LUCIDMEDIA

You & Me and I

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Wednesday, 08 July 2009 10:30

Can you think of a more blissfully simplistic band name than You & Me? It brings to mind easy listening harmonies and smooth melodies that take you away to a happy place on some lazy Sunday. You & Me, the musical duo of Sandra J. and Shawn Donnelly from Montreal, can appreciate that comparison, after all, their music was born out of a romance that started over a decade ago.

“I didn’t sing before I met Shawn and I didn’t play any instruments,” explains Sandra J amongst the 20s, speakeasy décor of the Rum Runner in Kitchener. “On my 18th birthday he gave me a mix tape of all these songs and I started listening to them over and over and I started working out little harmonies and he discovered that I have a little bit of talent and we started working on them together.”

For 11 of the 12 years they’ve been together as a couple, Shawn and Sandra have been making beautiful music together. You & Me is the latest musical incarnation for the duo, and as the bands have changed over the years, so has the inspiration for their music. Donnelly says that when writing he’s now as inspired by general life experience as he is by the romance that started this fruitful music collaboration. “The songs can be a little sadder these days then they were 11 years ago, but they still come from the same place: from the heart.”

As when they began, Shawn writes all of the songs for You & Me, which he then brings to Sandra to add her signature touch to the vocals or a new melody on the xylophone or melodic. But given their close relationship, is there ever any friction between the two over the music? In an affront to all the gossip mongers out there, the answer is no.

“I would say that our music interests are pretty similar since we both have musical fathers that play the guitar, who grew up in the 60s and shared The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel with us,” says Donnelly. “The details vary from time to time, but generally when it comes to composing or listening to music that we solely enjoy, it’s definitely a musical agreement.”

“Sometimes I hear a song and think, ‘I have nothing for that,’ but the more I hear it, the more it evolves and our band is constantly evolving,” adds Sandra J.

“I never have anything set in stone for her,” continues Donnelly, “so she has carte blanche when I present the song for her and that’s what gives it the nice dynamic is that she’s able to have her say and put her expression into my expression. We’re trying to take our love and put it into the music.”

And when things aren’t going as smoothly, working as a musical act is actually a pretty good diffuser. “It’s definitely a nice perk having music in our relationship,” says Sandra J. “When times are tough, or we’ve had enough of each other, there’s always music and we can still be creative together and share that time together.”

Performing as a duo for only a couple of months now, You & Me are trying to find a way to expand their fan base, and this past spring they toured several cities in Ontario where they say their folky charms find more followers, particularly in low key shows in coffee houses and church basements.

“We’re definitely not the party atmosphere type of music,” says Sandra. “Coffee houses have been good to us, people tend to be alert and when they give you complements, they mean it. It’s not two in the morning and they ‘love you.’ They tend to be more supportive, and really listen.”

Like many struggling musicians, Sandra and Shawn work day jobs at a daycare; Sandra teaches while Shawn prepares the meals. It affords them some flexibility in their schedule to get out on tour, and given the kind of music they do, a captivated audience to try out new material on.

They credit the usual influences: The Beatles, Elliott Smith, and Belle and Sebastian, but Sandra says that she’s also come to see the value of music in classic kid shows like Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street as important, early musical inspirations. “They’re very happy, poppy, melodic songs as well,” she says. “They weren’t just composed on some synthesizer; there was actually a bit of heart and soul put into those songs.”

Heart is the very thing that Donnelly is trying to get at when writing songs. “As a song-writer my main objective is to just to strike a chord or pull on the heartstrings,” he explains. “Whatever emotion I’ve provided, I feel good and I feel like I’ve done my job when I reach someone else like that.

“There’s no thought process for my songs, they’re from the heart and I just open up what I need to say and what I need to feel. There’s no compromising about that.”

And there’s no compromising about the direction of the band either. On their own as a duo, Sandra and Shawn have been able to be more nimble in committing their time. “We couldn’t believe how flexible we are” says Sandra. “We know each other’s schedules so it’s so much easier to get together and say ‘here’s what we’re going to do.’”

And what they’re doing is working hard to make a name for themselves as musicians. “It’s great too because it’s kind of like a vacation at the same time because we’re a couple,” jokes Donnelly. However, he is serious about making You & Me a full-time gig. “I would like to say that hopefully in a couple of years down the road that this is something we can make a future of, just to pay the bills and we’d be really happy making a living off of something we really love.”

In the meantime there’s their first, full-length album The Realist and the Romantic, which begs the question: which one is which? “I’ll tell you this: Shawn writes the songs and I manage the band,” says Sandra.

Well, sounds like any other relationship to me.