It was the day before Colleen Brown’s band, Major Love, was scheduled to film a music video for their single “Making the Most of It (When I Feel Like It).”
A massive storm had stranded the entire band in Ontario. Well, the entire band except for Colleen. She was safely home in Edmonton. What to do? Simple! Colleen played not only herself in the video, but all three of her bandmates as well.
“It was quite hilarious,” she says. “It was basically my total nightmare being enacted onstage, where I show up at the venue and my band isn’t there, and I have to play all the instruments and I don’t know the song and everything goes wrong.”
It’s just one story from a summer full of music and creativity.
Major Love is hoping to release their next album, Live, Laugh, Major Love, in the spring. They received grant funding for it, including for music videos, so they’ve been busily filming for all 10 songs.
“We’re making a million music videos,” Colleen laughs. “That’s all this summer and the fall, every spare bit of time we’re getting together and shooting videos.”
Right now Colleen’s in the midst of an Ontario tour with her former roommate, singer-songwriter Sarah Hiltz. The two spent a year and a half in COVID lockdown together, in a small, technically one-bedroom apartment in Toronto.
“She was my bubble,” Colleen says. “We did some livestreams together during that time and she had a rehearsal space in a little church a couple of blocks away. I really think that’s how we didn’t go insane.”
Colleen had COVID in 2021. “It was pretty intense,” she says. “It took a long time to recover my voice after that. There was a time when I thought, ‘I don’t know if it will come back, I don’t know if I’ll be able to perform.'”
“I was watching all the venues close and feeling pretty sad and pretty defeated. A lot of people in the music industry shifted to other jobs.” Colleen herself took on a marketing role for a music tech company.
In September she embarks on a seven-week tour of Canada and the US with Great Lake Swimmers. It marks her first foray back into full-time music.
“I’m really excited about it,” she says. “There’s nothing that makes me feel alive like playing music … and recording and writing and touring.”
Major Love is playing the Strathearn Art Walk in Edmonton, September 10 at 5:30pm.
Check out colleenbrownmusic.com to see where Colleen plays next.
In case you missed it, check out Kate Stevens‘ recent interview with Colleen Brown at Calgary Folk Music Festival on Instagram.
