About Leah Martel
Having spent her formative years hard at work training to be a prolific writer, musician, performer, actor, dancer, activist and cycling through various superpowers via extensive maladaptive daydreaming, Leah Martel has nothing much to say for herself on paper. Against the better judgement of both family and friends she decided to go to school for music, not as a young, impressive prodigy but, as a mature (debatable) student. It was during these years of overwhelming insecurity and deepening poverty that Leah decided she would take the music she had created to be the soundtrack to this experience and release it.
Let’s all welcome Leah Martel to existence.
ABOUT THE SONG: “Not Cool” – released on August 8th, 2024
“After surviving elementary and high school, working in customer service and an office job, going to college and university I realized I still have not overcome social anxiety. So, while enduring lockdown back in my childhood bedroom and living with the absurdity of still caring what people think even when no one else is around, I wrote this song about it so I could finally try to stop caring so much.
I was listening to a lot of synth/pop and pop/rock music that had these nice gritty sounds and were more riff based and had always wanted to write more upbeat songs with funs sounds and riffs but never really knew how and so I had this idea for the riff you hear at the beginning but it was so hard to write a verse melody with it and somehow plunk out chords on guitar that weren’t really a riff at all and the whole thing felt very janky for a while. I eventually settled in on the groove but I was still pretty nervous about how it would come together since it was rehearsed and recorded more as a rock song with no synth parts or background harmonies at the time so recorded around 20 different background vocals at home and spent a wonderful evening with very skilled and very dear friend Ian Aisling just playing with synth sounds trying to create more of a world for this song to live in. I’m so happy with how it turned out and I couldn’t have done it without him.”
– Leah Martel
Credits:
Leah Martel – Writer, vocals, snaps, videography, graphic design
Jesse Martel – Electric Guitar
Jesse Jodouin – Electric Guitar
Ian Aisling – synth, mixing engineer
Cole Jodouin – Bass
Brandon Pellatt- Drums, tambourine, shaker
Matthew Manifould – Recording Engineer
Rheuben Ghose – Mastering Engineer
Recorded at Gordon Wragg Recording Studios
All magazine cut outs from Leah’s vintage 90s/00s magazine collection.
All photos of childhood Leah courtesy of her mom’s huge collection of family photos without which this video would not have been possible.
For any more information on the artist, email pr@fromthestrait.com
