Toronto, ON-based indie-folk singer-songwriter, Taylor Simpson has teamed up with us at Canadian Beats to premiere his new single, “Drifting”. The single is from his upcoming full-length album, Learning to Live with Precious Time, which is set for release in January 2022.
“Drifting,” started out as a challenge for Taylor in his writing. Rather than write from a personal place, he wrote a fictional story and put himself in the shoes of someone else. It’s a song about two people in a strenuous relationship where one person is too much for the other. The love is there, but it’s hard to hold onto and want to keep.
Check out “Drifting” below, and find out more about Taylor via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Taylor Simpson and I am an independent folk/singer-songwriter from Toronto. I started playing guitar when I was 13 and never looked back. My songwriting is usually very personal, I tend to write about personal experiences I’ve been through or trials and tribulations I’ve faced in my life. I like to write with “my heart on my sleeves” kind of approach. My debut full-length album is coming out on January 28th and it’s titled ‘Learning to Live with Precious Time’.
Tell us a bit about your music and writing style.
I approach my lyrical content with a ‘heart on my sleeves’ approach. I’m not scared to write about hard things that I’ve dealt with in my life. If anything, it’s therapeutic in a way. I just hope that when people listen to my songs, they can relate in some way to what I was going through, and if I can help them even in the slightest get through something hard that they’re dealing with, then I’d be very happy and humbled. Musically I like to call it sad bops. It’s a more upbeat or uptempo feel musically, but with melancholic lyrics.
How have you been keeping creative during the Pandemic?
I actually finished my album during the Pandemic! So that kept me busy and creative for the most part. Other than that, I released quite a few singles with other artists and producers that I collaborated with. I also produced my friend’s debut EP that came out on October 30th, she goes by the alias, Proper Grim. That was a lot of fun and also kept me busy creatively.
If you were asked to suggest only one of your songs for someone to hear, which would it be?
I would probably pick “Drifting”, the song that just came out! It has a little bit of everything I do musically and lyrically in it. It’s a good song to sum up what it is I do as an artist.
Canadian Beats is all about Canadian music, so who are your current favourite Canadian bands/artists?
Oh wow, I have so many! I’ll list a few of my faves; MBG, Proper Grim, Sunny U., Lost Arts, Nicole Haber, Adriano Loparco, Eden Sterling, Tiffany Williams, Birds of Bellwoods, Current Swell, Silverstein, Spiritbox, Sixteen Loko, and finally City and Colour.