"If You Love Her" by Forest Blakk
Los Angeles-based Forest Blakk grew up in Montreal, Canada, and spent time living in Florida and Jamaica as well, escaping from a troubled home life by picking up the guitar his grandmother gave him at fifteen. At 21, he moved to Calgary, joining a band that would go on to be JUNO-nominated. The breakthrough single "If You Love Her" has resonated with fans globally and just got an upgrade with a duet version featuring Meghan Trainor. The ballad has taken off as Blakk's Billboard debut and follows the love song "Foolish" as well as the inspiring "Put Your Hands Up", which was featured on a 2019 episode of Grey's Anatomy. "If You Love Her", tells the story of a past love, all the little memories that add up to the person and the bond they shared and how in hindsight, it was the "best thing he ever had."
IndieWavves: You have beautiful songs - you've had a lot of life experience, bouts with anxiety and mental health, and some time to think about what really matters. That's the takeaway from "If You Love Her" - it's like a timeless ballad, a promise, a prayer about love. We spend so much time with that one person. There are ups and downs; you are so intensely connected and drive one another crazy. This is an excellent reminder of who the best person in your life really is, don't you agree?
Forest Blakk: When you feel loved in such a deep way, and you lose it, you really feel the fragility of love. When you get caught up in the rat race of love, you don't realize it's right there. For the music video, the point was to see different variations of love. People are writing themselves into the story. I did this with a good friend of mine. His name is James Fitzgerald, and he does short films; I've worked with him a few times. We do less music videos and more so make films. With "If You Love Her", the idea was to take a man who wasn't quite old enough to look like someone's father and a woman who wasn't supposed to look like that much younger, with the reveal at the end to have her contemplate this marriage like a lot of people do. At that moment, many people want their moms and dads to be there, and not everyone has that. Even if they aren't there in real-time, they are in spirit or memory. You're honoring that love; a dad or a mother is handing off a daughter. That's the most beautiful thing about songs, it's universal, and people connect with them. It was unintentional to connect with so many people, but it's easier to see why people connect with it in hindsight. It's things that people want - people want to be heard, respected, loved, and validated. But love is so complicated, and that's why there's a million love songs. It's easy to think I'm pissed off at my partner today, but that's someone's child, that's someone's memory.
IW: What was going on in your life at the time of this song being created?
FB: I had been in a long-term relationship that fell apart right before my eyes. I had gone on a month-long trip to Australia to see if there was reconciliation, and there wasn't. I came back to LA, and I wrote with my friend Steve Fitzmaurice - and the idea was to write out the things that she was, like a roadmap for who comes next. I was sitting here in Los Angeles with a suitcase and a broken heart trying to put the pieces back together. The real honesty of that too is, here I am signed to a record label, and I'm in the backseat of a car and on a friend's couch. I wrote myself out of heartache and out of a problem.
IW: Ok, so this isn't about your current girlfriend?
FB: When you're young, and in love, you put all this pressure on love. The faces change, but the feeling is the same. "I saw love, love, love in your eyes" is a lyric from my new EP, the song "I Saw Love". I recognize that feeling; it's always there, but it's us who can mess it up. I think she's even more appreciative now from all that I've learned from love. She gets the benefit of that maturity. It's harder to go; the wheels came off but damn, that was a fun ride; on to the next ride, and I genuinely hope you're loved.
IW: The lyrics are so relatable. There's a lot of humor and truth to them. "Always has trouble falling asleep, loves pop songs and dancing and bad trash TV. She loves love notes and babies and likes giving gifts."
FB: I really appreciate you saying that. That is the honesty of the song, the universal theme of it. It was unintentional. When you're honest and authentic about a person, and you do less crafting and more storytelling - who's not a sucker for a bad trash TV in a partner, who's not a sucker for a love note? The toughest person in the world is a sucker for all those emotions. It's nice that someone notices that cause that's what made it so beautiful.
IW: Your songs are reminiscent of some of the most iconic ballads of the 90s and early 2000s, like those by Edwin McCain, Goo Goo Dolls, Lifehouse, The Fray, The Script, and Hoobastank. There's a recent resurgence with male-led ballads by Lewis Capaldi, Hozier, James Arthur, Ed Sheeran, Dan + Shay, and even Justin Bieber. Why do you think ballads went away for a while, and now they're back?
FB: I don't know if they ever fully left. Like most things in the industry, things come in waves. I think that that opens up a big space for me, the singer-songwriter, the ballad spot. There's a time to party, and there's a time to intrinsically deep dive. Plus, I came from that era. When I grew up, I always loved a good ballad that rocks me or something that makes me feel something. "How To Save A Life", that was a life-changing song, or "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum or "Iris", how do you not watch Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan and not feel that? The classic ten years overnight just doing and building. I'm curious to see what we have in ten years, and I think we could have the next Britney Spears again. The guy who mixed my records did "How To Save A Life" (Mark Endert), and Steve Fitzmaurice, who mixed my first EP, 'Minutes', mixed all the Sam Smith hits, "Stay With Me" was a massive male ballad. I'm signed to Atlantic, the home of Ed. The Lewis Capaldi guy, my good friends, wrote those songs with Lewis. But Adele moved the needle; she turned iTunes sales - the ballad took off with her. "The A Team" had no business being on the radio at that time.
Check out Forest Blakk, who is back on tour this summer, joining Goo Goo Dolls and Lifehouse.
Written by Michael Menachem