Kathleen Edwards - Interview

It’s been one year since Kathleen Edwards released Back To Me following Failer, the debut album that launched her to critical darling-dom in 2003. Since then she's performed with The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Bob Dylan, seen rock royalty like Roger Daltrey attend her shows, and had another hero, keyboardist Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), lend his hands to her songs. No wonder Edwards is more confident than ever as she wraps tour support for Back To Me and begins her next record.

The Ontario-born singer/songwriter has discovered a circular path in music-making that starts with people and ends with people, no matter what happens in between.

“It’s funny because I think I’ve always known it’s the people you meet in the end, but I think it can take a back seat sometimes,” says Kathleen Edwards. “You realize that so much of playing music is being part of a community and not necessarily like a community in one place, but just having friends who share the same kind of experiences that you’re having as well. I found with my first record it was hard to digest a lot of stuff…I didn’t have time to really connect with anyone and have relationships with anyone other than my band. And this time I met people like John Joe and Jim James from My Morning Jacket and the rest of those guys. I realized that it’s really nice to connect with people and have these personal relationships to carry you through what can be a roller coaster-type of experience in the music business.”

Industry unpredictability makes Edwards particularly appreciative of the “here and now” and mental re-tooling keeps her head level.

“You keep your expectations very low and then everything else will be fantastic,” says Edwards with a laugh.

Edwards tries to free herself from routine practices during the creative process. It's downtime that consistently drives her to her guitar.

“A dry spell really helps,” says Edwards about inspiration. “I’m certainly no Ryan Adams. I don’t sit around and write ten songs…I can’t write on the road so I have to be home and I definitely need a few days or at least a week to decompress from the rhythm of moving constantly…It’s hard for me to talk about my process because I don’t really feel like I have one…I feel like I’m just starting out, so I’m trying not to look at how I’ve written a song every time or think, ‘How do I recreate that experience?’ I don’t want to put pressure on myself to think that it has to be the same kind of experience every time…I find on Back To Me, the one song that I’m really proud of, because I took that mentality and thought, ‘I don’t want to write ten more fucking relationship songs’…is ‘Pink Emerson Radio,’ which is a song about objects and memories associated with personal possessions and the potential loss of all those memories. I was really happy that I was able to write a song that I love as much as a song like, ‘Copied Keys,’ which is a song, for me, that’s really a relationship song about geography and moving ahead in your life and reminiscing. I found it really rewarding to know that I could write a song that wasn’t always about boy, girl, sex, stars, drink, country, road, highway, driving, all that.”

Kathleen Edwards performs at Joe’s Pub on March 23 & 24.

Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly 3/15/06.