Q&A: Janine Shows the Beauty and the Hurt of Healing in ‘Pain and Paradise’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY IVONA HOMICIANU ☆
PAIN AND PARADISE STANDS ON THE SYMBIOSE BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND HURT— Born out of the grief of losing her father, Janine encapsulated her healing journey and personal growth in the album, which took a few years to complete. It is a reminder to those listening to be kinder to themselves when going through difficult times while providing necessary hope for the future.
“I knew I was so lucky to be in such a beautiful place and most importantly, lucky to have loved so deeply that the weight of loss could be so heavy,” Janine says. “I stood there and thought, wow, this is the most unbearable pain and paradise. I decided that the album would be named Pain and Paradise because I believe that they always coexist.”
Janine is a New Zealand-born artist whose passion for music began at the age of five. With a focus on R&B and soul, she writes, produces and engineers her songs. She describes Pain and Paradise as her most personal album yet. Her album stands in the natural beauty of New Zealand, which inspired her as she moved back to take care of her mom after her dad’s passing.
Pain and Paradise highlights the importance of love, whether that’s knowing your worth in “Loving Me,” showing the transformation of love into grief in “Make You Proud,” or sensing the rightness of finding someone in “Meet Me.” Janine admits what matters the most are her loved ones. The sound is balanced between upbeat tunes and soulful ballads, with her vocals conveying each emotion expressed in a just and soft manner.
Janine’s album is a testament to strength. Her ability to put her grief and heartache in her art, as well as the significant moments of happiness, is a feat that shapes her as an artist. Her words and sound transcend the recording and comfort the souls searching for an answer, at the same time being honest about the non-linear process and leaning onto the dichotomy of pain and paradise existing together.
Luna discussed Pain and Paradise with Janine — read below for more!
Credit: Apela Bell
LUNA: Congratulations on Pain and Paradise, it is such a beautiful album. How have you been feeling since the release of this album?
JANINE: Thank you so much. I've been feeling really good. I feel very, very lucky for the beautiful responses I've had from people and people relating on all different fronts. It feels strange to have it out after working on it for so long. There's always those mixed emotions of excitement and then being like “What now?” but I feel really good.
LUNA: “Loving Me” is a very vulnerable track that you address to yourself. How do you feel when you think or listen to the song now?
JANINE: It's an interesting one, because it's 100 percent for myself, but I also wrote it for other people. One of the things I think is really important is repeating the words in “Loving Me” until you believe them. One of the biggest inspirations for me was also having other people sing those words and feel them. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's for me as well and listen to the words myself. For me, the biggest joy I get out of it is having it have a positive influence on other people, and hearing that it's helped them in their healing journey or their self love journey.
LUNA: It's often giving a hug to your past self and saying, “It's okay, it will get better.”
JANINE: I always talk to everyone before I perform that song on tour and explain what that's about. One of the things that I say is, a lot of the time, if someone else came to us with the things that they had been through or that we have been through, that we would just give them the biggest hug and make sure we were there for them; but when it's ourselves, it's usually the last thing we do. When I wrote that I imagined myself as the young version of me going through these things, like a child coming up to me with what they'd gone through and the way that I would support them, love them and not judge them. That was one of those things that made me be like, “I've not been good to me.”
LUNA: The song “Happy” talks of the difficulty of finding happiness after the loss of an important person. How do you find beauty in those moments and how does it look like for you?
JANINE: The reason I called my album Pain and Paradise is because I think that they always exist [together]. Sometimes it's easier to focus on one side more than the other, although most of the time it's not as black and white. For most people, there's a variation of pain and paradise at all times. Grief is just love looking for a home. There's a beauty in being able to love so much that the loss could hurt so much. It's not lost on me that I had someone to love that much. Pain can highlight how important it is to be surrounded by good people, and how to appreciate the people who are good in your life. I'd lost family members before, people I really, really loved, but losing my dad was definitely a more significant loss and it still very much affects me day to day.
It really made me dig even deeper to look at what's important in my life and how I structure my life around those things. More than even my career, which I love, I would drop anything in a heartbeat for my family. It brought out a lot of things. You lose some people in life when you go through things and you gain some beautiful people, and you strengthen your relationships, and I think that's the way beauty comes in. Those moments of people stepping in that didn't need to. Those moments of seeing something and being reminded of something beautiful, or for me, singing “Make You Proud,” which is about my dad, and fighting through it while having people sing along and cheer and encourage me. Finding that humanity in those moments that make you feel good. That's where the beauty and the inspiration comes from.
LUNA: “Dad’s Interlude” highlights the small moments of happiness in life. What small but significant moments have you noticed lately? Could be anything; for example, when I go to a park, I like seeing the sunlight on the water.
JANINE: Reflection on water is one of the most beautiful things. In New Zealand, where I'm from, it's so beautiful. Definitely nature is always one of those things for me. I have a lot of symbolism around roses and stuff, because my dad was very into his roses and the moon. He passed on a blood moon, so it's quite interesting for me to see what events fall at certain times. I have a lot of symbolism around 66 because my dad, being from New Zealand, loved Route 66 and it was quite crazy because one of his favorite places to visit when he came to visit me was the Santa Monica Pier. If you go to the Santa Monica Pier, it's the end of Route 66 which is also the age that my dad passed away, which is all very crazy. It was a very strange symbolism. Every time I see it, I'm like, “Oh, he's a part of this journey.”
I've even found that when we were in D.C. or some place we were passing, and I was like, “What is the sign? Why is there a 66 sign right here?” The venue that I wanted to play was in Brooklyn. I'd always wanted to play the Williamsburg Music Hall. I used to live down the road from it, and I got to perform there, and the venue address was 66 North Sixth Street. I was like, “This is insane.” It was one of the most beautiful moments, and one of the places that really helped me get through “Make You Proud.” There's a lot of symbolism and things that I definitely feel like I'm a lot more aware of, of certain things that show up more now in my life.
LUNA: You have the lyric, “I'm trying to love me like you love me, like I love you.” I was wondering, do you think that people are a reflection of those we love, such as you are who you surround yourself with?
JANINE: Yeah, I definitely think that we are a combination of the people that we surround ourselves with, which is why our energy is so important. I love being around good people, because it allows me to be the best version of myself without guards, and I definitely notice the change in myself, and how much I like being around myself when I keep good company, because it allows us to be our true selves, rather than being in a state of fight or flight, which I have been in the past.
LUNA: “Thank You for Breaking My Heart” uses hindsight to find value in the moments of pain. I've noticed overall in the album, you have these moments of thinking back and giving comfort to your past self, which is what we've spoken about earlier. Is there a message that you'd like to say to your future self as a reminder for her to come back to?
JANINE: Oh, that's a beautiful thought. I've not really thought about that. I would maybe just say, I hope that you're happy and remember right now you're surrounded by people who love you, and if that's not the case, make sure you fix that. And if it is, then we've done great, and I'm proud of you.
LUNA: That's a great message and something to be remembered. The lyrics along with the guitar on “Saved Me” fit so well together. What comes first when you make a song, the melody or the lyrics?
JANINE: It always varies. I was traveling on my own at that point, and I was in Barcelona. I was looking at all these beautiful things, and me and my partner had already been doing long distance, but this was just a trip that I ended up on. I was in Europe and then I was like, I'm gonna stay out and go travel by myself, separate from the event that I'd gone for. The more that I saw beauty, the more that I loved them. I wanted to share every single moment, and I wrote down the lyrics, “The more I see the world, the more I know that you're all I want in it.” If you're not with the right person, I think that the more excitement you have around you, the more general options of life and excitement, the more that you would be like, “Oh, I don't need this other thing.” When you're with the right person, then it just enhances the love that you have for them. The more beauty you see in the world, the more beauty you see in them. That was something that was new for me and really special.
I had the concept, and I might have recorded a loose melody, then I was in London and I booked some sessions right afterwards. I was working with Gigi, she's a very talented producer, and she started playing that guitar line, and I started singing the whole thing over it, and came up with “You might have saved me.” On the train home, I'm pretty sure I filled in the gaps in the words that I had, then I took it away and I wrote it and then I finished it remotely. That's how that one came about.
LUNA: “Best Thing” explores such a mature mindset of being grateful for someone's presence, even if it's not meant to last forever. A lot of people struggle with this fear of endings. How did you reach this mindset of being grateful rather than thinking of the end the entire time?
JANINE: It's funny. I don't know. I feel like there's stages in life. I don't know if I would be that mature in my relationships now, but I do think there's people that you know when you meet. There's certain people that come into your life and just help you to learn lessons. Hopefully they're nice ones, they're kind ones, but sometimes they're hard ones. In that instance, I was in a position of being like, “I'm just grateful for whatever this lesson is in life, because at least it's not hurting.” I have moments of absolute emotional maturity and then other moments, whereas I’m like, “I don't think I could ever say that to my partner.”
LUNA: It's interesting because in the next track there's an opposition to the sentiment. I still feel like there's a message there, because you end the song with, “I'm better than this,” which is knowing your worth.
JANINE: The beautiful thing about music is being able to take a time and an emotion. One of the things that’s great about getting older is being more self aware and being able to analyze emotions. A lot of the things that I've written I'll sing, and some of them I wouldn't necessarily write anymore, like my older songs, because I wouldn't put myself in those situations. They still help me write songs. That's just that thing of honoring the emotion. With the album, I have some things that are a bit more playful, a bit more sassy, as well as things that are more deep, things that are more painful and also more optimistic.
I think everyone should just do their best to be the best people they can be, but it's honest to admit that some days we're not enlightened to the degree that we can be, it's all fine. Some days it's gonna be like, “It's not fine,” and the next day you can be like, “I'm gonna work on making it all right.” We're all complex human beings with emotions. I try to honor whatever that emotion is and try to fix it and surround myself with good people. I've got enough heartbreak or bad things that I can write about forever. I’m hoping I can stick with really nice people and just write the good stuff from that, and then just pull from the past, so I don't have to go through any of the other stuff anymore.
LUNA: It's so great how you manage to make such beautiful songs about the “paradise” part of it, the happiness. I’m also a writer, and whenever I'm happy, it’s so difficult for me to find inspiration. A lot of artists have expressed that sentiment.
JANINE: I am exactly the same. I didn't have any love songs before. Funnily enough, my fans also like all my sad stuff more. I do think emotions pour out more intensely, maybe easily, for a lot of artists when we're in pain, because it can be the most in your face, whereas joy can be more of a reflective thing. I do think that maybe the intense pain that I went through has also helped to highlight a little bit more of the [happiness] in a weird way. I don't know how to explain it, but it's harder to write happy songs. The happy songs that are poetic are more difficult. It's easy to write a fun song, a silly song, even “Thank You for Breaking My Heart,” there's poetic lines, there are things that I'm happy about, and then there's other things that are just a little more fun.
LUNA: In “Good Vibes,” we have again the theme of finding happiness in the dark. What are some essentials to you in order to live a good life, besides surrounding yourself with good people?
JANINE: I think that's number one. Another thing would be to follow your purpose. It doesn't have to be a will that ends. Find things that bring you joy, things you like doing. I didn't finish it, I've attempted to start, and then life happens—“The Artist Way.” One of the things that was really cool was she talked about revisiting the things you liked as a kid, or five things you'd be if you weren't doing what you’re doing. It was really cool just to be like, “What are the things I liked doing?” I've always loved painting and stuff, I took myself on an artist date and just went to a craft store. I felt like a kid looking at all the paints and the coloring stuff and all the bits and pieces. We, a lot of the time as adults, forget to be kids or follow the things that we love, whether that's coloring in or going to a park. For me, those things are playing in some form of life.
Nature is a big one. Getting out in nature, seeing trees, the sea, lakes, swimming, all of that is very big. Feeding yourself healthy food, which is sometimes one of the things that goes when life gets chaotic, but that and being active, for me personally, it helps my mental state a lot. Obviously, being mindful, which, again, is one of the things that goes when I'm not. Connecting with people on a human level, and being intentional about how you want to spend your time. I think there's a saying that's like… How you spend your days is how you spend your life. A lot of the time we're like, “This is what I want my life to be,” and we’re waiting to live our life that way, we don't realize that every day is our life. That sounds really simple when I say it, but I’m trying to remember that each day.
If I want to live a fulfilled life with my family and loved ones, I'm checking in with my family and making sure I'm doing activities and taking time out. I'm not great at doing that when it comes to album release and tour time, it's eighteen hour days at the computer and feeling stressed— but when I'm at my best, I am balancing my love for my music along with my love for people, along with nature and exercise and eating. The mind is like the body. We don't just get in shape once and then stay fit. You have to keep going to the gym, you have to keep being active. With the brain, it's analyzing and finding ways to be better and feel better.
LUNA: What are you hoping for in this next chapter of your life and career?
JANINE: I'm hoping to be able to reach more people with my music. I would like my career to grow. I would like my reach to grow, to be able to do more for myself and my career, to be able to do more for my close friends and family financially, but also to be able to put other artists on the map because I feel like once I get myself to that level, the next step for me would also be to to work with other artists and bring them more opportunities as well. I would love to grow, and grow while being around great people. I hope to visit a few different genres as well, featuring some different genres outside of what I'm doing. I hope to visit a lot more nature, see more parts of the world. I hope that I can be surrounded by my loved ones as long as I possibly can.
