“I like to believe most people's natural state is to be creative. It definitely was when we were kids, when being spontaneously and joyfully creative was just our default setting.”
-Jeff Tweedy
A songwriting
community
We wanted to create a space where professional songwriters could write, co-write, network, learn, and provide and receive quality feedback on new work. During the pandemic, and the drop in live performance, we noticed was challenging for a lot of songwriters to write and perform new work. It was especially challenging for those songs to be tested and molded as they might be if they were part of your live set. We’ve created a space where local writers can get excited about making new work and can talk about all things music and songwriting
song scouts
Pre-Death, Pro-Fame aims to engage songwriters and push our community to connect with writers outside of genres and a space to hold you accountable to writing. With each mile-stone in your songwriting career we’ve created fun ways to ‘gamify’ writing.
Think like adult Scouts. We have patches you can collect for different milestones as a way to help set and meet goals. Some meetings will have guests, successful mentors within the industry including experts on synchs/licensing, publishing, songwriting, performing, and streaming.
Amelie Patterson
Bow Valley folk-pop songwriter Amelie Patterson is a pop music workhorse with hooks to spare, and is the braintrust of Pre-Death, Pro-Fame, concocting the name in a dream.
Amelie has performed alongside Sarah Harmer, Matt Anderson, and Serena Ryder, and has performed at festivals including the Calgary Folk Festival, BlockHeater 2020, and Stampede City Sessions. Amelie is a songwriting tour de force drawing heavy comparisons to indie-folk contemporaries including Arcade Fire, Kathleen Edwards, Begonia, and Feist. Patterson served as the inaugural poet laureate of Banff, Alberta.
Liam Prost is a music industry multitasker, working simultaneously as Programming Manager for the BreakOut West festival and conference with the Western Canadian Music Alliance, in operations with the Calgary Folk Music Festival over eight years, 10 festivals, and four job titles, and as an independent artist manager and owner of Tamarack Records. Liam specializes in content creation as a photographer, videographer and a writer.
Liam Prost
Shannon Thomas
Shannon Thomas is a musician based in Calgary most associated with indie pop band Thomas Thomas. Also known for her work through Shan & Co., she creates illustrations, custom lettering, hand painted signs and murals. What Shannon loves most is when her two loves of music and design merge to create work for local bands or working with clients such as the CKUA Radio Network, Music Calgary or Pre-Death, Pro-Fame!
photo by Brandynn Leigh
