create more things in a sustainable inspired way. Every release or new project feels like a stepping stone, and you just have to trust that the steps are leading to something positive. I want to be mindful of the energy this all requires and when I picture myself thirty years from now, I want to feel stable. So that’s a major thing I think about, because I love getting to do this, and share what I love. And of course, I hope that it reaches people and that those people love it. Of COURSE I care what people think, and I want to hear what people think! Anytime someone reaches out to tell me how a song made them feel, I log that in my mind palace, and it never goes away! There’s always a fear that things won’t be received well, or how I want them to be received, but I think if I’m making what feels authentic to me in the moment, it will resonate with someone.
Do you have any upcoming shows?
I do! I’m playing in Fredericton on July 6th, opening for Loviet at The Cap. And then I’ve got a bunch of shows planned for September/October/November which I’ll be announcing soon. I’ve also got a book launch coming up in August which I’ll be talking about more in the next couple of weeks.
Leanne’s album, “The Text Collector,” is out today.
Buy her music on Bandcamp and stream her music on your favourite listening platform.
