I think that I just assumed that when I came off of the road from touring, I would write songs," reveals Chantal Kreviazuk of the apprehension she felt going into the follow up to her 1997 debut album Under These Rocks And Stones.
But facing up to those insecurities for Colour, Moving And Still was inevitable, she says.
"Even when you get a record deal," offers the Sony Music recording artist, who was signed in 1996 and has been riding a whirlwind ever since, "you know nothing. You're like a blank canvas."
Almost complicating the matter further was the high degree of creative freedom the label gave her from the start. "They sort of said to me in a roundabout way, "We won't do anything with you, we just want to be along for the ride -- take a snapshot of where you're at each time recording comes up, that's all'."
Such support put a lot of pressure on the young singer/song-writer.
"I'd done recording, I'd done performing, but it's a totally different ballgame now," states Chantal. "I have to commit to songs and have them finished and be in the studio." She's now resolved that "any opportunity I get or any seed of a song that starts, I'm going to discipline myself and let it grow -- and on the road that's really hard to do."
Written From Experience
"I knew I had an album coming and I couldn't relax," Chantal explains of the period of self-doubt that followed. "So then, I started trying to write. Trying to write doesn't work for me. I'm an advocate of sitting down with your craft for two hours a day just to exercise your brains and your emotions, but it wasn't coming from just trying." Acceptance of herself as a writer wrestled that demon to the ground. "That's what I do when I'm moved, when I'm touched, when I'm frustrated. It's very natural for me, given the right circumstances, the right space, to write."
Each song is a different animal when it comes to how Chantal approaches writing. "Every single song, particularly on this record, have entirely different lives," she says. "They're all a different process and, depending on the relevance of the experience that they're based on, it can be a very therapeutic, exhilarating, fulfilling, difficult thing to do."
On the track "Blue", for instance, she uses simple imagery to paint a picture for the listener. "Blue is my favourite colour," says Chantal. "I'm intensely drawn to blue and to water, and that just seems to be a huge element or theme for me." She points out that the colour also evokes a certain emotion. "When we say the word blue, we think of sad ... the blues."
With "Blue", Chantal also makes use of a new means of expression. "Someone gave me a guitar for Christmas a couple of years ago, so I'm just figuring out how it works.
"I wrote 'Blue' on the guitar and I've decided that I'd like to play it live," she states. "I would not say that I'm by any means an accomplished guitarist -- in fact I'm a little bit of a bozo," she laughs, but adds that being able to chord on guitar has been "really exciting for me, and kind of liberating in a strange way."
A song like "M" was "sort of a very hypnotic type of process," she says in contrast. "I sat at a piano in a dark room with just candles for like, four days straight, playing the same riff over and over." Deeply personal, the experience the song was based around "was just so heavy for me, and needed to write," she relates. "Eventually, I would say about three quarters of the song came out and it was very exhilarating. And then, the song sort of sat as this little piece for a long time, and I had people like Raine [Maida of Our Lady Peace] around me saying, 'It's not done -- so just go and get the last bit out of it that needs to come out.' And then in the studio, it surprised me and was completed."
Her experience on the road following the release of her first album (which has gone double platinum in Canada) brought truth to the song "Until We Die", immediately written after her return from an 18 month leg of touring.
Explaining that she was half-expecting some kind of welcome home, Chantal remembers that "I came home to an empty, dusty apartment. And I was alone -- and that really sucked."
The song was also the first one she recorded with Colour, Moving And Still's producer, Jay Joyce.
"I do want to record more with Jay, I'll tell you that right now," Chantal ascertains. "I don't know if he's the shit, but he's my shit -- he works for me.
"I would leave the studio and think a song would be over, and I would come in the next day and he had added something that made it go the extra mile. On 'M', there's a guitar riff during the bridge that wasn't there when I left the studio one night, and apparently he came back at 4:30 in the morning with this idea and put it down." Jay's casual way of presenting new ideas and contributions to the music made a big impression on Chantal. "I don't even know if he realizes what that stuff did for me."
In addition to his abilities as a producer and player, Jay brought in much of the album's outside talent.
"Rick Will is an engineer that Jay simply was adamant about and I can see why," she allows. "He's genius and he's just really innovative and really committed and super hard-working.
"I also have Matt Chamberlain playing on the album and that's really exciting for me because he's Tori Amos' drummer, and he's sort of Pearl Jam's other guy."
But certain talent on the album was entirely of her choosing. "Because I knew that I was also bringing in people that were high caliber, high status musicians, I just thought it would be really nice to have someone from my end of town," she says of guitarist Luc Doucet.
The former Sarah McLachlan guitarist provided a sense of stability for Chantal in the studio. "I grew up with him in Winnipeg. We went to high school together and I really like Luc a lot. He was just 'Mr. Hotshot' in Winnipeg on that damned guitar."
"I'm just so much more focused now," says Chantal of this latest recording experience. Her first album, recorded in Los Angeles only two months after being signed to Sony, was a lot to chew on for such a new artist. "I was overwhelmed, I wasn't focused, I wasn't ready. And I'm not saying there was a mistake on anyone's behalf on that level, I just think that in your twenties, you learn a lot about yourself."
Colour, Moving And Still was done closer to home at Sony's Oasis Studios and Phase One Recording. Additional tracks (the guitars on "Blue" and "Far Away") were recorded at Chalet Studios.
"Chalet was -- especially because it was during the winter -- just really calming and an amazing place to get creative," offers Chantal. "I always wonder if you can feel the same way about something like that two times. I'd like to try it again, though."
Asserting herself in the studio was one of the most important points she learned this time around. "You know, on the first album, I was unable to say, 'I don't think that sounds good. That's not how I want it to sound.' I couldn't say that!"
Now, she says, she's quickly learning to put her insecurities aside and not be afraid to speak up when something's not working.
"That's a really hard thing to do, especially when you're working with 10 men in a studio who are all older than you, who have been around the business for a lot longer, who have been in studios and have way more experience. But you are in the leadership position."
She says the experience and honest advice of Raine Maida (who contributed on the album and whom she will soon be marrying) was a real boost to her during the recording of Colour, Moving And Still.
"Raine would be like, 'Excuse me, whose face is going to be on this record? Whose name? Get in there and get what you need, period!' He was such a real support system and encouraged me to say what was in my heart and in my head; and to not compromise for other's feelings.
"The other thing, too, is when you're in the studio and it's your songs, you have to be able to vocalize what it is that you want. On the first album I'd be like, 'Well, this just doesn't sound like what's in my head,' but I couldn't explain it." She's finding that confidence in expressing herself comes with time.
"You have to be able to develop that language," she says. "I think that now, if I want it to sound like how autumn makes me feel, I'll say, 'make it sound how autumn feels'. So what if that's the description -- if that's all I've got to go on, it's all I've got to go on."
For the most part, Chantal considers herself fairly low maintenance when on the road, carrying just a piano and monitor for most excursions. This time out, she's taking a small amount of sound and lighting gear along on the bus. "Times have changed, and I'm starting to build up something a little more grandiose," she says, noting it's uncertain at the moment if she'll be carting a piano as well. "I'm a Steinway artist," says Chantal, "so when I cart a Steinway, I'll choose one." In such cases, she'll travel to their showroom in New York City to make her selection, but finds that choosing a performance grand is, for her, an imperfect science and highly subjective.
"What happens is it's all based on my mood," she explains. "I'll sit down at one Steinway and it will be really warm and just a 'kind soul'; and I'll fall in love with it because of my demeanor.
"But then, if I took that piano, I'd maybe think, 'why did I choose such a subdued sound? I can't believe it!' because there's nights when I want the piano to do all the talking -- I just don't have the voice left in me."
Chantal feels that she has yet to form any definitive opinions when it comes to her tools of the trade. "I love that, in being a Steinway artist, they'll have a Steinway at each venue in each city -- so I'm going to get a different one. I think they're all a different piece of art and (have) a different soul, and so that's a neat little part of the adventure."
Likewise, her live sound is a constantly changing and evolving beast. "I see pianos miked a million ways," she says, adding that each engineer or mixer seems to have "a different theory of it." With regard to understanding those finer points of performance and recording, "I'm not there yet," she states. "I'm so green I just don't prefer one mic to the next, yet." She's hoping that will change as she gains more experience on the stage and in the studio.
"Because of the nature of my travel in the past, things have been kind of 'I take what I can get'; and because I was using house people, there's been a lack of consistency for me." When she's needed her own sound person for a special event, she's enlisted the expertise of Roger Psutka. "Roger's also Our Lady Peace's mixer and he's been there for me; and I know he has a certain way he likes to do things. The piano's shut when I'm with Roger."
For this first leg of Canadian tour dates following the release of Colour, Moving and Still, Gary Stokes will be along to do her sound. "I'm the luckiest lady in the world; I can't believe that he's going to be taking care of me," she says excitedly, with regard to his solid reputation. "He's my first real soundperson for any extended period of time," she relates, "so I'm curious to see how he does things."
Fortunately for Chantal, her experience as a lounge act has prevented her from placing too much dependence on the unpredictable nature of live sound -- she leaves that for the engineers and mixers to worry about. "For me, the things that need to come together live on stage have to do with my voice; the monitor, the acoustics of the room affects me way more." Onstage, her attention is focused more on her own performance.
"If I had a bird's eye view of myself, it would probably be that it was my mood that made or broke an evening," says Chantal, "and, I know it sounds ridiculous, but my mood is very affected by the state of my voice. If I have anxiety about my voice, then I'm off and it takes me a longer time to get into it."
Contributing somewhat to that anxiety is the effect a 1994 motorbike accident (which occurred in Italy and left her with a shattered jaw in addition to other injuries) has had on her vocal delivery. Thankfully, the lasting effects have been, for her, mostly psychological in their manifestation.
"I have paresthesia of the chin and jaw, so I can't feel my bottom lip and my chin," Chantal explains. "Whenever I'm speaking, my mouth is frozen, so when I get into a certain state of mind I become conscious of it and it affects me. It makes it really hard for me to shoot videos because I become really aware of how I look when I'm speaking. I know that it doesn't look like there's anything wrong, but I feel the 'lack of feeling', so that can sometimes mess with me."
But the insecurities she's faced along the way are tempered by the knowledge that success in the United States is practically there for taking.
One thing that certainly won't hurt Chantal's record sales across the border is the exposure she's enjoyed from the popular teen drama series Dawson's Creek. At the time of this writing, she stood as the show's most featured musical artist. Her sixth track ("Eve", the second from Colour, Moving And Still) was included in the episode "Secrets & Lies" shortly after our interview -- the third Kreviazuk tune of the new fall season.
"With Dawson's Creek, they're just a fan of mine," says Chantal, who is still surprised by this fortuitous circumstance. "They're just really all over me!"
"I know it started out that there was a Canadian over there in the music department, but now we've just created a monster and they're championing me and I can't believe it -- it's awesome!"
She was a featured artist on the show's Web site [http://www.dawsonscreekmusic.com] in mid-November and, of course, her cover of Randy Newman's "Feels Like Home" is included on the soundtrack album Songs From Dawson's Creek (Columbia Records). Her growing reputation as a 'cover queen' is quite the phenomenon.
"I'm really being true to myself when I do covers because I've been doing them all my life -- while I was writing, too," says Chantal. "I was always singing in lounges -- that's how I made money; that, and doing jingles and studio work." With "Feels Like Home", she says, "I did a pass and it felt great. My voice was really in a great place and it was so much fun."
Her other successful cover appears on the soundtrack to the Bruce Willis movie Armageddon.
"Leaving On A Jet Plane' was kind of the same idea in the sense that somebody had to champion me," says Chantal of the album. Featuring tracks by artists like Aerosmith, the top-selling soundtrack has helped to boost her recognition in the US. "I have a feeling Peter Asher (who produced Under These Rocks And Stones) had a bit to do with that."
The latest song to receive the Kreviazuk touch is the Beatles' "In My Life", which Chantal recorded recently as title music for the television series Providence. All of these cover songs are contained on a bonus CD that accompanies Colour, Moving And Still.
With so much success behind her already (most recently, a SOCAN Award in the pop music category for the song "Surrounded"), Chantal Kreviazuk's career is well on its way. How far it travels on its journey are songs yet to be written.
"I'm just aware that with the right spirit and the right commitment from the right people, it will be there," she believes. "And I should just write what's going on with me at that time; this should just be that 'snapshot', and it will all come together."
Freelance writer Shauna Kennedy is a former editor of CM.
