We were lucky to catch up with Stefanie Joyce recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Stefanie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents did so much right! But they definitely fostered my interest in the arts from a young age. My parents- and my grandparents- are all avid readers, and I grew up surrounded by stacks and stacks of books, and constant discussion about them. There was always music playing; my dad is a jazz player and my mom plays piano. So even though neither of my parents pursued art professionally, they planted deep seeds of artistic inspiration. They also really nurtured our intellectual ability; my brother and I were always encouraged to have our own perspectives, opinions, and questions. And my extended family is really creative as well; my grandmother and aunt are talented visual artists and my grandfather made beautiful carvings. One of my uncles studied jazz at Berkeley. My mom’s brother, who I’m really close with, was an amazing gardener and farmer, which is an art form in itself, and he turned me onto a lot of the folk music I draw inspiration from. Because of the place and time they grew up in, I think it was harder for the generation before me to pursue the arts as a career; my brother is a musician as well, and I like to think of our careers as a continuation of my family’s legacy.

Stefanie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and has loved storytelling for as long as she can remember. As a teenager, I told those stories through dance, training with Canada’s prestigious Alberta Ballet. As a young adult, I told those stories through film and literature, earning a degree in Film Production & Creative Writing at The University of British Columbia. I also spent an undergraduate semester cutting my teeth on short stories at the Iowa Writers Workshop. It wasn’t until I finished college that my love of southern literature led me to Tennessee and to write songs.

After four years of penning songs for other artists (such as Mary-Heather Hickman’s viral, billboard-charting hit “Baptist Parking Lot”), I recorded my own artist project, a rootsy, edgy collection of songs inspired by my love of classic country storytelling. “Marlboro Reds & Motel Rooms” tells five stories of sin, redemption, and everything in between. Laced with pedal steel, fiddle, and a healthy dose of country twang, it was produced by Kyle Manner at Station West in Nashville, TN.
The lead single, “Idle Hands” has already amassed over a half-million views on TikTok.

I count red dirt music and bluegrass as major influences, and my years spent penning songs for other artists on Music Row give a distinctly Nashvillian clarity to my writing. But it’s not a folksy take on feel-good radio music; The subject matter is dark; the characters in her songs are fallen, desperate, consumed with vice. Some find elusive moments of redemption, most do not.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

The minute I started to view social media as a useful tool, I started having success with it. It can be draining to keep up with content, but TikTok has opened so many doors for me. My advice would be to limit your social media usage outside of content creation, and have really clear expectations of yourself every time you create content. I usually have one filming session a week and one big editing session, and don’t use social media much outside of that except to post. That way, it feels more like a defined job and less like a constant overwhelming presence.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Something I personally struggle with- and I struggle to explain to people who do not “consume” art/ music/ literature as part of their daily lives- is how to put a dollar value on art.

At the end of the day, Art is inherently at odd with capitalism. It does not offer tangible, practical value, in the way engineering or medicine or even entertainment does.

On one hand, it is a privilege to be able to support art; many people in this country struggle to feed their families, let alone buy an original painting. On the other hand, look at how much money sports franchises make.

Entertainment fits into our capitalistic notions of value; you can charge $100 for a seat at a Garth Brooks concert for the same reason you can charge $100 for a seat at an NFL game; the market demand is there.

But it’s not as easy to put a price tag on what I will call, for lack of a better term, art-that-is-not-entertainment. Whether it be academic jazz composition, experimental fine art, literary fiction, or small, independent folk singers and songwriters, certain types of art are never going to resonate with large audiences the way a Marvel Film or a Pop Star will, because their goal is not to entertain. Their goal is to question and observe the human condition, to emote, to, in the words of Townes Van Zandt “elevate the state of grace of anyone who listens.” In my opinion, these things are deeply important to a healthy society; but they rarely have high market value.

I don’t know what the solution is. I come from Canada where art is heavily funded and subsidized through government grants and I think that is equally problematic; it results in reductionism that caters to the current political climate. But neither is the answer unfettered capitalism, which only fosters art for entertainment’s sake. All I know is that I’m not trying to get rich doing this. I’m just trying to make enough money to pay my bills and fund the next project.

Contact Info:

• Website: stefaniejoycemusic.com
• Instagram: @stefaniejoycemusic
• Youtube: Stefanie Joyce
• Other: @stefaniejoycemusic on TikTok

Image Credits
Matt Bacons @classic77