Lizzie Powell is learning to set some things aside.

That can sound so empowering on the surface, to hear of someone establishing new boundaries or forging new paths, but what’s often glossed over with such statements are the battles waged to get there. Powell is in a healthier place, yes, but their brave decisions have come with a cost.

Powell’s own journey in recent years has allowed them to embrace both complexity and vulnerability as they’ve learned to ignore the demands of the marketplace—especially those best described as “vampires”—and to eschew binary conventions toward a broader understanding of identity. It’s a mature approach for Powell, one that’s required battles against the resistance both personal and professional.

For the uninitiated, Lizzie Powell is the creative sun around which everything and everyone else orbits in Land of Talk, one of Canada’s most respected bands of the last 20 years. Critically acclaimed albums have garnered tours with musical giants, yet as Powell tells us in this interview, those playing the biggest arenas are often the most unhappy and disconnected artists of all.

On this episode of the podcast, Powell was kind enough to detail the multiple forms in which they’ve encountered the resistance and how being a slow burn of a band has been the best approach after all. It’s also a conversation about learning to spurn opportunities that could compromise the work and the human behind it all.

VISIT: Land of Talk

*Photo: *Gabrielle Giguère