"I overbook, procrastinate, stay up too late and watch too much tv". Writing with Joey LangLois.

I was fortunate to have Joey Langlois call me up one day in 2019.

Joey, singer, songwriter, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist producer, arranger, director, videographer, from Montreal, was in Toronto for Canadian Music Week and some writing dates. He introduced himself by sharing that he had run into numerous people at the conference who had suggested he should reach out to me to do some cowriting - that it would likely be a good fit. 

Our first co-write was at my Toronto east end studio. And while Joey is committed to and has a great relationship with his band “What If Elephants”, our writing mandate was to create material for Joey’s possible upcoming solo project. And so we jumped into a conversation about his life, in particular the unending support he found in his wife Alanna. This led us into the heartfelt honest territory of his relationship with her.

Joey has an energy that it is easily felt. It didn’t surprise me to learn that he feels like he is constantly running many different directions simultaneously and that he has a hard time keeping his brain focused on the tasks at hand. And, that Alanna is the conduit to his calm. The song was so pointedly Joey, that quite honestly, it was no challenge to follow the visual path to the story and the underlining emotion of that. And so “Focus” was brought to life. Produced, played, and performed by Joey, he has shared on his social media that  “we mined the depths of my soul to unveil this song about how Alanna has been a constant in my life - when everything else was a variable or a doubt, including who and what I was to myself. It is a highly personal song - and is pretty much me on a page”. 

“Focus” was built on the notion of visualizing Joey as a blur of vibrating energy and the corresponding calm of Alannah literally pulling him together and into focus whenever she appeared.

Joey’s writing style is quick to start - while intentional and methodical. He is definitely a thinker and ponderer. Ditto that. The song was written and finished in a few sessions. One writing session in Toronto, followed by a session and a cup of tea at Joey’s in Montreal, and another few sessions online to finesse the details to appease the overthinking / need for full resolve songwriter in us both.

In the end, Joey shared “Focus” with his band who perfectly adopted and brought their collaborative energy to it. As for the video, Joey is also credited with conceptualizing and directing it. And while Joey will claim that he often times lacks the focus he’d like to have to follow through more effectively on, everything - there is little doubt that Joey has an incredible talent and work ethic, and that he fully dives in and commits with an impressive level of attention to whatever he decides to take on. 

“Focus” is currently sitting at 78,000+ Spotify streams after only 8 weeks and has much more steam in it still. 

Writing with Joey has been a great experience. An experience that has since fuelled more tunes, including another collaboration from What If Elephants latest album (writers Joey, myself, Maya Malkin) that will soon be released. As well, Joey and I have teamed up and worked remotely with a number of other artists / songwriters. I’m grateful for Joey’s initial outreach and for the opportunity to work with him. I look forward to future and to where it takes us, excited for the world to resume so we can get back to the energy of creating in a real room again. 

Joey Langlois | What If Elephants | “FOCUS”