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MADISON GALLOWAY - COMMON PEOPLE
Madison released her eponymous debut album over the summer. “It’s been a great 2024. We got to go to the UK for the first time. So that made this year pretty awesome. I put out my new record, which was also really exciting. So, it’s been a pretty cool year; lots of big things have happened. I’m really happy with how the year went.”
WORDS: Adam Kennedy
The artist was already acquainted with The Commoners before their touring endeavours together. Ross Hayes Citrullo from the group had worked with Madison in a producer capacity. “Opening for The Commoners was a really cool experience. I love The Commoners and I’ve known Ross for years,” says Madison.
It can be a daunting experience going out on the road as a support act, especially on your first visit to a new overseas market. “You don’t know how people are going to react to an opening band,” declares Galloway. “But I think that the people were really great in the UK. There were always tons of people there for our set and I think the reaction from the people who came out was better than we could have expected.”
Madison did make some observations about her UK run. “The music scene seems so different than Ontario, it seems a bit more thriving, I guess, at least in this genre of blues rock.” The artist also has a soft spot for some of the places she visited on tour. “Driving up to Edinburgh was gorgeous,” she says. “I just loved being in London, which I thought was interesting, because I was not that into the city kind of thing. I live in a really small town, and we don’t even have a bus. In my town, there are no busses.” Perhaps a change of scenery is on the agenda at some point in the future. “I thought it was really cool being in London though. I definitely want to go back and live in London for that.”
Madison became acquainted with Ross Hayes Citrullo from The Commoners whilst working on her debut album. “I’ve known Ross since I was 18. I met him when I was looking for a producer to help me with my first full-length album, Moon and Mercury. And I had put out a post in our Toronto musicians’ group. I said, hey, I’m looking for a producer, I like Zeppelin. And I had a whole bunch of people message or comment back, and they said: Hey, if you like Zeppelin talk to Ross,” recalls Madison. “And so, I talked to Ross, and it was great, because Ross was excited about the music that I had brought to him, and I guess he believed in it. And I was really excited when I showed him, so that was really cool. We didn’t end up working together on that record,” confirms Madison. “And then we did work together on this most recent record.”
But what does Ross bring to the table as a producer? “Working with Ross is really cool. He is a very talented producer, engineer and mixing engineer. He mixed the whole album as well. And then the first two songs that we did, he was the sole engineer and producer and mixer on those,” explains Madison. “His artistic instinct is really cool, I think. And so, I’m really happy with how the two tunes turned out. The first one that we put out is I guess my biggest song on Spotify. It ended up getting on a Spotify editorial playlist. And I think it’s got over 150,000 streams.” Madison adds: “Ross is kind of like a big brother to me. So yeah, it’s fun working with him.”
Madison was honoured with the title of “Southern Rock Artist of the Year” (2023) at the prestigious Josie Music Awards (Nashville, TN). Speaking about the experience, Madison said: “I think getting an award for the music that you’re making is a really special experience,” said Madison. “Every time somebody comes up to me after the show or messages me or leaves a comment on Facebook saying that the music that I’ve written means something to them is the highest compliment you can get as a musician. The music that you’ve written has impacted somebody and made them feel something or mean something to them or help them. It is a really beautiful gift and a compliment as a musician. And so, getting an award for what you’re doing is really special.”
Madison’s latest eponymous long player is the second album from the gifted Canadian. But would she agree with the old analogy that the second album is the hardest record for a musician? Perhaps it’s down to the amount of time you have to write your follow-up record. “It’s an interesting point about having your whole life to basically write your first album, and then with your next one you’ve only got a window to write it,” said Madison. “Now I did have a little bit of a longer window than what I’m thinking is going to be the case with my third album. Because I had put out Moon and Mercury in 2019 and this one, I put out Open Your Eyes and The River in 2022 and then I kept rolling singles out in 2023 and then the record just came out this year in 2024. So, I did have those couple years of the pandemic.” and sang on it,” said Madison. “On this record, I did a lot of co-writing, which I think before I was a bit standoffish too. And I think I just wasn’t ready to co-write. I maybe had some fears around it, because you have to be very open with whoever you’re writing with. And writing is very personal. So, I think that was maybe a sort of subconscious fear like there was something that held me back from it.” Galloway adds: “So it was cool to have a bit more collaboration on that side of it. And I think we came up with some cool tunes.”
With her new album out in the big wide world, Madison is already thinking about what comes next. “I think the third album will be interesting, because I’ve been writing a whole bunch of stuff recently, since getting back from the UK, and because now the record is out and now and we’re back from the tour, I feel like I just have more mental capacity to write and come up with songs. So, I’ve been writing more, and I made a demo of a song that I wrote the other day, and I’m excited,” proclaims Madison.
“I’m excited about doing another record. I feel like, when you first put out the record, as soon as you think about putting out another one after that, it’s like - oh my gosh. That’s so much - I can’t even think about doing that right now. You’re still recovering, but now that it’s been out for a couple of months, and we did the tour, and I’m back I think I could do another record. I’m feeling more excited and hopeful about it.”
The artist believes that each album represents a timestamp in a performer’s life.
“You have your whole life to write your first album. Every album after that is sort of a bit more of a stamp of the period of your life, of that time,” explains Madison.
“I was listening to the Graham Nash album that he did in 1971 and a lot of the tunes on there about Joni Mitchell because that was that period.
Each record is sort of a stamp of what that person’s life was like at that time.”
One of the approaches Madison embraced on her new album is co-writing songs. “I did a lot of co-writing, so that was something that was new for this record was having most of the songs on there be co-writes, whereas on Moon and Mercury, there was only one song that I had co-written with somebody, and it was Ron Hawkins, who co-produced the record with me as well. And then we co-wrote it, and then it was also a duet. So, he played
Galloway’s interest in the blues was peaked at a young age. “When I was maybe 18, I worked at a radio station for a little bit. I had done a high school co-op there for a bit, and then I worked there for a little bit,” recalls Madison. “The production manager had kind of given me the role of some of the production stuff. So, there’s a blues show that happened on Sunday nights, and it was like, ten to midnight or something like that. And so, when we got the show, we put it into the system, and then my job was to check the system, I guess, to see if it was short of the hour or not. And if it was, I had to just pick some tunes to put into the show, just to fill the hours.”
This role resulted in Madison doing a deep dive into the station’s blues archives. “I would go through the blues catalogue and listen to all the music that we had saved in there. And it wasn’t a huge catalogue that the station had, but there were a couple of tunes that were my go-to songs, I guess. But there was one song I pretty much played every week at midnight. I thought it was really clever about this pick, but it’s not that humorous, but I thought I was clever - I liked it. I don’t know if anybody listened to the blues show at midnight, but if they did, what they would hear was Sundown by Son House. And I thought that was such a cool song. I really like Son House’s music.”
With her sophomore album in the bag, and a UK tour done and dusted, what does the rest of the year look like for Madison Galloway? “The rest of the year is going to be booking things for the summer, and I think I might get into the studio as well to do a couple of songs, even if it’s just better demos that I can make.” Madison concludes: “I definitely hope to be back in the UK soon. I don’t have any hard plans yet, but I’d like to make some for next year. But it’s not a plan yet. It is a bit more of a dream at this point. But over the fall, I’ll be working on booking my summer, so I think that is going to be something that I will try and do. But we’ll see what happens. But I would love to be back next year for sure.”
