INTERVIEW: Jade LeMac on her music, touring, and coming to terms with success: "I don't want to have to rely on production to make a song good, it should only be elevating the song."

Interview: Shalane Connors
Image: Meredith Traux
Published: 19 February 2026

Canadian Jade LeMac is perhaps the epitome of the new generation of musicians that are slowly taking over the music world. Defying genre, she exists outside any box you may feel you need to put her in and the music she creates is grounded, honest without being cloying, and full of stories that resonate directly with you as a listener.

First releasing music in 2021, she scored a breakthrough moment straight out of the gate when her debut single ‘Constellations’ went viral, racking up over 245 million streams to date, with a reworked piano version that was used in Netflix’s My Life With the Walter Boys adding another 300 million streams to the song’s collective total.

Her star has continued to rise ever since, with her first headline show selling out in 24 hours and in 2022, she was featured in GLAAD’s 20 Under 20 followed by an Outstanding Breakthrough Music Artist nomination at the 2024 GLAAD Media Awards.

Last November she released her EP It’s Always At Night. Built on LeMac’s guitar, the EP was produced by her long time collaborator JVP (Mother Mother, Simple Plan), with the EP having a stronger pop sound than her previous releases. Exploring the theme of falling in love and finding yourself through the process, in a beautiful reflection of love, the EP features a choral group made up of LeMac’s friends and family woven throughout all the tracks.

“It’s Always At Night is a story about a person who’s in love with love,” LeMac says. “There are songs for so many emotions - heartbreak, desire, love, and lust. Each song is its own story about the different ways I’ve felt while being in love with someone.”

Opening track ‘Running Home’ is a joyful pop song with dashes of synth and strings and sets out LeMac’s agenda with the EP, of falling hopelessly, and perhaps obsessively, in love for the very first time: ‘I'd live a thousand lives / Die a million times, and I'd be just fine / As long as you were mine’.

‘Heaven’s Sake’ continues the synthpop sound and the sensation of falling madly in love, but this time LeMac approaches it with a mix of obsession and bewilderment - ‘What'd you do to me, baby? / How'd you get me here, baby?…I'll follow where you lead me.’

‘Sleeping With The Lights On’ is a slower ballad which combines elements of electronica and rock, while ‘Intertwined’, arguably the EP’s highlight, explores a more experimental sound. Starting semi-acoustic with staccato electronic stabs and multi-tracked vocals, it bursts into a full-blooded, pop chorus with LeMac’s vocal reaching into higher registers as she sings of a relationship that falls apart only to become tighter than ever: ‘Hold me so tight / Sew your flesh inside of mine…Don't let us die / We are one, forever tied.’

The EP ends on a more subdued note with two ballads where the love that LeMac has found moves from the rollercoaster of a new crush, to a deep profound love. The guitar driven ‘Sweet Dreams’ looks at the concept of soulmates throughout multiple lives - ‘Soulmates in another life found me again this time…I waited for years, and I overcame fears / For my love to meet me right here - while piano ballad ‘Pink Balloon’ is a touching ode of total dedication to the one you love. ‘I'll keep you safe 'til my last day / I'll find a way where we can stay in this moment where your kiss is all I need,’ she sings.

It’s Always At Night is a highlight in LeMac’s already impressive career to date. Full of warmth, vulnerability and a truly versatile soundscape, LeMac proves exactly why she is being touted as one of pop’s next big thing. During her first ever tour of Australia last week, Shalane Connors met up with LeMac to chat all about her music.

Hi Jade! So good to chat to you. I’m speaking to you mid tour in Australia for the first time. How have you been finding the Australian experience?
I have been loving it. I love it here. I've always wanted to come here, and it when I was told that I had the opportunity to come tour here, I was so excited. And I came at the perfect time, because it's summer here, in Canada it’s mid winter, and that’s not great! It was freezing, so it's nice to have some heat.

You played at Party In The Paddock, I imagine it's quite a surreal experience travelling to the other side of the world and having people know your music.
Yeah, it's quite crazy. Party In The Paddock was awesome. That was my first Australian show and the energy there was awesome. It was a great experience, great first show.

You have become quite the spokesperson for the queer community and your Vietnamese background. How has championing those communities flowed into your music and you as an artist?
It's one of those things where it doesn't necessarily impact the music directly, but it's just such a big part of who I am. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so the way I am has determined the way I lived and the things I've experienced, which ultimately results in the songs that I write, the relationships I've been in, the people I've been around and their experiences. I wouldn't have gone through things that I've gone through if those weren't part of me.

Do you think being queer and singing songs that about things queer people reflect on gives you the funner audiences?
Honestly yes. It's so fun having the queer community in my audience. It's always great, because you feel instantly closer, you instantly have something to connect over and it's just a safe space.You can just be free, be yourself and have fun.

I want to dive into your songwriting process. You're a singer songwriter and a multi instrumentalist, do you like to write by yourself or in collaborations?
I like writing by myself. I've tried co-writing and it's just not for me. I feel like the song doesn't feel authentic to me unless it's all from my brain and my mouth. For the process, I don't have any specific process, it's quite different for every song. Sometimes I start with lyrics, sometimes I start with the title, sometimes I start with the chords, the melody. A lot of it is just jamming out until I find something that I like. It's all about feel so if something feels good, I keep it.

I've been doing a lot of writing in the car recently. I'll record a voice memo of some chords and stuff of my guitar or piano, and then I'll play that while driving and just write over the top of that. I don't know why, I think it's just I'm alone in my car, and I'm always singing in my car anyways, so it's just a perfect space.

I think that really reflects in your songs, you can tell that they come from a very singular place. You've released an acoustic version of It’s Always At Night, which as an acoustic girl myself I love. It's so interesting listening to those versions of the songs and how much more romantic they are and how much more you listen to the lyrics. Talk me through that process of deciding to do an acoustic version of the EP?
For this EP, all the songs were originally written on guitar. So it's super easy to go back and just strip it down to its original skeleton. I'm a firm believer that if a song can sound good by itself on guitar or piano or whatever it is, then it'll sound even better with production. You know what I mean? I don't want to have to rely on production to make a song good, it should only be elevating the song. I have always loved acoustic songs as well, and I want people to be able to see how the song was originally created. And that's what the acoustic versions do.

On that note, talk me through the production process for you, how you take your raw material in and then collaborate to make it into the final versions
I work with a producer, his name is JVP, and we work together very closely. For this EP we wanted to do a lot of experimentation and try a lot of pop stuff that I haven't tried before. I would bring a song in, or send him a voice memo and be like, I just wrote this, I think it's catchy, what do you think? If he hears something too, then we just start going for it, we start brainstorming what the production can sound like, and kind of go from there. It's just one of those things where we just go with the flow until we find something we like, which is great, because sometimes I don't have a vision, and that's where he steps in. For ‘Running Home’, for example, I was picturing it to be a slow song, a sadder, acoustic kind of song, and he was like, ‘I think this could be a really fun pop song’. So we completely flipped the song on its head and changed it, and now it's a very uplifting fun, dancey, love song, which is really cool.

That's amazing, and it's an it's an incredible song. Does part of you lament a version of the song that wasn't made?
It's interesting, because, especially with this project, I wanted to try things that I haven't tried before. I have always written a lot of slower songs and more acoustic sounding songs. I think ‘Running Home’ could have been a great song if it was what I originally thought it to be, but at the same time, I love the way that it turned out. Maybe one day I'll go back and see, but that's also what the acoustic version is for. It's a little more going back to what it was.

You've had an incredibly prolific four years since you released your breakout single, ‘Constellations’ - gold in the US, platinum in Canada, featured by GLAAD, you have a huge TikTok following. Do you ever kind of pinch yourself at how quickly your career has moved?
Yeah, especially within the past year, it has been insane. I've done a lot more travelling and shows this year, which has been a big change. It's definitely quite surreal. I'll have moments where I'm like, wow, this is my job. This is really cool, I'm very, very blessed and very lucky. But I at the same time, I still just feel very like me and normal, which I find can be funny sometimes, because then I get checked back into reality that oh, my God, I have this as a job. It’s crazy, is what it is. I still don't think I've fully acknowledged it, which is the problem actually! Sometimes, my mom will have to be like ‘you realise that this is your job, like people know your songs’, and I'm like, what? So I'm still processing it I think. I think I’m constantly overwhelmed.

Do you have any coping mechanisms for that, or do you have a good team in place that kind of keeps you grounded?
Yeah, I'm trying to learn more of the coping stuff, because, like I said, this year has been a lot different than past years. It's been a lot more on the road, away from home, and so I'm trying to learn what that's like, because I haven't had that before. It's a work in progress, but I do have great friends and a great team.

Do you get stage fright?
Yeah, I actually get really bad stage fright, but it's gotten better. I think it was hard before because it was a lot of one or two performances, wait six months, and then I'd perform again. I never fully got to grasp what it felt like to be on stage and get a lot of shows under my belt. This year, I opened up for Maren Morris, and so I had 16 or something shows in a row, which was such a great learning experience to fully let myself get used to being on stage. It's always the first show that is bad, but now I'm at the point where once I'm a couple shows in, I'm like, hey, I remember this is actually really fun. I get really worried about forgetting my lyrics, and honestly, I do forget lyrics. At least every show there's a couple lyrics I forget. But I've just learned that I'm going to forget them, so there's no point worrying about it. I just let myself have fun. I'll take a little shot or something to loosen up. Now it's muscle memory and it's a routine kind of thing, so I'm getting better.

What's your shot of choice?
Tequila! I have a bottle of tequila on my rider now. I used to be a firm no drinker before going on stage, because I was that scared. It wasn't until touring with Maren where I realised I actually performed better because I just a little more loose. It also loosens up my vocal cords, so I think it makes me sing better. It's been really helpful when I've had a sore throat, because you take a couple of shots, and then you're numb, and then it's like, wow, I can sing every single note, this is amazing! So shout out, tequila, you're very helpful.

I was gonna ask you about your pre show rituals - it’s tequila!
Tequila, and more tequila! I love playing cards with my team. We play a lot of golf, which is a card game. If my friends are there, we've also been playing a game called organ attack. And my band, there’s three of us and we sit in a triangle, we have to high five each other without looking at each other. Other than that, that's pretty much it! And I always have to pee right before I go on stage, because I'm really worried that I'm gonna have to pee really bad on stage. Or if I jump I’ll pee my pants a little bit. I'm so terrified of that!

Jade LeMac with Women In Pop’s Shalane Connors

I'm interested to know who your idols were when you first started out, who you feel kind of paved the way for you as an artist?
When I was younger, I listened to a lot of Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, Sleeping At Last. Sleeping At Last was a big one for lyrics and stuff like that. I love Frank Ocean,

I was a Harmonizer (Fifth Harmony fan). I was a hardcore Harmonizer. I loved Alicia. Keys, and I also loved Fergie.

Did you come from a musical family, or is it something you just kind of fell into yourself?
My dad is a creative guy, but he's more on the hip hop and there's one reggae artist that he showed me that has stuck me for life. My parents have great music tastes, so I think that has definitely affected my brain chemistry and who I listen to.

What was the pull towards music for you?
Honestly, I don't even know. Just out of the womb I was like, I want to sing. For as long as I can remember, I've just always wanted to sing. My cousins and I would always sing karaoke, it's always been there.

What's one thing that you can't travel without?
I usually travel with a Rubik's Cube, or like some sort of fidget toy, all the time. And people know this, but I didn't bring a Rubik's cube this time. So you know what I bought? This is pure Australia Jade, I've only ever done this in Australia. I bought a freaking tech Deck. It says meow on it because my girlfriend likes cats. It distracts me, I like to fidget and I like to carry something around, so this is it!

What's next for you?
Go home, get to relax a little bit! I'm already working on new music, so there’s a lot of exciting stuff coming this year that I can't talk about yet.

I got some festivals. I'm doing Sips & Sound in Texas, and then Gov Ball, so lots of stuff coming.

It’s Always At Night is out now via Warner Music. You can download and stream here.
Follow Jade LeMac on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube