By Will McGuirk
2020 Juno nominee for Best Metal Artist, what a crowning achievement for Oshawa’s metal queen. The nomination was for Lindsay Schoolcraft’s solo album, ‘Martyr’ but the COVID-19 pandemic has meant the cancellation of the JUNOs and Lindsay, who was on her way to the award ceremonies in Saskatchwan when word came in, returned home.
Lindsay tells slowcity.ca in an email, the unfortunate part of it now is the cancellation of her hometown show at the Oshawa Music Hall, which was scheduled for May but there’s a bright side to the darkness.
“Unfortunately had to cancel my home town show, but I did plan to use this time to write for future albums so if anything it’s halted business so I can focus more on my creativity,” she says.
That creative takes the form of working on new music, concentrating on learning her instrument, the harp, more and having toured from 2018 into 2019 Lindsay is enjoying the time off the road, plus digging back into records.
“I’ve actually gone back to the 90s, have really caught up with Massive Attack and Bjork. . . . but I can say I’ve mainly listened to Bjork’s ‘Vespertine Live’ and Portishead’s ‘Live in NYC’. There is something about live strings that always pulls me back. Or pulls at my “heart strings” so to say.”
Staying in touch with fans and performance is still on her mind however.
“I may do an online performance soon with my harp,” she says. “But I’m more on the studio working on an Ambient Harp Album and hoping to release it this summer. It’s a ‘best of album’ so to say, since it’ll be a decade this year I’ve been a solo artist.”
