Preview
DANIELLE FRENCH CD Release Party
Saturday, March 29
Big Secret Theatre (CPA)
Solocentric Festival
Ah, the circle of life. Danielle French and I are sitting across from each other about six years after the first time I interviewed her. Back then, she’d recently arrived in Calgary with her big-flowery polyester dresses (you know, back before everybody was wearing them), and her variously changing (although often fuchsia) hair.
As with most of the stories in the music business, this isn’t a story of "overnight success" – it’s not a story like that of Avril Lavigne, where the world fell on its knees to worship her as soon as she decided to become a solo songwriting performer. This is the story of how much work it takes to be a musician.
Locally, French’s history has been fraught with frustrations. And this is not a town that is overly kind to live musicians. So my first question to her is, bluntly put, why does she stay?
"Well, the answer is that I didn’t," she says with a laugh. "I came back here years ago with the idea of having this as a home base, and touring from here. But after a while, I was really frustrated with the lack of community I felt here, I got fed up, and for three years I toured and just lived out of my van.
"The whole time, every town I came to, I kept waiting for that click that would tell me that this was home. And it never happened. I developed lots of friends, lots of small communities, but I never found home. And after three years of shaking my fist at the universe – and asking 'when am I going to find where I belong?’ – I realized that the answer is that I belong everywhere. And then I ended up back here totally unintentionally. And in an unexpected way, I’ve found the community I couldn’t find before. Not with the music community, per se, but with the arts community. It’s very cool."
French is about to release Piece, the long-awaited follow-up to her debut, Me, Myself and I. She’s happy to have Piece out – sort of. And happy to be completely in charge of her career, doing everything from setting up the gigs to taking care of the books – sort of.
"I’m a Virgo, which means I’m really organized," says French. "And I’m really good at being right-brain/left-brain, but I find myself spending way more time on the computer and the phone than I do with my guitar. I used to be able to write all the time, and I just don’t have time for that anymore. I’d love to get a grant and spend six months just researching different kinds of music, and writing. God, would that be good."
This, apparently, is the reason for the reservations about Piece – what with a day job and all, French’s sense of the musical direction she’d like to be moving in has far outstripped the songs here.
"That’s why it’s called Piece – it’s been in production so long, I’m already two albums ahead in my head.
"On the plus side, though, it does mean that I get to show some transition, prepare people for the new direction I’ll be going in. Some of the production stuff in there points the way."
To what?
"Well, it’s like, I listen to artists like Beck and Portishead and Radiohead, and I’m enthralled. I think, ‘How do they do that?’ I’d love to study the whole technological possibilities for making music, expand from being a songwriter on a guitar. I almost feel like I’ve written all the songs I can with just a guitar."
In the end, six years have smoothed out the edges a bit for French. She still carries that driven edge, but it’s more focused, more organic now, if you will.
"I think I understand the music business better now. I think often, you start out relying on record company feedback, being hungry for that approval, wanting the big record deal. It took me a while to really look at the business and go, ‘OK, so you guys love Britney Spears, and you don’t get what I’m doing? I think I’m OK with that.’
"It’s less an issue of whether the mainstream will pick it up now – I’ve realized that there is a whole market for the left-of-centre, that it’s possible to make a decent living doing exactly what you want to do. Look at Radiohead, look at Beck, look at Veda Hille." |
Copyright ©2003 FFWD. All rights reserved.