Jam Space Confidential with Flower Face
Inside the Montreal-based songwriter's creative space where fashion and music collide - with our friends at Brixton.
by Stephan Boissonneault
Photos by Elizabeth Couture
- Published on
A musician’s jam space is more than just a room; it’s a sanctuary where creativity flows freely, ideas are born, and musical instincts are sharpened. It’s a place for connection with something greater than notes and chords. For Ruby McKinnon, better known in the music world as the moody indie artist Flower Face, her jam space is this and more. It’s a haven and (quite literally) her humble abode. Within half of the double room in her quaint Montreal mid-century apartment—long hallways, high ceilings, squeaky floors—she keeps her jam space tidy and low-lit with a warm hue, sometimes hopping between her light, baby blue Telecaster, Nord keyboard, or the microphone attached to her desk.
Surrounded by incense, a few flowers neatly bunched into a vase, and the art of her favourite musicians, like the portrait of Perfume Genius or a signed copy of Aldous Harding’s Warm Chris, it was here that McKinnon wrote nearly all of her new album, Girl Prometheus—a cinematic offering about overcoming heartbreak and being reborn. She has fond memories of the process, including one about writing the demo of the last track, “If I Beg You.”
“I was supposed to hang out with my friends and I told them, ‘I’m on my way,’ but I was working on the acoustic picking part and I was like three hours late,” McKinnon laughs. “But it was all worth it because I love that song.”
McKinnon also loves to be able to create whenever inspiration strikes, so having her jam space a few steps from her bedroom is perfect. “I love waking up and immediately working on a part that wasn’t quite clicking the night before or deciding what to do with a song I just wrote. There’s no feeling like it,” she says. “It’s also inspiring to be just in my space. I have all my favourite art,” she says, gesturing to prints of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.
McKinnon has been a bedroom artist since she first started writing music at the age of 13. Her father worked in radio, meaning she was able to listen to radio singles from bands like The National or Bright Eyes early. One day, she used some of her dad’s radio equipment to record her own demos. “I got very used to recording everything myself and my most comfortable form of creating is in my home,” McKinnon, now 26, says.
As she says this, she quickly wipes a microscopic piece of dust off her desk, almost absent-mindedly. “I need things to be cleaned and organized here,” McKinnon says. “If things are disorganized, I get distracted, which is maybe an anti-artist thing because artists are known to be crazy and disorganized.” One distraction she absolutely adores, however, is her rambunctious one-year-old Bichon Frisé, Ducky, who barrels into the room and begins ripping apart his croissant-shaped chew toy under McKinnon’s feet. “If I ever need a distraction or need to turn off my songwriter’s brain, this little guy always needs attention.”
Flower Face is outfitted by our friends at Brixton.
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