Laura Mardon

“It all started with a YouTube video and finding a confidence within myself I wouldn’t have normally found to share a song of disconnect with someone I admired but had never met. In short, my One Week experience was incredible. There are many similes or metaphors skipping through my mind that I could liken my One Week too, but I’ll keep the ‘word acrobatics’ to a minimum and try and tell it as honest as possible..

One week, a single week to record and mix ten songs. I can barely function as a human being and make the bed or fold one load of laundry in a week and here I am agreeing to this great act of organization and hard work. But I wouldn’t and couldn’t turn this opportunity down. Everything that led me to this moment has been beyond comprehension and until I reached Joey’s place I honestly couldn’t believe it was happening. I’m forever thinking how did this happen?! It’s just regular ol’me and my songs, nothing special. However, here I am half way around the world from home in an unfamiliar city, an unfamiliar kitchen drinking coffee with Joey Cape. But it didn’t feel strange, just easy. I find it so easy to talk and share ideas with Joey.

All these things, moments, actions are all so beyond my comfort zone, but they never left me feeling uncomfortable or awkward. In fact, I felt more at peace with myself than ever before. It’s been a steep learning curve, opening my eyes to new possibilities of learning how to write, create and record song. Joey is a marvelous mind. Its like he see’s possibilities of a half finished song before you even get through the first few lines or the opening chords. Thankfully, he is patient too and worked through and taught me to look for ways to make an internal feeling or thought, line or lyric more accessible to people who have never met me, who would be listening to me for the first time. Now I find myself in pursuit of placing my sadness into a pop sensibility and creating tangible, relatable songs that will be heard and understood beyond my bedroom walls. I think Lobby Floor is a great example of this. It was an ‘okay’ song, it was near finished, but it needed more thought. We sat down with a guitar each and worked through it together. I remember listening to the unmixed track for the first time, looking at Joey and I was speechless, for the first time I heard a complete song. It’s a great song that I am proud to call my own..”