When Lindsay Schindler celebrated her birthday this past October, she wasn’t expecting that one of her gifts would be finding out the band she’s part of had been nominated for a Canadian Folk Music award.
The band, Maggie’s Wake, had just released their debut self-titled album Maggie’s Wake in March 2024. Their album takes inspiration from folk, country, Celtic, and reggae music — honouring tradition while forging a new sound.
By April, the band officially had a New Artist of the Year title under their belt.
“We immediately had to start planning our trip to Ottawa to celebrate and take in the event,” says Lindsay. “It was the best birthday gift ever.”
Now, Lindsay and band members Tara Dunphy, Andrew Kosty, Kenneth Palmer, and Myke Phillips are making their way to Ottawa’s own Red Bird for a celebratory performance on Aug. 10.
Apt613 sat down with Lindsay and Tara to talk about their debut album, award, and upcoming show.
Tara Dunphy (left) and Lindsay Schindler (right) of Maggie’s Wake. Photo provided.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Apt613: Congrats on the CFMA win! How did it feel to receive that recognition for your debut album?
Lindsay: It was a total shock. I think it was a shock, even just for the nomination, and then when they called our name, we were just completely blown away.
Tara: For the first time in my life, I was almost at a loss for words. It was really exciting just being there with all these artists that we admire so much. Like Lindsay said, getting the nomination was enough, but winning the award just put us over the moon.
What did the award mean to you as a band, especially as a relatively new group on the Canadian folk scene?
Tara: It seems to have worked already in our favour with getting our name out there. People are a little bit more aware of us.
It’s just one of those things where awards are strange in the music business, because, personally, I have a hard time competing with other musicians, because everybody is contributing something of great value, and everybody in our category was amazing. But what happens when you win is it validates the work that you’re doing, and some of the clubs that were maybe waiting to book us until we had a couple more albums under our belt, all of a sudden, they’re a little bit more open to it.
Lindsay: I think the funny thing about this award is that it is the emerging artist category, and we’ve been at this a really long time individually, but collectively, our band is new, so it was neat to be recognized in that category.
You guys have a pretty unique sound. What does your creative process look like?
Lindsay: I think it being our first album, it was a bit of a learning curve in the creative process and how we work collectively. But the album came to be during the end stages of our COVID lockdown, so a lot of the writing was really inspired by that isolation and need for a creative outlet. So I think that was a major point in where it was coming from.
Tara: Yeah, and our sound is just a combination of all of our influences. We absolutely have some influences from a Celtic standpoint, but we are also heavily influenced by Canadian music, Canadian fiddle songs. We have a really deep background in classic country music and in jazz. And with the guys in our band, they play all kinds of pop music, world music, and classical music. So we kind of take everything and we throw it together and we see what fits. I think that’s why we have this sound on this past album, and if anything, it’s going to be even a broader sound on the next one that we’re working on.
Maggie’s Wake. Photo provided.
Was that a challenging process to collaborate and blend genres with everyone, or was it kind of an organic kind of process for you guys?
Tara: It’s pretty natural. The guys are younger than us, but musically, it’s like family. As soon as we started playing together, it just absolutely clicked. And it’s been like that with all the tunes that we’ve been working on.
What can audiences expect at Red Bird on Aug. 10?
They’ll hear everything from our debut album, and probably a few sneak peeks at what’s coming up on the next one.
The show is really energetic. We always joke that when the show is over, we have sore cheeks because we’ve been smiling the whole time, even when we’re singing the saddest songs. We have fun, and we make sure that our audience has fun as well.
There’s something about this music that just makes people feel like the instrumentals have a way of hitting that a song with words can’t do — it just kind of reaches down into your heart and clutches it.
What’s the timeline looking like for the next album?
We’re in production now for it, so the goal is to have it out early next year, but we may have a little special something available around Christmas time as well.
Freebie: Are there any dream collaborations or festivals you’d love to play in the next couple of years?
Lindsay: All of them.We want to play everywhere.
Tara: We love what we’re doing, and we want to do it as much as possible. So we’re happy to play every festival that will have us. The person that I would love to work with, from a songwriting standpoint, is Nick Lowe. He’s my absolute favourite songwriter and performer, and he is so funny and smart with his lyrics and his albums always sound great.
Maggie’s Wake is performing at Red Bird Live on Aug. 10 starting at 8pm. Tickets can be purchased here for $33.
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