FEATURED MUSIC
Whether it be songwriting, remixing, producing as Mesa Luna, or collaborating on a project with others, Justice McLellan’s constant waking mode is working on music. Since his high school co-op class in a music studio, his mission has been to learn the ins and outs of lyrics, melodies, composition and the more technical avenues. He is well versed in two industry standard DAW’s, recording and mixing techniques and plays multiple instruments.
Justice began focusing on songwriting when he started his first band in grade 11, Ruby Coast. The band enjoyed success touring with such notable acts as Passion Pit, Tokyo Police Club, Ra Ra Riot, The Arkells amongst other well known artists. The experience and opportunity to watch these other great songwriters every night was invaluable and gave Justice his first glance into the music industry.
Looking for inspiration and a change in scenery, Justice moved from Toronto to Vancouver in 2012. There he changed his focus to honing his production skills, songwriting, remixing, creating music for commercials and collaborating with other artists to help tighten up their lyrical and sonic content. Some notable collaborations being with Hannah Georgas, Tokyo Police Club, The Darcys, The Belle Game, Jasper Sloan Yip and Tariq Hussain.
Justice has worked with some of his production mentors and is grateful to have collaborated with Grammy winning producer Brian Paulson, Grammy nominated producer Howard Billerman of Arcade Fire and with former Broken Social Scene producer David Newfeld. Learning first hand from these veteran producers and being able to keep in contact and discuss innovation in the audio work has been a dream come true.
2016 has been a landmark year for Justice’s new passion project, Mesa Luna, providing direct live support for Jack Garratt, Dan Deacon, U.S. Girls and La Femme. Over the past 6 months Justice’s creativity has been in demand writing the music for a PRS Headphones commercial airing nationally on TV; has been placed in CBC’s new show Kim’s Convenience and in Vice’s new documentary Payday. His original music has been purchased for corporate internal use at the Canadian coffee chain, JJ Bean.
Justice’s ability to adapt within various genres, lyrical content, production styles and aesthetics positions him as one of Canada’s most promising up and coming songwriters, top liners and producers.