When we catch up to Madeleine Roger, she’s just barely off the plane. On Canada’s west coast for a few weeks, she played shows and recorded an album with indie-pop string quartet The Fretless.
She also guest-lectured at the University of British Columbia, played some house concerts, and taught a harmony lesson to a group of aspiring singers.
“It was pretty action-packed,” she says cheerfully.
The same could be said for her life in general. “It’s been amazing. It’s been such a ride,” she says, of her musical career.
It’s already gone beyond what she’d ever imagined. “Ten years ago, 22-year-old me was so enamoured with the idea of songwriting and music. But I didn’t think it was possible; I felt at that time I had started too late to do music.”
If 22-year-old Roger had seen what the future held for her, “I would have thought that the universe must have split off and I somehow ended up in some total alternate reality,” she laughs.
She now tours on her own as well as with The Fretless, with whom she’s been performing and recording for almost two years. She also does audio engineering and production work.
“I really grew up in a recording studio and spent a lot of time in the control room, lurking as a curious child,” she says, of life as the daughter of well-known Winnipeg music producer Lloyd Peterson. “I would just sit there silently and watch these albums coming together.”
The more time she spent in studios, the more she realized how male-dominated the recording industry is, she says.
“It made me extra curious about how I could be more knowledgeable. So that whenever I found myself in studios I could feel I was part of it and not walking into some mysterious spaceship,” she says. “Studios can feel that way. There’s so much gear and equipment.”
It led to her asking questions, taking courses and ultimately doing audio engineering and mixing work on other people’s projects as well as her own.
Now she’s an advocate for getting more women into the music production field. Her last album, Cottonwood, was “proudly made with gender parity.” Not to mention co-engineered and co-produced by Roger herself.
Now she has a new album coming out in August, Nerve.
“I haven’t released an album since 2018. I can’t believe it took that long,” she says. “I waited until I was good and ready and now I’m real good and ready,” she laughs.
She and The Fretless are also releasing a new album together in the fall. “It’s going to be a torrential downpour of new releases and lots of touring,” she says.
Roger will be joining The Fretless on stages around Alberta soon! They are in Red Deer on April 4, St. Albert on April 5, Calgary on April 6 and Canmore on April 7.
