Buckle up for Sweetiepies’ album debut tomorrow morning

Kingston-based children’s musicians Sweetiepies are creating original children’s music somewhat out of necessity, but that’s not something you’ll hear them complain about.

“It’s hard when you’re a creative person to accept that a process isn’t working anymore,” says Jen Mulvale, one half of the married couple that makes up Sweetiepies. “As time went on, we built our family we found it harder and harder to do things the way we wanted to, so we started bringing our kids into the creative process. We’d be walking around putting songs together while we were getting groceries.”

Both Jen and her husband James are songwriters; James went to school for music composition and Jen has a background as a singer-songwriter, but has also worked in theatre and art therapy.  

This Saturday at 10 AM, they’ll be debuting their new album, Amazing Discoveries, with a Facebook Live event through their Facebook page.

They’ll have their own two children, along with a few of their friends, on hand as they play through all 10 songs of their debut album. All of the songs are original, with the exception of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and even to that song they added some of their own lyrics.

“We started talking about buckles one day with our four-year-old daughter Evie,” muses Mulvale. “We realized that when you’re a kid, so much of your life is about buckles. They’re everywhere you go and people are always strapping you into things, and that evolved into The Buckle Song on the album.”

Things like buckles, and the need to sometimes stay awake during car rides (hence the song Stay Awake), are some of the day-to-day things that have inspired this collection of songs

“The album is kind of this evolution of us re-creating ourselves as songwriters and as musicians, but also capturing this period of time in our lives,” says Mulvale.

After this Saturday’s album launch, Sweetiepies fans of all ages can look forward to live shows in the area next summer. In the meantime, for a visual fix, fans can follow along at Sweetiepies’ Youtube channel.

“We’ve branched into making videos as part of the songwriting process,” explains Mulvale. “Visual media is so big for kids now. We’re not very good video-makers, frankly, but we’re learning as we go. While we’re writing, we’re about the visual elements well.”

As their kids get older, Mulvale is hopeful they’ll keep writing kids’ music and find time to work on “music we would write more ourselves – things that we can’t incorporate into the kids’ stuff.”

This Saturday’s album launch takes place at www.facebook.com/SweetiePiesMusic and is free for all to watch.