Gone are the days of depressing country music that drives listeners crazy.
Freddie Mojallal from the West Coast, known as The Autumn Portrait is making waves on the radio. He and his heartfelt and well-crafted lyrics are capturing the ears of listeners throughout Toronto, and around Canada. He and his three piece band has travelled the country and performed at NxNE, one of Toronto’s largest musical festivals.
Mojallal grew up in Vancouver; since he was a teenager he has always been involved in music.
“I’ve been playing guitar since I was in high school. I’m self-taught, and I just started playing with my friends that I’d always be the guy whipping out the guitar and writing songs; we’d write silly songs together on weekends when everyone else is going out.”
After travelling throughout Canada many times, Mojallal felt that living in Toronto was an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up. Especially considering that he is a musician.
“I just thought there was more of a hub in Toronto and more going on, more opportunities and, in every aspect – the music. Now everything I do is related to music here whereas in when I was in Vancouver, music was kinda half of what I was doing – to kinda do the regular job stuff – as well. I still do that here but it’s all related to music – music venues or recording artists and stuff like that.”
Despite his love for Vancouver’s scenery, the every-day life as a musician and the music community is why Mojallal stays in Toronto.
“Vancouver’s really pretty – a beautiful place but, Toronto’s just so vibrant and everyone’s so awesome. I think it’s kinda cool just to walk down the street and see well known artists, doing their thing, living their day-to-day lives. You don’t see that as much in Vancouver.”
Mojallal explains the meaning behind The Autumn Portrait.
“I was born in autumn, I was born in September and all the songs that I write are a portrait of my experiences, especially my current album, Tired Love. The whole thing’s kinda based on my personal experiences and I had moved cities for someone, and it’s based off of a relationship that didn’t work out, and hence I came to Toronto. And I think it has a good ring to it.” Mojallal says, “kinda like a City and Colour thing,” referring to the recording alias used by Dallas Green.
Mojallal describes his music as “heartfelt folk music.
“I just put everything out there; all my lyrics are kind of open and raw and heartfelt. It’s just honest and sincere, and I know there’s a lot of people doing that, and I think that’s great. I think that’s what music should be about; it should be about sincerity and opening up because there really shouldn’t be any kinda barrier between the artist and the listener.”
Mojallal prefers to be “open and honest” with his lyrics rather than writing something he doesn’t believe in.
“I’ve written songs like that and it just didn’t come across as sincere, so I’m sure there are lots of artists that are kinda being open and honest with their songwriting and I think that’s great. So, there should be more of that – that’s the stuff I love listening to.”
Mojallal’s influences stem from The Lumineers and Glen Hansard. He also likes famous artists from the past including Leonard Cohen and The Beatles. His musical tastes also ranges to today’s hits. “I have a weakness for pop so I love anything with a good hook essentially, so I don’t listen to a lot of radio besides CBC but, if I catch something you know, Top 40 – that’s good too. I’m open to it, a good song is a good song, doesn’t really matter.”
The Autumn Portrait’s latest album is about heart break and a lost love. Mojallal says that he “basically wrote it about one person.” The album was written, mixed and produced by Mojallal in his own home. ”I just started everything on the guitar and my voice, and built on top of that. And I just put lyrics first this time, says Mojallal. “Tired Love in particular is it’s just kind of a break up album for lack of better terms.”
Help Me See the Light which is accompanied by a music video is the only “happy song” on the record says Mojallal. “That song’s just about kind of finding that companionship within a relationship, and having someone there for you that you can kinda count on, kinda your better half.”
The video, directed by Ryan Nolan features Philip Tetro from MTV’s hit show 1 Girl 5 Gays. Mojallal reached out to his friends in the Toronto music community and he was able to recruit “twenty or so people” to take part. It was a “fun concept” says Mojallal.
“I always wanted to have kind of a fan video or fan/friend video where everyone kinda sings a line in it. And so it’s more focused on them and not me so much. I think Ryan came up with the idea of, ‘Let’s add to that and throw some paint in there.’ So yeah, we got a bunch of house paint and a bunch of canvases; each person in the video painted their own canvas. And that canvas became their own backdrop. So whenever you see a scene with someone singing, that’s their own painting in the background. So it’s something that they can be proud of and share with their friends.”
One of Mojallal’s most memorable experiences was when he booked a tour to go from “Vancouver to Halifax and back.” He performed in a whopping forty shows during a span of six weeks. “I booked it all myself, I was really proud of doing that.”
While touring through Canada a second time, The Autumn Portrait who were coming from Calgary, made a stop in Thunder Bay only to find out that a show they were to perform had been cancelled.
”We showed up to the venue and the venue had no idea about the show, which tends to happen. Shit happens sometimes. So I just made the best of that and turn that bad circumstance in to an opportunity, and The Trews were in town the next day and then, with some perseverance – ended up opening for The Trews the following night. And this was in Thunder Bay. So they’re a bunch of great guys and their whole team is amazing. So having no show – to opening for The Trews turned out to be a career highlight for sure.”
Unfortunately, The Autumn Portrait was unable to hangout much after the show due to having to drive eighteen hours overnight to Peterborough.
Despite a cancelled show and having to rush to the next city, Mojallal had nothing but good things to say about the experience in Thunder Bay. The Trews were “really humble and a good bunch of guys” says Mojallal.
“I guess their song Hope and Ruin became like a theme for that whole tour. I’m a big fan of those guys anyways so that was just a privilege and honour to play. When you get to play – not just only with talented people, but when they’re down to earth and really nice it just makes a huge, huge difference too.”
The Autumn Portrait is currently in the process of writing the next album. Mojallal still has yet to decide whether to record it himself or in a studio. ”If I can find a happy medium, that would be good. I like the idea of doing it live and doing it in a house, and instead of going in to a studio – spending a bunch of money and losing that feel, because I think the reason I like the current album is because it has so much feel – it’s not a compressed sound where you might get in a studio sometime and you lose that feeling.”
The Autumn Portrait also plans on making “lots of more videos.” Mojallal thinks it’s really important to “have a visual with your songs.”
The Autumn Portrait plans to tour Europe next summer.
”I was gonna do it this summer but it just didn’t work out this summer. So that’s what I’ll be working on and hopefully I don’t have to go through a big break up to write another album. It’s a lot easier to write a sad song than a happy song.”
The Autumn Portrait links:
http://www.theautumnportrait.com
https://www.facebook.com/theautumnportrait
https://twitter.com/AutumnPortrait
http://www.youtube.com/theautumnportrait
mattgreencc 