Jann Arden

FEMMUSIC: Can you describe your songwriting technique?

JA: My songwriting technique…well, very much misunderstood I think by my own self. It’s uh, I mean, even if I have an idea for a song, within 10 minutes I’m so far away from my original idea, thinking, “Damn!” and I think it’s just about making choices. You have lots of ideas that go through your head, and I suppose it would be similar to journalism, like you have all these notes, and you’re thinking to yourself, “how do I start this thing?” It’s really magical, and very much like being an antenna of some kind, or a little satellite dish. You have all these wonderful energies I think that flow through the cosmos and if you sit long enough, and are patient enough, usually melody for sure will pop into my head, and then I’m off and running. So it starts with a chord, as simple as that. One chord will really set a tone for me, whether it’s vibrations or what have you. But I don’t read music, so I don’t really understand the theoretical part of it very well. I try just to be open minded. If I’m struggling at all, I quit. Like, I’ll put the guitar in the corner and I just, I won’t work till I’m frustrated, I just don’t do it.

FEMMUSIC: How was it working with Ed Mark on this album?

JA: Wonderful, funny, exciting, touching. Eddy’s dad unfortunately was very suddenly taken from this world. He died sort of in the middle of working, so Mark was really instrumental in sort of taking us to his studio, and we kept doing like pre-production stuff and setting a lot of things up, cause Ed was just like ,”you guys have to just go and do your thing. I have to go to Chicago”. And when you’re grief-stricken, it’s very hard to…well especially I think the nature of my music too is exactly. Abba. So I’m sure it was difficult for him to submit himself to this atmosphere. It was very emotional. So Ross Broom and myself and Mark, we all kind of just banded together and worked in a little basement studio and got a lot of the pre-production stuff done, and then took it to Ed when he was back and up and running, and brought in Greg Bissonette on the drums to play on a lot of the loops that we had created, and it was really a defining moment, I think, in people just working together. It’s the definition of meeting halfway and of letting everybody explore their ideas. Very funny, though. Despite all the things that were happening-I was breaking up with somebody-and it was just like this free for all of things that were going on. It seems like a blur to me now, but I don’t think I have ever enjoyed making a record as I have this one.

FEMMUSIC: What was your best experience making the record, Blood Red Cherry?

JA: I think singing for me this time was really liberating. I just seemed to find this place…I don’t know whether it’s writing in better keys, or just finding where my voice sort of suits itself better or is even stretching it a little bit more and trying some more stuff with falsetto and a little different phrasing. I just found it really exciting to sing on this record. And plus the fact that it’s the first time I’ve really experimented with loops and stuff because of working with Russell. We had a lot of really neat grooves. And so it made me come from a different place too when I was singing, whereas before I’d start, I’d write on guitar and all those rhythmical things sort of came in after the fact. And I’d have to readjust my singing to that. Whereas this time I was kind of locked in while I was writing. It just was more…I just really enjoyed singing. Sometimes I struggle, or I’m to fussy in the studio and this time Ed…I might have sang 3 or 4 tracks, and then we usually would comp the vocal. But for the most part, I can go through the whole pass of a song and be done, and just punch the odd word or fix the odd thing. Eddy doesn’t like to fix mistakes. He likes mistakes. He likes flat and sharp, he likes when you don’t exactly do what you want it to do, whether it’s on a turnaround or what have you. He likes to leave you open, hanging. He just thinks that’s what makes great music. So I’ve learned a lot from him to not always cover your tracks, to not always refine, to not always fine-tune. To let things be organic. And I think that’s why this record works well too, because it’s technological but it’s still really organic. It’s those 2 worlds really cohabitating quite well.

FEMMUSIC: I know when I was listening to it again today, I…it struck me on a number of levels. The biggest reference I came back to was I saw so many themes and almost felt the complexity of it. In my mind in comparison came to Peter Gabriel’s So.

JA: Wow. Jesus. I don’t even know what to SAY. I just think that it’s that hybrid perhaps, that he, whether it was happenstance that he stumbled upon it or that it was very premeditated. Whatever the case may be, Gabriel joined those 2 worlds together, and continues to with his involvement with African music, and worldbeat stuff. I mean, us Anglo-Saxon whiteys from the prairies get to hear the world somehow. And loops, you know, all these great loops you get on disks now, that you can license and use and make, and you can make a kick drum into a car door slamming, and you sample that. I think still with us we knew we had to have the songs in lieu of all those great tools, a lot of the toys. I said to Russ many times, we still have to really have the songs being the shining stars in all of this. So we try to leave them pretty simple. Like something like “Cherry Popsicle” the second track, it’s got this loop then it’s got this haunting line that’s like 5 notes (hums) and I think it gives your heart and soul…you can soak that in, instead of like 8 million notes and all these different elements going on. I try and make music that people really feel like, “I KNOW this now. I can participate in this song because after hearing it once, I can understand it.” And I really do go out of my way to keep my melodies really simple, but somehow intricate enough that they’re interesting for me.

FEMMUSIC: In terms of the songs, why did you choose “Cherry Popsicle” as the first song you released?

JA: I can’t tell you how surprised I am about it. Zoe went with “Cherry popsicle”. And they changed their minds a few times on me. Initially they were leaning at the last track, “Peace Middle” which I was really taken aback by. “Sleepless” was tossed around of course—it was very successful in Canada and performed really well and was Top 10 for about 2 ½ months or something. And they just thought they felt it was the best way for them to start. I don’t know how different radio formats are down here than where they are back home, but I was thrilled. It’s a 3 ½ minute song. I think the chorus is very clear and really textured and layered and I think it’s one of those worms that if you hear it a couple of times, it will sink in. And I think the content of the song is so, you know, so full of metaphors and these great visuals of what this person used to be, you know what this guy used to be to you. ‘You were my smoky little bar’. You know, you can just picture yourself there with this person you’re falling in love with, and all of a sudden it goes to shit. But I was-I’m still surprised, but pleasantly so, about that choice. I guess it would be hard with a 14 track record on making a choice of what to lead off with. Which is nice for me. At least there isn’t just one track where they’re going, ‘well, that’s the only way to go. We’ve got to go with this one. We’re going with “Like a Virgin”‘. (laughs) Right?

FEMMUSIC: One song that struck me was “Into the Sun”. Both that and also “Another Human Being” really are about hope…

JA: Anthems.

FEMMUSIC: Yes! How did you come up with “Into the Sun”?

JA: God, it was such a quick song. I’d gone over to Russell’s one afternoon and I was playing this little mini child’s keyboard. And I started doing this thing on it, and it was so weird. And then Russell started playing and I just thought about…the lyric, I just was scribbling it down really quickly, smack dab in the middle of “Send”. I think what had just happened, although the unrest hadn’t completely blown out of proportion in the Middle East at that time, there was just some crap happening that week that I thought was appalling. These kidnappings from where I was, and the Matthew Shepherd trial had finally wrapped up, and the boys…I mean, the Shepherds spared those boys’ lives. They could’ve had the death sentence, and they chose to give them life. And I thought that was a very brave choice. What good does it do to kill anybody? They didn’t want any more killing. I just thought about him and then I thought about all the great artists that had been just shot, you know, in the prime. Whether it was Elvis killing himself, or Janis Joplin injecting drugs, or Jimi Hendrix. And then on the other side of the coin, all these political figures that could have been wonderful, I suppose. They weren’t perfect, but I just thought, you know, live your life, be good, try your best, and don’t walk in the shadows. Like when you have a choice to get out and squint into that brightness, do it. A lot of people shy away from that. They don’t feel worthy of it. And I like the simplicity of that song. It’s just, “Hold your head high, keep a smile on your face, you’ll be gone before you know it.” And something about posturing, of having your shoulders held back, and the pride involved in that. And the verses I liked too because you’re torn kind of back into ‘this is what is actually going on, but it isn’t how you have to be.’ So it’s a juxtaposition, that song. The verses say one thing, and the choruses tell a far different tale.

FEMMUSIC: Yes. I heard that a great deal. That one I was listening to three times on the way out. And…one other thing that struck me is that it sounds like you’ve almost gone through a catharsis yourself.

JA: Very much so. I think everybody does, from time to time. You find yourself going through an enormous amount of change. Things seem to be very complacent and static for a certain amount of time, and all of a sudden you’re thrust into job changes, and relationship changes, and you know, family things that come up, or people being diagnosed with cancer, or having to move. In my case, I had gone to Africa. And when I went there I just, I realized how much of the point I was missing. And I was a bit humiliated. You know, I’m very successful at what I do. But I just realized that I really trtuly wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy with my management-we were going two very different directions-I’d been with these fellows for 11 years. I didn’t like where I was living. I didn’t like the relationship that I was in. I was drinking a lot-again. Not a LOT, a lot. But for me, having 3 glasses of wine every day is not the optimum…you can’t go to bed like that every night. You’re missing something. You don’t read books anymore, you kind of just sit and stare at the TV. And I knew that I was trying to block something out. So I had my lawyer draft a letter and sent that off to my management, and severed that relationship, and was in litigation for a year over that, but that was almost 3 years ago now. I got out of the relationship that I was in. I put my house up for sale. I got myself back together and started drinking tons of water and running again, and I moved out into the country. And I started writing all these songs. So it was so great, I…you know, you can’t run from things. And that’s never what I wanted to do. I wanted to face them dead on and be forthright with people and say, “This is about me now. It’s not about your feelings. I’m changing this, and I’m going to change my destiny.” I think fate is something that’s going to happen to you anyways, but I think destiny is an entirely different story. I think you can shape destiny. Fate perhaps not, but destiny, yes indeed. It’s probably just semantics, but…

FEMMUSIC: I think more than just semantics.

JA: But it was so scary the first year. I cried a lot, and then I just found my feet and thought, “You know, I love music, but I’m going to love music from a good place and make it more recreational.” And I hardly even played guitar anymore, I just didn’t. But I’ve been doing this for 25 years now. I’m 39 years old and it’s funny, you know, I just got Female Vocalist of the Year or something in Canada, and I just think, “I don’t know what it means.” They asked me, ‘what do you think it means?’ and I say, ‘I don’t really think it means anything. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate it, but if you’re asking me what it means, I don’t know. YOU tell ME.’ And they would laugh too. So…just so many other interests, and I think that’s what makes my music good, is that I’m living my life and I have something to write about. I’m not an audiophile sitting in an 8 by 8 room playing with the computer all day long. I’m out there fucking up all the time, and making mistakes. Sometimes I get it right though, and that’s the payoff.

FEMMUSIC: That’s a terrific feeling.

JA: Yeah, it is. Just life. I mean, it’s, uh…that great book, you know, the first line of it, “The Road Less Travelled” is ‘Life is difficult. Life is hard.’ It’s not supposed to be easy. That’s why there’s all these cliches that ignorance is bliss. And you often hear people, “oh it always takes a tragedy for people to change.” And well yeah, because people, it has to be so abrupt for them to understand how they are literally living in a world of mediocrity. And it’s very easy for the years to roll by, and for you to be in something that you think, ‘well, it’s good enough for me. He’s good enough, and this is fine, and oh, I could never go back to school.’ So many people are just…they really have thrown in the towel, but they don’t think they have. They think they’re going along with good fervor and gusto and they’re doing fun things. ‘Well, we went to Hawaii last year for 2 weeks. That’s an adventure!’ They don’t realize that taking a night class, or learning how to do pottery, are these little dreams that they’ve had. They think that they’re not worthwhile, and I think that’s what life is. I’d like to be, I’d like to go back to school over the next couple of years. I’d like to take some English literature courses, and art history, and I’d like to take pottery, and I’d like to learn how to knit. I’ve always wanted to learn how to knit. (laughs) And I’m going to. And I want to learn how to speak French too, God wish me luck on that. (laughs) We Canadians, we were raised learning it, but I must not have been paying attention that year. I can say “oui” and “shut up”, that’s my words.

FEMMUSIC: As a woman in the music industry, have you been discriminated against?

JA: I never have been. I think a lot of women would probably disagree with me. I think I’m very ambiguous in how I present myself, in a lot of ways. It may not be this in a physical sense, but I think as far as depending on feminine whiles, or presenting myself in a way where I know that I’ve sexualized somehow what I’m doing. And sexualized doesn’t mean-a lot of people think about nudity, or whatever–there’s so many intricate ways of sexualizing a situation. I think ambiguity for me has really been-I can still be very feminine but I can also be this really neutral template where people realize when I’m talking to them about what I need and what I want that it’s very forthright. I think my parents brought me up to-I never felt like the little girl or little boy. I felt like a person. Maybe that was their mistake, I don’t know, but I always identified myself as a person. I never thought of myself as anything other than that. But I’ve also never presented myself in a way to get myself into trouble. I think if anything in the last decade, the industry has been very biased and very difficult for male solo artists. You know, Ben Harper, you’re seeing them sneak out of the bag, but not a lot. They’re still in bands, right? They’re still the guys that have the “something blanky blank band”, or the Wallflowers with Dylan’s boy, but it’s still this band. The record labels don’t send them out there touting them as, you know, ‘Jacob Dylan’. It’s ‘The Wallflowers’. They knew better. It’s part of marketing. Whereas women, Sinead O’Connor probably started it in 87 or 88, with the shaved head and the complete ambiguity and the “fuckin’ bullshit, don’t fuck with me I’ll rip the picture of the Pope up” attitude, and SHE really opened doors, I think, for so many of us. Whether it was PJ Harvey, or Alanis Morrisette. Even people like Celine Dion, that are sort of on the upper echelon of pop, whatever you call that, zaniness, so many people trudged along in those footsteps. From Meredith Brooks to…there’s just everybody. Sinead O’Connor opened that door, I think. It was like this black hole that sucked us all in and labels signed everything in that wake. They’re still heavily going after female artists. Now you see Brittany, and Christina Aguilera. I mean, it’s a whole different ball of wax, but you’re seeing this portal opening up to the younger and younger women. You don’t really see it happening with men. So perhaps in the 50s and the 60s I know it was terribly different for those women, especially African-American women, to break into this very male-dominated world, the Old Boys club. The jazz players and the bebop players, and rock and roll guys. Women were just…it was a joke. The girl bands were looked at as fluff. But I think the industry now, the foundation of it is female-artist driven. The moneymakers are female-artist driven. I mean, aside from the Rolling Stones and U2, you have an awful lot of female artists. Lilith Fair, you know, I don’t think people expected it to be such a smash hit. The boy festivals didn’t do that well, the grunge band guys. They tried it. But anyways, I think you have to be very steadfast in your business dealings and you can’t be flighty. You have to really stick to your guns, because there’s someone telling you how to be different every 10 minutes. If you did this, or dressed like that, or…that’s just the world in which we live. It’s an industry that’s based on money. That’s why they don’t want MP3, they don’t want Napster, they don’t want anything that takes away from them. And they make SO much money. The artists are still dealing with contracts that are archaic. But I don’t have the tenacity nor the strength nor the desire to fight, or take on the Establishment. Because I like my life, and I have enough. I don’t want more. I don’t want world domination, I’m not…I don’t know where I’ll go, or where I’ll end up, I just know that I really like what I’m doing.

FEMMUSIC: When you had the year prior to marriage and the year of hiding depression after it, because when you’re drained like that, you lose all of what’s there.

JA: Well you have to begin again. Nobody wants to do that. I think depression is greatly underestimated, and for the most part undervalued and brushed aside. It’s a very important thing. And it’s unfortunate, I think, in our society that everything is medicated. ‘Oh, we’ll knock that out. We’ll get rid of that.’ I think there’s over-diagnosis now. The Ritalin thing, with overdoing it, and anyone that has ANY kind of problem at all, let’s give them this, or effects, or Prozac, or…my younger brother was on Prozac for a long time. I understand clinical, honest to God chemical problem sadnesses. I’m not saying they don’t exist, they absolutely DO exist. But for the most of us, for the other 85% of us, it’s your body saying, “You need to be quiet. You need to listen to your heart. You need to make some changes.” But you’re so busy-“I’ve gotta get into the car, I’ve gotta go.” And it’s something that’s this great force in the Universe, literally pulling you back by your heels, really beseeching you to slow down and take stock. Even if it is 10 months, or 12 months, I don’t see that-if it is 10 or 12 months in lieu of having a lifetime of the other 79 years you’re here-I don’t see it as an outrageous tradeoff. I’ve been there too, I’ve just been not wanting to get out of bed for months, but I also have realized, and I knew the value of where I was. And I thought, if this isn’t equal to my greatest triumphs, then I’ve missed the point. It was the same feeling as a rush of triumph, only it was obviously the opposite, the weight and not the lightness. But I still continue to understand to understand the importance of that in my own life, and how much it’s shaped my music. It’s an important tool that can’t just be…you can’t try and “snap out of it!” It’s not that at all. Stay home for 2 weeks then. People just react to it in such a terrifying way that it’s a terrible thing, and ‘oh, we’ll do something about that.’ No! Be by yourself. Think about what you’re doing. Let your friends know what’s happening, let your family know what’s happening, so that nobody goes into a panic. It doesn’t take much: ‘I feel kind of crummy, and I can’t exactly explain why, but I thought I’d touch base with you.’ That makes all the difference in the world. So that’s just my feelings about it, and how my life has been. I mean, I knew if something was going on for 16 months—even 6 months, I would definitely go to my doctor and say this is what I’m feeling like, is it my diet, is it my sleep patterns? I mean, I would try and make the effort to change things, but I think it’s a part of human life, I think it’s a natural occurrence. It’s too bad that we stuff it out, snuff it out all the time.

FEMMUSIC: What advice would you give to someone just starting out?

JA: Well I once had someone ask me how they’d become a singer. ‘How do I become a singer?’ she said. And I said, ‘Well, you already are a singer. You just have to find a job. You have to find someone to pay you to do it now.’ I think doing what you do, and really understanding criticism and when people don’t like things, to not ever, EVER personalize art. Don’t ever take it personally. Don’t ever let it saturate into your body thinking that you’re not good at what you do. It’s subjective. You’re going to have people that LOOOVE things, you’re going to have people that don’t get them at all. It’s par for the course. YOU have to enjoy what you’re doing. Simple as that. If you have a good time doing it, you’re on the right track.