Video Feature & Web-Exclusive Interview

Musician: RACHAEL SAGE

Video: “BELONG TO YOU”

RACHAEL SAGE GIVES FANS HER UMBRELLA WITH NEWEST ALBUM CANOPY

by Meredith Summers and Merlin David

Rachael Sage & The Sequins’ new album, Canopy, is a fleshed-out response to some of the most challenging questions we’re facing as a nation. When it’s increasingly harder to stay upbeat in the face of global news, Canopy explores how we hold onto and expand the love in our lives— without either inciting or ignoring the complexities that threaten our most valuable relationships. Rachael recently spoke more about how she put that theory into practice, starting with her bandmates.

Photo credit Shervin Lainez

Rachael Sage on Collaboration
Rachael Sage’s bandmates get their chance to shine on these tracks, helping her experience the music in an entirely new way. “While there was no co-writing on the record, that doesn’t diminish that these songs would not have the sound and impact they do without these particular musicians.”

One thing she learned while making this album was just how much her bandmates brought to the process. Falling deeper in love with them at every collaborative step just reinforced how lucky she was to work with these “kind, compassionate, and hilarious” musicians.

One of her favorite moments happened on a recording day with background singers, Annalyse and Ryan. During the session, her friend and photographer Tom Moore swung by with his pup and young daughter, Lois. It didn’t take long before Lois jumped in to sing on the title track and, luckily, they were able to capture it all for posterity. “We have the most delightful photo evidence of this magic happening!”

Rachael Sage on Writing the Title Track
The title track is called “Canopy”, and it’s an invitation to the listener to give up a small piece of control in exchange for an immeasurable dose of relief. Rachael wrote this song after doing what so many of us do when we’re anxious or bored—doomscrolling on social media. Her song is a salve to the seemingly never-ending testaments of pain and fear that we encounter every day.

To create this song, Rachael had to take a step backward to think about more than just her own perspective. “Finding that way of saying something that holds up a mirror to people and includes their own experience more than just being a means for me to vent or being cathartic for me is increasingly what I’m interested in.”

When it comes to her favorite song on the album, though, Rachael Sage had her own sleeper hit with “Belong to You”. While she’s not necessarily one for ballads, she’s struck by how much this song touched her listeners. “It seems to be hitting a nerve with a lot of people in a good way — where they’re connecting with the emotions of the lyrics and the gospel, devotional nature of the music and melody.”

Rachael on the Power of Festivals
During the interview, Rachael opened up about how festivals have become a huge source of inspiration for her. She recalled traveling with her bandmate and friend Trina Hamlin to Ladybug Fest, and the feeling of peace that arose as everything fell into place: the music, the trees, the chairs, the smiles all around her. All of it gave her the strength to write the song “Just Enough.”

As she put it, “I’m not always able to do this but I took it in fully and mentally logged how ‘right’ and how unconditionally supportive the vibe between us was. Then I decided to write a song about that moment of ‘knowing’ … knowing when you can be absolutely yourself with someone, and them with you.”

The song is about being complete as you are, whether you’re on your own, with friends, or standing by your partner’s side. To throw in even more fun, “Just Enough” is the perfect crowd-initiator, and Rachael can’t help but feel a tad giddy when she hears fans clapping along to the beat.

Rachael on Being a Cancer Thriver
We asked Rachael to reflect on how cancer changed her mindset when songwriting, and she could honestly say that she still approaches the challenge in much the same way. What has changed is her pervasive perfectionism, one that’s plagued her since childhood.

“I’ve always been a ‘God is in the details’ kind of artist, and I certainly still am, to a large degree, but I’ve done a lot of work on myself to learn how to let go of some of that tight grip, so to speak, on the result needing to be the exact same as the initial vision in my mind’s eye of how it should be.”

It’s allowed her to be more flexible with her ideas, keeping them fresh and allowing more surprises. You can see this exemplified in both the melody and video of “Live It Up” where she offers a little light-hearted joy and invites the listener to give themselves a pass to enjoy where they are right now.

Photo credit Anna Azarov

Rachael on Performing
Rachael calls tours in the UK and Europe her “home away from home,” and she loves how the audience responds more to the honesty in the music rather than the category. “They are less hung up on genre, and less worried about live lineups needing to be stylistically cohesive.” She’s had the chance to play with startup acts and older legends alike, and she’s built her confidence brick by brick when working with trailblazers like Eric Burdon and Imelda May.

It’s jostled her out of her need to be one thing or another, which has been liberating. It gave her a boost of confidence to tackle genre-bending obstacles. For example, when she played The Hard Rock Cafe, she had to take her pop songs to a slightly rougher crowd. Instead of shying away, she walked up with her guitar and piano and curated the songs based on the audience. The result? More people signed up for her email list than when she played with songwriters similar to her own genre.

No matter where she is, she usually performs “Sistersong,” not just because it’s a crowd-pleaser but because the message is so easily relatable from place to place. “Sistersong” is Rachael’s pledge to lift other women up in the music industry. “It became an anthem for me that made it crystal clear—in addition to my early solidarity with groups like Indiegrrl, GoGirls, UrbanMuse and Women in Music—that I was never going to get caught in the ‘mean girl’ mentality that so often is encouraged by our broader culture but also subcultures within music, among women. As a kid, I was very badly bullied at an all-girl school, and ever since I resolved to be someone who would support, nurture and encourage other women in this often cruel and dare I say sleazy business.”

“Sistersong” earned her a place on Ani DiFranco’s tour and at Lilith Fair, which was a huge steppingstone for her to run her own label, MPress Records. When pressed to give advice to fledgling artists, she encourages young talent to get off the internet and to take their instruments to coffeehouses or open mic nights, where they can work out their performance style, songs, and arrangements on their own time—without the debilitating criticism that’s so easy to absorb on platforms like YouTube.

As she put it, “Confidence, confidence, confidence—as developed by years of shedding all kinds of gigs—is such a beautiful thing. I’ve learned this also from the other artists on my label, especially Seth Glier and Grace Pettis.” When you believe in your ability to create and you have the passion to fuel the fire, it puts your audience at ease because they can feel as much as they hear.

Photo credit Anna Azarov

Rachael on Pride
Rachael’s approach to work is to keep going. Huge success, major failure, everyday steppingstones: you just get on with it, no matter what. But she did pause to share a story about a recent tour with Kristen Ford from Righteous Babe Records. Kristen asked Rachael to recite a poem by Andrea Gibson who had recently passed away from cancer.

Rachael was nervous because she didn’t want to mess up the emotional words, but she didn’t want to turn down the request either. During her recitation, Kristen improvised guitar against the compelling narrative. “The room grew hushed and it felt like we were really creating something sacred in Andrea’s memory. It was definitely a ‘moment’ and a reminder that saying yes to things you’re afraid of usually yields some kind of growth.”

Rachael on Visual Stylings
Canopy is one of the most visually unique and colorful packages that Rachael has ever attempted, a tribute to the pop-art exhibit “Luna Luna” that premiered at The Shed in 2024. Deriving the palate and patterns from artists like Keith Haring, Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf, the album packaging features some of Rachael’s own paintings alongside photography by Shervin Lainez and Anna Azarov.

“The photo shoots were very collaborative, and each photographer captured their take on the ‘Canopy’ theme while incorporating my colorful and expressive styling. The architecture of the package itself is very unusual, and I modeled the hardcover accordion-style foldout on a handmade Japanese art book I found in a used East Village bookstore. It’s a very interactive experience and I hope people love it as much as I loved creating it!”

Fans can purchase either the standard version or the limited edition deluxe, the latter of which features hand-numbered CDs against a bright orange vinyl. Rachael is proud to take her fans on a visual journey as much as a melodic and lyrical one.

Photo credit Anna Azarov

Rachael on What’s Next
Rachael will continue to tour the US and the UK until the end of the year. In 2026, she’ll work on an acoustic version of Canopy. She also teased a secret project she wasn’t quite ready to share more about. The only hint we got was that it would be a part of the celebration of 30 years of MPress Records. One thing’s for sure is that next year will be action-packed for Rachael, further catapulting her career and cementing her stardom.

Fans can check out more about Rachael on both her website and social pages:
Instagram: rachael_sage
Facebook.com/rachaelsagepage
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/rachaelsage.bsky.social
Website: https://rachaelsage.com/