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By: Adam Grant Click to Listen to:
For some musicians, timing is certainly everything – just ask Jade McNelis. After being born in Taiwan, she was soon adopted by an American couple who would help get their new young daughter behind a piano by the age of 5, thus starting her off on a path that would eventually lead the singer/songwriter to a chance encounter that would change her life forever. Initially residing in Tallahassee, Florida, McNelis admits that “it’s not too hard to get gigs,” out there, considering the lack of bands that roam around in that area. So when the Montreal based rock group Stars made their way into her town for a headlining show while on an off day from the Death Cab for Cutie tour, and needed an opening act, McNelis was called up and hired for that evening. 
During this event, McNelis would make one really important fan – Stars frontman Torq Campbell. He was so impressed by what he heard, that he got behind McNelis and helped her get to Montreal and into a community where she would truly be able to find inspiration, and subsequently evolve artistically. “Everyone’s beautiful up there – there are musicians and artists and fresh foods and no strip malls – I was completely enamored with the city,” says McNelis when describing her first impressions of Montreal. “I think a lot of the art that comes out of Montreal is greatly due to the fact that pretty much everyone that I know there has a lot of free time to write music without having to work some part-time, shitty job to pay rent – because it’s so cheap. “It’s the most relaxed, chilled out city that I’ve ever been to,” she continues. “So I think that with people having enough time to spend on making their art, and not really wanting to go out in -33 weather contributes to the quality of the art that’s coming out.” 
What would come from this trip is a number of great opportunities for McNelis. Not only was she given a whole new culture to experience, but she was also able to make her debut 6 song EP, All the Fables through Good Fences Records. With her mesmerizing voice featured prominently, ATF, is made up of solid piano based tracks, that have a sneaking rough, rock n’ roll edge to them. This wasn’t just the first time that McNelis was able to perform in a professional setting, but in a lot ways, who she was performing on album with was also new to her. Up until the album making process, she hadn’t met many of the performers and had to quickly adjust to that situation. However, what made up for this though, was McNelis’ ability to once again find herself in the right places at the right times, as this notion would lead her towards landing Murray Lightburn (The Dears) and Gregory Paquet (ex-The Stills) as All the Fables participants.  “You see them hanging out at a bar and you ask if they want to come down and record a track, and they’re like, ‘sure, do you have any beer?’” mentions McNelis about her artist tracking methods. “And they show up and throw down a track or sometimes we would just sit there, work on ideas together for as long as it took, go through a couple bottles of Jameson, and lay something down. Basically, it was a collection of moments of hanging out that were recorded. So it wasn’t approached in the most serious manner. “Seeing how (these musicians) handle things and their views on music and creating is something to be aware of and learn from as well – just being exposed to them and their world was obviously a great learning experience.” For more information on Jade McNelis, please visit www.myspace.com/jademcnelis
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