Q&A: Kathleen Edwards

By T.E. Lyons

LEO: What’s the instrument you bring out to play “Sure as Shit”? That’s not standard guitar.

KE: It’s called a hammertone. It’s a 12-string mandoguitar. It’s kind of styled after the Vox—there was a Vox one, but I don’t know if they still make ‘em. Colin, he worked with a couple of guys in Canada to develop a prototype for the mandoguitar make this. The one that I’m playing every night is his. It’s actually the Number 100, which they gave him after they started manufacturing ‘em.

LEO: What was the feeling when you went into the studio for the set of recordings that became the third album? Did you feel at all that you had a different approach? Any experience that you wanted to take advantage of? I’ve heard all your previous releases, and this one feels like a step forward.

KE: I had no idea how it was going to turn out, and there were certain things I was wanting to try, musically. It was the first time I ever made a record where I basically started from Song No. 1, which was a little bit of a daunting thing, and at the same time I knew that I was going to take as long as I needed to have the songs at a place where I was really happy with them before recording them…or releasing them, anyway.

It’s the first time I really spent as much time as I did in process--thinking about all the little details. Working with Jim was really a foreign experience because he brought in a band for me to play with and they were people that, initially, I didn’t know personally. That was kind of a really cool challenge and a cool experience and I think the record sounds the way it does for all of those reasons.

LEO: How’s it feel to record a song like “Goodnight, California” knowing that you’re not likely to be able to do it live every night, and you’re not sure that you’ll be able to do it with strings. You have to know that the recorded version is probably going to be “it”—so is it bittersweet to record a song like that?

KE: It was really fulfilling—it was one of those songs that I always wanted to record and to me it was very satisfying. But it *is* really frustrating to get onstage and know I can’t have the vibraphone part, or I can’t have the guy who does the harmonica part come up and play on the song.

We’re so young a touring band at this point, and I think all the options of what we can do are still revealing themselves, slowly. Having said that, I kind of knew that there were going to be a lot of things on the record I’m really satisfied with, but I Probably won’t ever be able to replicate live—unless I do a one-off orchestra show.

LEO: What’s the history of the song “Alicia Ross”? Frightening and poignant, that one is. Where’d that one come up from?

KE: That one’s based on young woman in Toronto whose name is Alicia Ross. I just ended up writing the song about her family…because it was one of those things that was just scary and real.

Seeing how that happened…Everyone kinda watched publicly what they had to go through. The one thing that was refreshing about it was you saw the human side of what happens to people when they lose their children. And the mother being very public in the search for her child—I think it really gave a missing person a human face. And I guess I wrote that song because I felt that could’ve been my mother asking reporters to help in the public awareness of this case. It was just really eerie.

LEO: Speaking of eerie … the wounded cat with its brain matter hanging out? Even more than the songs about prison and hostage-taking, that must get to some people. Do you get comments about your willingness to dig into detail for a song? What goes through your mind as you consider your song and your audience?

KE: When I sing that line…well, there are some nights when people laugh when I sing that line and there are some nights where there’s this dead silence and people gasp in shock, but that’s a story that my Dad conveyed to me and that’s how I remembered it.
I like songs that use words that you don’t expect or imagery that’s kind of unexpected but easy to visualize. I was telling the story as I remember it being told to me.

There are certain times where it’s graphic or gross or it’s strange--but that’s the way it is. There are people who write about dry-humping on the dance floor or going down on somebody and they basically find the right language to process that, and I take a certain angle where my subject matter’s different, but my descriptions are as visual or as real.

LEO: You’re married to your guitarist. Does that change your songwriting method?

KE: The truth is sometimes that’s a challenge, because of course I worry that there are songs I write that he’ll interpret as being about him. Or the fact that we have problems just like everyone else and sometimes they make for what you draw on when you’re writing songs about your struggles in a relationship—or with any relationship, like friendship, etc.

Sometimes it’s hard because they don’t necessarily want that information to be out there because we do get onstage together every night. At the same time, I think you’ve got to write what you wanna write—otherwise, it’s like you’re gonna lose even before you get started.

LEO: Is he an active songwriter?

KE: He writes on his own and works with other people. I’m still wrapping my head around the collaborative songwriting experience. It’s not just him—it’s anyone. I just find it’s such a private thing at this point, I haven’t been able to open up myself to co-writing.

But he got to co-write a couple of songs on my last record. A lot of that was melody and arrangement-type suggestions, and helping the song get where it ended up being. I’m not much of a collaborator.

LEO: It was quite the eye-opener when I saw a recent show—your level of passion in the delivery of “Oil Man’s War”. You make such a connection with the audience in that song.

KE: Good to hear. It’s one of the songs that I’m not sure has been very good live.

LEO: …but right after that song, en someone shouted out their presidential choice, you had a quick and salty reaction about what you think of American politics. Do people regularly try to pull you into American politics? What’s it like to be a Canadian touring America during a hot political season?

KE: It’s always been the case. My first tour began at the beginning of the Iraq war. I started touring in the fall of 2002 with Richard Buckner, and we were reading Noam Chomsky’s “9/11”. It was pretty intense, post-9/11 and from Afghanistan to Iraq. A very crazy time to be traveling all different parts of America. We ended up in the South during the breakout of the Iraq war. As a Canadian…we obviously were not going to be participating in that as a nation, and I definitely kept my mouth shut. Because I was thinking that it wasn’t my place. And I have my own I kinda like the idea that they’re private. I don’t believe in political endorsement, basically.

There’s an American candidate I’d like to see win the election. Obviously it’s not my place…I’m happily touring America. I make most of my living here. Having said that, I try to be respectful of the fact that it’s not my country, and for other people to decide. And I really do hate politics I think that it’s a pretty disgusting business. It’s nice to see once in a while some people who are pretty transparent in the way they conduct themselves.

Kathleen Edwards performs tonight at Headliners Music Hall, 1386 Lexington Road, 584-8088.