“I don’t wanna be just a paper doll,” Stef Lang sings in her latest single, Paper Doll.
The song, off the Ladysmith native’s new EP Fighting Mirrors, is all about the pressure to look a certain way and seeing past that to find deeper meaning within yourself.
The 23-year-old hopes her message that there is more to us than what we look like will resonate with young girls, and it’s a message she’ll take with her as she embarks on a 20-date cross-Canada tour this month.
Lang is performing this Saturday night (March 31) at In the Beantime Café. It’s the last of three Vancouver Island dates before Lang spends a month on the road, supporting her new EP, Fighting Mirrors, which was released Feb. 29, and the single, Paper Doll.
Paper Doll was released to radio Feb. 1, and, with it, Lang is sending out an important message.
“It’s all about looks and image and the media and how it affects your self-esteem,” she explained. “The message is very special because I wanted to point out to the younger generation, especially young girls, that there’s a lot more to who you are than what you see on the surface. I want to challenge people to look deeper and find meaning ... I’m saying there’s more to us as human beings than what’s on the surface.”
Paper Doll is included on Fighting Mirrors, along with three more songs that Lang wrote and recorded during an intensive month sequestered in the wilderness of Quadra Island.
“I took off in September; I just wanted to get out of the city and do my own thing,” she said.
Lang produced two of the songs herself and is very proud of the EP.
“It’s all about struggle, the external and internal challenges you face and seeing the vision of who you want to be and who you are and making those two worlds meet,” she said.
Lang is offering the EP as a free digital download because she didn’t want money to get in the way of getting her music into her fans’ hands.
“I think accessibility is so important,” she said. “The culture is so fast-food. I wanted to give it away because the world of social media is so fast, and it’s already very accessible; I wanted to be fully accessible.”
Lang believes her own accessibility is important too. She connects wtih her fans through social media, including Facebook and Twitter, and she has started weekly Twitter conversations with her fans.
“You can’t be an artist without (social media),” she said. “It’s such a powerful tool to be able to reach your audience. You have to be able to take advantage of where your fans are, and so many of your fans are on social media.”
Lang left Ladysmith at 17 and moved to Vancouver to pursue her music career. She signed a publishing deal with Nettwerk One/Milk Music, and her debut album, The Underdog, was nominated for Pop Recording of The Year at the 2011 Western Canadian Music Awards. Lang’s first single, Mr. Immature, rose to No. 5 on the Billboard Canadian Emerging Artist chart.
Tickets for Lang’s In the Beantime Café performance are available at the café and are $10 for the show or $25 for the show and dinner. The show starts at 7 p.m.
Lang is also performing Thursday at the Duncan Garage Showroom and Friday at Diners Rendezvous in Nanaimo. To learn more about Lang or download Fighting Mirrors, click here.