If you knew there was a quiet place of the soul where you could retreat whenever chaos was banging on your door, would you drop everything and go there?
Such a place exists: It’s the space age folk pop of Canadian artist Maddison Krebs.
“Maddison Krebs has one of those voices you listen to and instantly feel like you've known her your whole life.” - PopDust
“Like everyone else, I experience the ebb and flow of being human,” Krebs says. “It can be crazy sometimes. But music has always been my safe harbor. Writing songs is what helps me navigate the storms of life.”
Maddison Krebs began pursuing her singular musical vision, playing and writing music, at the tender age of six. “Before I even realized it was a potential career, I gravitated to music because it felt right,” she recalls. “My parents were on my side right from Day One. On one hand, they encouraged me to be a dreamer. But on the other hand, they instilled in me the work ethic I’d need to make those dreams become reality. Krebs released her first EP when she was 15 years old and has been pursuing that dream ever since.
After winning the prestigious “On the Spot” Contest at the Canadian Country Music Awards, Maddison inked her first publishing & record deal in 2016 at the Music City offices of Canadian publishing company, ole. After a period of woodshedding, building her own community of musical comrades, growing her catalog, and honing her songs, sound and performing skills, Krebs teamed up with Jeff Trott (Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow) and emerged from the studio with a beautiful collection of songs–the seven-song ole release Maddison Krebs–that showed where she was headed musically and personally. “That was an important time for me,” Maddison says. “Working with Jeff was an absolutely pivotal moment in my early career.”
When the pandemic struck, Krebs retreated to Calgary, AB, and regrouped. “Like most of us, I went into a cocoon. But it also gave me the opportunity to get into a space where I could really think about what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.” Further, the lockdown brought gifts that would change Maddison forever. She fell in love, wrote the most stirring songs she’d ever written, and continues to walk her own path.
Slated for release in March 2024, Maddison’s new EP My Heart started out as a stripped-down acoustic project with producer Andrew Petroff, “Andrew has a kind of youthful, calm spirit, like I do, and we’ve always had a great friendship. For most of the recording, we’d be just hanging out and chatting and then, all of a sudden, someone would say ‘Hey, let’s make this record!’ Nothing was forced.” The new music pulls off something of a sonic card trick: it’s sparse yet decorated with sound textures that give the music a dramatic storyline.
Maddison’s superpower is her strength as an observer and an empath. As a result, even her most personal lyrics have a universal quality. Whether she’s coming at the lyric head on or in a zig-zag pattern, the overall effect is always uplifting and often transcendent. “We all go through fears and doubts,” she says. “I just try to sort them all out to a melody.”
Before going onstage, Krebs has a ritual: she says a little prayer, breathes in and out, and centers herself. “I try to cleanse my energy so I can radiate peace of mind. I’ve really worked on myself to be able to get into the flow state.”
Now living just west of Kamloops, BC, in a semi-arid valley of sagebrush and jumping prickly pear cactus, Maddison is making headway on the projects that will take her deeper into the 2020s. “Strangely, the desert is an ecosystem that makes me feel very calm and creatively inspired.”
“My creative process changes like the seasons,” Krebs adds, thoughtfully. “My intention is, no matter what, to keep on creating no matter where I am and how I feel. What I do just keeps evolving all the time. My Heart is a reflection of where I am right now.”
