Kathleen Edwards

Part 1

0:00Kathleen Edwards. Thank you so much. Thank you. How are you? I'm good. Road worn. That is. Yeah. But happily, like it's a good it's a good numbness. It's been like three months now maybe. Yeah. I've been on the road since about February. Wow. You know, my record came out first week of March and I was in Europe the week before doing stuff. So yeah, I've been going going like a crazy girl. Yeah, it almost done festivals for the summer kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, they'll be I have a month of touring left in Europe. Mm hmm. That'll be nice. Do you get the travel at all or is it all hotel venue, hotel venue? Pretty much. Yeah. Hate to take the sexy side out of it. But on the days off, usually we try and make the most of them and be in a place where there's something to do and try and make the most of being out. Mm hmm. But yeah, it's pretty the rock and roll lifestyle is

0:50really the opposite of what everyone thinks it is. It's not like, you know, you basically wake up and you have a window of time to go have a shower and then you go to the club and they set up your stuff and so it's business. It's a job. Sure. People don't realize it's a job sometimes. Yeah. And I'm not like, you know, I'm not at that place where I can hire other people to do all my dirty work. So I do a lot of, you know, I let I help load in. I help load out and I try myself. Do you want to meet a place where you. I don't. Okay, there's a visual. Yep. Thank you. I enjoy it. Do you want to be the place where other people are working for you like that? Because then you got to pay them and you got to worry about that kind of stuff and you have a whole crew with you at all times. Oh, I would love to be in that position. You want to be a diva? Well, no, it's, you know what I've had guitar, tacks and extra crew people around and it's really makes things

1:38really great for having good shows because it's that much less pressure to scramble every day. Yeah, it's true. You know, it's kind of like the show. It should be like the best part of the day. And it usually it almost always is. But all the things that lead to it are pretty draining and pretty exhausting and hard and you're always kind of like trying to chase your tail and make sure you just get everything that you got to get done in a day. So but it's it's a great way to live life too. It's a whirlwind. What's better living in the back of your truck? I loved living in the back of the truck. Did you really? I think I had a dream about that last night that I was sleeping in the back. Oh, yeah. Still doing it? Sure. Save you some money. I remember I spent a lot of time in Calgary on my first tour that I booked myself across the country. Oh, yeah. And I stayed in my

2:23suburban a lot and I remember driving around Calgary and yeah. Summer or winter? Summer. Oh lucky. Okay. Good. Fall. It was the fall. Oh, oh. And I remember there was a really great thrift shop and I bought tons of warm clothes at an epilow and isn't that weird? Pillows at thrift shops. Anyway, well, if you need one, you need one. Yeah, sure. Let's play a tune off the record to let people know what the new record sounds like asking for flowers. Your choice. What do you want to hear? You know what? I'm going to pick, I make the dough and you get the glory because this is I'm back in Canada and people appreciate hockey references. So here we go. Yeah, nice. Thank you. And Marty McSorley is in the video. I hear he's in the video. You got to go to YouTube and see it. It's hilarious. He teaches me how to hip check so I can take out Jim Cuddy from Blue Rodeo. It's really funny. Yeah. Here he takes his hockey pretty seriously. Well, sure. Cuddy does.

3:10He's yeah. Why not? I think I know a lot of people who do. Do you do you play? I do now. You do see the video. You'll see that I actually, I mean, Paul Coffey taught me some skating moves. You're just hooked up with all the old Oilers. Yeah. Marty McSorley taught me how to hip check and like keep my knees bent and get it going and keep my weight low on the ice. And yeah, awesome. That's amazing. I like it. I like how all the references and I hear it was written under pressure too.

8:07Like it was like an overnight kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, it was one of those experiments that could have gone quite badly where I my the guy I produced my record with Jim Scott. So it was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It was it heard me kind of humming some stuff and working on something and he's like, what is that? And then I told him and he's like, well, you got to go back to hotel and finish it tonight and I don't ever do that. I can't. I never thought I could write in the studio or with a deadline and I went and did it and I came back next day and the whole band was there to record and we just we made it happened. It's pretty wild and now it's a single. It's a hit single. It sure is. You played on Leno the other way, didn't you? Yeah, you did. Yeah, I thought I saw that crazy. Five questions. Oh, one more answers. Oh, iPod or CDs. Oh, yeah.

8:54CDs. Leonard McCartney. Oh boy. What? These are hard questions. They are hard, but everyone else has answered them. Okay, Lenin. Today. Today. Yeah. Alcohol or marijuana? Alcohol. Song you've written your most proud of. Asking for flowers. Oh, cool. We'll play that one next. And one word, Kathleen Edwards. Hmm. Hmm works. Oh, I have a word. It's coming to me and it is feisty. Feisty. Nice. Are you? I guess you have to. It's generally. Yeah. How come asking for flowers is your favorite? I think because I it's a song that I like I still love playing every night and it's a song that I wrote for a friend of mine who went through a really hard time and I feel like I really did it her story justice.

9:45That's how I feel. Cool. It's a good song too. I really like it. It's been. Yeah, I'm certain I'm just seven years. I think I change in the world.

11:08Ten years. I've been cut out too long. But you saying you write songs from your perspective, it's harder for you to place yourself elsewhere

14:46and write from someone else's. But it seems like on this record you're doing that quite a bit. Yeah, I think I really, really like just with time and like lots of just being exposed to a lot of different songwriters and people's stories and hearing other people's approaches you realize that there isn't one way to do this. You know, it's art, you know, and not to sound pretentious, but you know, like I wrote, I read Bob Dylan's Chronicles right when I finished recording my last record and it gave me this whole new perspective on where I thought I was going to end up going, which was to actually treat songwriting or not be afraid to treat songwriting sometimes as a craft and not feel like because it didn't just like you didn't just write learning to fly or free falling in five seconds that you know it's not worth working on. So I have certain songs on the

15:35record where I actually contemplated the story a little more and invested to more time and not just wow, if it doesn't just kind of ring out of my mouth really fast and it's then it's probably overthought. Interesting. So more fiction coming your way you think too? On smart. Yeah, on this record? Yeah, but in a way where it's not it's not fiction, it's real to me. It's other people's stories and they're people who are close to me. So it's not like completely made up, but I'm channeling maybe part of myself but through other people's stories. Is it harder to write from that perspective or are you starting to get used to it now? Um, it's really challenging. It's really fun. It's really rewarding because then I don't feel like I have to talk about myself all the time

16:23or I can hide myself in other people's stories. Thing just things about myself that maybe I wouldn't write a whole song about that particular experience that I've gone through but I can fit it into somebody else's. Someone like Alicia Ross maybe. Sure, absolutely. Was that a hard song to write? I think it'd be hard. Really hard. Did you know where it was just kind of from the newspapers? Yeah, just from the papers. But I think part of the reason, I mean I think a lot of people responded to that song because people felt like they had come to know that family because it was so open and the grief was so in front of us all and watching this woman you know beg for the life of her child. You know looking for her daughter, her daughter's missing

17:09and it being very public. I think everyone sort of felt invested in their story. And I don't know if people out here know, I mean I was still living in Toronto at the time. I know you're out there as well. I know that was a very big story out in Ontario. But for people who don't know it here, you want to just explain the background a little bit? Alicia Ross was a woman in her early 20s. She still lived with her mom and she just got dropped off by her boyfriend one night, probably pretty late around 11 o'clock at night. And she never made it in the door. And for a long time the boyfriend was a suspect and as it turns out it was one of the next or neighbors who had some kind of confrontation with her and ended up killing her right there. I think probably right in front of the house or something to that. Something like that. And

17:59so she was missing for many weeks and no one knew where she was and it was like she just vanished off the face of the earth. How long after that did you write it? I think right when the story broke that it was the neighbor who had actually come forward and confessed to killing her. And it was just one of those stories that you just I think because I'm getting older now and I'm thinking about becoming a parent too. Are you really? Well sure. I mean you know I think it comes in my mind a lot. And how my mother would have ever been able to get out of bed the next day knowing after all the things she took care in her whole life making sure that I was happy and healthy and safe to know that that's the way that your life ends is a pretty I can't imagine my mom getting out of bed every day after. No I mean yeah that's crazy. So I think I really just

18:50it's just my heart ached for for her. Yeah for sure it's one of the cornerstone songs in the record. Did you ever consider not using her name? Well you know couple people asked me that and someone actually told me that they thought I was really brave of me to put her name. Yeah I agree. And I didn't really think about that because I thought well this is the person's this is whose story I'm telling. And you know the one thing that I tend to say as well is that I think this song isn't just about Alicia Ross it's about all of the people who lose someone you know and never really have that chance to have any closure or that it happens so frequently and maybe we

19:35become desensitized to it. I think the reason I saw that story and was so moved by it was because I'd been on the road for a year and a half and I wasn't really living in my community and suddenly I got home and there was a story in the paper and it felt like it was happening in my community and I really clung to that and it happens in everyone's communities and it's devastating. Yeah it is. Let's play people the song so they can hear it. Is your darkest day?

23:05I'll never forget.

24:14Food a little bit because you brought your guitar with you you're gonna play as a song.

25:02Yes. What do you feel like playing? Well I'm going to play the cheapest key but I'm going to play the censored version where I don't say bullshit. And now he just did. Yes. That's okay though. It's like Jane Fonda talking about a creative project on National the monologues of some sort. Yeah well like you can save a giant on. Yeah I'm sure you can. It's a proper term. That would be a serious problem with the law because that's just ridiculous. How do you feel about censorship? How they have to be about bullish on your on the radio? I just think there's such a double standard out there. I mean Canada's way more liberal and understanding or not judgmental of things but you know like it's kind of cliched but to talk about the Janet Jackson incident really changing the level of control over censorship in the FCC in

25:53America. It was okay to be fair it was a family event and yeah it was likely intentional. More than that. Yeah you think so. Yeah but it's a woman's breast and last time I checked all the fucking all the men who work at the FCC were likely breastfed. So if a breast is that offensive and I'm not trying to sound like some militant you know. No I like it it's good. Crazy woman but seriously it's a boob and guess what boobs feed babies? So that's not obscene. Breastfeeding is not obscene. Breast are not obscene. In Ontario it's legal to go walk around topless. That's true. And I take every opportunity to do that. I don't. I just think you know like there is there's so much graphic you know look at

26:45look at a song like My Humps by the black. Yeah the black eyed peas. Yeah. Such an example of like blatant overly sexual content that's totally like it's kind of like it's slutty. Yeah. Super slutty. It's super um I don't know what the word is. It just it's like it's kind of gross. Kind of leaves you with a gross feeling. Yeah the song is hokey and cool and stuff. But at the core of it it's about like check out my ass don't you want to do me from behind. Yeah. And that's okay to put on the radio. For little nine-year-old girls to be dancing around. Yeah. I mean come on. Where that's that's that's a load of you know what. I like how I got Kathleen

27:32Edwards to swear a few times. I swore once on the the team um the radio you know like the um sports. Oh yeah. And I I worked so hard the whole interview because they were like this is live so you can't swear you can't swear. Yeah. And as soon as the interview was done I forgot that it was all still going on in the studio and they were all still talking and I'm like will already done. And they're like yeah I'm like and then of course it was uh out there. It's awesome. You can swear in Strombolopolis's show though. Yes. He loves people. That's kind of crazy. I don't know how to see if he pulls that off. You know it's really weird. I've watched his show where sometimes you hear something being bleeped or censored or muted. Oh yeah. And other times it just goes through. Huh. You should have just gone crazy when you were on. I did. Did you? Yes. Oh yeah the

28:18cheapest key. You're going to play it for us. Okay. And you always write it in the cheapest key. You always blame it on the cheapest key.

29:12You always blame me in the cheapest key. They say the sturto is the hardest part. Well not like you know baby I'm all warm and I'm done. Sometimes I want to shout your name out loud. And let them in on what you're all about. And you always write it in the cheapest key. You always blame it on the cheapest key. You always blame it on the cheapest key. Yeah yeah. This key comes my softer sub. And there it goes. Because I'm in the sympathy

30:23in the cheapest key. What is the cheapest key? See? Everyone asks me that the key the songs and E flat. No I didn't like everyone asked me that

31:12get a life. I meant it like it's a good question because most people were like well what what I don't get what the key is. A door key. No it's the musical key. Yeah that's the thing. So A, B, C, D, E, F, G are musical keys. Yes. There's no there's no H. No. Go still G. There's like there's no H chord. So it's A through G. But the songs actually E flat for which I will always be mortified that I couldn't say. Well actually it's kind of funny because I don't go E flat is okay. That was cool. I've got nothing. It's my B game today. Ben Montage play on your record. That must have been quite not the new record but one of the old ones on back to me. He played on this one too. Did he how did how did that's like a dream come true? Absolutely. Ben Montage. What a

32:01Tom Petty's keyboard player. Yeah he's in the heartbreakers. He was in mud crotch which then became. Have you heard that record? I am dying to hear it. Yeah I haven't heard it. It's on my computer. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Yeah I know. I'm a huge Tom Petty fan. I know you were. And Ben just one of those guys you know you'd think after all these years he'd be you know kind of like a tired and jaded musician and there's nobody out there in LA who's maybe more excited about playing music. He's so cool. Mm-hmm. Really nice guy. What's your favorite song that he worked on? We did this one's B side. It's actually not on the records called I Can't Give You Up. And it's this really like soft acoustic. There's no guitar on it. It just goes. And he plays piano on it. And he sat in the studio or sat out at the piano. And I sat at a microphone and it's just one pass.

32:48Oh really? Yeah. How can it make it? I took it out at the last minute and I kind of regret it. But I play it live. Yeah okay cool. So and yeah there's this like beautiful thing where he's playing and I'm looking at him. We're looking at each other and I'm singing and then it's kind of this great moment. So maybe yeah anyway. So I love Ben. He's great. Well let's play a song that we can play people. Okay. That you enjoy his part song. Oh oh Canada. Oh it's a rock and roll song and he plays this great thing at the end. You can't cut it off. Where he played. I asked him to play the National Anthem. So the song goes like Oh Canada, Santa Car for a lot. And then it goes yeah. And then at the end he goes

33:45and it's like this cool thing where he's like I don't get it like you will. Yeah. It's like the minor of the of the National Anthem. That's awesome. Critical song. You talk about you got global

37:47warming themes in there. He also got I don't want to say people not caring for black people but in a way a little bit how that kind of gets ignored by the media and a very critical song. And I like it because it shows because in the States you can't criticize the government right because then you're not patriotic. But here it's almost not frowned upon but the complete opposite of that. Yeah I think you know Jen like the songs about I think a little bit about our indifference or complacency to certain things. And as Canadians you know we're a great country and we do a lot of things really well and we're a great it's a great place to live. But I think sometimes because we know that and we feel that we tend to water down our problems like they are less significant than the problems in other countries like specifically our neighbors to the south. And I think there's a lot

38:37maybe unintentional but I think there's racism in in media here in Canada. I think the way that we report certain stories or the like you know in Toronto there was it was on national it was on the national papers. A young woman got shot on Boxing Day in Toronto on the streets and she was a white middle-class girl 15 years old terrible tragedy. She was caught in in gunfire and on Yonge Street and she was killed and it was absolutely tragic. But it was a year during which so many other innocent people had been killed from random gunfire. Who were black? Who were of all different origins and it was the white girl's face on the cover of

39:25the national newspaper. And I'm not in any way dismissing how terrible a tragedy that is for her family. But it just made me go you know what they're like how how could this be that we're talking about this. The problem isn't that the problem happened a long time ago and it's not necessarily all about guns it's about us standing behind communities of people that need extra support you know and lots of young kids with single moms who have no place else to go or feel like there's no other path for them in life. I felt like that was the story and it really pissed me off. I could tell it's still getting you going. And it was all about you know this white girl gets killed and that's someone's got to be held responsible and it's like well yes obviously that's true but

40:10what about all these other things that led to this let's let's examine ourselves and how we integrate people into our communities and take care of each other so this doesn't happen. You're going to start writing a lot more from that perspective being angry at something you read in the newspaper. I'm not trying to be controversial or say no I don't mean it's out of my mind. I'm a citizen of this country and I see things that really get under my skin and maybe my job as a songwriter is to write about them. I mean you know everyone can stand back and say well yeah you're a white girl from Ontario how would you know what it's like you know to be on like you know live on East Hastings in Vancouver. Obviously I don't but I have compassion for it and I think it's I as I get older I think I really feel the importance of taking care of each other and

41:01standing up for people whose voices maybe aren't so readily heard. Something from Neil Young's book if you will. Sure. Rocking in the free world. What a great song. It's an anthem it's an anthem about you know really looking at ourselves closely and thinking about what's important in life. Definitely. And how we what our legacy is as as individuals you know when we get older what have you done to help other people through life too you know. If you can be remembered for one song what would it be what's your legacy what do you want. I've never asked anybody that I hope I don't think I've written that song yet. I hope I haven't. I hope I hope that I'm continue to write songs that mean something to people and to me. Are you constantly writing? On the road not so much. Yeah more when you get down time. Yeah. Let's go back with the song

41:49off one of the older records. I'll give you the choice. What do I really like in state or back to me. Oh I don't know. I really like both of them. No no I'm giving this in your book. I've got I've narrowed it down to two. Okay back to me. Okay. Because there's a killer guitar solo in it. And you're playing it? No. I wish. Can you solo? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm starting to solo like I there's a couple there's a song on the new record I did a solo on yeah. What songs that? It's called run. Oh I like that one. We should play that for people too. How long is this show? You can go as long as we want. Why are you getting bored? You want to leave? You can leave. Fine go. I like that. It's meant like how many songs am I going to play as? I'm trying to get I'm sorry. I don't need some stuff. It's fine Kathleen. I understand how it is. You just want to go.

42:36You don't like it here. Let me out. So we'll close it out with back to me and run. I've got ways to make you fall. Tell you all things in the Lord above. I've got ways to make you mad. Just laughing at the girls sitting on your lap. I've got ways to make you sing my songs more. I've got plans you've never seen. I've got moves. I've got ways to make you cry.

Part 2

0:22Alright, hey, it's Matt Shrktor with MSN.ca. We have Kathleen Edwards put out this new record called Voyageur. It's one of the best records I've heard in a very long time. I'm not just saying that because she's sitting here. It's actually true. I love it. I love it. It runs the gambit of stuff I did not expect from you. So talk about making this record and, I guess, getting away from that old country to go more in the pop, if you will. Well, yeah. A conscious decision? Totally conscious decision. I definitely felt like I'd sort of the wheels have turned on that for me for a while, and I'd sort of run out of steam a little bit and wanted to do something different. And it wasn't that I feel like I did something completely different. I think I just spent more time getting a more accurate sort of sonic background to who I have always really identified

1:10myself, seen myself as, anyway, musically. So I think it just took more time to sort of work out on ideas than I had in the past. I read a quote from you saying, this record is about more re-examining your life from where you're at. So where were you when you were writing this? I started making this record probably in 2008. I mean, writing the songs for it at the end of that year in 2009 and just sort of really going through some pretty big, like, life changes as people do. You know, I've turned 30. And sometimes I didn't even see it coming. But sometimes the calendar is a good way of kicking us in the ass and reminding us of, like, hey, remember how you said you would get back to me on this one? Well, I'm here to collect your thoughts on that. So ultimately, my songs are sort of reflections of where I

1:58was emotionally and mentally. And I was ready to make a record that sort of was way more ballsy and like in your face and the record I made before. And it was just ready to do something different. Certainly it's a lot deeper at times. I mean, a lot of breakup songs, obviously. And you have side cars, which is more like a renewed faith in love. Yeah. So did that come writing it towards the end after getting through everything? There are things that happen all the time where you stop and you take stock of where you've been and where you're at. And sometimes those hard truths are difficult to accept. And sometimes they're like a relief, you know. And for sure, this record is about love and enduring love and trying to find love or trying to heal love or trying to like keep love together.

2:44And sometimes it's about like moving forward and trying to like press reset. Love and love. I started writing on piano for the first time, really. So I wrote a soft place to land and Pink Champagne on the piano. And what about, what's the line really? House full of empty rooms? That was written long before any of the other songs for the record got written. It was pretty early. Was it hard to write? It sounds like I'm thinking like John Lennon's Jealous Guy or Marley's No Woman No Cry. They seem like hard songs to write.

3:32Yeah, I mean I don't know how people sit at Starbucks in Nashville and sit around at Laptop and try and write the next hit song because the only thing I know is stuff that comes from this place inside which sounds super cliché but I mean. It came from a really vulnerable place, like a really true sadness. And you go out and you play them and to be able to sing them earnestly and have people react in a way where you also feel like they're with you and they're experiencing that thing, whatever that thing is, in a way where you can see like, I've been to shows where I've like heard someone play a

4:17song and I cried and you know you just, you fill up with this thing that you can't describe and it really feels good to do that sometimes and to see people have that reaction. It's like an affirmation that I wrote a good song. Five questions, five quick questions, more answers. We did this last time, we'll see if you can answer this. Oh my God, these are so hard, okay. Road or studio? Studio. Lennon or McCartney? Oh, McCartney. What's most important, lyrics, melody or rhythm? Oh, all three, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you've written your most proud of. Asking for flowers. And in one word, Kathleen Edwards. Whiskey. Whiskey.

5:03That's the first thing, I like that. I just said whatever came to mind first. I love it, thank you very much. There's a lot of other very bad descriptions. I really appreciate it, thank you.