Nikki Lemire has played with a host of bands in town and is ready to release her debut solo album, Live at Lakewood Cemetery. Her voice, her harp, the lyrics, the setting are the recipe for a gorgeous album. It was great to learn more about her in the questions below. There is a release show scheduled – but it’s already sold out! But you can catch her Sunday (May 19) at The Graft House in Minnetonka.
Please tell us about yourself and how it feels to have a debut album coming out.
I am so excited to be releasing this music. It has been a long time coming for me. Quite the journey! I grew up playing the harp at home with my mom and found myself in music school and then followed my love of the harp and opera into a professional career in music. I have always identified as a harpist. It is just a part of me, like a third arm or a second heart. I truly love what the instrument can do and the ways it can accompany the voice is special—so many colors and textures to play with.
I’d always loved to sing, but was kind of an “in the car / kitchen / shower” singer, so I feel I have only recently tapped into my own voice. I truly can’t believe I am here now, writing songs about my life, my feelings and my kids—singing and playing the harp. I never thought I would be doing this. I tell people I get my singing voice from my grandmother—a beautiful singer heard at church and in the kitchen of the cabin where we spent so many hot summer days. I realized my girls hear me sing in the kitchen most of the time. I wanted them to see me be brave and take my songs and my stories out of the kitchen, too! My kids are my biggest fans and inspiration. I feel so grateful to pursue a dream that for generations was not available to many mothers and women like me. You will hear a lot of these themes in the album I think.
“Little” is such a sweet song. It showcases your voice and calls us mamas out on our choice words. (Love that glimpse.) How do your kids react to it?
I think my kids love it when I write songs about them…Thankfully (and so far)! My second child was the first one who got a song called “Firecracker” which is also on the album. “Little” I wrote one night while rocking my oldest to sleep. The words just came to me as I held her and looked at her sleeping sisters tucked in their beds. They are all two years apart so at the time they were 6, 4, and 2. Since I wasn’t playing the harp or piano at the time I wrote it, I think it has a more sparse harp part to let my voice really come through, kind of like a lullaby. And my two year old, we really thought she was swearing for a good half year before we figured out she was actually saying, “sandwich.” We still laugh about that.
The idea of mend versus fix in your song “Mend It” hit me. It’s an important nuance. Is there a story behind the song or maybe a recurring theme?
My husband is the fixer in our house. (I don’t have the patience!) The pages of books rip, the heads of dolls fall off, and watch buckles break. One day we explained to our kids that once something is bent too far it may break. Some things you can tape or glue, but they will never be as strong as they were before. A ripped page will never be whole. It was really a caution to remember that the things you say, the actions you take and the choices you make do have an impact that you cannot reverse. I sat down and improvised with the words I had just spoken and it basically lives as an improv today. It is always different when I play it.
What was it like to play and record Live at Lakewood Cemetery? It’s a gorgeous place, the sound is amazing and it feels like you’d have generations of listeners above and below.
I felt an immense responsibility to the space the second I saw it—Incredible history and so much beauty. It was truly an honor to be asked and to get to do what was my first big solo show in that amazing space. I hadn’t had plans to record myself until just days before but had this gut feeling “My kids might want to document this. I might want to hear this again someday.”
I have always been someone who rests in the beauty of that moment in time that a song or music is made and how it will never be exactly the same again. Imperfected and honest. I wanted the performance to be as authentic to me and what I am writing and performing right now as I could so it is just live. Catching this snap in time I think is something I will always treasure. The performance went well, so friends encouraged me to release it. It was mixed beautifully by Jason McGlone and you really get a sense for the space and what it felt like to be there at that moment.
Please tell us about the album release show.
My album release show will be at MetroNOME Brewing in the Fingal’s Cave. I am so thrilled to get to play there. It is an intimate space and I believe it has already sold out.
My friends Matthew French and Sarah Morris, who both invited me to play with them when I was barely figuring out what I wanted to do as a singer-songwriter, are opening the show. They have been huge encouragers of my music and they are so incredible in their own right, it means the world that they said YES!
An accompanying full video of the performance will also be available on YouTube thanks to my friends at Feature Foundations.
The photos have been taken by Rae Marie Photography, who is an incredible artist and just a gem of a woman to be around.
I cannot wait to celebrate the release. The album will be out on June 1st, almost one year since I recorded it at Lakewood.
Mostly Minnesota 