“Music was what helped me through the toughest periods of my life. Working on this album became an all consuming mission. After the health scares I had in 2023, I knew that if I didn’t do it now, I might never get the chance, so I treated it like it might be the only one, as the music takes me on.”

Lily Sazz: The Soundtrack of Her Life

What Just Happened (2025) is Lily Sazz’s debut as a solo artist and producer. She’s finally using her own voice, emerging from the sidelines as an accomplished keyboardist, backup vocalist, and bandleader, spreading her musical wings and giving it all she’s got as a solo performer with a collection of songs that reflects her story in a deeply personal way. After suffering a traumatic year in 2023, Lily healed by turning her entire focus into making this record. The result has been astounding with a widely differing, yet cohesive collection of great songs, featuring a star studded who’s who of special guests adorning each track, including Colin Linden, Suzie Vinnick, Harry Manx, Steve Marriner, Darcy Hepner, Mike Branton, Boreal, and more. Expect tears, laughter, witty irony, and great musicianship. "Sometimes life in the music business feels like you're paddling upstream, but with this project, it feels like I'm paddling with the current", says Sazz. "I am enjoying the ride!" Lily Sazz’s path to her current activities as a singer-songwriter was not a straight line. After a completely different start in life, growing up in a farming community in the Niagara Peninsula, she made a change and studied classical music, majoring in piano and harpsichord, before being swept up by the serendipitous discovery of blues and roots music that she’d never before witnessed.

(Lily Sazz / Photo by Michael Nash)

This was a game changer that led to a completely different musical trajectory as a keyboard player in rock, blues, and country bands, eventually leading to projects that led to adventures and opportunities she hadn’t considered. Sazz was a long time member of the Women’s Blues Revue Band (as musical director), toured with Canada’s Queen of the Blues, Rita Chiarelli, co-founded and led critically acclaimed bands Trailblazers, Groove Corporation, and Maple Blues Award nominated Cootes Paradise.

Interview by Michael Limnios                           Archive: Lily Sazz, 2024 Interview 

Photos by Michael Nash  / Special Thanks: Sarah French Publicity 

How do you think that you have grown as an artist since you first started making music? What has remained the same about your music-making process?

My background and early education, right through until I was studying music at the university level, was classical. In that world, you read the music, and do your best to interpret it, within the constraints of the composer’s specific instructions. It’s a completely different skillset from where I ended up - learning music by ear for the most part, and eventually, learning to improvise. When I first strayed from classical music as a piano and harpsichord major, I played in rock cover bands. Eventually, after a few years of working at it, I had a big enough musical vocabulary to improvise, and take solos. I consider myself a late bloomer that way, and I took a lot of musical shortcuts working to emulate the greats I was inspired by (Stan Szelest, Professor Longhair, Marcia Ball, for example). What has changed is my approach. I forgive myself for not sounding quite like them, but I can say that I sound like me. What has stayed the same is the way playing music makes me feel.

How did your relationship with the music come about? Who are some of your very favorite artists or rather, what musicians have continued to inspire you and your music?

There was little music going on in my world when I was a kid. No musicians in the family. My grandmother enjoyed music, and I could always see what joy it brought her to repeatedly tell me what her favourite songs were - invariably something like “Never On Sunday” or the theme from Dr. Zhivago, and she would hum those melodies to me. I do have early memories of being in kindergarten and being fascinated when my teacher played the piano for the class. I asked for a piano for my birthday, and eventually took formal lessons, continuing for many years.

I have a wide variety of musical tastes, and there are few genres I can’t appreciate when the music is of quality. I’ll forever be inspired by piano playing songwriters like Carole King, Elton John, Burton Cummings and so many more, and I love anything with great groove - like Little Feat, or even Thomas Dolby. It’s a wide spectrum.

“My background and early education, right through until I was studying music at the university level, was classical. In that world, you read the music, and do your best to interpret it, within the constraints of the composer’s specific instructions. It’s a completely different skillset from where I ended up - learning music by ear for the most part, and eventually, learning to improvise.” (Lily Sazz, her songs that reflects her story in a deeply personal way / Photo by Michael Nash)

Do you have any interesting stories about the making of the new album “What Just Happened”?

What I can say about the making of “What Just Happened”, is that it blossomed beyond my wildest expectations. I can say that in the past year, it’s felt as though I’ve been paddling *with* the current. Many of the developments were happy accidents, but as they say, you need to be prepared and ready when those happy accidents happen. One of my favourite moments on the album is when “The Bronte Boys” as I call them (Wayne DeAdder, Scott Apted, and Mike Branton) were singing backups on my song, “I Can’t Jam”. They mistakenly sang in the wrong place during the third verse, and laughed hysterically. I loved it so much I kept it on the record, and that led to the decision to let the song completely devolve at the end and have them all “quit the band” and stomp off. That wasn’t the original plan, but now I’m quite certain that “I Can’t Jam” will always finish the set and the band will quit and walk off stage at the live shows.

How do you approach the process of songwriting, and are there any specific themes or emotions you tend to explore in your music? What came first, the lyrics or the music?

I’m very slow at songwriting. Part of the reason is because I try very hard to avoid common topics, or at least I try to express things in a new or fresh way. For example, I’m not a big love song writer because I feel like it’s all pretty much been said before. But when I wrote Future Me, it was a way of expressing steadfast love in a slightly different way. In a nutshell, the song’s key line is “I don’t trust future me, ‘cept when it comes to you and me”. I remember loving Huey Lewis’ song “Happy To Be Stuck With You”, and that’s the vibe I feel that Future Me has - just a lighthearted love song with small injections of humour.

My songwriting technique varies. I'll dip into my bank of concept ideas, either music or lyrics, and then match them up. I’m a very groove-oriented writer. I like to then put words and melody to the grooves, but sometimes it happens in the reverse. I’m always trying new ways of approaching songwriting in order to keep it fresh, and I try to vary the style of my songs, which probably explains the diversity of my record, but there’s always that common thread of the piano and a tinge of blues.

“I have a wide variety of musical tastes, and there are few genres I can’t appreciate when the music is of quality. I’ll forever be inspired by piano playing songwriters like Carole King, Elton John, Burton Cummings and so many more, and I love anything with great groove - like Little Feat, or even Thomas Dolby. It’s a wide spectrum.” (Lily Sazz / Photo by Michael Nash)

What keeps a musician passionate over the years in music? How does your hometown that affect your music?

Music was what helped me through the toughest periods of my life. Working on this album became an all consuming mission. After the health scares I had in 2023, I knew that if I didn’t do it now, I might never get the chance, so I treated it like it might be the only one, as the music takes me on.

How does my hometown affect my music? If you mean my current home town, Dundas, Ontario Canada, which I do consider my home now, it’s a great place to live and over the years, I’ve made more and more musical friends with whom I occasionally collaborate with just for fun. With regard to the town where I grew up in the Niagara Peninsula (Beamsville), my experience of growing up on a farm taught me a lot about hard work, and entrepreneurship. Those lessons were later applied to other more artistic pursuits, and that suits me fine.

As an indie musician, how do you navigate the balance between creative freedom and commercial appeal?

I have stopped worrying about commercial appeal entirely. I don’t know if I ever did, or I wouldn’t have stayed with a genre that is not mainstream. The music industry has changed a lot in the 40 years I’ve been at it, and streaming has destroyed a revenue stream that was once vital for us - sales of CDs and even digital downloads. The only two revenue streams are live performance enhanced by merch sales, and sync licensing your music for use in film, games, TV, and so on. Competition is fierce for that stuff and streaming services have changed that landscape as well. Now we have a new threat in AI. I fear many music producers will simply lose their livelihoods. So what’s left for me at this point? That is to follow my heart and create freely with the goal of satisfying myself. I hope others like it. Would be great if they support it in some way, but I’m just really happy that I made a record I am proud of. Everything beyond that is just icing on the cake.

Lily Sazz - Home

(Lily Sazz / Photo by Michael Nash)