On today’s episode, I chat with St. John’s, Newfoundland’s Nico Paulo.

Nico Paulo is a gem in the crown in Canadian songwriting. Her debut, self-tilted, album came out in April of 2023 on Halifax’s Forward Music Group to rave reviews, including this beauty from MTV: “your new favourite vocalist lives in Newfoundland.”

She sure does.

Although, Nico didn’t always call Newfoundland home. She was born in Toronto to Portuguese parents. But, by the time she was two, they’d moved back to Portugal. Nico found her way back to Toronto in 2014, around about the same time she started writing songs on the guitar. A trip east during the pandemic introduced her to the beauty of Newfoundland, and like others before her, and many since (including yours truly), she moved to the Maritimes.

In our chat, Nico talks about fighting through the feeling of being utterly stuck as a songwriter; about needing to release herself from the pressure of having to tell a full story in her songs, or as she puts it, build a castle around them; about how she didn’t even realize she had writer’s block until she got through it.

Nico’s new album Interval_o, is a gorgeous collection of songs, or as she calls them memories, inspired by a songwriting process that found her focusing less on story and more on layered melodies and mantra inspired lyrics.

I chat with Nico from her home St John’s with her newborn babe Salvador in her arms.

nicopaulo.com

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When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Shaver. New episodes broadcast weekly on CKVE-FM (Saturdays 9:30-11AM ADT), CKDU-FM (Mondays 9-10AM ADT), and CFRC-FM (Tuesdays 10-11AM EST).

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid