This past Tuesday, Juno Award winning songstress Meaghan Smith released her new record, the delightful Have A Heart, after a solid two years of work on the project. Have A Heart was not an easily realized record, however.
Meaghan spoke with The MusicNerd Chronicles earlier this week about what made making the album so difficult and finding the winning team that helped see the album through to completion.
The making of Have A Heart was a long road for you. Was it at all related to self-imposed pressure?
It was a difficult process to make this record but then again, I only have one album and other people’s stories to compare it to at the end of the day. There were a combination of factors that made making this record so difficult but mostly I think it was my own thing. I’m not one to just take the easy path for anything. My first record was more successful than I ever expected it would be and so I wanted to do something different with this album. I really wanted to push myself and grow as an artist. There was so many times when I was making this album that I was telling myself that I wasn’t a musician and that I just couldn’t keep doing this.
You worked with producer Ash Howes (Ellie Goulding) for a few of the songs on the album but completed the record with your husband Jason and your A&R guy (Ron Lopata) from your record label. It’s not the most typical arrangement but is one that seems to have worked out well for you.
I had a dream list of producers that I wanted to work with for this record and though I love my husband and have nothing but the utmost respect for Ron, neither of them was on my list nor were they expecting to be on the list. But as I worked my way down the list, I ended up meeting with my wish list of producers, spending half of my budget with only a few songs to show for it. I sat down with Ron and Jason and plotted where we went from there. We found there was a great chemistry among the three of us that just didn’t work when you removed any one of us from the mix. Jason and Ron were there every step of the way and I couldn’t be happier with the end result. I am very proud of the record.