Rising Star Kellie Loder On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Entertainment Industry

An Interview With Jason Sheppard

Be grateful for where you are when you’re there. Because we can get so caught up in where other people are, and where we want to be. And forget that we have so much to be grateful for just where we are, and we sometimes forget that where we are is what we can handle right now. And sometimes it comes at a slow pace.

As a part of our interview series with the rising stars in pop culture, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kellie Loder.

There is something truly extraordinary about Juno Award nominee, Kellie Loder. It can be found in their poignant and timely lyrics set against magical melodies. It can also be found in the singer/songwriter’s electrifying live shows, inspiring profound emotion in listeners.

Loder was awarded first runner-up on the 2022 season of Canada’s Got Talent. Included in their long list of accolades are recent 2022 ECMA nominations for Songwriter of the Year as well as Fan’s Choice Entertainer of the Year. They were named the 2021 Ron Hynes Songwriter of the Year at the Music NL Awards this past December and received a 2021 ECMA win for their groundbreaking music video and song “Molded Like A Monster”.

Their 2019 single “Fearless”, received high praise and was chosen as the soundtrack behind CBC’s 2021 Tokyo Olympics coverage as well as the soundtrack behind an IMAX Trailer for Superpower Dogs, narrated by Chris Evans (Captain America/Avengers). Their continued accomplishments and hard work have placed them on the same performance stages as Melissa Etheridge, Steven Page, Paul Brady, Joel Plaskett, Alan Doyle, and more.

Anyone who has heard Loder or watched them perform knows one thing is certain: they’re a towering talent about to explode on the world stage.

The very busy Loder spoke to me before travelling to Ottawa to perform at the Canada Day CBC broadcast and planning their fall tour which starts in St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I learned how to play music in church. I knew I was gifted from a young age with rhythm. At ten, I started playing drums. And then guitar at 14. Piano after that. I had a natural knack for music. And then my cousin passed away in a car accident and my friend had written a poem about it and, I was learning the guitar and I put music to the words and I made up a song. From there, I was like, oh; I think I’m a songwriter. So I’ve been writing songs ever since. I was athletic. I grew up in a tiny town named Badger with just 1000 people in it and there were only like ten people in my grade, so we made our own fun in the town for sure. My parents used to manage a restaurant called Kellie’s Restaurant. I was the Kellie. It’s there on the highway.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

I feel like I chose everything else and then music chose me. After high school, I had a few friends, go to nursing school. So I was like, well maybe I’ll go to nursing school because I spent a lot of time in the hospital because my brother was in and out of there. I always used to watch the nurses and say I could do something like this. I cared about people. So I went to nursing school and did not finish. I used to look at myself in the mirror with the nursing uniform on and just know that wasn’t it for me. I left and put both feet into music. And ever since then, like, I’ve been working hard, and I feel like Canada’s Got Talent was the thing that put me on like the national platform. But It hasn’t happened overnight. That’s for sure.

What’s the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this career?

Oh my God, you really put me on the spot. I don’t know if I’ll be able to tell you the most interesting because I haven’t thought about it, but I can tell you an interesting story. I’m a huge fan of going after what you want, and asking for what you want and not waiting for it to come to you. I had this song called “Fearless” that’s been placed in a bunch of different stuff, like an IMAX trailer and a few other things. My friend Dan and I wrote it for the IMAX film, but every time I listened to it I would think of it as an athlete’s song. An anthem for something like for Team Canada. Maybe I was thinking big. And then I started thinking about how I would get the song to the Olympics, how I would pitch it. So I started reaching out everywhere, including the Olympics website and sent messages to anyone’s email I could find. And then I remembered years before that, I was staying in a B&B and one of the people that was there was Mark Connolly, who at one time did sports broadcasting. Mark and I had been in touch over the years, so I emailed him and wrote, do you think is there any way you can get this to someone at the Olympics? Then three days later, they responded they wanted to use the song in their broadcast. It just goes to show if you go after things, you can make them happen for yourself. You don’t have to wait for others to do it or reach out to you. Just go after it.

And then that whole B&B experience was something, probably the more interesting story, but it’s all tied in. I was there to record a music video the next day in Gros Morne. I think it was in Rocky Harbour. my friend Pam was there who was half managing me at the time. I was restringing my guitar in the room, and she went into the living room where the guests were and she said we have an artist here who’s going to play some songs and everybody was like, Oh. They didn’t really know what they’re going to get. And then I walked out and was I was like, Hey, I just put new strings on. Do you mind if I stretch them out and give you guys a little concert? Then I started, and they were like they were into it, and then I did another one. And they told me to keep going, keep going, keep going. I was in my pyjamas, playing this concert. I was on a stool and everybody was sitting down in the living room. And It was at one of my favourite concerts to date because it was just so natural. And people were chatting with me in between songs, and it was so cool. And that’s how I met Mark, who helped me get the Olympics placement.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The funniest mistake was at this past East Coast Music Awards. I’m sure every artist at some point has forgotten to charge the battery in their guitar. Instead of me being able to play my guitar because we’re in such a time crunch, they miked my guitar. And I just sort of played along with it. I made jokes. I said I might need to go to the chiropractor after this because of the way I have to hold my guitar. And, all the export buyers said to me, we loved the way you handled that situation. It’s almost like it was meant to be like, we’re happy that your guitar wasn’t working, so we could see you under pressure. And so the next time I played a show, I had an operating guitar, and I said, you know, it’s too bad It’s not broken again [laughs]. Because you guys were impressed last time with how I handled it. So, yeah. I don’t know if it’s that funny.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

Right now I’m just focusing on how I’m going to make a new album. That’s really the only focus I have right now. I continue to song write and I write for other artists. I have what they call synchronizations like placements for my songs. Another CBC thing happening. I’m actually going to be performing at CBC Canada Day this year In Ottawa, and I’m sharing the stage with some pretty big names there. Chantal Kreviazuk is going to be there. I’m actually opening for her in August. So yeah, there are a few things that are happening.

We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?

Well, three reasons, one reason is that’s the real world. If you have a festival and everybody on the stage looks the same and talks the same and represents the same race or gender or sexuality, it’s not very representative of the world so I think that’s important.

It just makes for a more loving and accepting world when people have access to different people, and there’s less divide. You always have people saying if you diversify too much on purpose, you’re enforcing the divide between others. I think it’s quite the opposite. And the more we normalize diversity than it’s less of a thought in the long run.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

1. Don’t mimic anybody else that you admire. Be yourself. For the longest time, I would see these artists coming up and I would take notes on how their website looked, and how they behaved on stage, and I would learn from them and sometimes I found myself trying to be them and their brand. When I had a pretty awesome brand going myself. You lean into who you are and then you’re not trying to be somebody else.

2. Trust your gut for sure. I’ve been bullied in the industry. And I’ve been too green to recognize it. So in the beginning, I guess I would say, you know, beware of the bully.

3. One other thing is small changes turn into big results. I’m reading this book right now called Atomic Habits, and it says if you can make small changes in little areas of your life in the end, in a year’s time, you’ll see massive results. If the nose of a plane turns just a little, in a few hours, it’ll end up miles apart from where it was supposed to land.

4. Don’t forget to change your battery and your guitar [laughs].

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Be grateful for where you are when you’re there. Because we can get so caught up in where other people are, and where we want to be. And forget that we have so much to be grateful for just where we are, and we sometimes forget that where we are is what we can handle right now. And sometimes it comes at a slow pace. And I feel like that’s the way it’s supposed to be. These overnight successes, these explosions, sometimes can be really harmful because people don’t know how to handle it when they’re in it.

When I was nominated for a Juno in 2012, I was in my early 20s. And I didn’t know anything about the industry. Nothing. I just put out a record and somebody said, this is really good, you should put it in for a Juno. So I did, and I was nominated. And then the world was looking at me for a minute. And the iron was hot, and I didn’t know how to strike. I didn’t know anything. I felt really stupid, except I wasn’t stupid. It’s just that’s where I was in my career. And I was learning, and I was growing. We all know that natural blueberries are better than forced-grown blueberries. So it just takes time. I would say to people, give yourself a break, don’t be too hard on yourself to put your best foot forward and the rest will happen as it happens.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

You think I’m going to say something prophetic right now, you know, but here’s my biggest pet peeve; It happens in small-town Newfoundland a lot, where at big family gatherings, I guess it would be somewhere along the lines of the gender movement, the women’s rights movement. Every time I go home, there’s just one thing that drives me mad. It’s that when I arrive, and the meal is being cooked, all the women are in the kitchen working so hard at this meal and all the men are in the living room waiting for the meal. And then when it’s ready, all the men come out and sit at the table and the women serve it to them. And then after it’s done, the women clean up and the men just get up and go back into the living room. Probably drink a coffee in there while they watch something on TV together. And it’s just hilarious to me. Like, because you have an extra piece of equipment between your legs, this is what you get to do. How dumb is that? [laughs]. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Where do you get the right to not help? You know, I’m cleaning up after you right now. Does that mean you’re going to come wash my sheets later? Are we going to scratch each other’s back here? Anyway, I could go on forever with that. But if I was going to start a movement, I would call it the ‘women cook, men clean’ movement [laughs].

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There’s been multiple mentors and guides that have come into my life. My parents have always been supporters of everything I tried to do. And those will be the people that they’ve been around forever. They’ve been there. But with music, in particular, there is this one person named Bonnie Fedrau. She used to be an A&R executive at EMI, but she came here and she took the MusicNL director position. And I feel like that was one of the first people that believed I could be bigger than what I was. She used to call me a smash songwriter. She would call me a star and I sort of believed it about myself, but not until she started saying it to me.

Recently I met somebody, three more months ago, and I feel like this is the real turnaround for me. I had never met anyone who believed in me so much and her name is Teresa Butler. I was going through some things and this person just walked into my life and gave me life again. She made me believe again and showed me what being on the right path looks like to believe in myself. And showed me what positive thinking and meditation can do, showed me what taking care of myself could do and how it all sort of plays into the bigger picture of what reaching my potential is. She was probably the biggest person in that regard.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

A long time ago, someone, a friend of mine, her favourite quote was, and I attached it to this one too. I think it was Henry Ford. It’s “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.” Because there have been so many times where I know that like, the belief in myself and the belief that I could do something made it happen because I put the work in. But if I was putting in the work and thinking, this will not happen, it usually doesn’t. I have to be the most positive person in those moments.

And then there’s another one that I just read “flowers don’t open and close according to who walks by” and I think about all the times where I’m like, what if I just need this person to see me, what if this person could discover me yadda, yadda, yadda. I think if you’re going to be true to yourself, you just need to be you all the time and then whoever sees you they will see the real you because you’re you. You don’t have to put anything extra on for someone. You just be that beautiful flower all the time and they’ll see it whenever they walk by.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

I would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with Matthew Perry of Friends because growing up I felt alone often. I felt a lot of emotions being a closeted kid, being different. Even throughout high school and university, I would just watch him and he would just make me laugh so much. And I’d just like to thank him for how much he made me laugh and how much medicine he gave me during tough times. And it didn’t matter how many times I saw the episode, I’d just laugh every time. Chandler’s the best!

How can people follow you?

I’m all over the place, Instagram is @kellieloder, I’m on Facebook as kellielodermusic, I’m on Twitter as @kellieloder, Spotify is Kellie Loder, Apple Music, all of that. My official website which lists my tour dates is https://kellieloder.com

This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!