Sheena’s back with Back To Life

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This article was published 26/08/2024 (691 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sheena Legrand is ready.

It’s been a decade since the Treherne-born artist released new music. In that time, the singer-songwriter, formerly known as Sheena Grobb, got married, became a mother and did some much needed soul searching.

At 40 years old, she’s re-entering the music scene with a forthcoming record and a new perspective.

“Everything just clicked into place this year,” Legrand says, sitting in the cosy, sunlit living room of her Winnipeg home.

When she stepped away from the spotlight in 2014, Legrand had three deeply personal indie pop albums under her belt and had spent her 20s on the road, living the thrilling, ever-changing life of a touring artist.

Eventually, however, the novelty wore off and the lifestyle began to feel more untethered than exciting.

“It got harder to be always in the flow and never really knowing what was coming next. I really felt like a rebalancing needed to happen for me as an artist,” she says.

Legrand was craving a deeper connection with the world. At the same time, she knew she needed to spend some time privately calibrating her personal and artistic goals. Pouring her heart out in a dark room night after night had begun to feel more mechanical than empowering.

“I needed something to reignite this work, because it can feel a little bit like autopilot after a while. I had to go inward and spend more time listening,” she says.

And so she retreated from the music industry and turned her attention to other facets of her life, namely her health.

At 16-years-old, Legrand was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In 2015, she delivered a TEDxWinnipeg talk about finding hope while dealing with a degenerative disease affecting her central nervous system.

That presentation set in motion a new career as a public speaker and health coach for others living with an autoimmune-disease diagnosis.

“It became the thing I did in my spare time that grew into a career, and it’s such a beautiful complement to music for me because the music is putting out everything and the coaching is receiving stories and supporting others — the cycle really fed itself, it was so incredible,” she says.

Through it all, Legrand has continued to write songs and record music for her own enjoyment. She and her husband, Dan Legrand, a fellow musician, collaborate regularly while raising their two-year-old son.

Their home studio is situated in the corner of the living room, surrounded by a barricade of baby gates in a futile effort to keep their busy toddler at bay.

While home and family have offered creative refuge over the last decade, the unexpected death of her father last year pushed her to get back onstage.

“He was the water I swam in, he was a backdrop of support and a constant source of love for so many people in his life. When I lost him, I was really surprised by the grief process,” she says.

For Legrand, grief and songwriting have always been close companions. She penned her first song at eight years old as a way to process the death of her grandmother. Writing and singing again became a way to cope with profound loss.

“I also felt this huge energetic boost from him. Almost like everything that he’d ever given me was now my responsibility to share,” she says.

Legrand performed live at the Times Change(d) in March to celebrate the release of Green Light, the first single off her new album, Back To Life, due out in spring 2025. The uplifting song, which is about identifying as an artist and shedding imposter syndrome, felt like a symbolic place to start.

She has since released Heroes in the Making, a song inspired by a prompt in a songwriting workshop that has become a meaningful ode to her father — although it didn’t start out that way.

“This sarcastic part of me came online and I was like, ‘I can’t, Enrique Iglesias and Mariah Carey have already done this, there’s no room for another hero song,’” Legrand says with a laugh.

“I hadn’t lost my hero yet. That song means so much more to me now that he’s gone.”

In returning to the music industry, Legrand is looking forward to pursuing her career in a more sustainable way.

“Creating those healthy boundaries, for us as artists, is really important — and knowing that you don’t have to give it all away. The first chapter of my life, (I had) my heart on my sleeve, every part of my personal life poured out into my discography,” she says.

“I have no regrets about that, but now I’m a little older and I can write with other creative focuses in mind.”

Legrand’s new singles are available on Spotify and Apple Music.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @evawasney